Date: 2013-03-05 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Zombies; Horror; Apocalyptic
Description: A zombie novel On the surface, the city of Leighton is just like any other city: tall buildings, busy streets, and populated by a wide variety of people. It also has rats. These vermin are unlike the average pest, because they are carrying a deadly contagion. Havoc ensues as the devastating virus seeps into the unsuspecting populace, turning friends and family against each other. Atrocities of savage behavior are spreading faster than people can outrun, and the citizens get recklessly desperate. Whether by joining forces, or by standing alone, survival is on everyone’s mind. Unfortunately, not
Publisher: SEVERED Press

Survival Instinct

Kristal Stittle

Section 1:

Outbreak

1:

Tobias

Tobias trailed behind Lucas Jonas through the crowded park.  It was hot, noisy, and smelled of hair gel and body odour.  The camera bag he carried started to slide again, so he pulled the heavy thing higher up on his shoulder and pushed through a particularly tight knot of people.

The press of bodies was starting to get to him.  He hated crowds.  Even though he stood taller than almost everyone did, with the average person reaching only up to his nose, having so many crammed around him was unsettling.  Tobias wasn’t a loner.  He had a good group of friends, but anyplace that had more than ten people made him uneasy.  Here, there were hundreds, thousands even.

He was beginning to think that living in the city wasn’t such a great life choice after all.  It wasn’t the first time he thought it either.

“How much farther?” Tobias called up to Lucas.

Lucas’s only response was a flick of his wrist at shoulder height.  Tobias grumbled to himself.  Working with big names like Lucas Jonas was always the worst.  They never answered questions and they always insisted on the heaviest equipment.  Tobias had packed a much smaller and lighter bag earlier, but then, when Mister Big Shot saw it, he insisted on the big stuff.  Bigger was not better, but it looked more impressive.  And looks were all these guys really cared about.  And what kind of a name was Lucas Jonas anyway?

Finally, they broke through the crowd next to the security fence.  Tobias stopped to take a refreshing breath of air.  Well, as refreshing as the air could be in a city park, standing next to a mass of sweating bodies in the hot, August sunshine.  During his break, Tobias had briefly lost sight of Mr. Jonas, and when he spotted him again, Lucas was trying to make his way through the security point.  Tobias sighed and made his way over.  Lucas was arguing with a big, black security guard who had arms as thick as Tobias’s legs.

“Do you know who I am?”  Lucas stood on his tiptoes but still wasn’t even eye-to-eye with the massive guard.  “I’m Lucas fucking Jonas!  See this pass?”  The laminate he waved in front of the guard’s face moved so fast, Tobias was pretty sure the guard wouldn’t even have registered its colour.  “It lets me go wherever I want in this whole damn shebang!”

Lucas finally noticed Tobias standing next to him and yanked him over.  He grabbed Tobias’s bag and opened a zipper, nearly spilling out the expensive contents.

“See?  Video camera equipment!”  With his face red, he turned on Tobias, “Don’t just stand there like a lump, Toby, show the man your bloody pass!”

He let go of Tobias’s arm with a slight shove.  Tobias seethed about being called Toby, he thought it was something you’d call a dog, but pulled his pass up on the string around his neck.  He handed it to the guard and let him look it over thoroughly.

“Rough day today, Mackenzie?” The security guard asked in his rumbling voice as he looked at Tobias’s credentials.

“Is it that obvious?”  Tobias gave Lucas a somewhat smug look.  Having met a lot of security guards while working for the Leighton Network occasionally had its perks.

“You know this man?”  Lucas looked from the guard to Tobias.  “Then why the hell didn’t you say something sooner?  God, amateurs.”  He annoyingly pronounced it am-e-tures.

The security guard stepped aside and let Lucas storm past, a cheeky grin revealing his pearly whites.

“How’d you get paired up with him?” the guard asked as he watched Lucas go.

“Bad luck I guess.”  Tobias hiked his bag up once more.  “So Bruce, me and some of the guys are going to The Foxers next Friday, you wanna come?”  He liked The Foxers because it was never crowded.  It was easy to breathe there, unlike the packed clubs.  Unlike that crowd he had just passed through.

“Sure thing, Mackenzie.  He’s not coming, is he?”  Security man Bruce jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards Lucas, his grin still lighting up his face.

“If he is, then my life is over.  I better get going before he calls my boss, demanding someone else.”  With a sigh, Tobias Mackenzie started walking in the same direction Lucas had gone.

Bruce’s booming voice followed after him, “Your boss would never be that mean to anyone else!  Just you!”

Tobias flipped Bruce the bird over his shoulder.  The laughter resulting from this gesture echoed after him as he looked for Mr. Lucas Jonas.  It would be some time before he heard such honest and completely carefree laughter again.

As Tobias worked his way around the scaffolding and the usual equipment you’d expect to find piled up behind any stage, he finally spotted Mr. Jonas again.  When Lucas spotted Tobias in turn, he rushed over and Tobias knew it couldn’t be good.  His arm was grabbed and Lucas hauled him along quicker.

Counting slowly to himself and taking deep breaths, Tobias allowed himself to be forcibly led. Goddamned TV personalities always seemed to be in a rush, he thought.

Lucas stopped between the edge of the stage and the corral of buses the rock stars were in.

“Here.”  Lucas pointed between his feet.

“What about here?”  Tobias sighed.  He couldn’t see anything particularly different or interesting about that spot of trampled earth.

“I want you to film from here,” Mr. Jonas’s eyes rolled like it should have been obvious.  “All the rockers have to pass by here to get on stage.  It’ll be the perfect opportunity to get interviews with all of them and get some shots of the performances.”

“You want everything filmed from one spot?”

“Have you never seen my show?  Of course you haven’t, you’re just an ingrate.  My stuff is way beyond you.”  Lucas waved Tobias off with a flip of his wrist and started looking around.

Tobias was fairly certain that Lucas didn’t know what ‘ingrate’ meant, but that he was using it to insult him.  He took another deep, steadying breath, and closed his eyes.  “You realize, if we film here, we’ll a) be in the way, and b) be so close to the speakers, nothing you say will be heard over the music.”

“What?”  The speakers, sitting only a few paces away, suddenly came to Lucas’s attention.

This was why Tobias hated filming at concerts.  Especially the charity kind.  The music caused problems for the sound, and the sight of the cameras caused the crowds to flip out more than usual.  He would have loved to have been one of the other guys, the ones who just sat at the stationary cameras.  They didn’t have to follow an idjit around, just point and shoot at what looked interesting.  At least the money for this was good.

“All right, we’ll free-roam it then,” Lucas said this like he was making some great sacrifice.  “Get your camera out.”

After unzipping his bag, Tobias lifted out the heavy piece of equipment.  He placed it on the ground by his feet and began hooking everything up.  He even had a waist and leg harness, like rock climbers used, to help him carry the large battery and various other bits and bobs.  While he strapped this on, he watched Mr. Jonas out of the corner of his eye.  The guy was ogling himself in a small mirror and picking at his no-doubt expensive teeth.

“Here, can you put this on yourself?”  Tobias held out a microphone attached to a battery pack that clipped onto the back of the user’s belt.

Lucas once again rolled his eyes as he took it.

Tobias finished setting up his own equipment, trying not to grind his teeth, and lifted the camera up onto his shoulder.  He slung his now almost empty bag across his back.  The last time he had let a camera bag out of his sight at one of these things, it disappeared forever.

Once he was ready, they did a sound check. Tobias couldn’t hear anything Mr. Jonas said through the noise-cancelling headphones he wore.  Apparently, Mr. Jonas had attached the microphone correctly, but had forgotten to turn it on.  Somehow, Tobias got blamed for that.

“All right, I want you to film everything from here on out, you got it?  The editors can splice it together later.”  Lucas looked down at himself and straightened his clothes once more.  He tried to look like a reporter and a rocker at the same time.  Tobias thought he just looked like a douchebag, but he might have been somewhat biased.

Tobias was a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy.  Currently, though, he wore beige cargoes.  He had learned early on that the large pockets were very handy for work.  He had never been one to care about his appearance too much and let his light, sandy hair grow out like a mop on his head.  He had been told he sometimes reminded people of a surfer bum with his laid-back appearance, especially when he became tanned during the summer.  He always thought he looked like a really tall teenager with softer features than the rest of the guys around him.  It did seem to help him get girls though.  They felt safe around him with his disarming looks.

After counting down from five with his fingers, Tobias pressed the record button.  Instantly, Lucas Jonas’s TV persona took over.  Tobias never knew what to call it, but he had seen it hundreds of times.  The people on the TV would shift from one personality to another as soon as a running camera was on them.  The shift was so great with Mr. Jonas that it made him look like an entirely different person.  Now Tobias could understand how this guy got to be so popular.  He seemed a lot more approachable this way.

Soon Tobias switched over into his own altered state; what he and his buddies called film mode.  He trailed Mr. Jonas wherever he went and kept his mouth shut.  If someone Mr. Jonas was interviewing asked Tobias a question, Lucas would answer for him, or Tobias would give a slight shake or nod of the camera if it were a yes or no question.  His boss had told him that Mr. Jonas’s viewers liked that.

Otherwise, Tobias was completely absent-minded.  He went somewhere else in his head.  Currently, it was to next Friday.  He and the guys, which now probably included Bruce, were going to The Foxers.  It was a favourite bar of theirs that they visited often.  Tobias was looking forward to this visit more than normal, because Katie would probably be coming.  One of Tobias’s friends had just started dating this chick who had a best friend, Katie, who came to almost all of the group gatherings.  Katie was Tobias’s current dream girl.  His dream girl changed often.  This one was extremely smart and Tobias wasn’t used to girls who were smarter than he was.  He was enjoying the difference, mostly because the last girl he dated was a complete airhead.

* * *

Tobias Mackenzie was filming a crowd reacting to the on-stage performer when Lucas started snapping his fingers in front of the lens.  Tobias turned to face him, frowning slightly at the intrusion.  There was no one around for Lucas to be interviewing.

“What?”  Despite his own small microphone that went straight to an earpiece Lucas had on, Tobias still had to shout to be heard over the music.  Even with his large headphones on, the music was insanely loud.

“What do you think is going on over there?” Lucas spoke into his own microphone and pointed across the sea of fans.

Tobias’s eyes followed Lucas’s arm to see what he had seen.  On the other side of the crowd, a pocket of people was moving at odds to the rest.  The general populace was surging toward the stage, trying to reach its idols, but over on the far side, people seemed to be moving out in all directions, away from a central point.

“I don’t know.”  Tobias zoomed in with his camera for a better look.  The distance was still too far to make out perfect detail, but he made out enough.  He made out terrified faces trying to run from something in the centre of the ring.

“What is it?”  Lucas shook his arm.

“I can’t tell, but they’re fleeing from something.”  He lowered his camera.  “It’s probably just a stink bomb or something.”

“Or something.  Let me see.  Open that little viewer.”  Lucas’s manicured hands reached for the camera.

Tobias pulled it away from him though.  He didn’t want him touching any of the expensive equipment.  He flipped open the LCD view finder and turned it so that Lucas could see.  The small screen filled with the crowd as Tobias pointed the camera back at the people.  Some of them were now literally trying to climb over others to get away from whatever it was.

“That is definitely something!”  Lucas grinned with enthusiasm.  He showed all his teeth, like a crocodile.

Tobias didn’t hide his disgust when he looked at him.  Terrified people should please no one.

“Come on, Toby, we’re getting over there.”  Lucas slapped Tobias’s arm, ignoring his look.

“Why do you want to do that?”

“What are you, daft?  To report on it obviously!”  Lucas started to go around the back of the stage, swiftly stepping over and around the wires and scaffolding.

As Tobias tagged after him, he tried to convince Lucas not to go.  “There are probably other cameras already filming it.  You can do a voiceover or something later.”

“Lucas Jonas does not do voiceovers.  It’s on-scene or nothing.”  Lucas wove around a particularly dense clutter of cables and equipment.

Carrying the camera made manoeuvring far more difficult for Tobias.  It didn’t take long for him to fall behind.

“Shit,” Tobias grumbled to himself as he got snared on cable.  Damned overachievers were always getting into shit they should keep their noses out of.  That in itself, wasn’t so bad, but did this one have to drag Tobias with him?

He finally made it to the security point and found Bruce, who was always easy to spot.  Not only was he one of the few people Tobias knew who was taller than he was, but he was also two to three times as thick.  Today, he particularly stood out due to his crisp, white T-shirt contrasting starkly with his ultra dark skin.

“Hey, did you see that annoying jerk I was following earlier?”  Tobias pulled off his headphones.  Thankfully, over here, the sound of the concert was somewhat dampened, and they could hear one another.  Still, the sudden assault of sound pounded into Tobias’s head like a hammer.  He really hated concerts.

“Yeah, he went out that way.”  Bruce pointed out into the crowd.

“I think there’s something going on out there.  Something bad.”  Tobias didn’t want to go back out into the mob.

“Out in the crowd?”  The big security guard didn’t wait for an answer.  He climbed up on a cement barrier holding onto the edge of the fence for balance.  After a quick look, he turned to another security guard, “Hey, Jake, hand me the binocs.”

The other guard, equally thick but not as tall, grabbed a pair of binoculars off a table and handed them up to Bruce.

“What do you see?”  Tobias stood on his tiptoes, but he couldn’t see very far over the heads of the crowd.

“Give me a moment.”  Bruce was fiddling with the binoculars, trying to focus them.  “Shit, I see blood.  It’s bad.”  He pulled a walkie-talkie off his belt and spoke quickly into it.

Tobias couldn’t hear what he said over the music.

“I take it your friend is heading over there hoping for a story?”  The walkie-talkie was put away and Bruce hopped down next to Tobias.

Tobias nodded, although he would never use the term ‘friend’ to describe Mr. Jonas.  Not even sarcastically.

“Come on, you’re going to help me get that idiot.”  Bruce moved out through the gap in the fences.

“But...”  Tobias really didn’t want to go.  This feeling was even worse than it usually was.  Something in his gut just told him it was a bad idea.

“Stay close behind me.”  Bruce reached back and pulled Tobias after him.

As they reached the crowd, Bruce let go of Tobias, but Tobias reluctantly continued to follow after him.  The big security guard was a lot easier to follow through the crowd than Lucas had been.  Bruce’s huge size and commanding voice got people to move out of the way quickly.  His broad shoulders made a large enough path for Tobias to follow with his camera easily. Still, that unsettling feeling sank deeper and deeper into Tobias’s gut, the further into the crowd they got.  When he used his free hand to grab hold of the back of Bruce’s shirt, he saw that his own skin appeared to be getting quite pale, losing its nice summer tan.

When Tobias was very young, he had been separated from his parents at a theme park.  He spent hours wandering around, lost in the crowd.  All he could see was a strange forest of legs everywhere he went.  Eventually, someone noticed and brought him to the lost and found where his parents, all weepy eyed, picked him up.  He figured that was where his dislike of crowds had come from.  He always felt some anxiety in them, but he learned to deal with it.  It was part of his life.

Right now though, in this crowd, his heart was hammering harder than the bass line the band on stage was pounding out.  He kept looking up at the clear, blue sky, something usually guaranteed to calm him.  Not in this mob, though.  Something just wasn’t right; something he couldn’t name.

He noticed that Bruce’s yelling had increased in volume, and that they had slowed their progress considerably.  The people around them were all trying to head in the other way.  When they first began to wade though the crowd, people were generally calm, albeit somewhat annoyed, but their expressions changed as Bruce and Tobias pushed deeper.

Bruce completely stopped moving forward and created a break in the flood of people with his body.  They moved around him like a river around a boulder.  The faces of the people slowly changed from a bit scared, to frightened, and finally to straight-out terrified.  It wasn’t until Tobias saw the first people bleeding that he realized he was talking.

“Please, Bruce, we have to go, we have to leave.  Come on, Bruce, let’s get out of here. Let’s go back to the stage.”  His grip on Bruce’s shirt tightened.  He even tugged it slightly like a small child would tug on a parent’s hand or pants leg.

The music suddenly cut off, allowing the sounds of screams to be heard.  It looked like someone in charge finally realized something was going on.

The press of people lightened dramatically.

“Jesus Christ,” Bruce mumbled just loud enough for Tobias to hear.

He carefully moved out from behind Bruce now that there was an opening.  In front of them, a clearing had formed.  Lying in the middle of it, amongst the dropped trash, were people writhing in pain from bloody wounds.  A few looked either unconscious or possibly even dead.  At least one was dead.  A man had an umbrella speared into his ribs.  Tobias couldn’t help but think that that was such an odd thing to die from: death by umbrella.

Across the clearing, several security guards and a handful of police officers were fighting with a man who was completely unresponsive to their shouts and the occasional punch they threw.  As Tobias and Bruce watched, the combative man bit into one guard’s bare arm and tore a sizeable chunk out of it.  The two of them could only watch in shock and horror.

Tobias slowly brought his camera to his eye.  Looking through the viewfinder detached him from the scene, as if it was already on TV.  A police officer pulled out a Taser and zapped the violent man.  The man twitched slightly but didn’t stop.  The Taser did virtually nothing.  He grabbed the officer who had the Taser and instead of biting his arm, he went for his face.  Aw hell, he tore his throat out!

There was movement in the bottom of Tobias’s view.  He panned down to the dead man.  Only he couldn’t be dead, because he was moving.  Tobias didn’t know how; the umbrella was right through where his lung should be, but he was beginning to sit up.

Further horror dawned on Tobias as he realized he knew the man.  It was Lucas Jonas.

Lucas somehow managed to sit upright, and then stand, the umbrella sticking out of him like some absurdly large and garish corsage.  He shuffled in a slow circle, a wheeze escaping him.  He seemed rather disoriented, and understandably so.  He then spotted Bruce and Tobias and began shambling over.

“Bruce...” Tobias whispered, not able to get his voice out.  “Bruce...” he couldn’t think of what else to say.

Lucas continued shambling towards them, his microphone dragging along the ground behind him, still attached to his waist.  Tobias could hear the rumbling sound of its drag coming out of the headphones around his neck.  As Lucas reached his hands out toward Bruce, Bruce stepped forward to help him.

“It’s going to be okay,” Bruce assured Lucas,  “we’ll get you a doctor; you’re going to be all right.  Everything is going to be all right.”

Bruce grabbed Lucas’s arms, steadying him.  Lucas sagged, allowing the large man to take his weight.

Then he bit into Bruce’s arm.

Bruce screamed and shoved Lucas back on instinct.  He fell, the umbrella getting pushed into him slightly further, but he immediately started getting back up.

“Did you see that?  Fucker just bit me!”  Bruce turned to Tobias.  “Put the goddamn camera down, man.”  He grabbed the lens with one large hand and shoved down.

Tobias was suddenly jolted back into reality.  Lucas really did have an umbrella sticking out of his chest, and he really did just bite Bruce.  Thinking of bites...

He looked across the clearing to where the guards and police were still fighting with the first attacker.  The officer with his throat ripped out lay on the ground, his eyes glazed over, and blood no longer pumping out of his wound.  But then his body jerked, and like Lucas, he began to move, to get up.

“Bruce, let’s get out of here.”  Tobias started backing away, his eyes so wide they might fall out of his head.  “Let’s leave now!”

Lucas Jonas scanned the people around him.  Many of them had stopped fleeing once they had gotten to a safe distance and were now watching.  Most were taking pictures or videos, while others texted frantically on their sophisticated cell phones; some even used their cells as phones and actually talked to people.  Like witnessing a car crash, it was hard to look away.  Then Lucas started running at them, full speed.  When the people turned to flee, they didn’t get far before slamming into the backs of the rest of the crowd.  Lucas grabbed the first person he came to and started attacking him viciously, violently.  He was tearing him to pieces.

Tobias backed up until he bumped into the wall of people at his own back.  Bruce didn’t take long to join him.

“You’re right, let’s get the hell out of here.”  The big man shoved his way into the wall of people more forcefully than before.  He practically threw one man right off his feet.

Tobias looked back at the carnage one last time and then followed after Bruce.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one who decided to do this.  Several people tried to get in behind Bruce’s large frame, using him as a human plow.  Tobias was jostled around as he tried to keep pace.  He reached for Bruce’s shirt but fell short, his fingers lightly brushing the cotton fabric.  More and more people got between him and his friend.  Panic began to rise as Bruce pulled away, getting farther and farther from Tobias.

“Bruce!”  He pushed harder but the crowd was too dense.  He wasn’t as strong as his friend was.  “Bruce!”  But Bruce had already gotten too far away.

Tobias took deep, steadying breaths.  The crowd was flowing out of the park gates.  He’d get out by just going with the flow.  There was no rush.  Just go with the flow.

He got shoved shoulder to shoulder with some punk rocker chick.  He glanced over at her and saw that she looked ill.  That was another reason to hate crowds, especially ones this big.  There was always a bunch of sick people dispersed throughout them, infecting everyone else.  And, of course, Tobias would end up right next to one.

After a moment, he took a longer look at the girl.  She was really pale, and sweating.  Tobias was pretty sweaty himself from the stress, the compressed body heat, and the blazing sun, but this girl was dripping buckets.  Her eyes were sunken and she leaned heavily on the people in front of her.

He finally decided to say something.  “Hey, are you all right?”

The girl turned her head to face him.  “I'm fine,” her voice came out weak.  If Tobias hadn’t been jammed right up next to her, he probably wouldn’t have heard her.  “Some psycho bit me a few days ago.  I guess the hospital didn’t disinfect it properly.  Those quacks.”

She turned her head and tried to cough into her arm.  Tobias was glad she turned her head away from him, even if it meant she was coughing on others.  And had he heard her say she was bitten?

His mind flashed back to the man who had his throat ripped out.  It probably wasn’t as bad as it seemed.  He did get back up.  Same with Lucas.  But then, why did he attack someone else?  Shock.  He must have been in shock and thought he had to defend himself or something.  That was probably it.  Yeah, that was it.

While Tobias tried to convince himself that nothing was as bad as it seemed, the girl next to him dropped to the ground.  Thankfully, the people behind her noticed and managed to stop before they trampled her.

“Hey!”  Tobias didn’t dare bend down.  He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand back up even without the camera on his shoulder.  “Hey, come on, you have to get up!”

The people behind the girl nudged her with their feet, trying to coax a response from her.  Her body suddenly jerked just like the guard’s, and just like Lucas’s.

Somehow, Tobias’s body still had adrenaline to pour into his system, which it unloaded by the dump truck.  His eyes widened again and he struggled desperately to get through the crowd, but he couldn’t get anywhere.  There was literally a wall of flesh and clothing.

He looked back down over his shoulder and watched as the girl lifted her head.  She lashed out and grabbed hold of the nearest leg.  Her teeth sank deep into the bare calf.  Screams of pain ripped out of the victim while more screams of terror and shock escaped those who witnessed it.  One of the loudest was Tobias’s own, but he was completely deaf to it all.

Before he knew it, he had grabbed his bag off his back and shoved his camera into it along with any slack from the wires.  A brief thought about just dropping it crossed his mind, but because of the wires attaching to the battery system, harnessed around his waist to the camera, he wouldn’t be able to unhook himself quickly.  He slung the bag over his shoulder once more, its earlier weight now unfelt.  Tobias then grabbed the shoulders of the nearest person and pulled.  The combined weight of his body and his camera nearly crushed the man as he climbed on top of him.  He then proceeded to crawl across the heads and shoulders of everyone, not caring about, or even hearing, the cries of protest and pain from those beneath him.

Although he never stopped moving forward over the mass of people, he did take a look around.  Behind him, a ring was slowly pushing outward from where the sick girl had fallen.  Even farther back, a much larger ring had formed where he had left Lucas.  They reminded him of pebbles being dropped in a pond, the ripples all headed outward.  It looked like even more people were attacking others, some in the strange biting manner of the first attackers.  Others fought with each other as they tried to get away.  There were other places in the crowd where these pockets, the ripples, were forming.  Screams were now the predominant sound.  They were near constant.  What had started out as screams of joy was now ending as screams of terror.

Tobias watched as one man dropped beneath the flood of people.  He had been pushed over.  No one stopped for him as they had for that girl.  His head never popped back up.  Tobias wasn’t the only one crawling across flesh and hair.  Several other people had the same idea, responding to the same drive: the need to flee.

The crowd had become bottlenecked at the gates, but many had stopped bothering with them.  Several concertgoers were climbing up and over the stone walls to get out.  Tobias figured they had the right idea, especially because he was closer to the wall than he was to the gates.  Also, with the height he had already gained from his position on top of others, he was halfway up the bricks before he even reached them.

When he finally did reach the wall, he hauled himself up onto its large, flat, stone top.  Once balanced up there, he sat for a moment, trying to catch his breath.  How much time had passed since Lucas Jonas first noticed the disturbance, anyway?  Lucas...

Tobias pulled his camera back out of its bag.  He was amazed that there wasn’t a single scratch on it.  It was also still running, still filming.  Tobias hadn’t bothered to stop it at any point.  He began using it to scan the crowds, trying to find Mr. Jonas or Bruce.

Lucas Jonas was actually easier to find.  He was still at the edge of the largest growing space, still tearing into people with his hands and teeth.  What made it especially eerie was that he could still hear the attacks coming through the headphones.  He quickly unplugged them.  The umbrella appeared to be gone.  It had been replaced by a gaping hole straight through his torso.  It was so absurd, it seemed unreal.  Tobias suddenly felt very sick.  He leaned over and puked on the sidewalk that ran along the outside of the wall.  His revulsion, making him want to turn away, was the only thing that saved the crowd on the other side from his bile.

What was going on?  Tobias couldn’t understand what was happening.  His head spun and he had to grab hold of the wall to keep from falling off.  He took several deep breaths, trying to clear his head.  Maybe he’d think about things later, when he wasn’t sitting on the park wall.

He looked up and finally noticed what was happening outside the park.  The flood of people was dispersing in all directions.  Several people had gotten to their cars and had tried to drive away, but in their haste, had caused accidents and traffic jams.  People ran in all directions, panicked.  Police, firefighters, and paramedics were all over the place, trying to help and to create order.  So far, they weren’t succeeding.  Some people even seemed to be looting, as if they were at a riot.

The attacks were happening outside the park as well.

* * *

Tobias decided he needed to get out of there, find somewhere safe, maybe get home if he could.  Although he didn’t know how safe his tiny and empty apartment would be, it seemed like a better option than staying where he was.

He looked around from his high position on the wall and spotted all the media vans, including the van he had come in.  Too bad they were parked several blocks away and across the park.  Tobias used his camera to see if anyone he knew was there.  Several reporters and other cameramen stood on top of the vans, filming the surrounding chaos.  Tobias thought he might have recognized one of the cameramen, but it was hard to tell.  Cameras had a habit of blocking the faces of those who held them.

As Tobias watched, an arm reached up and grabbed one of the reporters.  He was pulled off the van and Tobias could no longer see him from his vantage point.  His imagination did a good enough job to fill in that part, though.  The cameramen over there all turned and filmed the reporter being attacked.  No one tried to help.

“Hey!  Hey, can you help me?  Please!”

Tobias lowered his camera and looked around.  Down beneath him there was a young girl looking up.  She couldn’t have been older than sixteen, and her eyes were filled with tears, causing her mascara to run.  She was reaching up to him, the tips of her fingers cut up and bleeding.  Her hot pink and black painted fingernails were all broken.

“I can’t get up on my own!” she cried up at him.

That was when Tobias realized even more people were flooding over the walls.  One glance at the gate showed why.  An attack had started in the middle of it.  Another ripple.  Tobias figured the girl’s fingers were bloody from trying to climb and falling.  Several other people climbed over on either side of him, and more were pushing to get at the wall, knocking the girl repeatedly into it.

Tobias thought of the camera crew and his own earlier, selfish actions.  He put his camera back into the bag and lay on the wall, stretching his hand down to the girl.

“This is as far as I can reach.  You’ll have to do the rest yourself!” Tobias called down to her.  If he tried to reach any further, he knew he would be pulled off the wall the moment she took his hand.

The girl began trying to climb again.  She got close several times before falling away, her fingertips brushing his.

“Come on!”  Tobias did not like the position he was in, but now that he was committed to helping this one girl, he couldn’t leave her.  “You can make it!  Try harder!”

“I am trying!”  She missed again, but this time when she dropped back, the crowd pushed someone right under her.  She used the man’s shoulders to boost herself up and finally reach Tobias’s hand.  He pulled as hard as he could, straining the muscles in his arm, almost over-balancing and tumbling off the other side.  It was a good thing he was used to carrying heavy weights.

“Thanks,” the girl panted on the wall beside him,  “I’m Tammy.”

“Tobias.  Let’s get off this wall before someone pushes us off.”

“Good idea.”  The girl dropped down the other side easily, landing on her feet and avoiding the puddle of puke.

Tobias cradled his camera bag and dropped after her.  He wasn’t nearly as graceful, but he also managed to miss the puddle.  He hit the sidewalk hard and fell to one side, scraping his arm on the cement.  It stung, but wasn’t a bad injury.  Tammy helped him get back up on his feet.

Tobias held Tammy’s hand to pull her across the car-choked street.  He didn’t want to be near the wall and risk someone landing on their heads.  Eventually, they stopped in the service doorway of a restaurant to catch a breather from the chaos.  They were sheltered there for all the people continuing to move past.

“You by yourself?” Tobias asked Tammy as he poked his head out, looking for street signs.

“I came here with some friends.  Ashley, my best friend, her parents won a bunch of tickets from this radio station and offered to take us all.  We got separated when everyone started screaming and running.  What’s happening?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”  Tobias pulled his head back into the doorway trying to visualise a map of the city in his head.  He didn’t have a very good sense of direction, though, and only knew his way around his work and apartment, both of which were across the city.  “Do you have somewhere to go?”

“Ashley’s mom was supposed to take us home.”  Tammy started to fidget with one of the three necklaces she was wearing.  Her fingers looked raw.

“Was there a place where you were supposed to meet up if you got separated?”

“Yeah.”  Tammy pointed one of those raw fingers back at the park.  “By one of the souvenir stands.”

“Well then, that’s out.”  Tobias took another quick look up and down the street.  “Look, I’m going to get a police officer over here to help you, okay?”

“What?  No.”  Tammy grabbed Tobias’s arm.

Tobias shook her off.  “Look, they’ll be able to help you a lot more than I can.”

“But they’re already dealing with all those people.”  With a grip like a bear trap, Tammy grabbed him again.

Tobias was beginning to regret his decision to help her.  “I don’t know what to do with you.  I’m going to try and head home and I don’t think you should come with me.”

“Just help me get to the subway station,” the young girl pleaded, her eyes welling up with tears.  “I know how to get home from there.”

Tobias thought about it.  The subway did seem like a good way to get out of here.  That was until he thought about being jammed in a car with all the other people fleeing the area.  He had had enough of shoulder-to-shoulder crowds for one day.

“I'll get you to a station, but don’t expect me to come with you.  I’m walking where I’m going.”

“That’s fine, just help me get there.”  Tammy smiled as she shifted her grip from Tobias’s arm to his hand.

Tobias sighed.  Perfect.  This girl probably always knew how to get what she wanted.  “You wouldn’t happen to know where the nearest subway station is, would you?”  Due to his fear of crowds, Tobias avoided subways whenever he could.

“Oh, hold on one minute.”  With her free hand, Tammy reached into a pocket and pulled out a smart phone.  It had a sparkly red cover wrapped around it.  “I have a maps app.”

Tobias thought about how many people had told him to get a smart phone, and how he always avoided them, thinking they were a waste of money.  He didn’t think he’d need all those fancy apps, just something to send and receive text messages on and make the occasional phone call.  Maybe after he got home and had a beer, or ten, he’d look into them.

“Got it.”  Tammy held out her phone so Tobias could see the little digitised map on the screen.  “The nearest one is on the other side of the park.”

“No good,” Tobias shook his head.  “Where’s the next closest on this side of the park?”

“Umm...”  Tammy used her thumb to scroll around the map, an expert with the touch screen.  “Here.  We have to get to those lights over there, and then head about five blocks down.”

“All right, let’s go.”  Tobias was about to step back out onto the sidewalk but stopped.  “Actually, can you give me my hand back, so I can get out my camera?”

“What do you want your camera for?”  The girl held on tighter, suspicious.

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully.  “Maybe if I record some stuff and give it to the authorities, it’ll help them figure out what happened here.”

“Oh, okay.”  Tammy let go, but watched him carefully.

Tobias hauled his camera out of the bag for what felt like the hundredth time.  He thought about putting it on his shoulder, but then decided just to cradle it against his armpit so that it wouldn’t block his vision.  It was also still recording.  He was going to have a lot of footage of the inside of his bag to edit out.  At least he had the new drive loaded, the one that could record hours and hours of footage.  Once the camera was settled in a way that it would record whatever was in front of him, Tammy grabbed his free hand again.

The two of them headed up the street.  Tobias let Tammy walk next to the walls and shop fronts, taking the brunt of the passers-by to his shoulder.  He worried about his camera being knocked out of his arm, since he was still attached to it.  Almost everyone was running in one direction or another, heading to destinations unknown to Tobias.  Several people were just standing still, not knowing where to go or what to do.  A few even broke down and sat crying in the street.  As Tobias watched, a man went running down the centreline of the road.  Close on his heels was a woman with blood running all down her front.  Her teeth were bared and she kept reaching out, trying to grab the terrified man.  They were gone before Tobias could even think about doing something.  He just hoped the man wouldn’t trip.

When Tobias and Tammy reached the corner, they started heading down a new street.  The mayhem continued block by block, but so far, no one paid any attention to them.  The crowd thinned out the farther they got from the park, until they finally reached a pocket where they had a considerable amount of space between them and the next group of people.

As they passed in front of an alleyway, a bloodcurdling scream burst out of it.  They both turned and found at least five people clawing and biting at what must have been a sixth down on the ground.  One of the attackers was the screamer.  She stood up and started running at them.

“GO!”  Tobias pulled on Tammy’s hand, half dragging her, as he started to run.  Thankfully, Tammy kept pace, because all five of the attackers ran out of the alley and started chasing after the two of them.

“Drop the camera!” Tammy shouted as she took a quick, panicked look over her shoulder.

“I can’t just drop it!  It’s strapped to my waist!”  Tobias cursed the harness that helped hold his gear.  “You go!”

“What?”  Tammy looked up at Tobias.

“You go ahead!  Get to the subway!  I'll draw them off!”

“But...”

Tobias let go of Tammy’s hand and half shoved her ahead of him.  “Just do it before I change my mind!”

After one last look at Tobias, Tammy took off at a speed Tobias couldn’t match even without the camera.  He headed into the clog of cars hoping his pursuers weren’t as agile.  It turned out to be a good idea.  One nearly had him but she clipped her hip on a bumper and was completely spun around.  Too bad, she didn’t stay that way, because she quickly resumed the chase.  Tobias weaved around the cars, but he knew he couldn’t keep it up forever.  It was like when he was in high school and played for the school’s football team.  Only this time, the goal posts were nowhere to be seen, and his camera weighed a lot more than a football.  Not to mention that being tackled meant losing his life.

He finally spotted a pizza shop that had its door open.  He headed straight for it, listening to his pursuers pounding along behind him.  Tobias rounded one last, sharp turn and headed straight into the pizza shop.

The reason the door was open was because the door had been ripped off.  Shit, well there went that protection.

He spotted a door in the back and jumped over the counter.  Here was the agility he had been missing earlier when hopping off the wall.  Apparently, he just needed even more adrenaline for it.  His pursuers slammed into the waist-high counter, knocking themselves flat across the top of it.  Any normal person would have been badly hurt and winded, but these guys just started crawling across the counter as if nothing had happened.

Tobias ran into the back room and slammed the door shut.  Great, this one had no lock.  The first thing he spotted was stairs, so he decided to head up.  If he had taken more time to look around, he might have spotted an exit door in the back of the kitchen.  It was too late now though.

Tobias climbed flight after flight, listening to the sound of the others coming after him.  They must be getting tired, right?  Tobias was exhausted, so shouldn’t they be as well?  There were just too many stairs.

Finally, he reached the top of the stairwell and burst out through the door up there.  He was in sunlight, up on the roof.  Nearby were several wooden beams, and without thinking about what they might be for, Tobias started bracing them against the door.  Someone thumped into the other side and started hammering away just as the last board was wedged in place.  The wood dug into the gravel rooftop and managed to hold, but it wouldn’t last forever.

Tobias ran to the side of the building and looked over the edge.  Aw hell, he was at least four stories up.  There was no way he could jump that.  He looked up the street but couldn’t spot Tammy anywhere.  He guessed she got away.  He hoped she got away.  He told himself she did get away.

He then looked around the roof but couldn’t see anything useful to him.  The building was detached from those around it and shorter by several stories.

With a sigh, Tobias sat on the edge of the building and faced the door.  The beams wouldn’t hold up much longer under the force of the hammering hands.  Tobias put his camera up on his shoulder and placed his eye against the viewfinder.  He took a deep breath and went into film mode.  At least his last shot was going to be a killer.  Literally.

The door burst outward, the beams clattering off over the stones.  The mini mob took no time to look around and ran straight at their prey.  Just as they were about to reach him, though, something ripped Tobias’s mind out of film mode.  Something had grabbed him around the waist, and somehow, that something pulled him over the edge of the building.  Out into space.

2:

Cillian

Cillian put his booted feet up on the dashboard, a cigarette hanging from his lips unlit.

“If you’re not going to smoke it, why do you have it?”  Jim sat to his left in the driver seat, looking out through the windshield.

“I can’t smoke it in the truck, and I’m not going out there unless I absolutely have to.”  Cillian settled deeper into his seat and closed his eyes.  “I hate babysitting calls.”

“Oh?  And you have something better to do at the station?”  Jim hit him on the arm.  “We’re getting a free concert man, lighten up.”

“So far they’ve only featured bands I don’t like.” After opening his eyes again, he hit Jim back.  “They have their own security guards and a bunch of police officers are walking around.  There’s no reason for us to be here too.”

“But what if there’s a fire?”  A sarcastic grin pulled up the corners of Jim’s mouth.  He put on a stupid voice that all the guys used to represent the mayor, “Gotta have them there firemen all ready at the scene just in case.  Maybe they should start putting us on street corners, and then we can always provide an immediate response.”

This caused Cillian to break out into laughter, dropping his cigarette.  He liked working with Jim.  Jim was all right.

The back door creaked open and Doyle climbed in.  “Man, it’s hot out there, especially in all this damn gear.”

“No shit, Sherlock, why do you think we’re staying in here?”  Cillian sat up straighter and twisted around in his seat.  “You get the pop?”

Doyle passed a can of Pepsi up to Cillian.

“Pepsi?  I thought I said Coke?”

“Pepsi is all they had.”  Doyle handed another can to Jim.

“Lame.”  Cillian snapped open the can and took a huge swallow.  “Bleh.  I don’t know how some people can say they can’t taste the difference.”

“I’m one of those people.”  Jim cracked open his own drink.

“Yeah, but we’ve already proven you have no sense of taste.  That goes for clothing too,” Cillian grinned at him.  A good ribbing was common at their firehouse.  They all had something to poke fun at each other about, but lately the guys had toned down on Cillian.  You couldn’t poke fun at a guy’s long-term relationship if he was no longer in one.

“You know we’re wearing the same shit right now, don’t you, Knight?” Jim pointed out.

“Uniforms don’t count.”  Cillian knocked Jim lightly in the head with a nearby helmet.  After a thought, he put the helmet on his own head and pulled it down over his eyes.  It was rather effective at blocking out the sunlight.  “Now shut up, I’m thinking of napping.”

The uniform was probably what Cillian wore most often and he had no problem with that.  When not at work, he just wore whatever was clean.  On a day like today, it would probably be just a pair of swim shorts.  He personally thought the uniform suited his broad shoulders and chiselled, dark features.  When he was in college, a chick who was an art student had told him he was made of squares.  He hadn’t a clue what that meant at the time, but over the years, he started to figure it out.  Abstract things always took him a little while to figure out.  He liked simple.

Cillian Knight was also a guy who liked his job... most of the time.  Actually loved his job.  It was during slow times like this that he hated it.  He loved putting out fires, even the small ones.  He loved paramedic calls, whether it was prying someone out of a three car pileup, or assisting someone who’d had a heart attack.  He even loved hanging around the firehouse with the guys, waiting for a call to come in.  This, though, was boring.  At the firehouse, you knew a call would eventually come in, but here, nothing was likely to happen.  All Cillian had to do here was nap.

Of course, he had just taken a big swig of a caffeinated drink, so he wasn’t likely to fall asleep any time soon.  He continued to take large gulps under his helmet until the can was empty.  Maybe he could fall asleep when the inevitable sugar crash hit.  He’d first have to ride out the sugar high though.

As Cillian slouched there, futilely trying to block out the sound of the concert, he thought about Jessica and how it had all gone wrong.  He and Jessica Clay were supposed to be getting married in about a week.  Instead, he was living on Doyle’s couch and she was moving to Australia.  They were happy up until about a month ago.  Jessi was offered a big promotion: personal assistant to the president of the Australian branch of the company she worked for, the Marble Keystone Corporation.  Her current job was assistant to an assistant for only a vice president.  She had accepted the promotion without even talking to Cillian about it.  Cillian didn’t want to go to Australia.  He loved his life right where they were.  One fight led to another, and another, and then to throwing dishes, and finally it ended with Cillian being booted out the door with a suitcase of clothes.  Jessica was selling the house they shared and taking all her things to Aussie Town.  She didn’t even tell Cillian the date she was leaving.  She might have left already.

Cillian had a lot of time to think about it over the last month, and talk it out with all of his buddies both from the station and not.  He figured it was for the best.  Better they had their fight and falling out now, rather than after they were married.  Or worse, after they had a kid.  That was something they did agree on.  They both wanted kids.  They were going to start trying right after they got married.

He was thirty-six now.  He had no idea where he was going to find another girl like Jessica whom he could love enough to settle down with.  Raise a family with.  Hell, he didn’t even know if he could find it in him to love again at all.  That part still hurt deep down.  Jessi was younger than he was by six years so she could easily meet a new guy her age.  Cillian was lucky to have had her and he knew it.  Maybe he should call her.  Maybe he’d reconsider the whole Australia thing.  They needed fire fighters in Aussie Town too, right?

Cillian thought about that a lot, and like most times he thought about it, he fell asleep.  Maybe that had been one of their deeper problems.

* * *

Cillian Knight’s dreams were twisted and strange.  Throughout the course of his dreams, music was playing, and try as he might, he couldn’t turn it off.  Other people tried to help him, but no one could.  Even people who were dead.  In his dreams, he saw the faces of victims he couldn’t save in the past.  Everybody at the station admitted to having dreams like that, but this one was different to Cillian.  Normally, he’d be frightened, or perhaps upset, but in this dream, he was rather indifferent to the victims.  In fact, he found them comforting compared to the shadowy figures in the distance.  That music though, it was so irritating!  Where was it coming from?

Cillian awoke with a slight start.  He thought he heard something hit the back of the truck, but it was probably just the tail end of his dream.  He noticed, though, that the music had finally stopped.  Probably its absence was what woke him.

“Jim?”  Cillian propped the helmet up off his eyes and looked to the seat next to him.  It was vacant.  “Doyle?  Guys?”

He sat up and looked around the cab.  The other guys were gone.  Probably out to get more drinks.  Thinking of...

Cillian reached into the foot well to grab the empty can he had dropped when he passed out.  His cigarette was down there too, now covered in dirt.  He was debating picking it up anyway when a heavy knocking hammered on the door next to him and scared the crap out of him.  As he jumped in his seat, he swung around to face the door.  It was flung open, and a cop started climbing in.

“Hey man!”  Cillian crawled across to the driver’s seat, as the police officer wasn’t stopping.  He didn’t seem to care whether Cillian was in his way or not.

When the cop got in, he slammed the door closed and locked it.  He also reached into the back and locked that door too.  There was a look of panic in his eyes as he turned to face Cillian, “Lock the doors on your side!”

“What?  Why?  What’s going on?”  Cillian thought briefly that he might still be dreaming.

“Lock them!”  The cop climbed into the back and locked the door behind Cillian.

Cillian locked the driver’s door.  “Okay, done!  Mind filling me in now, officer?”  He let the word hang, not sure if he should be applying it to this jumpy guy or not.

The cop looked at the driver’s door, visually checking that Cillian had indeed done as he said.  He then sat back in the seat with a sigh.  “What do you mean what’s going on?  Haven’t you taken a look outside your rig?”

“I was asleep,” Cillian’s brows came together.  He turned around and looked out the windshield.  Outside it was utter chaos.  People were attacking each other and everyone was running everywhere.  He once again had the feeling he was asleep, but his nicotine craving proved otherwise.

“What the hell?  What happened?”  As Cillian watched, a man dug into another’s chest with his teeth.

“I don’t know.”  The cop climbed back into the front seat.  “We got called in when some guy flipped out and started attacking people.  Next thing we knew, lots more people were fighting.”

“Some terrorist group or cult trying to stir up shit?”  It was the first thing Cillian thought of.

“Maybe...”  The cop took a deep breath.

Cillian sensed he wasn’t telling him something.  “What is it?”

“What?”  The cop faced him, his blue eyes wide open.

“You saw something, I can tell.  What happened?”

The cop looked back out the windshield and then back at Cillian.  “You’re not going to believe me.”

“Try me.”  Cillian liked to think he was fairly open-minded.

“Well...”  The cop took another steadying breath.  “There was this security guard, right?  He and a bunch of others were trying to subdue this attacker.  The guy had already injured several people, even stabbed one with an umbrella.  Well, this other officer tased him, but the guy bit into his throat.  I mean, he ripped it right out.  The officer bled to death right there.”

“Jesus.”  Cillian took the helmet off his head and ran a hand through his dark, stubby hair.  “You didn’t know him, did you?”

“No, different precinct.  That’s not even the worst part.”  The cop was starting to look a little green.  “Later on, he got back up.”

“Who got back up?”

“The officer.”

“The dead officer?”

“Yeah, the dead officer.”

“Are you sure he was dead?”

“Of course I was sure!” the cop snapped.  “You don’t think I've seen a dead guy before?  I used to work with a cadaver dog.  I’ve seen plenty.  His blood had totally stopped pumping.  He was dead.  He was dead but he got up and started attacking more people anyway.”

“I must still be asleep.”  Cillian closed his dark eyes and shook his head.  This cop was nuts, right?

“You wish, buddy.  Hey, can you drive this thing out of here?”

Cillian looked over at the officer.  “One, I’m not leaving without my partners.  And two, there is no way I’m trying to drive through that mob of people.”

“Dude, look out there.  I don’t think your partners are going to come back.”  The cop pointed out through the windshield.  It was pretty hectic out there.

“I’m still not going to drive through them.  Someone is bound to get run over, and they might start attacking the rig.  These things can be flipped with enough force, you know.  Aren’t you supposed to be a cop?  Shouldn’t you be helping those people?”

“I tried, believe me I did.  But I need to get home.  I have a little girl I have to get to.  If she hears about this, and she will, she’ll be so scared.”  Real concern crossed the cop’s features as he slumped into the seat.

Cillian felt for the guy, well, more for his kid, but he still wasn’t going to drive into that mob.

“What’s your name, by the way?  I’m Sam Carter.”  The cop named Sam held out his hand.

“Cillian Knight.”  They clasped hands and shook once.  Sam’s hand was disgustingly sweaty, so Cillian wiped his hand on his shirt, not caring if he offended the officer.  Sam didn’t seem to notice.

Slam!

Both men jumped and turned towards the passenger door where something had just collided with it.  Sam moved as far away from it as possible and put his hand on his pistol.

A red hand reached up and smacked on the glass.  It left a bloody print.  Cillian tried to lean over Sam to see better, but the frightened policeman pushed him back.

“They could be hurt,” Cillian justified, trying to push forward again.

“No.”  Sam continued to hold him back.

A second bloody hand joined the first and they began hammering on the glass window.  Thump-thump thump-thump thump thump thump thumpthumpthumpthump.  Then they disappeared and started pulling on the handle, over and over again, as if the twentieth time it would suddenly be unlocked.  The shriek of rage and frustration that followed caused Cillian to reconsider his curiosity and sit back in his seat.

All sound suddenly stopped.  The policeman and the fireman sat perfectly still, staring at the door.  Neither of them even breathed.

Another shriek pierced the quiet of the rig’s cab and a blood-covered boy threw himself into the side window.  Both men jumped, Sam nearly landing in Cillian’s lap.  Everything went silent again.  Cillian realized he was near the other window and quickly moved away from it on instinct, pushing a reluctant Sam closer to the passenger door.  He looked out into the side mirror and saw a girl walking up alongside the truck.  She was clearly lost and confused, tears running down her face, ruining her black Gothic makeup.  Or making it better, who knew with these kids.

Cillian knew he should warn her about the crazy guy on the other side of the truck, but he couldn't move.  He didn’t dare open the door or even crack the window.  He was having enough trouble remembering to take in oxygen.  He watched the girl pass right under him.  As she reached the front of the truck, she looked around hesitantly, never noticing Cillian and Sam sitting in it.  The girl then began to make her way toward the crowds in the distance.  The men watched her progress in silence, hoping she would make it.

The blood-soaked boy thought otherwise.

He ran out after the girl, screaming.  She turned around just in time for the boy to land both his feet onto her stomach.  She hit the ground hard, her head bouncing once off the dirt and grass.  The boy sat on her, clawing and biting at her chest.  There was blood, and she screamed, but Cillian still couldn’t move to help.  The girl’s screams reached a high when the boy pulled what looked like her collarbone right out of her chest with his teeth.  He then grabbed it with his hands and stabbed it into the bloody hole, silencing her pain.

He then turned his attention back to the truck.

The boy was now covered in even more blood as he ran back at the fire truck.  He jumped onto the wide front bumper and began beating on the windshield with the girl’s collarbone.  Sam starting screaming when the windshield cracked.

“Shoot him!”  Cillian was pressing himself into his seat.

“What?”  Sam had forgotten about his pistol.

“Shoot the fucker!  Self defence!”  The crack got bigger.

Sam tried to get out his pistol, but he fumbled with it.  When the crack got larger still, he dropped the gun on the floor.  Cillian scooped it up.  He had talked to enough cops to know how to turn the safety off and did so now.  He pointed the gun at the boy and fired.

Part of the windshield smashed out.  The bullet passed through the attacker’s shoulder, throwing him off balance and off the bumper.

“You got him!” Sam actually cheered.

It was a short-lived moment as the boy reappeared quickly.  He jammed the bone into the bullet hole in the windshield and started to pry it bigger.

“Shoot him again!”  The cop was clearly torn between keeping his eyes on the boy and turning to climb into the back seat.

Cillian once again pointed the gun and fired.  This time he missed.

“Christ!”  It seemed Sam finally decided he’d feel better in the back seat and climbed over.

Cillian fired off another shot.  He hit the boy again, but this time, it just seemed to pass through his chest as if it was nothing.  And the hole in the windshield just got larger with every shot.  The boy started to use his hands to try and get in, peeling away the safety glass and causing deep wounds to his fingers.

“Stay the fuck down!” Cillian screamed at him.  He put the gun right up against the windshield where the boy’s head was and pulled the trigger.  Blood and brains splattered out behind him as the boy dropped.  His arm got caught in the windshield causing him to hang down the front of the rig like a gruesome hood-ornament, the collarbone still loosely clutched in his hand.

Cillian and Sam sat in silence, waiting for something else to happen.  Nothing did.

“Is he dead?” Sam whispered, fearing his voice would set off some terrible reaction.

“I shot him in the head.”  Cillian didn’t bother to whisper and the loudness of his voice shocked him.  “I shot him, in the head.”  Cillian looked at the gun in his hand.  He tossed it onto the passenger seat as if it had suddenly become red hot and then absentmindedly wiped his hands on his shirt.  It was a tool of death.

“What about the girl?”  Sam leaned forward, trying to see out the unbroken half of the windshield.

“She had her collar bone stabbed into her heart,” Cillian snapped at him.  “I’m pretty fucking sure she’s pretty fucking dead.”

“I’m not that sure.”  Sam pointed out the window.

Cillian turned and looked.  The girl was trying to get up, her one arm hanging limp and useless.  Somehow, she managed to get to her feet and started looking around.

“What the hell?”  Cillian leaned forward as if moving slightly closer would dispel the illusion.

“I told you man.”  Sam leaned back, his voice rising to a higher pitch, “I told you they get back up.”

The girl looked at the fire truck.  Without warning, she ran at it.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”  Sam disappeared in the back seat, hiding.

The girl jumped up on the bumper and pulled the dead boy out of the broken window with her one arm.  The moment he was clear, she started trying to get in through the same hole.  Unlike the boy, she was disturbingly silent, which meant that Cillian could easily hear Sam whimpering in the back.

“Goddamnit!”  Cillian got his heavily booted foot up and kicked the girl in the face as she tried to climb in through the windshield.  She got knocked off the bumper but recovered quickly and came right back.  Cillian scrambled for the gun he so heedlessly tossed away, not remembering why he would have done that.  Before he could grab it, the girl was coming in again.  He tried to kick her once more, but because of the awkward angle, he missed.  The girl grabbed his leg with her good arm and started gnawing on his boot.  The heavy material that caused him so much discomfort in the day’s heat now protected him.  While she was distracted, Cillian managed to reach the gun.

“I hate this shit!  You mother fucker!”  The firefighter pointed the gun at the side of the girl’s head.  She turned to bite his hand and Cillian shot her full on in the face.  There was more blood and brains, only this time they splattered the inside of the vehicle.

Cillian yelled in frustration and kicked the limp body out the window.  It collapsed with a thump on top of the other one.  Still furious, Cillian sat up and looked in the backseat.  Sam was still cowering back there.

“You... are officially...  the worst cop... I have EVER MET!”  Cillian flicked the safety back on and threw the pistol at Sam’s head.

“Are they gone?” Sam whispered as he sat up, cradling the pistol to his chest.

“I don’t know, maybe they’ll decide to get back up and attack again.”  Cillian threw his arms up.  “Hand me that coat will you?”  He reached over the backseat for a firefighter’s jacket.

“This one?”  Sam picked it up and handed it to him.  “What do you want it for?”

“I need something to wipe away the grey matter and there’s nothing else inside the truck.”  He started using the outside of the jacket to clear gore off the steering wheel and the inside of the windshield.

“Grey matter?  You mean brains?”

“Of course I mean brains.  Calling it grey matter just makes it easier to deal with,” Cillian clenched his teeth.  This was not part of his job description.  Cops carried guns.  Cops were supposed to shoot people if shooting had to be done.  Firefighters were only supposed to save people.  Cillian was running on autopilot, doing his best not to think about it.

“Here, these should help.”  Sam handed some firefighter’s gloves up to Cillian.

Cillian put on the gloves and wiped away the rest of the chunks.  “You know, you could also help.”  He then started breaking out the rest of the broken windshield on the passenger side.

“Why are you breaking that out?”  The cowardly cop shrank back into the seat again.

“Because then I’ll be able to see better when we drive out of here.”  When Cillian finished breaking out the glass, he put his jacket down on the bloody driver’s seat, clean side up, and sat on it.  He tried to clean the glass in front of him some more, but just ended up smearing the blood around.  Only partial visibility was achieved.

“I thought you didn’t want to drive through that crowd.”  Sam started to climb into the passenger seat again.

Cillian pushed him back, the blood on his gloves leaving a mark on Sam’s chest.  “I’m not going through them.  You’ll want to stay back there.”

“But they’re between us and all the exits.”  Sam put on a seat belt.  “Even the vehicle entrance is clogged.”

“We’re not going through an entrance.”  As he turned the keys that had been left in the ignition, the truck started up with a rumble.  Cillian let out a small sigh of relief that it didn’t have any engine problems.

“Then how are we getting out?”

“Did they tell you much about this park, Officer Sam?”  Cillian put the rig in drive and slowly pulled out from between the other fire truck and the police cruiser it had been sitting between.

“Not really.  Just where the exits were.  I was told more about the concert and how security was going to work.”

“Well, we firefighters got a more thorough breakdown in case a fire did break out.”  He started carefully turning the fire truck around.  He tried very hard not to think about the two people he had shot and was now running over, repeatedly.  “You see these big brick walls all the way around?”

“Yes.”

“They’re actually two walls.  Two brick walls with a large gap in the middle and a flat stone lay on top to make them appear much thicker than they are.  We were told this because if a fire were to break out near them, the air inside could super heat and possibly even cause an explosion.  It’s highly unlikely, but still, not a good design.” The fire truck was now completely turned around.  Cillian found his helmet and put it on his head.

“And what does that have to do with us?”

“I suggest you duck your head.”  He stamped his foot on the accelerator, turning on the sirens and flashers for good measure.

“Wait, you’re not...  Oh God, you are.”  Sam bent over, placing his head between his knees and his hands on his head.  One of them still clutched the pistol.

“Hold on to your ass.”  Cillian was speeding the truck right at the wall.

Just before they hit, he ducked down, holding his helmet tightly to his head.  The fire truck rammed into the wall, sending bricks in all directions.  Many crashed in through the already-broken half of the windshield and several more got in by breaking the rest.  The heaviest hit came from the stone slab.  It hit into the truck cab’s roof making a big dent and causing the sirens to sound distorted.  It scraped along the roof for a moment before sliding off to the side.

Once Cillian thought they were through, he tramped his foot down on the brakes.  They didn’t stop in time before ramming into several cars on the street.  The crunching squeal of metal on metal drew Cillian back up.  They were in the middle of the street, jammed between a couple of cars.

He groaned and pushed the chunks of brick off himself.  After putting the rig in park, he partly stood up and looked out through the broken windshield.  Cillian looked at the cars around him first and noticed that they were mercifully empty.

“You’re a crazy man,” Sam groaned from the back seat and sat up, rubbing his neck.

“Well we’re out of the park.”  Cillian sat back down in the driver’s seat.  He put the truck back in drive and started scraping his way through the vehicles.  The easiest route was the one they took, up the centre of the road.  The big fire engine plowed the cars to either side out of the way.  Cillian thought about the guys and how they were going to hate what he had done to the rig.

* * *

“Where are we going?”  Sam unbuckled himself and started climbing back up into the front.  The constant bouncing off other cars made it a somewhat difficult thing for him to do, but he finally got up there.  Before being able to sit, he had to first shove some bricks into the foot well and toss others out through the broken windshield.  Once seated properly again, he buckled back up.

“I don’t know,” Cillian finally answered.  He was choosing his route randomly based on the space between cars.

“You’re bleeding,” Sam gestured to Cillian’s head.

Cillian took his hands off the wheel for a brief moment to strip off a glove.  He touched his bare hand to his forehead while the other resumed steering.  It stung a little and his hand came back bloody.  It seemed that, despite the helmet, something managed to hit him hard enough to draw blood.  “I don’t think it’s bad.”

“Still, we should head to the hospital.  Maybe there’ll be someone there who can tell us what we should be doing.”

“That’s right, why haven’t I heard anything over the radio?  Try getting someone on it.”  Cillian grabbed a handset and passed it to Sam.  The moment he looked away from where they were going, they slammed into something and came to a dead stop.

“Oh, God,” Sam whined.

Cillian looked out the windshield.  There was a huge multi-car pileup in front of the rig.  “I’m getting out to look around.”

“Are you shitting me?  Out there?”

“You have a gun, remember?”  Cillian had to kick his door to get it open.  He took off his other glove and jumped out of the truck.  Looking around, he saw panicked people running all over the place.  Except that not all of them were panicked.  Some were running after others with murderous intent in their eyes.  Cillian couldn’t see as much as he would have liked, so he climbed up on top of the fire truck.

“Cillian!  Where’d you go?” Sam called from the other side of the truck.

“I climbed on top!”  Cillian rolled his eyes.  He couldn’t believe his luck getting stuck with this complete idiot.  At least he had that gun though.  They both would have been screwed without it.  It didn’t take long for Sam to climb up on top with Cillian.  He dragged up two firefighter jackets with him.

“Here, you should put this on.”  Sam handed Cillian the jacket he had used to wipe away the gore.  He then put on the clean jacket himself.

“One, this jacket is disgusting.  And two, it’s like forty degrees out here.”  Cillian shook the jacket out over the side of the truck, trying to knock the chunks off it.

“I noticed only the outside was...  dirty, and it’s the only other jacket in there.  If someone attacks us, they shouldn’t be able to bite through the material.”

So maybe he wasn’t a complete idiot.  Cillian put the jacket on as he started looking around again.

As far as he could see up the street, cars were stopped and abandoned.  Some were even piled onto sidewalks as a result of their drivers trying to pass the traffic, only to end up slamming into light posts, garbage cans, mailboxes, and bus shelters.  Cillian thought he saw a way around it though.  He pulled his helmet off, tossed it over the side of the truck, and looked to the sky for a moment, trying to clear his head.  A headache was starting to form, most likely from the bump on his skull, but maybe just from Sam’s constant whining.  He also really wanted a cigarette.  That’s when he spotted him.

On a four-story building nearby, a man with a camera under one arm was looking frantically up the street.  He kept glancing over his shoulder at something.  Cillian could probably guess what.

“Sam, follow me.”  Cillian made his way across to the back of the rig, having to step carefully around the damage the stone slab had caused.

“What is it?”  Sam stumbled a few times but made it over to him.  They stood at the base of the fire truck’s turntable ladder.

“See that guy?”  Cillian pointed up to the roof while he flipped some switches.

“What about him?”  Although Sam shielded his eyes from the sun with a hand, as he looked up, his eyes squinted into narrow slits anyway.

“We’re going to help him.  Pay attention.”  When Sam looked, Cillian pointed to the levers before him.  “This extends the ladder up and down and this one moves it left and right.  You have to get me up there.”  He got on the ladder and started to make his way to the end of it.

“But...”  Sam was nervous as all hell.

“Just do it, Sam!” Cillian snapped.  He couldn’t stop thinking about the girl outside the rig, the one he didn’t warn.  He didn’t help her.  He didn’t help any of them.  He killed two people.  This man though, he thought he might be able to help him.

The ladder shook and moved in jerks as Sam worked the controls, but Cillian held on tight.  He rose up and began moving towards the man on the roof.  Cillian didn’t bother calling to him, as it looked like the guy had given up.  That, and climbing the ladder, was exhausting; he needed to save his breath.  The man was just sitting on the ledge, doing nothing but filming with this large camera on his shoulder.  Cillian wasn’t going to give up on him though.

Sam didn’t raise the ladder to the height he would have preferred, but it was good enough.  He stood very carefully on the end of the ladder as it neared the roof.  The stairwell door burst open and Cillian watched as five deranged and bloody people ran a beeline at the man.

Cillian gritted his teeth and silently urged the ladder to move faster.  Come on, come on!

At last, he could finally reach the man.  Cillian wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled.  The man gasped in surprise as he was swung out over the edge.

“Move us away, Sam!  Move us now!” Cillian shouted as loud as he could, but it was unnecessary.  As soon as Cillian had laid hands on the guy, the ladder began swinging the other way.  The motion, and Cillian’s momentum from pulling the man to him, caused them to topple over.  They went over the edge.

Amazingly, Cillian managed to wrap his legs around some ladder rungs and hook his feet through them.  The man nearly slipped out of his grasp, but Cillian caught onto a strange harness around his waist.  The stranger started screaming as his camera fell and hung by its wires.  Out of the corner of his eye, Cillian saw two of the attackers leap over the edge at them.  One came terrifyingly close, but both missed and fell to what Cillian assumed would be their deaths.  He couldn’t see what the other three were doing.

“Sir!” Cillian shouted at the man he held.  “I need you to calm down and stop squirming!”  He was making it difficult to hold on.

The man’s terrified face looked up at him and nodded once, his brown hair hanging straight towards the ground.

Why was the ladder still swinging?

Cillian looked down at the control station.  Sam was gone and he had left the lever up.  Someone, probably whoever had scared off Sam, was now slowly climbing up the ladder after them.

“Shit.  Sir!”

“Tobias!”

“What?”

“My name is Tobias.”  The man, Tobias, patted his chest twice then let his arms hang again.  His hands and face were going red from the blood collecting in them.

“All right, Tobias, I need you to cut loose your camera.”  Cillian was trying hard not to think about whoever was climbing up.  Right now his biggest concerns were losing his grip and the ladder swinging completely around into the building again.  At least the ladder’s current slant meant it couldn’t hit anything on the other side of the street.

“With what?”  Apparently, Tobias had no sharp objects with him.

“I don’t know!  Just get rid of it!”  Cillian tried but he couldn’t pull Tobias up at his current weight.  He didn’t even know if he could pull him up without the camera’s weight, but he had to try.

Tobias first grabbed the strap of a bag he had on and threw it off over his head.  The mostly empty duffel bag fluttered as it fell.  He then reached down and grabbed all the wires between him and the camera.  He started pulling and jerking at them.  One by one, they popped out of the sockets in the camera.  When the last one went, the heavy thing dropped to earth.  Tobias seemed distressed by this, but then immensely relieved.  Probably because it wasn’t him plummeting.

“Okay, good!”  Cillian was getting tired.  Even without the camera, Tobias was still pretty heavy.  “I need you to help me now!  You have to try and climb over me, up onto the ladder!”

Tobias frowned up at him from his upside down position, “Can you try and get me upright so I can reach you?”

Cillian figured this Tobias guy didn’t have a fear of heights, but he probably would after his.

With a supreme amount of effort, he switched his hands to be hooked through Tobias’s harness the other way, causing his legs to swing down and his head to swing up.

“Thanks, man,” now being relatively face to face, they didn’t have to shout to hear each other.  They probably didn’t need to shout to hear each other to begin with, but the situation seemed to call for it.

“Don’t mention it,” Cillian grunted.  “Just hurry the fuck up.”

Tobias heaved himself up, using Cillian’s pants’ pockets as handholds.  With a lot of effort, and a lot of cursing from Cillian, Tobias managed to get onto the ladder.

“Now help me up!” Cillian shouted again.  The building was getting uncomfortably closer.

“Who’s that climbing up?”  Tobias had looked down and noticed the person halfway up the ladder.

“Probably no one good!  Now help me!”  Cillian tried to swing himself up using all the strength of his ab muscles.

Tobias grabbed his arms.  Soon they were both crammed upright on the narrow ladder.  Tobias then hurriedly wrapped the wires still attached to him around his waist so that they wouldn’t dangle.

“Start climbing down.”  Cillian looked at the looming building.  The three that hadn’t jumped after them were standing there, waiting for the ladder to come to them.  “If I tell you to hold tight, do it.”

“Jesus Christ.”  Tobias started down the ladder.  “This thing is steep.”

The two men inched their way down the ladder, keeping a hard grip on the metal and stepping carefully.

“Hold on tight!”  Cillian gripped the ladder to him and Tobias did the same.  The top of the ladder slammed into the side of the building, causing the whole thing to shudder and groan.  The gears continued to try to swing it, but they only succeeded in pressing the ladder tighter against the brick wall.  Cillian had been looking down when they hit.  He watched as the person coming up the ladder was thrown to the side by the impact.  Being lower, the shock wasn’t as bad as where the boys were, but it was still enough to tip him over the side.  The climber grabbed the side of the ladder as he tipped over, desperate to keep holding on, but ultimately, failed and fell.  He must have been badly injured by that fall, but Cillian could see him continue to squirm and then crawl under a car.  Cillian made note of which car.  At least it was one less thing to worry about on the ladder.

“Shit!”  Tobias was looking up past Cillian.  He then started to scramble down the ladder at a much more dangerous pace.

Cillian looked up and thought the same thing as Tobias’s expletive.  The three on the roof were climbing onto the ladder after them.  Cillian sped up his own pace.  He knew these ladders better than Tobias and easily caught up.  He was annoyed when he had to slow down to match him.  He glanced back up at their pursuers.

The first one on the ladder tried absurdly to walk down it.  He immediately fell off to one side.  Cillian decided not to watch that one fall.  The second one was smarter and started climbing down.  The third actually frightened Cillian.  It crawled onto the ladder, head first.  Scurrying quickly over the back of the other climber like a spider, it came after them.  It was coming so fast.

“Hurry up!” Cillian yelled down at Tobias.  “Slide, damn it!”

“What?”  Tobias looked up.  He saw the creeper crawling after them.  “Oh hell.”

“Like this.”  Cillian positioned himself in a way that would allow him to slide down the ladder.  “Less pressure equals a faster slide.”

Tobias copied him.  He didn’t use very much pressure and slid down far too fast, but, thankfully, they weren’t that far from the bottom.  Still, he hit the platform with the controls hard and fell to one side, almost spilling right off the fire truck.  Cillian landed quickly next to him.

“Goddamn it, Sam.”  Cillian quickly looked around for the cop but didn’t see him anywhere.  If Sam didn’t have a kid, Cillian would have been tempted to hunt him down and kill him himself.  He did see his pistol, however, lying in the street.  At least he assumed it was Sam’s pistol.

“Off the truck!”  Cillian practically pushed Tobias off and followed quickly after him.  The thing on the ladder was near the bottom now.

He scrambled over to the pistol and grabbed it, already getting used to its weight.  He swung around and pointed the muzzle at the creeper.  When he pulled the trigger, a ping off the ladder let him know he missed.  The creepy thing was on the truck now, running at him.  He pulled the trigger again.

Click.

Cillian cursed as the fucking thing was out of ammo!  The creature leapt off the top of the truck at Cillian.  All he could think to do was throw his arms up in front of his face.

“Ahhhhh!” Just before the crawler landed on Cillian, it was smashed away to one side.  Tobias stood over him with a fire axe, an animalistic cry escaping his throat.  The creepy crawler was badly injured but tried to get up anyway.  Tobias swung the axe down into its back.  The axe thumped into the thing’s flesh, but the crawler continued to move.  Tobias swung again.

“The head!”  Cillian suddenly remembered his gunshots.  “Aim for the head!”

Tobias swung the axe one more time, getting the creeper right in the skull.  It stopped moving that time.

Both men stood there panting for a moment.

“Thanks,” Cillian finally said.

“Just returning the favour I guess,” Tobias grinned at Cillian briefly.

“Come on, we should get moving before its friend gets down here.”  Cillian glanced back at the ladder where the other was still methodically making its way down.

Tobias turned to follow him.

“Bring the axe.”  Cillian pointed to the body.

“Oh, right.”  Tobias pulled the axe out with a squelch.  He looked at the body a moment longer.  “I’ve never killed anyone before.”

Cillian just remembered that it was in fact a person.  He had been thinking of it as a thing, a monster even.  He had been thinking of it as something akin to a spider, but, in reality, it was a man in a business suit.

“Yeah, well, I hadn’t either until today.”  He gestured to his bloodied jacket.  “Now come on.”  Cillian grabbed Tobias’s shoulder and pulled him away.  They walked in the direction he had been heading in the fire truck.  The hospital still seemed like a good idea and it was farther in that direction.  Besides, his head felt worse.  He stopped quickly at the driver side door and grabbed his firefighter’s gloves.  Sam did have a good idea about protection.  He also looked around the ground and found his helmet, putting that on as well.  It would be hot, but it would be safer.

While Cillian grabbed these things, Tobias unhooked the wires from himself and sifted through his camera’s wreckage.  There also appeared to be a broken cell phone that Tobias frowned at.  It must have fallen out of his pocket.  Bits and pieces of the camera were smashed all over the place.  Tobias picked out one piece in particular and pocketed it, then pulled the headphones off from around his neck and dropped them onto the street.  Cillian walked over after retrieving his own gear, curious.

“What’s that?”  He gestured to the piece Tobias had pocketed.

“The memory card.”  Tobias patted the pocket.  “Everything I filmed today is on there.  Maybe I can make today mean something.”

“Oh, I think it means something already.  Hand me the axe.”  Cillian held out his hand as they started making their way through the car pile.

“No way.”  Tobias clutched the axe to his chest.

“It’s my axe,” Cillian frowned.

“Not right now it’s not,” Tobias shook his head.  “I thought about using it, so I get to keep it.  Besides, you have your firefighter gear to protect you.  I have just a thin T-shirt and cargoes.”

He had a point.  Cillian let it drop.

“You still have the pistol?” Tobias asked a moment later.

“Yeah.”  Cillian patted his jacket pocket the same way Tobias had patted his pants.

“Good,” Tobias nodded.  “If we find some more ammo, it’ll come in handy.”

Cillian Knight liked this guy.  He wasn’t a wuss like Sam.  He did wonder where Sam went though.  Hopefully he found his kid wherever he was.  “Hey, you got a cigarette by any chance?”

3:

Jessica

Jessica maintained her calm, cool demeanor all the way to the bathroom.  Once there, she locked herself in a stall and collapsed onto the toilet seat, her breathing shuddering and harsh.  Tears welled in her eyes and threatened to spill over.

She felt stupid.  There was nothing to cry about.

She fought to get her breathing under control and grabbed some toilet tissue to dab her eyes.  Once she had composed herself, Jessica left the stall and stood in front of the mirror.  At least she didn’t really have to worry about anyone coming in.  It was Saturday and almost no one came in on Saturday.  Except her, of course, when her boss needed her to.

She couldn’t wait to get to Australia.  She would have more work, of course, but she would have her own set of minions to assist her.  She’d be at the top of the assistant food chain, and from there, she could probably shift into the big leagues.  Become not an assistant, but one of the assisted.

For now, though, it was still bring me my lunch, cancel this appointment, reschedule that appointment, make a new appointment, get the files from the office that I forgot, and cover my ass for me.  Ever since her promotion, her boss had been squeezing every possible task out of Jessica that she could.  The last month had been a hard one.  It was also, however, the last month.  Next week she’d be on a plane to Australia, to her new life.

She thought about next week.  She’d be getting on a plane and heading to the other side of the world on the same day she was originally supposed to walk down the aisle to marry Cillian Knight; to go from being Jessica Elizabeth Clay to Mrs. Cillian Lawrence Knight.  Jessica Knight didn’t sound too bad…

No, she wouldn’t think of him.  She especially wouldn’t think about that day.  That was done with, she was over it.  It was best to forget all about him and move forward.  She had been able to move forward before, she could do it again.

Jessica straightened herself out in front of the mirror, admiring the way her trim body and long legs looked in her white blouse and maroon skirt.  She fixed up her long, blond ponytail and retouched the make-up around her large and stellar blue eyes.  The hair colour was fake, but the eye colour wasn’t.  After one last dab of powder around her high cheekbones and thin nose, she left the bathroom.  As she walked out the door, she reapplied lip-chap on her full lips, wondering if she perhaps used it too much.

She made her way past the cubicles, past the break room and water cooler, to the enclosed offices.  Linda, her boss, had told her to get some files, which she had first assumed were important documents of a sensitive nature.  Alas, they were just lower management, process flow documents that the vice-president wanted to review.  Jessica had the feeling that Linda had sent her on a fool’s errand.

She entered the little office with the big window.  This manager may not have very high standing, but the office did have a great view.  Especially today.  The charity concert for spinal research was being held in the park just across the street from the office tower.  Jessica had noticed several workers and janitors hanging out near the windows on this side of the tower trying to get a free show.  Some had even brought binoculars.

Jessica walked over to the window now and looked down at the park.  She had thought about going.  Keystone was throwing the concert and she could have easily gotten tickets.  She decided, in the end, not to go.  Only the first few bands scheduled were ones that she liked.  The rest were the kind that Cillian liked.

There he was again, popping into her head.  She hated that.  It was probably because she spotted the corral of emergency vehicles lined up along one edge of the park.  It was strange to see the park so full.  She often ate her lunch there, and it was usually quiet and peaceful.  Most of the park was just a big field, popular for picnics and dog walking, which was why the concert was thrown there.  But there were a few stands of trees in the corners.  Under one of them was where she had met Cillian on their first real date.

Again, he invaded her mind.

Jessica shook her head, trying to shake out any thoughts that might bring tears again.  It was a good thing she was leaving this place soon.  It would get rid of all these annoying reminders.  She turned from the window to the desk.  The files she wanted were not on the desk where Linda said they would be.  With a sigh, Jessica started searching through the drawers.

She probably should have felt bad going though this man’s personal stuff, but she didn’t.  His things made him look like everyone else here.  Photos of his wife, son, and dog sitting on the desk.  Stress ball in the top drawer.  Cheesy award for some accomplishment that was completely unrelated to what he did here.  She found a picture frame stashed away in the bottom drawer under some papers.  Her curiosity got the better of her and she looked at the photo.  It was a little baby in a hospital.  The pink blanket and cap suggested it was a girl.  Not his son then.  Jessica wondered who she was.  A little sister perhaps?  Or maybe an illegitimate daughter from an illicit affair.  Jessica hoped it wasn’t something too depressing, like a child that had died of SIDS or something.

Jessica put the photo back, deciding to stick with the illegitimate daughter idea.  Spicy gossip like that flew around these offices all the time, so it was easy to convince herself that’s what it was.  She decided to ignore the personal items after that and focus solely on finding the needed documents.

In the end, she found them inconveniently under the desk.  Consisting of only a few sheets of paper stapled together, they had probably gotten blown off the desk and under it.  Although Jessica wouldn’t put it past Linda to have somehow arranged for them to be there.  She picked them up and put them in her bag next to her laptop.  As she left the office, the concert got under way.  The music was loud enough to be heard from across the street, especially the bass.  She made out a song she liked and hummed along.

As Jessica walked back into the area of cubicles, she noticed she wasn’t alone and stopped humming.  Someone was sitting in a cheap lawn chair facing the wall of windows.  He turned and waved as Jessica entered the space.

“Hey, Jessica Clay!”  It was Jack, another assistant of Linda and Jessica’s favourite co-worker.  “What are you doing here?”

“Linda wanted me to grab some files.”  Jessica patted the laptop bag at her side.

“Ah, she can wait.  Pull up a chair, watch the concert with me,” Jack smiled and gestured to the space next to him.

Jessica decided that spending some time with Jack wouldn’t be such a bad idea.  She liked Jack; they could talk about anything.  In fact, she probably would have dated him a long time ago if it weren’t for the fact that he was in a serious relationship and completely gay.  Although the second reason wouldn’t have stopped her from trying.  He was one of the few people, outside of her family, who she would miss when she left.  Her family wasn’t in this city though, so her relationship with them wouldn’t change much.  Just new time zone differences to get used to.

Jessica grabbed a chair from someone’s cubicle and sat next to Jack.

“What are the odds of running into you, eh?” Jack laughed.  “I chose this floor because I figured no one would recognise me and rat me out.”

“Fate, I guess.”  Jessica shrugged a shoulder and placed her bag on the floor.  “Why didn’t you just buy a ticket?  You could have and the proceeds are going to a good cause.”

“I know, but I’m trying to save all the money I can right now.”

“What for?”

“Andrew and I have decided to adopt a baby.”  Jack’s grin grew several times wider, lighting up all his features.

“Oh my gosh!” Jessica squealed.  She loved Andrew almost as much as she loved Jack.  When she was with Cillian, they would double date, and when she left him, Andrew made an excellent shoulder to cry on and a good friend to eat ice cream with.  “Congratulations!  That’s so exciting.”

“I know, right?  We’re going to save up a bunch of money first to make sure we have a good financial safety cushion, and the adoption process will probably take awhile, but we’re getting the wheels rolling.”

“I’m so happy for you.”  Jessica meant it as she leaned over and hugged Jack, but in a small way, it made her very sad.  Next week, the day she was supposed to get married, was also the day she and Cillian were to start trying for their own kids.  “Where is Andrew?  He didn’t want to sneak in here with you?”

“You know he hates this kind of music.  With him it’s classical or nothing,” Jack shrugged.  “Besides, I think he has the flu.  He didn’t look so good this morning.  I wanted to stay there and take care of him, but he insisted I come here.  He practically pushed me out the door.”

“He never did like showing weakness,” Jessica laughed.

“Oh, don’t I know it.  Just a few days ago, this homeless man jumped us and bit him.”

“Oh dear.”

“I know, right?  So gross.  I had to fight Andrew all the way to the hospital.  He kept insisting that he was fine.  It’s probably how he got the flu, actually.”

“You don’t think it could be something else, do you?  Like an infection or something?”

“Nah, they irrigated the crap out of that wound and pumped him full of antibiotics.  They took blood just to be sure, but since we haven’t heard anything, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Jack waved it all off.  “I guess one of the privileges of being a nurse at a hospital is that you know you’re getting the absolute best care.  We ended up spending a lot more time there than we needed to because we got into a conversation with some of Andrew’s co-workers.”

Jessica laughed, “Gee, now why does that sound familiar.”  Jessica put on a knowing face and tapped her chin with her finger.  Jack laughed.

* * *

Jessica and Jack continued to talk throughout the music about this, that, and everything.  She told Jack how much she’d miss him, and he told her about how much he’d miss her.  They both promised to send e-mails all the time with lots of photo attachments.

“You’ll have to come visit Australia sometime after you adopt the baby.  Either that or I’m going to fly back here to kidnap it,” Jessica joked.

“Hey, maybe we’ll even adopt the baby from Australia.  I always loved Aussie accents.”  Jack often made jokes that made him seem a lot dumber than he was.  He was actually very bright and Jessica had no idea how he wound up working for Linda.  In Jessica’s opinion, he was the kind of guy that could have Linda working for him.

“I wonder if I’ll pick up the accent.”  This was the first time Jessica had thought about that.

“Depends on how long you stay there I guess.  If indefinitely, then you’re sure to get some kind of accent.  Perhaps Russian.”

This caused Jessica to go into fits of laughter.  Picturing herself with a Russian accent was very amusing.

“Hey, what happened to the music?”  Jack turned his attention back to the window, his brows crinkling slightly.

Jessica stopped laughing and looked out as well.  “I don’t know.”

“Why is everyone leaving?”  Jack pointed towards the gates.  “This thing is supposed to go on for a few more hours.”

“Maybe some kind of emergency.  A bomb threat maybe?  Look how they’re all running.  It must be some kind of threat.”  Jessica shrugged but was concerned.  They were in one of the closest buildings to the park and an explosion could easily reach them.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe we should find a radio or a TV.  They’ll probably have something on it.”  Jessica got up.

“Yeah.”  Jack followed suit.  “I hope it’s not another 9/11 threat.”

“That’s too awful to think about.”  Jessica shuddered.  Although they were in Canada, everyone had watched that incident closely and mourned those who had died.

The two of them looked around the cubicles for a radio.  Jessica noticed more family photos, more marks of achievement, and gag items; all attempts at lightening the mood of the dreary place.  Jack found a radio first and summoned Jessica over.  He turned it on and tuned it to an all-news station.  All they got was static.

“Are you sure you have it on the right station?”  Jessica tried to look at the dial, but Jack kept fiddling with it.

“Of course I’m sure,” Jack’s brow crinkled more.  “Andrew listens to it all the time.”  He kept turning the dial slowly through the AM channels, but nothing came in on anything.

“Try FM.”  Jessica had an idea that maybe the AM receiver was just broken.

Jack flipped a switch on the side of the pink plastic box.  He started slowly going through all the stations again, but still they got nothing.  “Come on, there has to be something.”

“Could be the radio’s broken.”  Jessica started looking for another one.  “Oh hey, someone here left their computer on.”

She sat down in front of it, while Jack walked over.  She shifted the mouse to get it off the screen saver, and it was quickly replaced with the image of two smiling kids, likely the desk’s owners.  It only took a moment for her to find the internet icon and double click it.  A page opened up telling them they couldn’t connect, that something was wrong with their internet.

“Well there goes that,” Jessica sighed,  “should we look for another radio?”

Jack shook his head.  “I have a bad feeling.  Whatever is happening, it’s probably safer to evacuate.  I’d rather not be in a tall, glass-sided building that holds the offices of a prominent company, how about you?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”  Jessica pushed back from the computer.  “Still, I want to check my laptop.  It has wireless.”

They collected her bag from the seat next to the window and set the laptop on a desk.  It took a few minutes to boot up, but it was a fairly new system so there wasn’t much junk to slow it down.  She tried the internet right away but got the same error message.  She even tried using three different types of browsers, but none of them could connect.  Jack then asked her to look for a signal, but her computer couldn’t find one.  With a sigh, Jessica powered down and packed up the bag.

They walked over to the elevators where Jessica pushed the call button.  She noticed Jack had abandoned the lawn chair, but when she pointed this out, Jack said just to leave it.  It was cheap and about to fall apart anyway.

“Maybe we should take the stairs,” Jack thought aloud.

“You’re pretty paranoid about this, aren’t you?” Jessica joked.  When her computer hadn’t worked, his facial lines had deepened into a worried frown that Jessica was not used to seeing.  It appeared only on rare occasions when something was going disastrously wrong, like someone was an hour late for a big meeting, or a speech was lost minutes before it had to be presented.

Jack didn’t bite.  “I just have a really bad feeling is all.  Come on, let’s take the stairs.”  He headed off.

Jessica sighed but followed.  “We’re on the twenty-first floor.  Do you know how many stairs that is?”

“We’re heading down.  It’ll be fine.”  Jack entered the stairwell first.

That was easy for him to say.  He wasn’t wearing high heels.  They headed down staircase after staircase.  Jack gradually picked up the pace more and more as they went.

“What’s the rush?”  Jessica managed to keep up despite the trendy heels.  “I’m getting dizzy from all this turning.”

“I just have a really bad feeling, okay?  I want to get home to Andrew.”

Jessica had never known Jack to be scared of anything.  The story Jessica had been told was that Andrew and Jack had met when Jack was in the ER after breaking his leg.  Apparently, there was a rogue wind while he was attempting to land after skydiving and it grabbed his parachute and threw him straight into a stand of pines.  He was lucky he broke only the one leg.

They finally made it to the ground floor and exited the stairwell.  Several other people from the building were hanging around in the lobby, looking out through the large glass walls and doors.  Jessica noticed a small group of people exit the elevator.  She gave Jack an annoyed look but he didn’t seem to notice.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked a group staring out the windows.

“Chaos,” one of them answered without turning.

Jack and Jessica walked over to join them.  Outside, the streets were filled with abandoned cars and panicked people.  Jessica’s view didn’t face the park, but it was obvious that’s where everyone was coming from.  As they watched, a man smashed his way through a department store across the street.  He used a spare tire, of all things.  Shortly after he disappeared inside, three others ran in after him.  Jessica noticed that one of the three had no shoes on but didn’t seem concerned about the broken glass.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked again, since the first time he wasn’t really given a good description.

“We’re not totally sure,” a woman dressed in cleaner’s clothes told him.  “Looks like some major gang violence or something.”

“What do you mean?” Jessica asked her.

“Well, some people seem to be attacking other people,” she clarified.  Somewhat.

“Have you heard any news?”  Jack stood next to the window and looked up and down the street.

“No.”  She shook her head.  “My radio died awhile ago.  And look at this.”  The woman took out her cell phone and showed it to Jessica.  “I have no bars here.  I always did before.  Now watch.”  She moved her phone nearer to the window.  As it reached the glass, one of the reception bars filled.

“It looks like this building isn’t getting any reception, cell phone, radio, or internet.”  Jessica remembered both the radio and the computers upstairs.  “What would cause that?”

“I don’t know,” the woman shrugged,  “but several security systems around the building have been turning on and locking down.  Maybe it has something to do with that?”

“Well I’m going out there before the doors down here lock.”  Jack headed toward the doors.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”  Jessica tailed after him.  Jack was the only person she knew here and she didn’t want to end up with a bunch of strangers.

“Good idea or not, I want to be with Andrew.  He’s sick.  If this is as out of control as it looks here, someone might break in and he won’t be able to defend himself.”  As Jack passed through the revolving doors, Jessica could see the determined set to his face in the glass’s reflection.

She followed him out into the street.  The sounds of sirens and distant screams assaulted her ears, putting her immediately on edge.  She had never realized how soundproof that glass was before now.  Somewhere far away shots were fired.  Then more were fired and those sounded much closer.  Jessica did some quick breathing exercises and stopped a certain awful thought from invading.  She focused on Jack instead.

Jessica could understand Jack’s fear.  He lived in an apartment only a few blocks away.  “I’ll come with you.”

“It’ll be dangerous.”  Jack didn’t seem to pay attention to his own protest as he hurried up the street.  He said the words automatically.

“No more for me than it will be for you.”  Jessica had to trot to keep up in her heels.

Jack then stopped and turned.  “I won’t want to leave you behind but those shoes will slow us both down.”

“Here.”  Jessica reached down and took off her shoes.

“Barefoot?  There could be broken glass everywhere.”

Jessica looked around.  “There.”  She pointed across the street to a shop sign.  “That place sells shoes.  I can get new ones in a jiffy.”

Jack sighed and glanced around nervously.  In the end, he caved.  “All right, but let’s do this real quick now.”

Jessica put her heels back on and they hurried across the congested street, holding hands to keep from being separated.  When they reached the shop, they found its large window smashed in and all the lights off.

“It’s closed,” Jack sighed.

“So?”  Jessica reached through the broken window and grabbed a sneaker.  She compared it to her foot.

“That’s stealing!”  Jack’s mouth hung open in shock.

The first pair looked too small so Jessica grabbed the next and tried them.  They were the right size.  Not exactly Jessica’s first choice in colour or style, but they would do.  She started switching her shoes.

“Jessica!” Jack frowned.

“What?”  She reached into her bag and pulled out a business card.  “I’ll leave this so they know who I am and I’ll come back later to pay.  This is an emergency situation.”  She then placed the card in the space the shoes had previously occupied.

Jack sighed again but didn’t argue.  Clearly his level of worry was too high; in any other circumstance, he would have made Jessica put them back.  They started up the street again, Jessica’s high-heels held in one hand, Jack’s hand in the other.

The farther they went, the more the crowd thinned out.  All around them, people headed in different directions or ducked into shops and buildings.  They passed by one big office building where a man was arguing with a security guard to be let in.  He argued about it not being safe outside but wouldn’t say why.  No one seemed to know what was going on any better than Jack or Jessica did.  They all looked lost and confused, walking alone or in small groups.  People barely spoke unless they were arguing about something.  A few people were even crying.  Jessica couldn’t believe it all.  Only the varying sounds of gunshots kept her rooted in reality.  She knew that sound all too well.  She feared that sound.

A man ran up from behind, shoving Jessica hard in the shoulder as he passed.

“Hey!” Jack yelled at him as he stopped Jessica from stumbling over.  The man didn’t respond.  He just kept running as fast as he could.

Jessica looked behind them.  There was another man running towards them.  No, not towards, at.

* * *

“Jack.”  Jessica Clay drew her friend’s attention.

Jack turned.  They both looked at the second running man, not sure what to do.  Part of his head had been scalped or something, because a huge chunk of skin hung down the side of his face.  Jessica could see damaged skull bone underneath.

Another man stepped out of an alley between Jack and Jessica, and the charging man.  Jessica watched as the charging man’s eyes darted to the newcomer.  He abruptly changed course.  The other man saw him just in time to scream before he was bowled over.

The ensuing violence made Jessica’s eyes go wide.  She stood stock still, muscles tense like a deer in the headlights.

“We have to get out of here,” Jack shook his head, horrified.  The man wouldn’t stop screaming.  “Jessica.”

Jack grabbed Jessica’s hand and tugged but she didn’t respond.

“Jessi!”  Jack grabbed Jessica’s shoulders this time and spun her to face him.  He had to shake her a few times to snap her out of it.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica whispered, dazed.  She started to turn her head back towards the screaming, but Jack grabbed her face and wouldn’t let her.

“Come on.”  He grabbed her hand again and started pulling her up the street.

Once Jessica finally started to keep pace on her own, they began jogging.

“What was that?” Jessica finally asked, the haze around her thoughts gone.

“I don’t know.”  Jack had stopped looking around suspiciously.  He now kept his gaze dead ahead, trying to avoid seeing something like that again.

“Did you see his head?”  Jessica couldn’t believe anyone could still function with a head wound like that.  The bone was so white.

Jack just nodded once in response.

“How much further?”  She wanted to get inside.  Behind safe walls.  Perhaps curl up in a nice small closet for a while swathed in large, puffy blankets.  With a light on of course.

“One more block,” Jack’s voice had taken on an emotionless tone.  Jessica could only imagine what he was thinking about, but she figured it had something to do with Andrew.

As they ran the last of the distance, Jessica found herself thinking of Cillian again.  Despite all that had transpired between them, she hoped he was all right.

They reached Jack’s apartment building and he entered first.  He was the kind of guy who would normally hold a door for a lady, but not this time.  Not today.  They hurried over to the elevators.

“Hey, where’s your doorman?”  Jessica noticed that, what she thought of as a permanent fixture was missing.

“Don’t know.”  Jack kept pressing the call button and watching the numbers above the elevator doors as they descended.

While Jack remained focused on the elevators, Jessica kept her eyes on the entrance.  Not only did she notice the missing doorman, but she also noticed that Jack didn’t need to use a key to get in.  She tried to remember if there was normally an electronic lock to get in here or if it was just the doorman’s job to keep out any intruders.  She hoped it was just the doorman because otherwise, that would mean the lock was broken, and a broken lock was never a good sign.

The elevator cab finally arrived and opened its doors with a soft whoosh and a ding.  Jack nearly took a step inside but quickly reeled away gasping.  Jessica looked around him into the elevator cab.  The mirrored walls were sprayed with red blood.

Then Jack sighed, visibly relaxing, and he calmly stepped into the elevator.

“What are you doing?” Jessica was horrified.

“It’s just spray paint.”  Jack touched it and got a bit on his fingers.  It was tacky.

Now that he pointed it out, Jessica realized that the red was far too bright to be blood and she also stepped into the elevator.  It also smelled very much like paint, which was reassuring.  Still, she had to hold a hand over her heart, trying to keep it from bursting out of her chest.  Her pumper was getting quite the workout today.

“Some kid on the fourteenth floor decided recently that he wanted to be an artist,” Jack said as he pressed the button for the twentieth floor, his floor.  The doors slid closed and the elevator started up with just a slight jerk.  “He’s been spraying halls, the gym equipment, even the walls around the pool.  No one’s been able to catch him in the act though, so we can’t do anything.”

“Don’t you have cameras in the public places?”  Jessica thought a nice place like this should.

“He wears a mask and sprays the cameras.”  Jack pointed to a corner of the ceiling.  There was a bulge across the corner completely covered in red paint.  “I wouldn’t mind so much if he painted something good instead of just these squiggly lines.”

Jack actually smiled.  Jessica guessed that being in his home and thinking about a simple problem was making him feel better.  She smiled a little as well.

The elevator reached their floor and came to a stop.  Once more, the doors slid open and they both stepped out.  They walked quickly down the hall to apartment 2004.  To Jessica’s confusion, Jack knocked first.

“Andrew?  I’m home.”  Jack pressed his ear against the door.  “I have Jessica with me so if you’re indecent, cover up.”

Jessica smiled again at this.  “What?  He sits around naked when he’s sick?”

“Sometimes,” Jack grinned and pulled his keys out of his pocket, unlocking the door.  This time he held the door for Jessica.  Home clearly made him feel comfortable again.  Perhaps even normal.

“Hey, Andrew,” Jessica called into the cosy apartment.  “I hear you’re not feeling well.”

Jessica took off her pilfered sneakers and placed them on a rubber mat next to the door.  Jack put his own shoes next to hers.  All the shoes in the apartment were arranged neatly on the mat, but they were all men’s shoes so that when Jessica put her heels down, they stood out like a sore thumb.

“You can just leave your laptop bag by the door if you want.”  Jessica didn’t have a coat for Jack to take so he made do with offering a place for her bag.

“Thanks.”  Jessica, who nearly forgot about her bag entirely, placed it in the offered spot and followed Jack into the little kitchen.

The kitchen was located in an area that didn’t offer any natural light, but thanks to Andrew’s sense of style and Jack’s strange intelligence about all things, including light, the space was very cheery and bright.  It was Jessica’s favourite part of the whole apartment.  She liked sitting on the stools next to the little counter-table, even more than on the couch in the living room.  And that was a damn good couch.

“Andrew!  I’m making you some soup!” Jack shouted as he rooted through a cupboard.  “Do you want some, Jessica?”

“Umm…”  Jessica’s mind flashed through the day.  She realized she was hungry, starving even, but she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep anything down.  That poor man in the street…

“I’m making you some,” Jack decided,  “and you’re going to eat it.”

Jessica humoured him with a smile.  Jack could probably see the stress on her face.  “Is Andrew okay?”  To think of something else, she poked her head out of the cosy nook and looked down the hall.

“He’s probably just really stuffed up and doesn’t want you to hear.”  Jack got out a pot and started filling it with water.  “I told you he doesn’t like to show weakness.”

“That bad, huh?”  Jessica thought about offering to help cook the soup or make sandwiches, but then remembered that Jack would never allow a guest to do such a thing.

“Yup.”  Jack sat on the stool next to her.

“I still think you should probably check on him.”  Jessica didn’t like that she hadn’t heard a sound from Andrew yet.  He was usually so excited to have guests.  Although she had never seen him sick.

“I guess I should.”  Jack slid back off the high stool.  “Although if he yells at me, it’s your fault.”

“I’ll take all the blame.”  Jessica lightly pushed him toward the hall entrance.

When Jack left the kitchen, he wore a slight smile, but at Jessica’s angle, she could see it fall as soon as he left.  He also stopped mid-step.

“Andrew?” his tone turned the name into a question.

Jessica got up and stood behind Jack so that she could see what he saw.  Andrew was in the hall wearing nothing but an open bathrobe and boxer shorts.  Black ones with blue hearts.  His chin hung against his bare chest, his dark and shaggy hair hanging down to cover most of his face.

“Hey, Andrew, you wouldn’t believe what happened today.”  Jack stepped toward him.  His voice had taken on an odd quality.

Jessica reached out to grab his shoulder, but missed.  She didn’t know why she tried to stop Jack.  Something felt wrong.

Andrew took a heavy step toward them, swaying slightly.

“Andrew?  Are you all right?”  Jack took another step forward.  They were very close now.

Andrew took another small step, and then slid sideways into the wall.  Before he could fall to the floor, Jack closed the last of the distance and caught him.

“Andrew?”  Jack held him to his chest.  Jessica couldn’t see but it looked like Jack was trying to turn him over to see his face.  “Come on Andrew, talk to me.”

Over Jack’s shoulder, Jessica watched as Andrew lifted his head.  She saw his eyes before Jack did.  She should have warned him.  She tried, but it came out as a whisper that Jack couldn’t hear.  Andrew opened his mouth wide and sank his teeth into the fleshy part of Jack’s neck.  Jack didn’t even get a chance to scream before he was dead.

Andrew lifted his head up and looked at Jessica with his cold, dead eyes.  Jessica had seen a dead person before; she knew what their eyes looked like.  His jaw fell open with a pop and a hunk of Jack’s flesh fell out of it.  Red.  His mouth was completely red.  He began slowly crawling towards her.

Jessica ran for the door.  She pulled and pulled at the doorknob but it wouldn’t open.  Why wouldn’t it open?  He was coming closer.  Then she noticed that the lock was engaged.  Jack must have locked the door behind them and she hadn’t noticed.  She thumbed the catch and pulled.  The door opened only a little before being stopped by the chain. He almost had her!  Jessica got the chain undone and the door flew open.  As she bolted out the door, she felt Andrew’s hand caress her calf.

She ran out of the apartment so fast, she crashed straight into the door on the opposite side of the hall.  She fell to the carpet having stunned herself.  Andrew continued to crawl after her, making his way out of his home.

4:

Abby

Abby slowed her pace on the spinner as she reached the cool down stage.  She grabbed her water bottle and took a quick drink, then replaced it in its holder on the handlebars.

Nearby, an overweight man got off a stepper machine.  He was sweating bullets despite the fact he had been on there for only about five minutes.  Abby didn’t criticise him though.  At least he was trying.  This was maybe the fifth time Abby had seen him in the little exercise gym.  Last time he had tried using a spinner but didn’t even go a full two minutes.

“Can you turn that off please?”  Abby gestured to the TV in the corner.

“Huh?”  The man looked around, out of breath.  “Oh, you don’t want to watch the concert?”

Abby shook her head and pointed to the headphones in her ears.

“Oh, okay.”  The man hit the power button and shuffled out of the small gym.

Abby was glad he didn’t ask what she was listening to.  People had asked her in the past and she wasn’t sure how to answer.  She never listened to music, except the inevitable music played during a movie, TV show, or theatre production.  Her iPod was completely filled with audio books.  She loved to read fiction of all sorts, but while working-out or travelling, she stuck to textbooks.  She had a need to expand her knowledge constantly, to learn everything she could.  Although she couldn’t always grasp the concepts she learned, she remembered them.  She had a fantastic memory for detail.  Right now, she was starting a chemistry kick.  Previously, it had been Spanish history.

Abby continued to learn as she ended her spin cycle.  Once done, she took another large swallow of water before getting off the spinner, and towelling her neck.  She looked over at the weights, debating with herself.  She had a doctor’s appointment later that day and was deciding whether she should use the weights, or swim, during the time she had left.  In the end, she decided to swim.

She walked out of the gym and crossed the hall to the ladies’ change room.  It was empty, which was always nice, but even so, she changed into her bathing suit in a convenience stall, just in case someone walked in.  Abby wasn’t necessarily ashamed of her body.  She worked out a lot and knew she was super fit, but growing up in a house of all boys meant she had no one to talk to about things.  No one other than her mother, and that hadn’t turned out well.  She had one female friend who had been her best friend for the past two years.  She was learning from her how to be comfortable in her own skin, and to understand what was considered a ‘normal’ body.  For now though, she still preferred to be safely hidden while completely naked.

Once she changed, she gathered up her things and put them into one of the mini-lockers.  She locked the door and clipped the little key onto her bathing suit.  She hated swimming with that little key attached to her, but there was no way around it.

After checking the showers quickly, she stepped into them.  Once, she had walked in there when a woman was showering naked.  It was really awkward for Abby even though the woman didn’t seem to care.  She rinsed off the sweat from her cardio workout and then headed for the pool.

The pool area was nice, with a whole wall of glass letting the sun shine in brightly.  A couple of mothers sat in chairs, sunbathing, while their kids and kids’ friends played in the pool.  Abby knew this particular group; they came swimming here nearly every Saturday during the summer.

“Hi, Abby!”  A little boy in the shallow end waved.

“Hey, Bobby.”  Abby waved back.

Bobby lived on the floor above her with his mom, two younger brothers and little sister.  He was a good kid.  Hearing Bobby’s greeting, his mom looked over her shoulder.  She also gave a brief wave to Abby, and so did Mrs. Kellermen, the other mother.  They then resumed their chat before Abby could even wave back.  Mrs. Kellermen had three daughters and lived on the fifth floor with her husband.

“Can you play with us today?” Bobby asked excitedly as Abby slid into the pool.

Abby looked at all the kids in the pool, naming them off in her head.  Her sharp memory made her great with names.  She didn’t need to know each one of them, but she liked to.  She always liked to know who was around her.  Bobby was in the shallow end, watching over his little sister, Lucy, while she floated around in a foam chair.  A little deeper in the pool were his brothers, Matt and Frank, the twins, playing something with their friend Harris.  Mary Kellermen was looking through a pile of pool toys with her friend Cassy off in a corner.  Her oldest sister, Claire, the oldest of all the kids here, was practising swimming underwater in the deep end.  The last Kellermen girl, Hillary, was with her two friends, Julie and Nancy, huddled in the corner of the pool gossiping about something.  Ten kids in total with two mothers.  Most people would never have bothered to get to know each one of them, but Abby had.

“Maybe some other time,” Abby told Bobby with a smile,  “I have to go to a doctor’s appointment soon and I want to do laps today.”

“Oh, okay,” Bobby shrugged.  “I’ll make sure the other kids keep out of your way.”

“Thanks.”  Abby was pretty sure Bobby had a crush on her, but it was innocent, so she let it go.  Abby liked to think that one day he would notice Claire more.  She thought they would make an adorable little pair.  Maybe once they became teenagers.  On normal days, Abby would usually play with the kids after doing her laps.  It was hard work because they would bicker and argue a lot, but sometimes it could be a lot of fun too.  She didn’t know how their parents could handle living in these small apartments with so many kids running around.  Then again, they came to the pool a lot.  The large space of the pool area probably helped, and so did the view seen from twenty-seven stories up.  Intimidating but also breath taking.  Sometimes the kids would just sit and look out the window.  When Abby had first moved in, she had been terrified by the height.  Now, though, she was used to it.

Abby started swimming her laps along one side of the pool, trying to keep most of the pool open for the kids.  Some of them would talk to her while she swam.  They liked telling her about things, about what they’d done during the last week, or stuff they had learned.  They liked to tell her because Abby always listened.  Claire tried to swim a few laps with her, but had to give up after two, from exhaustion.

“One day I’ll be able to keep up with you,” Claire stated matter-of-factly as Abby turned herself around.

“I look forward to it,” Abby encouraged her.

She ended up cutting her laps short to judge a swimming contest the kids held amongst themselves, and to watch over little Lucy while they did.  Afterwards, several of the kids begged her to stay longer but she had to decline.  They couldn’t understand why anyone would willingly go to a doctor’s appointment.

Abby climbed out of the pool and headed back into the showers.  She rinsed the stink of chlorine off her body and out of her hair, then towelled off.  Her hair was slightly shorter than shoulder length and rather thin so it dried fairly quickly.  Abby liked that about her hair, even if she wasn’t too keen on its bland sand colour.  She then gathered her things out of her chosen locker once more and again changed in the convenience stall.  When she checked her watch, she saw that she had a bit of time, so she used her hair dryer to finish the job quickly, running a comb through it to straighten it.  Once done, she headed out to the elevators.  It always felt chilly when she rode down to her floor after swimming, until she got into her apartment.  Inside, she put her exercise gear in a corner and quickly changed into something clean and doctor-appropriate.  A light, white T-shirt and comfy grey slacks.  The pockets in her slacks weren’t very large, just big enough to take a little bit of cash, her health card, her ID, and the key to her apartment.  She left the rest of her keys on a small table.  She also left her cell phone sitting on the charger because she didn’t expect any calls.  It needed to charge, since she had a long, intimate phone call last night, and had been too tired to return it to its cradle.  A silver chain necklace with a cross pendent sat next to the phone.  Abby’s belief in God was a fickle one due to her up bringing.  Some days she was a true believer, other days she wasn’t.  Today was an off day and she left the necklace behind.  Once back out in the hall, Abby locked her apartment again and headed back toward the elevators.

As Abby rode the elevator down, she stared at herself in the mirror.  She did this every time she rode down to the first floor.  She had moved to the city only two years ago when she had gotten a job with a TV show production crew.  Her job was to make sure the continuity of things stayed true.  Her memory was perfect for it.  The city was a challenge however.  She still wasn’t used to the tall buildings all around, the sidewalks crowded with people, the streets filled with cars.  She read the newspapers and watched the TV reports.  She heard about all the muggings and murders, car crashes and hit pedestrians.  She understood the ratio of unharmed to harmed people meant it was unlikely it would happen to her, but she still had to psyche herself up to go out there.  Especially lately.  An increase in attacks had been reported in the news lately.  Most of them seemed to be homeless people doing the attacking.  There was a homeless man, Eddy, just up the street from Abby’s building.  She brought him sandwiches sometimes, or bought him a coffee.  He seemed nice, just down on his luck and a bit addle minded.

Abby studied her face in the mirror.  She wore no makeup; she never had.  Her friend had once described her features as pixie-like but Abby wasn’t sure what she meant by that.  She thought she was dull.  Her eyes matched her hair colour and she had a small smattering of freckles across her nose, but none of that made her special.  Not to herself anyway.

The elevator reached the ground floor and opened its doors.  Abby stepped out and noticed Mr. Fargus, the doorman scheduled for that day, wasn’t there.  He must be taking a bathroom break.  As she was about to exit the building, Mark Green, a teenager from the fourteenth floor, and a friend Abby didn’t recognise, burst in.  The door made a nasty cracking sound as they did.  It looked unharmed, but Abby made a mental note to tell Mr. Fargus about it.

“Hey!” Abby called out as they brushed past.  “Slow down, where’s the fire?”

Mark didn’t respond as he and his friend charged toward the elevators.  Abby rolled her eyes as she headed outside.  One day that kid was going to learn a hard lesson.

In addition to having a great memory, Abby was also quite perceptive.  She always won the game where you would study a room, leave it, and then come back after someone had removed or added something to the room.  Walking up the street was kind of like that.  It didn’t take too many steps for Abby to notice that all the cars had been emptied.  A lot of people were walking, even on the road.  Abby thought that maybe an accident had happened, and they had to close the street.

“Ms. Walker!  Ms. Walker!”  Mark Green came tearing back out of the building behind her.

“Mark?”  Abby noticed the fear on his face.  “Mark, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Claire,” was all he said before running back inside.

* * *

Abby didn’t like the sound of that.  She quickly ran back to the building.  Mark knew the other kids from the building; he sometimes showed up when they were swimming.  He was usually more destructive though, pulling the girls’ hair and dunking the boys underwater.  He was a pest for everyone.  For him to be so formal and polite as to call Abby, Ms. Walker, meant that something was very bad indeed.

She went back into the building and saw the two boys by the elevator.  She hurried over.  Once she reached them, they parted to reveal Claire huddled on the ground.  She was soaking wet, still in her bathing suit.  She was also bleeding from a head laceration.

“Claire.”  Abby knelt down in front of her.  “Claire, honey, are you all right?”

Claire just shook.

“Mark, hit the button for the twentieth floor,” Abby ordered as she looked at Claire’s wound.  It didn’t look very deep.  “I have a first aid kit in my apartment and we can call the paramedics.”

“Okay, Ms. Walker.”  Mark hit the button.  He kept looking at Claire and was slowly turning more and more green, to match his last name.

“If you can’t stand the sight of blood, don’t look,” Abby told him and his friend.

Mark turned toward the wall.  He then took out a can of red spray paint and started spraying the walls.  He also sprayed the camera, likely out of habit.  Abby didn’t like him vandalising, or his choice of colour, but knew that he was just trying to distract himself.  For now, she would let him get away with it, but they would have a talk later.

“Are you okay?” Abby asked Mark’s friend, noticing he was still watching.

“I’m cool.”  He kept staring.

“Give me your sweater.”  Abby held out a hand.

The boy untied the hoody from around his waist and gave it to Abby.  Abby bunched it up and pressed it to Claire’s head.

“Is she going to be okay?” the boy asked.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Abby told him.  “I read that head wounds usually bleed more than others, and there doesn’t seem to be much more blood than a nose bleed might cause.”

They reached the twentieth floor and the elevator doors slid open.  Abby scooped Claire up into her arms.  Mark’s friend helped by keeping his sweater pressed to Claire’s wound.

“Mark, can you get my key out?” Abby asked as they began heading down the hall.  “It’s in my front right pocket.”

Mark nodded.  He was very careful getting the key, trying not to touch Abby.  There was a little silver moon fob attached to her apartment key and it always stuck out of her pocket a bit, so Mark was able to find it and get it out with relative ease.

They reached Abby’s door and Mark unlocked it.  Abby carried Claire straight to her dun-coloured couch and placed her gently upon it.  The boys stepped over the threshold, but stopped there, almost like vampires, needing an invitation to enter someone’s home.

“You can come in.”  Abby gestured with her head for them to come forward.  “And close the door please.”

Mark’s friend closed the door but they both looked very awkward being in there.

“Mark, there’s a first aid kit in my bathroom,” Abby instructed.  “I think my apartment has the same layout as yours so you should be able to find the bathroom easily.  The kit is attached to the side of the sink.  You just have to slide it out of the plastic holder.”

Mark nodded and dashed off.

“You, what’s your name?” Abby finally asked as she gingerly took his sweater off Claire’s head.

“Jon.”  He took a step forward.

“Okay Jon, go into my kitchen over there.  In the cupboard above the microwave is a big plastic bowl.  I want you to fill it up with warm water and bring it to me.”

“Okay.”  Jon disappeared into the kitchen just as Mark returned with the kit.

“Here you go, Ms. Walker.”  Mark handed it to her.  “Is she going to be okay?”

“I can’t say for sure, but it doesn’t look too bad.”  Abby slid the kit over next to her and popped it open.  “Can you get me a face cloth out of the hall closet?  They’re on the middle shelf on the right.”

“I meant if she would be okay okay,” Mark mumbled as he headed for the hall.

Abby thought she knew what he meant.  Claire hadn’t even made eye contact with anyone.  She just kept trembling.

After quickly checking over her body and finding no other wounds, Abby pulled the furry blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around Claire’s small form.  Both boys returned at the same time and placed the water and cloth next to the kit.

“Good.  Now one of you needs to call the paramedics.”  Abby pointed to the phone in the corner.

“I’ll do it.”  Mark quickly dashed to the corner and grabbed the phone out of its cradle.

Abby started cleaning Claire’s wound and face with the washcloth.  It was already clotting and looked like it would stop bleeding soon.

“It’s busy,” Mark informed her from the corner.  Even though the phone was cordless, he decided it was best to stay next to the cradle.

“That can’t be right,” Abby frowned.  “Try again.”  She took some disinfectant out of the kit.  “Claire, honey, this may sting a little.”

When the disinfectant touched her wound, Claire flinched a little and actually looked up at Abby, briefly making eye contact.

“It’s still busy,” Mark once again reported.

Now that was really not right.  “Just keep trying.”

“Maybe it has something to do with what’s going on at the concert,” Jon offered an opinion.

“What concert?  The charity concert?  What happened?”  Abby just recalled the strangeness of the streets outside.

“Well, we were going to go down there and try to listen for free,” Jon explained.  “You know, stand outside the park?  Well, before we even got there, we found out the whole place was being evacuated.  We didn’t know what was going on.  We didn’t see anything, just a bunch of scared people.  Some guy told us there were riots.”

“It was pretty scary,” Mark chimed in.

Jon rolled his eyes at his friend.  Clearly, he considered himself far braver.  Abby looked over at Mark and gestured to the phone.  Mark shrugged and shook his head.  He still couldn’t get through.

“Abby?” Claire mumbled.

Abby quickly turned her attention back to the girl.  “Claire.  How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts.”  Claire sank deeper into the couch and tightened the blanket around herself.

“Are you allergic to anything?” Abby asked as she picked up a bottle of aspirin.

“No.”  Claire gave a tiny shake of her head.  “I got tested when we found out Hillary couldn’t have any nuts.”

“Okay, then you can have one of these.”  Abby shook out a single pill from the bottle.  “It’ll help your head feel better.”

“I’ll get her some water.”  Jon quickly disappeared back into the kitchen.  He returned in no time with a glass of water from the sink.

“Thanks.”  Abby took the glass from him and turned back to Claire.  “Have you ever taken a pill you had to swallow?”

Claire nodded slightly and tried to sit up.  Abby’s couch had the ability to eat people so she helped the girl.  Claire took a small sip of the water, then took the pill from Abby’s hand.  She popped the pill quickly and drank the water at nearly the same moment.  She slopped a bit of the water.

“Sorry,” she mumbled looking at the spill.

“It’s all right.”  Abby just let it soak.  “It’s only water.”

She helped Claire lay back down again and fluffed a pillow under her head.

“Claire, can you tell me what happened?” Abby finally asked the most important question.

Claire’s face scrunched up in pain, and then fell into a deadpan expression.  “After you left…” Claire whispered so that Abby had to lean a little closer to hear everything.  “After…  Mr. Fargus showed up.  At first, we thought we might be in trouble so we grouped in the shallow end.  Then we thought it was funny when he walked into the pool with all his clothes on,” she didn’t sound very amused.  “Then… Then…”  Tears welled up in her eyes.

“You don’t have to tell us now if you can’t,” Abby told her.

Claire shook her head.  “Mr. Fargus attacked Bobby.  He bit him.  Bobby’s mom saw and got real mad.  She started yelling, which made my mom start yelling.  I was scared.  Mr. Fargus dragged Bobby underwater.  There was so much blood.  Bobby’s mom jumped into the pool and tried to save Bobby.  Mr. Fargus started attacking her then.  Bobby floated.  Mom jumped in the pool next and tried to pull Bobby to the side.  Bobby was twitching.  Then Bobby bit mommy.  He bit her really hard, in the neck, in the same place Mr. Fargus had bitten him.  He then jumped on Nancy and pulled her underwater.  They were under for a really long time.  The pool was filling with so much blood.  I was so scared.  I peed in the pool Abby. I know you’re not supposed to but I did.”

“It’s okay, Claire,” Abby had to whisper.  Her throat had dried up like a desert while listening.

“Mr. Fargus grabbed Julie then.  I don’t know what happened to Lucy, I didn’t see.  Her floater was empty.  My mommy…  My mommy tried to grab me.  She had a big hole where her neck was supposed to be.  I was scared and started to swim to the deep end.  She came after me, but it was as if she had forgotten how to swim.  The water was so red.  I climbed out of the pool.  I ran away.  I went through the boy’s room.  I didn’t want to go around the pool so I went through the boy’s room.”  Tears streamed down Claire’s face in rivers but her expression never changed.

“How…” Abby’s voice choked out and she swallowed hard.  “How did you hurt your head?”

“I tripped in the change room.  I hit my head on a bench.”  Claire reached for the glass of water again.  “May I have a drink?”

“Sure.”  Abby handed her the glass and let her hold onto it.  Her hands trembled slightly.

Everyone in the room was silent.  Abby wondered if Claire had just hit her head harder than it looked, or if it was actually true.  She remembered how Mr. Fargus was missing.

A loud thump hit the door and startled everyone.

“It’s him,” Claire whined sinking deeper into the couch.  “Mr. Fargus killed everyone else and now he’s after me.”

Abby quickly got up and headed for the door.  Mark actually took her place at Claire’s side and started whispering comforting words to her.  Jon took over the phone duties.

Abby looked out the peephole.  At first, all she saw was that the door across the hall was open.  She looked toward the floor then and saw the stocking-covered legs of a woman, and a man, her neighbour Andrew, in a housecoat reaching for them.  Andrew’s mouth was wide open and red.  Blood red.  Abby quickly pulled open her door.  The woman had been leaning against it and spilled inside.  Abby grabbed her arms and pulled her all the way in.  Andrew’s teeth snapped on air, which had previously been occupied by the woman’s ankle.  Abby quickly slammed the door and locked it before he could crawl any closer.

“Thank you,” the woman gasped breathlessly on the floor.

Abby helped her to her feet and over to a chair.  From the door, a repetitive scratching started as Andrew reached it.

“What happened?” Abby found herself asking for a second time in the last handful of minutes.

“Andrew killed Jack and then he tried to kill me.”  The woman in business attire put her head between her knees and took a few deep breaths.  “I don’t know why.”

“It was Mr. Fargus,” Claire squeaked from the couch.

“Who?”  The businesswoman just noticed the kids.

“Claire and her family were attacked by the doorman,” Abby told her.  “We’re trying to call 911 but so far the line has been busy.”

“Yeah, they’re probably dealing with the attacks happening in the streets.”  The woman accepted a glass of water that Jon had gone to get.  He was quite the water fetcher.

“The streets?  I heard the problem was in the park,” Abby frowned.  The scratching at the door wasn’t ceasing.

“Well it’s in the streets now.”  The woman took a large swallow of water.  “I’m Jessica, by the way.  Jessica Clay.”

“Abby Walker.”  The girls shook hands.  “This is Claire, Jon, and Mark.”  Abby pointed to each of them.

“He’s trying to get in,” Claire whined.  She was staring at the door with eyes wide with terror.

“Mark, Jon, can you boys move her into my bedroom?  I’d also like you to stay with her once you’re there.”  Abby thought it best to get them as far away from the front door as possible.

“Sure thing.”  Mark helped Claire to her feet.

Claire kept the blanket wrapped tightly around herself and would not take her eyes off the door until they were out of sight.  Once they were gone, Abby turned her attention back to Jessica.

“So tell me everything.”  Abby wanted to – no, needed to – know what was going on.

Jessica told her about what she and Abby’s other neighbour, Jack, saw from the building, and about the guy on the street.  She concluded with the attack across the hall.  Abby listened intently but despite all her learning, she just couldn’t put it together in a way that made any sense.  Andrew and Jack were one of the most in-love couples she had ever met.  Why would Andrew ever attack Jack?  And what did that have to do with what was apparently happening outside and with Mr. Fargus?

“What happened to the girl?” Jessica asked at the end of her story.

Abby gave Jessica a condensed and far less detailed version of the story she had just heard.

“None of this makes any sense,” Jessica spoke the words Abby had been thinking.  “I feel like I should wake up or something.”  Her hands were trembling.  She put the glass of water down on a nearby table and held her own hands tightly together.

Abby got up and went to the door.

“Don’t open it,” Jessica’s voice was heavily threaded with terror.

“I’m not,” Abby assured her new guest, as she looked though the peephole.

Outside she couldn’t see Andrew anymore, although the sound let her know he was there.  The scratching was getting higher so Abby figured he was slowly getting to his feet.  She couldn’t see Jack through the open door, but she was sure that was a spreading pool of his blood on the floor.  A shadow moved through the apartment, past the open door.  Abby was paying too much attention to the blood pool to notice any details, but it was human-sized.

* * *

“Hey,” Abby spoke to Jessica without diverting her attention from the peephole.  “Are you sure there was no one else in the apartment?”

“Well I didn’t look around or anything, but I didn’t see anything to suggest there was.”  Jessica got up and stood closer to Abby.  “Why do you ask?”

“I just saw someone over there.”

“What?”  Jessica nudged Abby out of the way and took a quick look.  “I don’t see anyone.”

“That’s ’cause they only just passed by.”  Abby then nudged Jessica out of the way and looked again herself.  As she was looking, a hand reached up and clawed across the peephole.  She flinched back.

“What?”  Her reaction didn’t go unnoticed by Jessica.

“Your friend Andrew seems to have made it back to his feet.”  The scratching became a thumping.

“What do we do?” Jessica asked.

“How should I know?” Abby shrugged.  “I’m worried about Claire’s head.  She needs to get to a hospital where they can check it out properly.”

“It would take forever to get there on foot,” Jessica reminded her.

“I have a motorbike.”  Both women jumped when Jon spoke from behind them.  “It’s in the garage.  I can take her on it.”

“Jon-” Abby was going to object.

“No it’s okay,” Jon cut her off.  “I can drive on the sidewalks to get around stalled cars.  I even have an extra helmet ’cause Mark rides with me all the time.”

“Maybe I should drive her,” Abby told him.

“Have you ever driven a motorcycle?” Jon cocked an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Abby gave him a smug look.  Other people Abby had met were surprised when they found out about that side of her.

“When was the last time?” Jon questioned her further, not surprised at all.

“Several years ago,” she had to admit.

“I drove it today.  And yesterday.  And hundreds of yesterdays,” Jon pushed.  “You should know that a recent rider would do better than someone who hasn’t ridden in years.  Have you ever ridden one?” he turned to Jessica Clay.

Jessica shook her head.  “I hate the things.”

“I’ve been riding dirt bikes since I was little,” Jon told them.  “I can handle it.  I even know the fastest route to the hospital.”

Abby sighed and gave in.  “Well, okay, that’s fine, but how do we get out of the apartment?” she brought their attention back to Andrew thumping at the door.

“Do you have a baseball bat?” Jon suggested.

“Okay, let’s talk to Claire first.”  Abby headed down the hall.  She didn’t really want to think about the baseball bat idea, but it was an idea.  If Claire was completely stubborn and unmoveable though, then there was no point in thinking about it at all.  A small part of Abby wished this were the case.

She walked into her cosy, mismatched bedroom and sat on the bed next to Claire and Mark.

“Hey, Claire?”  Abby placed a hand on her shoulder.  “We need to get you to a hospital to get your head checked out.  Would you be willing to ride on a motorcycle with Jon?”

“I don’t want to go out there,” Claire shook her head.

“We have to go,” Abby informed her.

“I don’t want to.”  Claire held firm.

“Claire,” Mark got her attention,  “you should go.  There will be police officers at the hospital and they’ll make sure no one like Mr. Fargus gets you.”

“Police officers?”  Claire blinked up at him.

“With guns,” Mark told her.

“Okay.”  Claire finally nodded.  “Will you come with me, Abby?”

“I can’t ride on the motorbike with you,” Abby told her sadly,  “but I’ll meet you there, okay?”

“Okay.”  Claire nodded again.

“All right, let’s get you something to wear over your swimsuit then.”  Abby went over to her dresser.  She found an old T-shirt and put it on Claire.  It was big on her, hanging nearly to her knees.  She also found a pair of socks and put them on Claire’s feet.  She wouldn’t be able to walk in them very well, but Abby didn’t like the idea of her being barefoot on a motorbike.

“Excuse me, Abby?”  Jessica appeared at the door.

“Yeah?”  Abby turned to her.

“You wouldn’t happen to have an extra pair of shoes would you?”  Jessica’s feet were bare except for her stockings.

“There’s a pair of boots in the closet that might fit you,” Abby suggested.

Jessica went over to the closet and looked through it.  She found the pair of hiking boots and tried them on.  Abby could tell they weren’t her style and that she probably hated the look of them, but they were shoes.

“Good.  Let’s do this now before I lose my nerve.”  Abby grabbed a field hockey stick from under her bed.  The J-shaped stick felt reassuringly solid in her hands.  It wasn’t a baseball bat, but it would work just as well.  The stick was kept under her bed in case someone broke in, but Abby was going to use it to break out.

The little group headed out into the living room and gathered near the door.

“Okay, I’ll go first and knock him over.”  Abby checked the peephole again and saw Andrew’s gore-soaked face filling the view.  “Once he’s down, the rest of you run for the elevators, got it?”

They all nodded.

“Okay.”  Abby placed her hand on the doorknob, her chest heaving from the deep breaths she couldn’t help but take.  “One, two, three!”

* * *

Abby Walker yanked open the door with a pop.  Andrew took a stumbling step inside and she swung the stick as hard as she could into his face.  He fell back out like a sack of potatoes.  Jessica was the first to run past him, Claire cradled in her arms.  Jon was right on her heels.  Abby went through the door next, directing Andrew’s sluggish movements away from herself with the stick.

“Come on, Mark!” she shouted as she hit Andrew’s head again.  She had broken out a few of his teeth but he didn’t seem to notice or care.

“Hold on!”  Mark was gathering the first aid kit.  “We may need this.”

Mark leapt over Andrew at an angle that put the man between him and Abby.  A sickly, pained scream filled the hall.  Jack stood in the doorway to his apartment.  His scream sounded like a normal person’s would when finding their loved one in the condition that Andrew was in.  Except that he couldn’t see his partner.  His eyes had been gouged out.  His guts also hung out of his abdomen.  Jack turned his blind attention to Mark.

“Shit!”  Mark ran off down the hall, away from where the elevators were.  Jack took off after him, his guts dragging, threatening to trip him.

“Mark!” Claire screamed from near the elevators.

Abby gave Andrew one last smack and then ran over to the others.  The elevator had just arrived and they piled in. Claire was distraught.

“It’s okay, Claire.”  Abby took her from Jessica, handing the woman the field hockey stick.  Claire gripped her so tightly that Abby thought something might crack.  “Mark’s a fast runner remember?  No one can ever catch him.”

“She’s right you know,” Jon chimed in.  “No one can ever catch Mark.  He runs like the wind.”

“But, what if he hits a dead end?” Claire sniffled.

“He won’t,” Abby assured her,  “the stairwell is over there remember?”

Claire nodded.

“He’ll be fine.”  Abby held Claire close.  “He’ll be just fine.”  She was trying to reassure herself as much as the little girl.

Everyone was very tense as they rode the elevator down into the garage.  No one was mentioning Jack.  It was impossible that he could be moving in the condition he was in, yet there he was, running.

The doors opened into the cement enclosure that was the apartment’s garage.  Jessica Clay stepped out first, holding the field hockey stick high.  Once she saw that everything was clear, she waved the others out.  It was obvious that the pretty businesswoman’s nerves were barely holding up, but she somehow continued to press forward anyway.  Abby followed after her, holding Claire tightly to her.  She felt badly for the little girl.  She was so scared and should never have had to see what she did.

“Where’s your bike, Jon?” Abby asked the teenager who stuck by her side.

“Just over there.”  Jon pointed.  “I always park in the striped zone since it’s closer to the elevators.”

Abby thought about reprimanding him for parking illegally, but then thought better of it.  They hurried over to his bike.  It wasn’t big or fancy, but that didn’t matter.  As long as it worked.  Jon unclipped the helmets from it while Abby put Claire down.  Jessica stood guard with the stick, casting a wary eye about the cars and jumping at shadows.  Jon handed one of the helmets to Abby.  She slid it onto Claire’s head and started buckling it up.  Once on, she knocked on the top twice and gave Claire a thumbs up and a smile.  Claire returned the gesture, her face stoic.

“You ready?”  Abby turned to Jon.

Jon was already straddling his bike, strapping his own helmet on.  He also gave Abby a thumbs up.  Abby then lifted Claire up and put her on the back of the bike behind Jon.

“You hold on tight,” she told Claire.  “You wrap your arms around Jon’s waist and you don’t let go for anything, got it?”

Claire nodded, the helmet on her head bobbling around slightly.  She wrapped her arms tightly around Jon.  Jon didn’t complain and started up the engine, then balanced the bike and kicked up the kickstand.  It wasn’t surprising that he was just as eager to go as Abby was to see them off.

“I’ll see you there!” Abby once again reassured Claire, even though she had to shout to be heard over the roar of the engine.

Jon gave another thumbs up, then started moving forward.  He lifted up his legs and the bike sped away towards the exit.  Abby started walking after it.

“You’re serious about meeting them at the hospital?”  Jessica started following after Abby.

“Of course.  Claire saw some horrible things; she needs a friend, not strangers.  I’m going to be there for her.”

Jessica sighed.  “All right.  Well, I’m coming with you.”

Abby stopped.  “No, you don’t need to do that.”

“I don’t need to, but I am anyway.  You shouldn’t be walking around out there alone.  Besides, that Mark kid had a point: there’ll be officers at the hospital.  It should be safe there.”

Abby nodded.  “All right then.”

“But I get to hold onto this.”  Jessica clutched the field hockey stick to her as they started heading toward the exit.

Neither of them wanted to think about what might have become of Mark, but both of them did.

5:

Riley

“Dr. Bishop!  Dr. Bishop, they need you!”  Nurse Masters burst into the suture room, scaring the hell out of the patient Riley was stitching up.

“What is it, Masters?” Riley calmly asked without looking up from her work.  Dr. Riley Bishop didn’t like working at the same time as Masters, who had a tendency to over-exaggerate things, which could get very frustrating in an ER.

“Some guy just walked in through the ambulance bay doors.  He’s bleeding to death.”  Nurse Masters ran back out of the room.

Riley sighed and looked up at her patient with an apologetic smile.  “Do you mind waiting one more moment?”

“Go ahead.”  The patient, who was getting his hand sutured after it had been sliced open by a broken pane of glass, looked extremely worried.  A lot of patients who came into the ER did, but nurses freaking out always made them worse.

“Thank you.”  Riley got up and headed out of the room, stripping off her gloves as she went.  She tossed them into the disposal bin outside the door as she headed toward the receiving bay.

There was a large ruckus going on, so Riley picked up the pace.  Maybe Masters wasn’t exaggerating for once.

“What happened?” Riley asked Dr. Cender, a younger resident, as she got closer.

“Guy came in with his guts hanging out,” Cender filled her in.  “He started fighting people.  He’s probably on PCP.  Mason, Anderson, and Guiles are trying to subdue him, but he’s a real fighter, this one.  Help me get this gurney over there.”

Riley Bishop pushed her way into the crowd of people standing around.  She pulled the gurney behind her while Cender directed it from behind.

“Step aside!  Step aside!”  Riley shoved people out of the way.  “Doctors coming through!”

Riley got through the mass of people.  She was surprised when she saw the scene on the other side.  Dr. Anderson and the biggest male nurse in the ER, Mason, were trying to bring down a giant six foot six patient, while Guiles, another resident, was trying to find an opening in which to stick him with a needle full of something.  The man’s guts were indeed hanging out, but he also had a major laceration down one forearm, nearly cleaving it in two, and what looked like a massive crush injury to his skull.  The gutted giant roared and grabbed Dr. Anderson, who had been hanging off his back, swung him around and bit down hard into the doctor’s arm.  Anderson cried out and collapsed to the floor.  Mason and Guiles grabbed Anderson and dragged him over to Riley and Cender, and out of harm’s way.  The patient attempted to pursue, but tripped over his own entrails, hitting the ground hard.  However, he immediately started to get back up as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

“Goddamn biters!” Anderson yelled out, cradling his arm.  “Why is everyone biting these days?”

Riley knew what he meant.  Over the last few days, there had been a record number of people coming in with bite wounds to their hands, arms, legs, face, wherever.  A few psych patients were also brought in who would continuously try to bite you despite sedation, restraints, and anything else you could think of.  Not even close family members could get through to them.  Their loved ones didn’t even have any ideas about why they had begun acting that way.  Last Riley heard, the crazies were still going; they didn’t even sleep.  This giant of a patient was looking like one of them, except he also looked like he had lost a fight with a lawnmower first.

“How have you not gotten him yet?” Cender asked Guiles.

Dr. Haily Guiles was fast.  She had always managed to get quick and precise needle injections into problem patients.  She was also fantastic at finding veins, which made her a huge asset in the ER, specifically during problem cases like this one.

“I did.”  She pulled Anderson behind the gurney as the big man got up and came at them again.  Riley, Mason, and Cender placed the gurney between them and the crazed patient.  He hit into its side and tried to reach them over the top.  The three of them held the gurney against him while the giant swung his arms at them.  They had to duck out of reach.

“What do you mean?”  Cender narrowly avoided a swipe.  It seemed the giant couldn’t bend at the waist very well, which was in their favour.

“Just what she said.”  Nurse Mason ducked down and braced his shoulders against the gurney’s frame.  “She already got him twice with haldol.  Five c.c.s each time. It hasn’t had the slightest effect.”

“I have an idea.”  Riley left the others to struggle against the gurney.  She ran into the doctor’s lounge and did a quick search.  She found what she was looking for.  There was a fire hose in the lounge, in a glass case.  She pulled open the case and yanked out the hose, pulling out plenty of slack.  Grabbing the nozzle, Riley left by the other door, which came out behind the drugged-up giant.

“Cender!  Catch!”  Riley threw the hose nozzle at Dr. Cender.

He narrowly avoided getting grabbed by the giant and caught the nozzle.  “What am I supposed to do with this?  I don’t think hosing him down will do anything!  It would just get him wet!”

Riley moved fast and placed herself behind the man’s other shoulder, glad that he hadn’t noticed her yet.  If he figured out that she was there, he might be able to turn her into a pancake.  “Pass it back!”

Cender threw the nozzle like a football.  Riley caught it, gathered up the slack, and ran to the other side of the man again.  The giant paid no attention to the thick band of hose that was now pulled against his middle, right over the gut-spewing hole.  Riley threw the nozzle back at Cender.  Cender clued in to what she was doing and once again threw it around the other side.  They kept tossing the nozzle back and forth until the hose was thoroughly wrapped around the giant.

“Okay, it should be safe to let go of the gurney!” Riley told the boys.

Mason and Cender quickly backed off, helping Guiles move Anderson.  The man tried to follow after them, arms reaching out, but the hose wrapped around his belly had no slack and held him tightly in place.

“Great thinking, Dr. Bishop.  Now get the hell out of there before he turns around,”  Anderson commanded.

Riley quickly ducked back into the lounge.  Just in case the injured giant decided to try and get in there, she hauled one of the couches over and placed it in front of the door.  It might not stop a man of his size, but it would at least slow him down and warn anyone who might be in the room.  Riley headed back out the first door to the others.  Mason and Masters were already getting all the patients to go back to the waiting room, or the exam rooms, or wherever it was they were supposed to be.  Guiles had helped Anderson up on a stool and was looking at his wound.  Cender continued to look at the giant, who kept trying to reach Cender despite being wrapped up.  His arms swiped furiously at the air and he roared in anger.

“You okay, Anderson?” Riley asked as Guiles started to clean the bite.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Anderson grumped.  “That was quick thinking.  Now how do you suggest we treat this guy?”

“No idea,” Riley shrugged.

“Well we certainly can’t keep him where he is.  He’s in the way of the ambulance bay.”  Guiles pointed out the obvious.

“Hey, Riley, come look at this.”  Cender waved her over.

“What is it, Joshua?”  Cender had used her first name, so she used his.  Neither of them liked their first names for their own personal reasons.  The two of them were similar in a handful of ways.  Outwardly, they were the same height and had the same shade of brown hair.  Although Riley’s was long and in a tight, French braid, while Cender’s was short enough that he didn’t even need to comb it.  She also had more defined facial features, while his had a rounded look.  Both were physically fit with good muscle tone, and both had long eyelashes.  They were also both calm by nature, but Riley took things a lot more seriously than Cender.  Cender’s skin was also a few shades darker.

“Check out this blood.”  Cender crouched down near the floor.

Riley walked over and crouched down next to him.  Cender was inspecting a patch of the huge man’s blood that had managed to splatter a safe distance away from him.

“We’ll have to call housekeeping once we move him,” Riley sighed, looking at the mess.  Why the man wasn’t dead was amazing.  Some days, the ER was a fascinating place.

“Yeah, but look at it.  Like, really look at it,” Cender insisted.  He clearly wanted Riley to see something for herself as opposed to just outright telling her.  That was something she normally did to him.

Riley inspected the blood more thoroughly.  “It’s clotted.  Blood clots you know?”

“Yeah, but this is super clotted.  Like, way more coagulated than I think it should be.”  Cender nodded.

“So what?  Not only should this guy be dead, but he is dead?”  Riley shook her head.  It was absurd.  The man probably just had a large clot trying to form somewhere in that mess of a gut of his and during the struggle it fell out.  It was odd, but there was sure to be a rational explanation for it.

A pounding of feet sounded down the hallway as a team of security guards finally rushed over.

“You’re a little late, guys,” Riley told them.

“Whoa!”  One of them took an unconscious step back when he saw the man.

Masters walked back over then, looking a lot calmer than she did earlier.  “Dr. Bishop, you should probably get back to suturing that man.”

“Right.”  Riley stood up and turned to the security guards.  “I subdued him to the best of my abilities, now it’s your job to move him.”  She then turned to Cender.  “Don’t you have other patients to see?  I’m sure that Anderson and Guiles have got this one.”

“Yes, Chief!”  Cender saluted.  He’d been doing that ever since Riley got named as chief resident a couple of months ago.  He then dashed off to see another patient.  After making sure, one more time that Anderson was fine, and nearly getting her head bitten off because he said he was, Riley headed back to her original suture patient.

“What happened out there?” the patient asked while Riley put on a new pair of gloves.

“Nothing to worry about, just an unruly patient.”  Dr. Riley Bishop gave him her best reassuring smile, which probably wasn’t that reassuring.  “Now where were we?”

Riley sat back down on the stool that she had vacated earlier and looked at the patient’s hand.  She cleaned the area again, and finished off her suturing.  Once done, she gave the patient instructions on caring for the area and told him when he should come back to have the stitches taken out.  He was then discharged, and Riley left the room to go check on the others and pick up another patient.  Instead, she found a group of nurses around the TV.

“Hey, what’s going on?  Someone die on one of your soaps?” Riley joked.  Sort of.  The nurses watched a lot of soap operas.  Riley thought it was rather cliché.

“No, something’s happening at the charity concert,” one of the nurses filled her in.

Riley frowned and looked at the TV.  On it, a reporter was talking about something while a crowd of people panicked in the background.  The reporter’s lips were moving, but nothing could be heard.

“Can we get some volume?” Riley asked the nurses.

“No one can find the remote,” one of them sighed.

The nurses didn’t want any patients screwing with the TV, so they had disabled all the buttons on it.  This meant though, that without the remote, no one could change the channel or the volume.  The remote was supposed to be kept at the admit desk, but was always being found someplace else.

“Okay, okay.”  Anderson broke up the crowd.  “We’re the closest hospital to that park, so we’re going to be getting a lot of injured people in here soon.  We need to prepare, let’s go.”

All the nurses broke away and got busy.

“What about Mr. Friendly?”  Riley hiked a thumb over to where the giant had been.

“The security guards managed to move him elsewhere,” Anderson told her as he led the way to the trauma rooms.

“How?”  Riley had always been curious about everything.  Maybe that’s why she chose emergency medicine.  Curious things always happened there.

“Not without a few bumps, bruises, and a second bite.”  Anderson absently scratched at the bandage covering his own.  “Apparently, when they got him loose, he ran after one of the guards.  The guard managed to lead him into an empty room, get out, and lock the door behind him.”

“I can’t believe that guy can even stay conscious, let alone keep attacking people so violently.  This seems like beyond what PCP can do,” Riley thought about it.  “Maybe there’s some new drug on the street.  Maybe those other patients who won’t go down took it as well.”

“I thought that too.  It is a possibility.”  Anderson handed Riley a gown.

“So what’s the plan?”  Riley put the gown on along with a pair of safety goggles and a fresh pair of gloves.

“We’re likely to be getting a lot of patients, so we’ll have to work fast and get them out as quickly as possible.”  Anderson broke down the game plan, “I’ll be taking trauma room 1, Ford is going to take trauma room 2, and I’d like you in trauma room 3.”

“All right.  Who’s doing triage?”

“I think Brown should be on it.”

“You sure he can handle it?”  Brown was only a med student.  Gifted, but still a student.

“There’ll be nurses, residents, and attendings all over the place, just in case.”

“If we’re expecting a lot, we should put Cender and Guiles together in the suture room.  Turn it into a makeshift trauma room.”

“We’re likely to need them in here, but it’s an option.”

Mason walked into the room.  “The first ambulance just called in.  Sounds like multiple crush injuries.  They think she was trampled.  ETA two minutes.”

“So close?”  Anderson and Riley quickly followed Mason out of the trauma room.

“Apparently they’re having some radio disturbance out there, so no one is co-ordinated.  They were just able to call in through the static now,” Mason shrugged.

“Okay.  Dr. Bishop, you take the crush injury.  I’m going to give everyone their jobs.”  Anderson once again scratched at his bandage.

“Sure thing,”  Riley started toward the ambulance bay,  “and try to get the next shift to come in early.  The more the merrier, right?”

Anderson gave her a thumbs up as she disappeared down the halls.  All over the ER everybody was moving quickly to prepare for the coming patients.  Even the drunk, who often came in and caused a fuss, knew something was up and shut his mouth accordingly.

“Need some help with this one?”  Dr. Cender met up with Riley at the doors.

“Sure thing.”  Riley led Cender outside.  They stood in the bay waiting, both of them shifting feet due to an energy build for what was coming.  “If we get way too swamped with traumas, I told Anderson to put you and Guiles in the suture room as a make-shift trauma room.”

“Really?”  Cender smiled broadly.

“Guiles would be in charge though.”  Riley raised an eyebrow at him.  It did nothing against Cender’s smile.

The ambulance arrived in the bay, sirens screaming.  It backed up near the doors and the paramedics jumped out.  Cender and Riley ran over to meet them.

“This the trampled female?” Riley asked as the back doors of the ambulance burst open.

“What?”  The paramedic shook her head.  “No.  Male, hit by a bus.”

They wheeled the patient out of the back of the ambulance.

* * *

Riley didn’t know how much time had passed as she worked.  Once that first patient showed up, they just kept coming.  She saw patient after patient, face after face.  Tramplings, auto accidents, stabs, bites, and gunshots.  One man had fallen off a building, another down an opened sewer grate.  One girl came in with her right arm completely ripped off.  She had fallen just as the subway train had arrived.  They started getting more walk-ins than paramedic rescues as people came in off the streets.  Blood, sweat, and broken bones.

And crazies.  More and more crazies just kept showing up.  Thankfully, they weren’t as big as the giant was, and some were slow and dim-witted.  A lot of people got bitten by them before they could be restrained.  Riley thought she heard a nurse at one point saying that they were nearly out of bits and gags to jam into their mouths.  Supposedly, one of the patients in the waiting room stopped a crazy from biting another by using his sock.

One of the people who ended up under Dr. Riley Bishop’s care had a massive fever along with his life-threatening wounds.  It was off the charts; his brain should have boiled.  He flat-lined and Riley pronounced him dead.  As he was being wheeled out to make room though, he suddenly woke up and started thrashing.  He had become like one of the crazies.

They wheeled him back over for Riley to keep working on him.  He was still hooked up to the heart monitor though and he was still flat-lined.  He was one of the slower crazies and with Mason’s help, Riley was able to take a pulse.  She found none.  She used her stethoscope to listen for a heart beat or breath sounds.  She found none of those either.  Just an eerie, hollow silence.  By all accounts, the man was dead.  Riley backed away from him, breathing hard.  She had finally come to realize something.

“Dear God, he was right,” Riley muttered to herself.

“Dr. Bishop?”  Mason looked at her with concern.  “Riley, you okay?”

The man on the bed managed to sink his teeth into Mason’s hand while he was distracted.  Mason swore and shoved the man back down.  Riley ran from the room, her heart racing.  She stripped off her gloves, gown, and goggles and headed for the drug lockup.  There was chaos everywhere.  Crazies were everywhere.  Riley now knew they weren’t really crazy though.  She didn’t want to believe.  It was a hard thing to believe, but she couldn’t ignore what she saw.  What she knew.

No one noticed when Riley grabbed a box and started filling it with drugs and bandages.  Or if they did, they just thought she was restocking the trauma room.  The doctors, nurses, paramedics, and police officers were all busy handling the patients.  Some of the patients causing problems weren’t even… the others.  Riley wasn’t ready to use the word her dad had taught her.  After filling the box, she made her way toward the ambulance bay.  Outside the doors were a few ambulances, one just off-loading a patient, others waiting for the paramedics to return.  Riley climbed into the back of one of the empty ones and took stock of the supplies there.  She put down her box in the back and went to the rear doors.  She swung one of them closed and it made a hard smacking sound

“Bishop?”  Cender suddenly appeared around the side of the ambulance, in front of the remaining open rear door.

“Cender, were you bitten?”  Riley was a little frantic.  More than a little, actually.  Her body was running on a kind of autopilot while her mind played catch-up.

“Bitten?”  Cender was confused, he didn’t know.  “Riley, what are you doing?”

“Were you bitten?” Riley shouted.

This took Cender aback as she was usually a calm person.  “No, no.  What-?”

Riley wouldn’t let him finish.  “Get in the rig, Cender.”

“Why…?”

Riley was getting impatient.  “Get in the rig, Josh!”

Dr. Joshua Cender climbed up into the back of the ambulance with her, his face bunched up in confusion.  Riley closed the other door and headed for the driver’s seat.  To her pleasant surprise, the keys had been left in the ignition.  Riley sat down and started up the engine.  She was beginning to pull out of the bay when Cender got into the seat next to her.

“What the hell, Riley?”  Cender was upset as he buckled in.  Riley didn’t bother.  “Where are we going?  We’re not paramedics; we don’t go get people from the field.”

“Shut up, I’m saving your life.”  Riley pulled out into the street.  Cars were jammed everywhere, but the constant string of ambulances and police cars coming through the area had left a clear lane.

“What do you mean by that?”  Cender calmed a little.  But only a little.  It was likely that he was trying to calm Riley down.

“Do you remember when I told you my parents were nuts?”  Riley carefully scanned the streets, inching the rig along slowly, so as not to risk hitting any pedestrians.

“Yeah, you said they were crazy,” Cender nodded,  “a harmless crazy, but crazy nonetheless.”

“Yeah, well, I was wrong.  They were right.  Terribly right.”  Riley’s voice cracked slightly.  It even surprised her when it did that.

“What were they right about?”

“That the end of the world was coming.”

Cender blinked in silence a few times.  “Umm…  This craziness they have…  It’s not from a gene is it?”

“No, Cender, I’m not crazy.”  Riley turned down the corners of her mouth and turned the rig down a side street.  It was a street that headed away from the park and didn’t have as clear a path as the others.  “Where’s the siren on this thing?”

Cender turned it on but didn’t take his eyes off her.  “It’s not the end of the world, Riley.”

“Maybe not the world, but our way of life is certainly going to change.”  She got the ambulance to jump the curb to get past the abandoned vehicles.

“Why?  How is it changing?”

“Look around, Cender.  Look around us right now.”

Cender did.  He saw the abandoned cars, the panicked and lost people, the fear, and even one of the attackers.

“We’re not close to the park right now,” Riley pointed out.

“You were working a long time,” Cender rebutted.  “People have had time to run, hell, even walk, this far.”

“Then why are the attacks still occurring?” Riley asked.  “They’re only increasing in numbers, getting worse.  Why did the attack happen to begin with?  If it was a terrorist thing, why is it spilling out this far?”

Cender shrugged.  “What started you thinking about all this?”

Riley sighed.  “A patient.”

“What?  A patient mentioned it to you?”

“No, he flat-lined.”

“So did several others today.”

“He flat-lined, and then he became conscious again.”

“You misdiagnosed is all.”

Riley shook her head.  “What were you doing most of the day?  What kind of patients did you work on?”

“I was doing a lot of suturing.  A lot of people came in with various lacerations, so I stitched them up and sent them out to get them out of our way.”

“So you didn’t see any of the patients in the trauma rooms?  You didn’t see anyone who died?”

“No,” Cender admitted.  He seemed almost disappointed by that fact.  Almost.

“I had a man come in.  He had been shot several times in the chest, and had a fever of 110.”

“110?”

“I checked three times.  I tried my best to save him, but his injuries were too severe.  He flat-lined and I couldn’t bring him back.  I pronounced, and Mason started to wheel him out.  The man started to thrash and convulse.  Mason brought him back over.  He tried to bite people, like those crazies we’ve been getting lately.  In fact, he managed to bite Mason.”

“Maybe he was on the same drug.  Perhaps one of the side effects is a temporary loss of vitals.”

“I thought that too.  I checked for a pulse, breath sounds, and a heart beat.  I found none.  No signs of life.”

“None?”

“Has anyone been able to check for those things on the other patients?”

“Not that I know of.”  Cender was clearly trying to consider other possibilities by the look on his face.

“Do you really think a drug could cause all that, for that long?”  Riley pushed him to open his mind.  “You saw the giant this morning, the congealed blood.  We should have noticed it then, but he wasn’t bleeding as much as he should have been with those wounds.  Most of the blood on the floor got there from his guts being dragged around on it.”

“So what are you saying?  That he had no heart beat?”  Cender laughed.

“Yes.”  Riley didn’t find it very funny.

Cender’s laughter died in the face of her seriousness.  “What are you thinking?  What are you trying to get at?”

“You won’t believe me if I tell you.”  Riley wanted him to think of it on his own, but she wasn’t sure he could.

“If I won’t believe you, then let me at least hear your thoughts to give me something to think over.”

“Zombies,” Riley finally spoke her thought out loud.  Doing so made even her doubt it, but there was so much evidence.

“Zombies?”  A grin tugged at the corners of Cender’s mouth.  He was trying hard not to smile, not to laugh.

“If I’m going to be honest with you, yes.  I think it’s some sort of infection that makes people very similar to zombies.”

The grin made it through onto Cender’s face.

“Think of the facts,” Riley frowned.  “Increase in human bite wounds.  A violent insanity.  Desensitisation to wounds of all kinds.  Congealed blood and vitals with no signs of life.  And it’s spreading.  Today was just the boiling point, when the number of infected became so high that they’ve spilled out into the public light.”

Cender sat in silence.  He faced the passenger window, so Riley couldn’t see if he was still grinning or not.

“And your parents said this would happen?” Cender spoke with an emotion that Riley didn’t recognise.

“Not this exactly, but they always said something along these lines would happen.”  Riley turned another corner.  As they headed away from the centre of the city, there were more people still driving in their cars.  More moving lanes.

“So what are we doing right now?”  Cender’s use of the word ‘we,’ didn’t escape Riley’s attention.  Maybe he was starting to believe on some level.  “Why did you abandon the hospital?  Abandon our friends?”

“No offence, Cender, but I would have abandoned you too if you hadn’t shown up when you did,” Riley admitted.  Some inner part of her got mad about that.  She couldn’t tell though if the anger was for bringing him, or for almost leaving him behind.

“Why?”  Cender turned to face her.  His face was completely unreadable, a rare occurrence.

“It’s just the way I was brought up.  Save myself first, others second.”

“And you became a doctor with that motto?”

“I was hoping to bury that side of me.  I guess I haven’t succeeded yet.”

“So where are we going?”  Cender looked back out the window.

“My house.”  Riley was relieved he had looked away.  She felt as if his eyes were boring holes through her.  “I have useful supplies there.  I also want to call my brother.  He works north of here as a pilot, flying wilderness tours.  He has a plane that can get us to my parents’ place.  If he hasn’t left already.”

“Why your parents?”

“I told you, they saw this coming.  They’re prepared.”  Riley finally got on a street that led straight out of the city.  “But that’s secondary.  My house should be safe for a while.  The infection shouldn’t be as bad in the suburbs.”

“Pull over.”

“What?”

“I said pull over.”

Riley didn’t like where this was going, but she drove the rig onto the curb and stopped.  Cender opened his door.

“Where are you going?”  Riley thought she might know but asked anyway.

“Back to the hospital.”

“Why?  I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t say you were.  Part of me believes you, despite how insane it all sounds.  The difference between you and me, though, is that I can’t just abandon everyone.  If you’re right, they need to be warned.  You said you’re going to your place, right?”

“Yeah.”

Cender opened the glove box and dug around inside.  He found a map and a pen and handed them to Riley.  “Mark it on here.  I’ll convince the others and try to meet you there.  Then we’ll go north together.”

Riley quickly marked her home on the map and handed it back.  “I won’t wait for you.  At least not for long.”

“Just give me a day, two at most.”  Cender gave her a smile that wasn’t as warm as it usually was.  It was deeper though.

“One at most.”

“Fine.”  Cender put the folded map into a pocket and hopped out onto the street.  He was about to shut the door.

“Cender?”

“Yes?”  Cender held off on closing the door.

“Be careful, okay?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll radio another ambulance to try and pick you up.”

“Thanks.”  Cender slammed the door closed.  As he started up the street, Riley called in his location over the scratchy radio.  She watched him walk away in the rear-view mirror for a moment, wondering if it were the last time she would see him.  He was the closest thing to a friend that she had ever really had.  Then she pulled away from the curb and headed towards suburbia.

6:

Danny

Danny Cole was shot in the back by BioCat87 with a shotgun.  He died instantly.

“Oh, come on!” Danny shouted.  “Where the hell did they come from?  Guys, one got in the base, they have a shotgun.”

“I got it,” the voice of TheLastLemon came through the earpiece on Danny’s head.

Danny grumbled, but grinned sadistically to himself as he watched Lemon take out BioCat87 on his kill cam.  She used a shotgun as well, which made the vengeance even sweeter.  Lemon was good at this.  For a girl, anyway.

His game avatar, which he named Hfant, re-spawned on the screen.  He directed Hfant over toward his team’s base where he planned to pick up the weapons off his own character’s dead body.  They weren’t great weapons, but they were better than the defaults everybody spawned with.  A set of numbers popped up in the corner of the screen just as he retrieved them.

“Ah crap, guys, this has to be last game,” Danny sighed into his microphone.

“What?  But I just got on!” JimmyHaHa20k complained.

“Yeah, well, the timer just popped up.”  Danny compared the new and ugly green numbers to the time left on the clock for the game.  He had enough time to finish this one, but not to start and finish another.

“I can’t believe your mom put a timer on you,” Lemon laughed.

“She’s not my mom,” Danny grumbled.

“Your babysitter then.”  Lemon knew Danny’s living arrangements, but liked to poke fun at him anyway.  That’s what happened when you were the youngest member on the team, no matter how skilled and polite you were compared to the rest of your age group.

“Will you be able to get on later?” BaybeFayce asked.

“Maybe.”  Danny finally got his character over to where it needed to be in the central area of the game map.  “Luca is going to some birthday party tonight, so I might be able to get his time slot.”

“Cool.  Now would you mind going and stealing their flag for me?” Pyromaniac1234, the last member of the team, asked from his perch.  He was a great sniper and put a lot of pressure on the other team.  Danny was actually fourth string sniper on the team.  The only player he was better than was Lemon, but that was because she liked the up-close and personal weapons like the shotgun.

“Sure thing.  Should I go up the river side or through the caves?”  Danny moved his character up a hill in the middle of the map from where he’d be able to see both routes.

“Actually, go straight up the middle,” Pyro instructed him,  “it’s clear right now.”

“You better cover me.  Jimmy, where are you right now?”

“Behind the rock behind their base,” Jimmy told him.  A little icon hovered over his head to indicate he was indeed over there.  “I’m waiting for you though.”

“Good.”  Danny continued to play his game with his online friends.  He played a lot and by now, he and his team worked like a well-oiled machine.  If he didn’t have to share the system with the other kids in the house, he would spend all day online.  His teacher once told him he needed to make friends with the other kids in his class.  What she didn’t understand though, was that he had enough friends here.  And they remained his friends no matter how many times he had to move.

The game ended with his team winning by one point in overtime.  He said bye to his friends and turned off the system with less than a minute left on the counter.  His stomach decided to remind him of its existence then, so he got up off the living room floor and went into the kitchen.

“Emma, I’m done with the Xbox if you want the TV,” he mumbled to a girl sitting on a stool.  She was the same age as him, but taller.  Being a girl meant she got her growth spurt first, which made Danny kind of jealous.  He had always been the short kid.  It didn’t help that Danny wasn’t particularly fond of Emma to begin with.  He thought she was strange.  Her hair was super long and frazzled all the time, kept in check only by the hair-bands she always wore.  She also had glasses that made her eyes look too big and braces on her teeth.  And she wore sundresses a lot, which Danny thought of as old people clothes, not teenager clothes.  He tried not to think in stereotypes, but she was a stereotypical nerd.

Not like he could really say anything though.  He had been called a geek several times because of his love of video games.  In fact, he was wearing a blue T-shirt branded with the logo of his favourite game right now.  Games and military stuff were his only real interests.

“Great!  Just in time for my show.”  Emma jumped off the stool and left for the living room, leaving the homework she had been working on sitting on the counter.

Danny opened the fridge and looked around inside.  He dug around behind juices and containers of salad.  It didn’t look like they had any pop left, but he found a leftover hamburger from the night before.  It was probably the one made for Jon; he was on some vegetarian kick for some girl, so he had refused to eat it.

Danny took the burger apart and microwaved the meat.  While it was revolving, getting nuked, he prepared his choice of condiments: a slice of cheese, some lettuce, ketchup, mustard, and relish.  There was no bacon, but he did find some bacon bits he thought would do nicely.  When the meat finished reheating, he threw the whole thing together. While he took the first bite, he walked over and looked at Emma’s homework.  Gross, she was doing algebra.  Emma was such a nerd, she willingly took summer classes.

Trigonometry, geology, geography, history, those were all classes Danny enjoyed.  They would actually be useful to him one day.  As soon as he turned eighteen, he planned on joining the army, just as his older brother, Mathias, had done.  Mathias wasn’t even against it.  In fact, he was saving up money to send Danny to a good military school.  For now though, it was foster homes.

This home wasn’t too bad.  Certainly in the upper bracket.  He hated having to share the TV and video game system, but over all, it was pretty good.  He liked the other kids who lived there.  Emma was a total nerd, but she was very good at helping him with his homework.  Jon was sixteen and had his own motorcycle, which was the coolest thing ever, although he never let Danny near it.  Luca was the popular kid at school and a year older, but he liked a lot of the same stuff Danny did.  The little kids, Joan, Nelly, and John with an H, were actually well behaved.  That was the biggest surprise about this place.  Beth and Holly, the two women who ran the home, were pretty cool about most things.  They were just very strict about making sure everybody shared.  This included Danny’s game system, which Mathias had gotten him for Christmas the year it came out.  At least he got his own room.  The last place he was at, he could use his system whenever he wanted and for as long as he wanted, but he had to share his room with this annoying twerp who always bugged him when he played.

Danny Cole walked with his burger into the living room.  Emma was watching some show on the Discovery channel.  He stood and watched a few minutes of it while he ate his burger, but it wasn’t that interesting.  Sometimes the Discovery channel had good stuff on, just not at that moment.  When he finished, he headed upstairs, not knowing what to do for the rest of the day.  Luca was the only one that he kind of liked to hang out with, but he was at a friend’s house and from there, would be going over to some other kid’s birthday party.  Popular kids always had a lot of social engagements.  Jon was also gone, hanging out with his friend Mark, and Beth and Holly had taken the three little kids to the playground.  Only he and Emma were still in the house.

He entered his room and flopped down on his bed.  He wanted to call Mathias but couldn’t.  Mathias’s job required him to stay at some facility practically 24/7.  It also required that he live there without any family, which was why Danny had to stay in foster homes.  He did come see him every now and then, and he called, but Danny hadn’t heard from him in the past week and a half.  He’d be worried if it hadn’t happened before.  Something would go wrong at the facility and they would shut down the phone lines.  Danny didn’t actually know what Mathias did; just that it involved guarding secrets.  He liked to imagine what those secrets were. Ancient artifacts of destruction maybe.  Or perhaps alien technology.  Government-related secrets for sure.

Eventually, Danny fell asleep and dreamed of sea monsters in the sewers.

* * *

When Danny woke up, his mouth tasted gross and tacky, as it always did when he fell asleep during the day.  He wandered over to the bathroom and brushed his teeth.  After that, he decided to go downstairs and find out what Emma was doing.  Maybe he should start on his own summer reading…  Nah.

He made a lot of noise going down the stairs, letting his feet fall heavily, thumping along.  When he reached the bottom, he gave a jaw-cracking yawn and headed back into the living room where Emma was still planted on the couch.  He collapsed down next to her.  TV was better than nothing, even if it was boring TV.

“The timer’s up,” Danny pointed out.  At least now, he knew how long he’d been asleep.

“That’s fine.  John with an H’s time is up next and I know his code,” Emma told him.  Everyone in the house called him John with an H to distinguish him from Jon without an H.

The TV was programmed to shut off at certain times of the day.  To get it to work again, you needed a code, and different codes corresponded with different times of the day.  Everyone in the house had their own code and agreed-to time slot that was posted on the fridge.  If you wanted to use the TV outside of your slot, you had to ask the person whose turn it was.  It was actually a good system when they were all home, but when you were alone in the house with nothing to do, it sucked.

“When did you learn his code?”  Danny didn’t know anyone’s but his own.  He was planning on calling Luca later and asking for his, though.

“I learned it months ago.  I also know Joan’s and Nelly’s.  The little ones aren’t very good at keeping theirs a secret.”

They watched until the timer ended.  When it did, Emma picked up the controller and punched in the numbers.  Danny just got to see a bunch of asterisks on the screen.  Once the code was in, the TV came back on.  The next show coming on the Discovery channel was about haunted houses.  Danny thought it might actually be interesting.

“Since this is neither of our times, we have to agree on what we watch,” Emma stated.  She was always as diplomatic as possible.  Or maybe she was just unsure of her decisions.  It was always hard to tell things like that with teenagers.  Even when you were one yourself.

“This is fine.”  Danny almost never watched TV, so he had no idea what kind of shows would be on around now.  He would rather not surf around looking for something they could both agree on.

“Okay.”  Emma put the remote down on the empty cushion between them.

The show wasn’t as interesting as Danny had hoped, but it still had its moments.  It was mostly about scientific stuff that happened in houses that caused people to mistake them for being haunted.

It was about halfway through the show when they heard an explosive shatter toward the back of the house, from the kitchen.  Emma jumped several feet out of her seat at the sudden crash.  Danny maybe half as high.

“What was that?” Emma tried to sound calm but her voice wavered slightly.

“I don’t know,” Danny shrugged.  “Maybe a dish or something wasn’t put away right and just fell over.”

“That sounded louder than a dish,” Emma pointed out.

“Maybe a racoon got in.”  Danny got up off the couch.

“I hope not, racoons can carry disease.”  Emma also got up and followed closely behind Danny as he headed for the kitchen.

“Careful, there’s broken glass,” Danny noted the sparkles dancing off the floor.  Each piece glinted in the bright sunlight giving the illusion that the floor was made out of something much nicer than linoleum.  “It definitely wasn’t a dish.”  There was too much glass for that.

“Look.”  Emma pointed past Danny.

Danny hadn’t noticed, since he was looking at the floor, but the sliding glass door that led out into the backyard was shattered.  The screen was ripped and torn down as well.  There was movement out of the corner of Danny’s eye.  He looked over quickly to see the door leading into the dining room swing closed.  It was the kind of door on swing hinges with no latch, and only required you to push your way through.

“Something got in,” Danny told Emma as the door slowed its swinging to a halt.

Emma made a sound of displeasure in the back of her throat.  Her hands rose up and clutched the small silver cross she always wore around her neck.

“Come on, we have to find out what it is.”  Danny grabbed a broom from a nearby cupboard.  “Watch your feet.”

Danny led the way over to the swing door.  Thankfully, the island counter in the middle of the kitchen had prevented most of the glass from covering their route.

“What if it’s a coyote?” Emma whispered at Danny’s back.  “I don’t think a racoon could get through the glass door.”

“I don’t think a coyote could either.”  Danny had meant that to be reassuring, but it did the complete opposite.  It even worried Danny.

They reached the door, and Danny placed his hand on it.  He took a deep breath and pushed his way through, the broom held out in front of him.  The dining room was empty.

A loud thumping suddenly filled the house.  Something was running up the stairs, and then down the halls up there.  It stopped roughly around Beth and Holly’s room.

“What was that?” Emma squeaked.

“I think someone is in the house,” Danny was whispering now too.  “Get the phone.”

The two young teenagers backed into the kitchen once more, eyes on the ceiling.  If they hadn’t gone to investigate the breaking glass, they would have seen the intruder pass by the living room on his way to the stairs, but then the intruder might have seen them too.

Emma grabbed the cordless phone out of its wall charger and handed it to Danny who dialed 911.  His answer was a continuous beeping.

“It’s busy,” Danny frowned.  He tried again but got the same answer.

“How can it be busy?” Emma matched his frown, a line appearing between her eyebrows.

“I don’t know, but I think we should leave the house.”  Danny put the phone back.

Emma turned her head to the back door but Danny grabbed her arm.

“Not that way,” Danny actually scolded her.  “You’re sure to cut open your feet.  We have to use the front door.”

However, that meant going past the stairs.  Danny carefully pushed the door open again and checked that the coast was clear.  He waved for Emma to follow him.  They passed through the dining room and into the hall.  The entrance to the living room lay on their right and the stairs led up on their left.  They crept down the hall, closely watching the stairs.  The TV continued to jabber on about rats in the walls or something.  It certainly wasn’t a rat they had.  When they reached the front door, Danny slid his feet into his skater shoes, sockless.  Emma stepped into a pair of yellow flip-flops.  Danny leaned the broom against the wall and quickly turned to the front door while Emma hastily pulled it open.

Right outside the door stood a tall, skinny, black woman wearing an apron.  The apron was stained red with the blood pouring out of a jagged cut across her throat.

Emma screamed.  The woman reached an arm out to her, but Danny pulled Emma back in, out of the way.  He grabbed her hand and started running for the back of the house.  The thumping upstairs started again as the intruder made his way back to the stairs.  Now that they had footwear on, the glass posed little danger.  Danny pulled Emma over the field of glass and out into the backyard.  He saw this time, what he missed the first time due to the reflecting sunlight: small drops of blood amongst the glass.  They flew off the back porch and onto the green grass.

* * *

“Ow!” Emma cried out and stumbled sideways.

“What’s wrong?”  Danny helped her to keep from falling while eyeing the house.  He couldn’t see any movement in the kitchen.  For now.

“I think I twisted or sprained my ankle.”  Emma lifted her leg up trying to assess it visually.

“Well, as long as it’s not broken.  Come on.”  Danny swung Emma’s arm across his shoulders and helped her walk.  They hurried over to the back gate.  The backyard led into the yard of another house.  Danny unlocked their side of the gate and then reached through the fence slats to unlock the other side.  No one really knew their rearward neighbours, but the gate was installed in case of fire.  Or, as in this case, an intruder.  Several houses had them but they were mostly used by the older kids who would sneak around at night.

Once through, Danny shut and locked the gate behind them.  He then put Emma’s arm back across his shoulders and they hobbled across the lawn.

“Do you think someone’s home?” Emma asked as they crossed the yard.  The house ahead looked dark but on a bright summer day, that didn’t mean much.

“I don’t know.”  Danny kept glancing over the shoulder that wasn’t being used to help Emma.  He kept expecting to see some monstrous and gnarled hand slide through the slats to unlock the gate.  Something that belonged in the same realm as his sewer-dwelling sea monsters.

“Are you planning to stop and check?” Emma inquired as Danny directed them toward the side of the house.

“Do you think I should?”  Danny had no plan at this time, he was open to suggestions.

“Why not?  We can use their phone if they’re home.”

“Okay, I guess.”

They still made their way around the side of the house, not wanting to be in view of the gate.  This particular house had a side door, which was currently open and hanging off only one hinge.  They crept past it, carefully looking inside.  It opened onto the landing of a staircase leading into a basement.  There was blood on the door and frame as well as on the stairs.  A single light was coming from the basement.  A shadow passed in front of it.

Danny hurried them along.  The intruder had broken in through the back; it was possible he had made a pit stop at the neighbour’s place first.  For all they knew, it was one of the neighbours themselves who turned out to be a maniacal mass murderer.  And the woman at the door was an escaped victim.  Once they reached the front of the house, they made for the sidewalk, not even considering going to the front door.

“Danny, what’s going on?”  Emma’s eyes were filled with tears.

“You think I know?” Danny huffed and reset Emma’s weight on him.  Her being taller than him made it surprisingly harder.

“Where do we go?”

“That is a very good question.”  Danny looked up and down the street.  In one direction, he saw someone running across the street, being chased by two others.  Perhaps it wasn’t the neighbours.  “This way.”

They headed away from the people Danny had seen.  He didn’t know about Emma, but he was really uncomfortable with walking down the open sidewalk.  The thought of walking closer to the houses though, also made him uncomfortable.  Nowhere seemed like a safe place to be.

“Hey, do you have any friends in the area?”  Going to a familiar location didn’t sound too bad.

“No, do you?” Emma sounded hopeful.

“I don’t have any friends outside of the online ones.”  This was the first time Danny was ever bothered by that fact.  His friends were mostly in the United States.

“I know!”  Emma sounded almost cheerful, so hopefully she had a good idea.  “Luca’s at a friend’s house nearby, on the other side of the park.  We can meet up with Holly, Beth, and the little kids, and then walk over there together.”

Right, Holly and Beth weren’t that far and having adults to handle things sounded better than trying to make his own decisions right now.  “Good idea.  Let’s go.”

Thankfully, the playground was in the same direction they were already headed.  They hurried along as fast as Emma’s ankle would allow, which was frightfully slow.  Along the way, they saw a lot of other people outside.  Some were running.  Some because they were being chased.  A few were bloody and shambling along.  Danny didn’t like how they would turn and watch them go, taking a few steps in their direction and reaching their arms out.  The looks in their eyes didn’t suggest that they were asking for help.  One man they passed was kneeling between two cars parked on the street and he was praying to his God.  A couple of other people dashed between cars and bushes, trying to keep hidden like fearful rabbits.  Many of the houses they passed had broken windows or doors standing open.  Sometimes they would catch glimpses of movement beyond the windows or even hear a scream.  One house had a man standing on the front porch with a shotgun.  Danny thought about asking him for help, but as soon as the man noticed them, he pointed his gun at them.  The way he was looking, anything could set him off.  Danny decided to keep moving.  Eventually they came to a house that had a big grey husky tied up to a stake on the front lawn.

“Tugg?”  Emma looked at the dog.  It was living up to its name, pulling and struggling to get loose from the chain attaching it to a large metal peg in the ground.  When it heard its name, it turned toward them.  It looked at Emma with big, sad eyes, head lowered.  Its ears kept flicking between being flattened to its head and pointing at Emma.

“Danny stop.  I want to untie him.”  Emma slid her arm off Danny’s shoulders.  She hobbled and hopped her way over to the dog.  Once the dog got a whiff of her scent, it lifted its head up and broke out a happy smile.  It pulled at its restraints a few times trying to get closer to Emma, then whined.  When Emma finally reached the husky, she placed her hands on its head, stroking it reassuringly.

“There, there, boy,” Emma cooed,  “you’re all right.”

Danny remembered that Emma wanted to be a vet one day.  She loved animals a lot and was always asking for a cat or dog.  Nelly was allergic though, so Emma had only a pair of goldfish in one bowl and a beta fish in another.

“Hurry up, Emma.”  Danny didn’t like staying still.  He kept thinking he was hearing noises coming from the house.

“Done.”  Emma unclipped the chain from Tugg’s collar.  He licked her face.

“Gross.”  Danny wasn’t nearly so keen on animals.  “Come on.”

Emma got up and made her way back over to Danny.  She slung her arm over his shoulders and they continued down the street.  The park wasn’t too far now.  Tugg walked with them, staying at Emma’s side.

“So why do you know the dog’s name?”  Danny decided to start a conversation.  Maybe it would drown out the sounds he was hearing, or at least, thought he was hearing.  He couldn’t tell.

“Oh, I was at the park once with Shelly and his owners were walking him.”  Emma also seemed to like the idea of conversation.  “He ran up to us with a ball in his mouth and dropped it at Shelly’s feet.  She threw it for him and he brought it back.  His owners came over and chatted with us for a bit while Tugg kept bringing the ball back for us to throw.  Apparently, he’s always giving his tennis ball to strangers, hoping they’ll play with him.  Have you ever had a dog?”

“Me?  No.  We moved around too much for that.”

“I would think moving a lot would be a perfect reason to get a dog.  It’s a friend that moves with you.”

“I guess,” Danny shrugged one shoulder.  Pets were never something he thought about much.  Instead, he had an Xbox.  “There’s the park up ahead.”

They came to an intersection and turned.  The street ended one house down where it turned into the path that went through the centre of the park.  Metal posts stuck up out of the asphalt where the street and the path met, to discourage cars, but they were spaced widely enough for people and bikes to pass through easily.  They headed toward them, relieved their goal was in sight.

Tugg suddenly scooted ahead of them and stopped sideways, barring their path.

“Tugg, move,” Danny commanded.

Tugg continued to stand in front of them, looking intently into the park.

Danny was going to shove the dog with his free hand but instead, followed its gaze.  He saw nothing unusual, just the normal collection of trees and trashcans that had always been around that entrance.  Then he saw a shadow move among the trees.  Tugg lowered his head and flattened his ears.  The fur on his back began to rise in a menacing way.

Little Nelly appeared out of a stand of trees.

“Nelly?” Emma called to her.  She should have been with the others at the playground, which was deeper into the park.

Nelly continued walking toward them.  Tugg started growling ferociously.  His deep growl caused Danny to look at Nelly more closely.  Her dress was a deep red, so it took him a moment to realize she had a hole punched into her stomach.  There was blood soaking her legs and shoes.

“Nelly.”  Emma tried to take a step forward, but Danny locked his arm around her, stopping her.

“I don’t think that’s Nelly,” he said.  He wasn’t even sure what he meant by that, but it was nothing good.

Tugg’s growling got louder.

The sudden shriek that came from behind them startled the hell out of both the teenagers.  They wheeled around and watched as a woman in her pjs ran at them, hands out in front of her, covered in blood.

Danny couldn’t move.  He couldn’t think.  He couldn’t react.

Tugg was in front of them in a flash.  He leaped at the woman, all teeth.  His heavy weight knocked the woman off her feet.  She continued to try to get to Danny and Emma, but the dog sunk its teeth into her, holding her back.

Danny grabbed Emma and ran past the woman and the dog.  He took almost all of Emma’s weight just to make sure they were moving at full speed.  He didn’t look back at the park, at little Nelly.

“Which way is it to Luca’s friend’s house?” Danny panted, having to slow down from exhaustion.

“I’m not totally sure.  We need to stop.  I need to stop.”  Emma let go of Danny and collapsed on the nearest lawn.

Danny knelt down beside her, trying to look in every direction at once.  “What do you mean you’re not totally sure?”

“I only walked over there once.”  Emma rubbed her ankle, which had already swollen badly.  “Holly went to get him one night when it was dark out.  I was pissed at Jon, so I went with her to get out of the house.”

“Great,” Danny sighed.  “Would you recognise the outside of the house if you saw it?”

“I don’t know.  Like I said, it was dark.”  Tears started to well up in Emma’s eyes again.  Her glasses amplified them.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Danny tried to comfort her again.  “We can’t even be sure it’s safe there.”  He really sucked at comforting.  He kept making both Emma and himself feel worse.

“Then, where are we going to go?”  The tears finally spilled over running down her smooth cheeks.  “What are we going to do, Danny?”

“I…  I don’t know.”  He stood back up.  “But we can’t just continue to sit here.  You know the area a lot better than I do, where do you think we should go?”

Emma curled her knees up to her chest.  Danny hoped she was thinking.  He didn’t get out much so he didn’t know the area very well.  The only time he ever really left the house was when Mathias came and took him to the movies or a hockey game or something.  And when he went to school, of course.  The school that was closed over the summer.

“I got it!”  Danny reached down to get Emma back on her feet.  “We’ll go to the school.”

“Why?”  Emma didn’t fight against getting up on her feet again, but didn’t do much to help either.

“It’s closed for the summer so there shouldn’t be anybody there.  We can break in through a first floor window and then barricade it with desks or something.”

Emma still didn’t look too sure.

“All the doors in that place are made of solid metal.  And there’s at least one bathroom that has no windows which we can hide out in,” he did his best to convince her.  The bathroom he was thinking of was, of course, a boy’s bathroom, but he thought Emma wouldn’t mind if it was safe.

“Okay,” she finally nodded.  “I just wish we had a cell phone or something so that we could keep trying to call someone.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and find one on the way.”  Danny didn’t believe that could ever happen.  Everyone else at their school seemed to have cell phones but Holly and Beth hadn’t been keen on the idea.  Even Jon, the oldest and most likely to need a cell, didn’t have one.

Emma gave him a weak smile, trying to humour him, but she clearly didn’t think that could happen either.

Danny got their bearings from the nearest street signs and they headed in the direction of the school.

* * *

“Does your ankle feel any better?”  Danny would never think of leaving Emma behind, but it would be nice not to have to carry half her weight.

“A little.”

“Do you think you can walk on it?”

Emma tried putting her weight on it.  She sucked a sharp breath in through her teeth and shook her head.  Her braces almost made it a whistling sound.  They continued in the same manner as they had since leaving the house.

“I hope Tugg is okay,” Emma finally said after a few blocks.

“He’s a dog, he’s probably better off than we are.”  Danny finally believed something he said.

“Good.  He’s a good dog.”

“Yeah, he was.”

They walked in silence a little longer.

Danny was about to try starting another conversation, but when he opened his mouth, Emma clapped her hand over it.  It hurt his teeth.  Danny saw her eyes get extra big and so he closed his mouth.  Her hand tasted like bread; it was odd.  Emma pointed and he followed with his eyes.  An erratic-looking older teenager had run out from between some houses up ahead.  He was wearing only a pair of dirty boxers and his skin was snow white.  It had a sickly sheen to it.  He was facing the other way, his head darting back and forth, searching.  He could turn around and spot them at any moment.  Danny looked around too, for somewhere to hide.  There were no bushes in the immediate area and he didn’t trust the houses.  He went for the nearest car and started trying the handles.

Of course, they were locked.  He left Emma leaning against the car and tried the next one.  Also locked.

“Danny!”  Emma started hobbling toward him.

The teenager had turned around, his eyes as white as his skin.  He opened his mouth and screamed, then began running.

Danny tried the next car, one that was parked on the street.  The passenger door was locked.  He tried the one behind it.  Also locked.  By chance, he glanced through the windows and saw that the rear door on the other side wasn’t.

“Go around the car!” Danny called to Emma as he dashed around to the street side.  He yanked on the handle and ripped the door open.

The older teenager was closing in on Emma.  Danny ran to meet her.  Finding strength he hadn’t been aware he had, Danny grabbed Emma and picked her up in his arms.  He ran for the open car door.  The older boy was fast, but he wasn’t very co-ordinated.  He had nearly grabbed Emma when Danny picked her up, but his leg smacked into the front bumper of the car and he spilled onto the ground.  It gave Danny and Emma the precious time they needed.

Danny reached the car and threw Emma into the backseat.  He quickly jumped in after her and slammed the door shut behind him.  The teenager smacked into the door right after.  Danny locked it and he and Emma moved as far from the window as possible.  The teenager scratched at the window, his head and body covered in red marks from the partial road rash he had given himself when he wiped out.

“What’s wrong with his eyes?”  Emma wouldn’t stop screaming.

Danny kept himself between her and the window, the two of them crunched up in the backseat.  If the teenager got in, he would protect Emma.  The teenager then started throwing punches.  His hands were slowly being mushed, but the glass was also starting to give.

Just as Danny thought, it was hopeless, when he thought he would have to sacrifice himself to give Emma a chance, that’s when they were saved.

It was by a car that came roaring down the street.  Whoever was behind the wheel was either not paying attention or didn’t care.  Or maybe it was even deliberate.  The car scraped along the side of the one Danny and Emma were in, hitting the teenager.  The teenager was flung and bounced up the road.  Danny saw it as if in slow motion.  He could actually make out the hairs on the teenager’s belly that trailed down from his navel into his boxer shorts before he went spinning off.  The car never stopped.  It didn’t even slow down as it swung wildly around a turn up ahead.

Emma finally stopped screaming and stared in shock.  Danny slid over to the street side of the car and looked out.  The teenager was up ahead, unmoving.  A large red smear led from their car to him and his limbs were twisted at odd angles.

“I think he’s dead,” Danny whispered, fearing his voice would somehow cause the teenager’s body to rise up, fuelled by rage at what had just happened and doubling his strength and efforts to get Danny and Emma.

“What if he’s not?”  Emma seemed to have the same thought.

Danny looked around the outside of the car.  “There.”  He pointed.

Emma shifted to see what he had spotted, her hands resting on Danny’s arm.  Her hands were surprisingly soft.  Emma saw only a house.  “Where?  What?”

“That house’s garage door is partly open.  We can get in it.”  Danny suddenly realized that one of his hands was resting on Emma’s creamy soft leg and that her sundress had ridden up quite a way.  If he turned, Danny might have been able to see her underwear.  He quickly removed his hand.

“Why would we want to do that?”  Emma seemed to take no notice.

“Because I don’t think we can make it to the school.”  Danny faced facts.

“But there could be something in there.”

“The door is really low; we’ll just be able to squeeze through.  Not many people could get through that and we could close it once we’re on the other side.”

“Can’t we stay here?” Emma sounded terrified about leaving their current safe zone.

“The glass is weak.”  Danny pointed out the cracks, which gave him an excuse to move further away from Emma.  “Especially since that car hit us.”

“If you think it’s best.”

Danny didn’t like that the decision was being put squarely on him, but he would make it.  “Okay.”

He unlocked the street side door.  It took a few pushes, but it finally swung open with a pop.  Danny looked up and down the street, trying not to focus on the teenager, and got out of the car.  Emma followed him and grabbed hold of his shoulders once more.  Unlike Danny, she wouldn’t take her eyes off the mostly naked teenager. His road rash had gotten a lot worse.

They crossed the street at an angle, trying to get to the house as quickly as possible.  The teenager never moved.

Once at the house, Danny leaned Emma against the garage.  “I’ll go first and make sure it’s safe.”

“Okay.”

He lay down on his belly, and peered through the gap, all too aware of Emma’s long legs and dress right next to him.  The gap let in just enough light for him to make out the wheels of a car, the bottoms of some tool chests, and what he thought might be a staircase leading into the house.  He couldn’t see any people but that didn’t mean they weren’t behind one of the tool chests or even the car.

Danny crawled into the garage on his belly, his back scraping against the bottom of the garage door.  It was a bit painful but he bore through it.  Once inside, the ambient light was enough for him to make things out.  Still, he found a light switch and flicked it on.  The overhead fluorescents flickered a little, but provided great illumination for Danny to patrol the garage.  The stairs turned out to be a ramp, but other than that, everything looked like a normal garage.

That’s when Emma let out an ear-piercing scream.

* * *

Danny ran back to the front of the garage.  Emma was already trying to get through, but something was clearly trying to pull her back.

“Help me, Danny!” she shrieked.  “Oh God, he’s biting me!  He’s biting me!”

Danny grabbed her arms and pulled.  Tears were flooding down Emma’s cheeks.  She got mostly into the garage, but a flayed, bloody arm and face still held onto one of her legs outside.  The skin that was left on the attacker was pale white.  Danny kicked out and hit him in the face.  Still the attacker held on tight.  Danny kicked again, and again.  Eventually the attacker let go.  Emma pulled herself the rest of the way in.  Despite the repeated kicks, the attacker tried to follow but he was too big.  An arm snaked around inside, trying to grab either one of them.  Danny tried to close the large door, but it was jammed, it wouldn’t go down.  He found that a wooden block off to one side was the culprit.  He kicked it out, feeling a pain like that of a bad toe stub, and the garage door slammed down the rest of the way on its own.  It nearly severed the arm of the attacker, but despite that, the arm continued to move and grab at air.

Danny grabbed Emma and pulled her away to the other side of the parked car.  He looked down at her leg.  It was bloody, but not as bad as he had feared.  There were no chunks missing.  He managed to find a clean rag in the garage and wrapped it around the wound.  Emma wouldn’t stop crying.

“It was him!” she bawled.  “It was him!”

“It was who, Emma?”  Danny hoped desperately that she would calm down.

“The boy in the street, the one hit by the car.  It was him!”

Danny Cole couldn’t fathom the teenager being able to get up and attack Emma like that, so he didn’t think about it.  Still, the flayed skin…

“Just calm down, Emma.”  Danny stroked her hair.  He hadn’t noticed, but at some point, she had lost her hair-band.  “Everything is going to be all right.  We’re safe now.  We’ll be fine.”

There he was, lying again.

7:

Alec

Alec looked up at the cases of water.  He wondered why a grocery store would put something so heavy so high up.  Even someone with a normal reach would have problems getting some down.  He looked up and down the aisle he was in, but the only other person was a great big, fat woman trying to decide which kind of pop she wanted.  She was also trying very hard not to look at Alec.

He turned to the German shepherd at his side instead.  “Rifle, go get me some help, would you?”

He unhooked the dog’s leash and Rifle trotted off down the aisle.  A moment later, he came trotting back with Anton, the stock boy, in tow.

“Hey, Mr. McGregor.”  Anton always sounded so nervous around Alec.  “What can I do to help you today?”

“You can stop stacking the heavy stuff up so high.”  For one thing.  “I need a case of water.”

“You got it.”  Anton hurried over to help.

Alec wheeled his chair back out of the way.  Rifle returned to his side and sat with a huff.  The dog was just as annoyed with this as Alec was.  Anton struggled a bit but managed to get a case down without the whole pile falling on his head.  He handed it over to Alec.

“Do you need anything else, Mr. McGregor?” Anton asked as Alec put the water on his shopping cart.

“Not unless you’ve stored another heavy item up too high.”  With that, Alec had dismissed him.  Alec liked the fear he saw in Anton, the nervousness.  He knew Anton was a punk.  Alec had once stopped him and his friends from beating up a younger kid.  Since then, he was a lot more cautious and helpful.

“Come on, Rifle, we’ve still got a few more things to find.”  He hooked the dog’s harness and leash back up to the front of the cart.  While Alec rolled down the aisle, looking for the next item on his list, Rifle pulled the cart along behind him.  Rifle was a big dog, larger than most German Shepherds.  He came in handy in a lot of situations.  When they reached the end of the aisle, Alec let Rifle pass him with the cart so that he could help steer it from behind.  Although his companion was good at pulling things in straight lines, corners were not his strong suit.  The two of them then headed down the next aisle.  Alec picked out which pastas he wanted.

“Hey there, wheely boy,” a voice sounded right behind him.

Alec answered without a reaction and without turning.  “Hey, Michelle.”

“You didn’t even flinch,” Michelle sighed, feigning sadness.  “Last I checked, pasta wasn’t a reflective surface.”

“I saw you come into the store awhile ago and figured you would try again.”  Alec shrugged a shoulder and turned.

“You still should have been surprised.”  Michelle bent over and pet Rifle, who thumped his tail appreciatively.  “Hello boy, how are you doing?”  She talked to him in baby talk, just as everyone else did.  Everyone but Alec.

Alec put his pasta into the cart.  “I was able to move my ankle a fraction this morning.”

Michelle stood back upright.  “Really?”

Alec started down the aisle again.  “Only a fraction, but it moved.”

Michelle started pushing the cart to give Rifle a break.  “Most people wouldn’t even have full control of their toes yet.”

“Only the big toe,” Alec corrected her with a grin.  “The others still come and go.”

Michelle was his physiotherapist.  He saw her three times a week to work on his legs.  They hoped that he would regain full movement, but it was a slow and mostly painful process.  Movement started in his toes and seemed to be working its way up.

“Just don’t push yourself too hard,” Michelle warned him.

“And disappoint my favourite lady?” Alec grinned at her again.  It always worked on Michelle.

She was somewhat overweight, had lots of acne scars that her makeup couldn’t quite cover, and one of her eyeteeth was completely sideways.  Nevertheless, she was Alec’s physiotherapist, so he felt compelled to be nice to her.  You got better help when you were nice.

Michelle smiled shyly, flushing slightly like a schoolgirl half her age.  “Well, I better be going.  You look like you’re almost done here and I still have my own things to pick up.  I’ll see you at your next appointment.”

“It’s a date.”

Michelle giggled to herself as she walked away.

Alec sighed, his grin falling away instantly, and continued to do his shopping.  Michelle was a good person, but he just couldn’t get past that crooked tooth.  It was a flaw of his he supposed, having high superficial standards.  Although some more exercise, some better makeup, and a dentist could make Michelle a beautiful woman.  Of course, he had no idea what her health plan was like, or her income.  Although he’d thought that physiotherapists would keep themselves in great shape.  Apparently not.  When he had first heard his therapist was a female, he managed to get excited, but it turned into a letdown.

Alec found the last item on his list and headed for the checkout.  Although there were shorter lines, he picked the one with the young and cute blonde on the cash register.  He waited his turn until he could start placing his items on the conveyor belt.

“Cute dog,” the cashier said around the gum she was chewing.  Rifle was an excellent wingman, or rather, dog.  A lot of conversations had been started because of his presence.

“Don’t tell him that.  His ego is big enough already.”  Alec gave her a grin.  He was told his grin was rather charming, and he had seen quite a bit of evidence to back that up.

The girl grinned back, flashing her teeth but still chewing her gum.  None of her teeth was crooked.  They were small and neat and fit with her face.

“And what about your own ego?”  The girl began ringing through his items.  “Is it big or small?”

“Big enough.”  Alec sensed a slight innuendo but he could’ve been wrong.  Ever since he’d been confined to the wheelchair, it was hard to tell.  Before, he had been a total heartthrob with his close-cropped, dark red hair, square jaw, muscular build, vivid green eyes, and just a hint of a Scottish accent.  Now, like Alec’s reaction to Michelle’s tooth, girls usually couldn’t see past the chair.

“Do you need any bags?” the cashier asked.

“No, I have my own.”  Alec hated that plastic bags cost money.  Not because he had to pay if he forgot his own, but because he hated the routine of that question.  He wasn’t even sure why it irked him, just that it did.

“And how will you be paying?”

Another routine question.  It looked like his banter with the cashier was over.

“I’ll be paying cash.”  Alec found his wallet and pulled out the required amount.  He paid cash whenever he could.  The bank had screwed up his accounts too many times in the past for him to trust it completely.

Once he had paid and gotten his change, he went to the end of the checkout conveyor belt and started packing his things into his bags.  A young boy with a face full of pimples walked over to him.

“Can I help you with your bags today, sir?” the boy inquired.

“I got it, thanks.  That’s why I have my dog.”  Alec had noticed that once he was put into a wheelchair, people were a lot more accommodating than they used to be.  He didn’t need them though.  He was trained to handle situations they couldn’t even dream of.

“Oh.”  The boy just seemed to notice Rifle standing at his feet looking up at him.  “Okay then.”  The boy turned to the cashier.  “Hey, Glow.”

The cashier gave the boy a smile and a wave.  An actual smile as opposed to the grin Alec got earlier.  He thought she actually liked the pimple-faced boy.  And Glow?  Was that seriously her name or just some nickname?  The interaction made him feel old.  He didn’t like feeling old.  He was only forty for Christ’s sake.

He finished packing his items into the bags and the bags into the cart and headed out of the grocery store.  He entered the parking lot and rolled toward his car.  Until he saw it peel out of its space.

“Hey!” Alec yelled and started wheeling faster toward it.  “Hey, that’s my car!”

The car shot off across the parking lot.  It reached the curb and bounced up onto it, driving over the grass and onto the road on the other side.  Alec didn’t even see the driver.

“Fuck!”  Alec punched his cart as Rifle pulled it up next to him.

Rifle looked over at him and whined, lowering his head and looking pathetic.

“I’m sorry boy, I’m not mad at you.”  Alec gave the dog’s head a one-armed hug and scratched him behind the ears.  “Someone just stole our wheels.  This has not been my day so far.”

Alec almost never locked the doors to his car.  It was a crappy car that had so many parts replaced and remodelled, even Alec didn’t know what it used to be.  And there was definitely nothing worth stealing inside.  Not to mention, most people wouldn’t be able to drive it.  He had customised it himself to accommodate his chair, and it had hand-controlled accelerator and brakes.  It wasn’t something you could just joyride in.

Alec got out his cell phone and called 911.

“This is 911, please state your emergency,” an operator picked up.

“My car just got stolen out of the parking lot outside Freeman’s Grocery at July and Sparrow Roads.”  Alec made sure to stay calm.

“Sir, we are very busy at the moment with more serious emergencies.  Please call again later and we will take your complaint then.”

“What?  Someone stole my car!”  His calm slipped away.  “How am I supposed to get home with all these groceries?”  But it was too late; she had hung up.  Alec waited about a minute and called back.  Technically, it was later.

A different voice came on the line.  “Are you calling to report an attack or a medical emergency?”

“What?  No, my car was stolen.”

“We are too busy to take your complaint at this time.”  He also hung up.

This time Alec didn’t get angry.  He knew well enough that something must have been going on.  “Come on, Rifle.  We’re going back inside.”

He led his partner back toward the grocery store.  He tried calling his brother-in-law as he went, but no one picked up at either the house, the garage, or his cell.  He left messages at all three locations.  He had no one else to call.

Back inside the store, he managed to get someone to hunt down Freeman, who just happened to be the manager on duty that day.  The regal black man, in a suit too fancy for a grocery store, came and found him.

“Mr. McGregor.”  Freeman stuck out his hand to be shaken.

Alec shook it.  “Hey, Freeman.  I need you to do me a favour.”

“What kind of favour?”  Freeman looked sceptical.

“Well, my car just got stolen so I have no way of getting all this food and crap home.  I was wondering if you could put it aside somewhere and keep it until I can get a hold of my brother.”  Alec often referred to his brother-in-law as his brother.  They were very close, especially after his younger sister had died.  Toward the end of her pregnancy, there had been severe complications.

“How much do you have that needs to be kept cold or frozen?” Freeman asked, checking out his cart.

“Two bags of cold stuff, one bag of frozen.”  Alec pointed out the bags.

“Hmm.  I think I could find room.”  Freeman turned away and started toward his office.

Alec knew to follow.  He had had a few run-ins with Freeman from the first time Rifle entered the store.  Although he was very well trained and kept exceptionally clean, people complained, and Mr. Freeman came out to deal with it personally.  The second time had been when Alec got into an argument with another man.  He had seen the man hit his wife, so he hit him.  Nearly busted his knee to the point of hospitalisation but, thankfully, the guy didn’t press charges.  He didn’t want the spousal abuse coming out.  Although their meetings were often on bad terms, Freeman and Alec had formed a somewhat tense friendship.  Alec thought it might have had something to do with how he had gotten Anton to fall in line.  He was a much better employee because of it and somehow Freeman found out Alec was the cause of that.  He was a rather perceptive man like that.

Alec followed Freeman into his office.  Rifle stopped at the doorway and sat, as was the usual custom, but this time, Alec called him to bring the buggy in.  Rifle entered the little office with his head down, wary of the new place he wasn’t allowed to enter before.  Alec unhooked the harness from the cart while Freeman sat in his cushy seat behind his desk.

“There should be enough room in the fridge for everything.”  Freeman pointed to the fridge standing in the corner.

Alec worked himself and the cart over to it and started putting the things that needed to be kept cold inside.  Freeman offered no help and Alec was thankful for that.  He noticed a TV in the corner of the room while he unpacked.

“Do you get cable on that?” Alec wondered.

“Why?”  Freeman laced his fingers together on his desk.  He was always so very cautious and exuded power beyond his position as a simple grocery store owner.  Alec often wondered what his real story was.  He thought he must have some sort of military background like himself.

“I tried calling the police to report the car theft, but they told me they were too busy for that.  Twice,” Alec explained,  “I figure if something is going down, it’d be on the news.”

Freeman reached into his desk without a word and pulled out a remote.  When he turned on the TV, it showed the view from a handful of cameras around the store. After pressing a few buttons on the remote, the cable came on.  He flipped to an all-news channel.  Currently, it was showing a camera shot from a helicopter flying over the Marble Keystone park downtown, where people were fleeing from it in all directions.  They watched as a fire truck drove through one of the stone walls.

“Can you turn the volume up?”  There was no need for Alec to ask this as Freeman started to do so before he even finished his sentence.

“…-stone park where a charity concert was under way.”  A reporter came on over the footage.  “No one has yet discovered what caused the riots to break out city-wide.  Police and emergency services are being overwhelmed by the chaos.  Public transit is being shut down all across the city.  Everyone is asked not to dial 911 unless it is a life-threatening emergency.”

“Already figured that one out,” Alec mumbled to himself.

The scene on the TV changed to a man behind a desk.  “For those of you just joining us, there are reports of rioting and attacks happening all across the city, many resulting in serious injury or death.  You are asked to stay in your homes unless it’s an emergency, and, as directed earlier, do not call 911 unless your life or the life of someone near you is in danger.  Officials are still trying to determine the cause of the attacks, as reports keep trickling in from all over the city.  Phones lines are jammed as people try to reach their loved ones.  Car crashes have occurred everywhere, causing injury and, in some cases, taking down power lines.  We go now to Valerie who is on the scene at a riotous event occurring at Walsten and Island.”

“That’s only a few blocks from here.”  Alec looked at Freeman.  Freeman kept his face unreadable, still giving nothing away, although Alec thought he saw an ever-so-slight tension building in his jaw.  Alec turned back to the screen, but it was still showing the reporter behind the desk.

“It seems we’re having some technical difficulty reaching Valerie just now,” the reporter said after a few moments of silence.  “Government officials have yet to be reached about the ongoing incidents.  Some have speculated that this is the act of terrorists, but it is the general opinion that there are too many people involved for that.  The police are also refusing to give an official statement at this time, although there are unconfirmed reports that some officers are involved in the attacks.”

As the reporter was speaking, the camera view began to drift down.  The station switched over to another camera causing the reporter to hesitate briefly before turning to face it.  He continued to report how little they knew, but kept glancing over to where the other camera was located.  Alec could see the tension building in the reporter by the way he carried himself.  His reporting then got worse and more broken, and other voices were being picked up from off-camera personnel.  Eventually, the reporter stopped reporting entirely.

“Chang?  Is he all right?” the reporter asked in the direction of the off-screen camera.  “Chang?”

Some more noises could be heard off-camera.  Mr. Freeman turned up the volume so that he and Alec could attempt to make them out.  The two of them unconsciously leaned toward the TV in an attempt to hear better.  That meant that when the bloodcurdling scream erupted from the speakers, it filled the room and caused them both to flinch.  On the floor, Rifle’s whine couldn’t be heard over the TV.

The reporter got up from his seat and took a step back, his chair clattering over.  “Chang!”  His voice boomed from the TV, amplified because of the microphone on his collar.

An Asian man, possibly Chang, suddenly appeared on camera and leaped across the reporter’s desk.  He tackled the reporter to the ground.  The viewers couldn’t see what happened next, but the microphone picked up everything.  The screams, the growls, the crunches and squishes, and then the tearing.

Several other people rushed from off-stage trying to help the reporter.  Eventually the camera was knocked over and a huge crack crossed the screen as it hit the ground.  Everything went out of focus but you could still make out shapes.  The camera was lying on its side, making the view slanted.  Many people viewing the feed, Alec and Freeman included, tilted their own heads to try and compensate for it.  Someone was seizing on the floor but it was hard to tell if they were male or female due to the lack of focus.  A handful of people gathered around whoever it was, trying to help.  The seizing person eventually stopped, lay still for a moment, and then grabbed the nearest legs.  Alec briefly thought that it might have been a reflex action, a cry for help, but then he was pretty sure it was an attack.

The sound cut out first, leaving a void in the grocery store office.  A few seconds later, the video went out as well.  A screen popped up apologizing for technical difficulties.  With it, came the siren of the test screen filling the void once more.  Alec covered his ears, as the sound was painfully high-pitched.  Rifle flattened his own ears and let out a low howl that was in tune with the siren.  Freeman turned off the TV without bothering to turn it down, and Rifle stopped.  Both men stared at the blank screen for some time without saying a word.

* * *

“What do you think we should do?”  Freeman turned to Alec.

“I don’t know,” Alec admitted.  “Close the store for one thing.  Send everybody home.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to leave?”

“No, but I can’t see it being any safer in here.  The front of the store is all glass; people could easily break in.”

“There are security gates that cross over the glass.”

“Then maybe staying here would be fine, but there are going to be people who want to leave.”

“Are you one of them?”

“Yes.”

“Then go.  I’ll handle things here.”

Alec turned and left the office without even saying goodbye.  Rifle knew that something was wrong and stuck close by his side.  Well, as close as he could without risking being hit by the wheels.  Without saying a word to anyone, Alec left the grocery store.  Freeman could deal with those inside and Alec was used to working almost completely alone.  He had worked with a human partner in the past, in the military, but lately Rifle was his partner.

Once outside, Alec looked around cautiously.  Everything was technically the same as it was before, but there was now a more ominous tone to it.  Alec headed toward the sidewalk, having to skirt around curbs in the parking lot.  He cursed his chair.  He would much rather have been on foot, cutting through yards and taking whatever route he felt like.  Instead, he had to stick to paved surfaces if he hoped to have any speed and not risk his chair getting stuck or caught up on something.  Rifle kept his ears pricked up and his nose in the air, constantly scenting.  Alec made sure to stay alert to his companion’s moods and movements.  Going down the sidewalk was unnerving.  Alec reacted to every shadow that moved, not knowing what might be a threat.  He saw someone peering out at him from behind a curtain.  It was tempting to go up to the nearest house and ask to be let in, but Alec needed to be in his own home.  He knew his home, and it had many things to aid his current disability.  He could protect himself there longer than anywhere else.

Footsteps pounded down the sidewalk behind him.  Alec swung around, hating that he had nothing to defend himself with other than his fists, but he would do whatever he had to.  It was only Michelle.

“Michelle?  What are you doing out here?”

“There was an announcement over the speaker system in the store telling us about some attack or something.”  Michelle was panting slightly from her run.  “We were told to either leave, or stay in the store.  I decided to leave.  I saw you up the street and decided to catch up to you.  Help you get home.”

“It’s not safe out here for you,” Alec told her.

“No safer than it is for you,” Michelle retorted.

“I know how to defend myself,” he said.

“Not in this you don’t.”  Michelle kicked the wheel of Alec’s chair.

He scowled but didn’t say anything further.  She was right.  Without a proper weapon, there wasn’t much he could do.  He wiggled his big toes but couldn’t get his ankle to move as he had earlier.  Damn injury.

Michelle turned Alec around and began pushing him.

“I can move myself, you know.”  Alec hated being pushed and she knew that.  In fact, his wheelchair wasn’t even the kind that was easy to push.  The handles were fairly low and small, forcing Michelle to hunch over.

“Suck it up, soldier.”  Michelle told him that every time his physio was especially painful.  “I’ll do the mobile stuff, you be the eyes and ears on the lookout for danger.”  Apparently, she didn’t mind hunching.

“Fine.  You remember where I live, right?  Because we’re going there.”

“I remember.  You don’t think the buses will come do you?”  Michelle pointed out a bus stop.

“No.”  Alec remembered the TV report.  “They said they’re shutting down the public transit.  If a bus does show up, I doubt it will stop.”

“So then we have to hoof it.”

“How much do you know about what’s happening?” Alec wondered.

“Not much.”

Alec told her what he had seen and heard on the TV.  He felt Michelle’s hands tremble through the frame of his wheelchair.  They didn’t speak after that.

* * *

Their walk was an eerie one.  They didn’t see too many people, but those they did see were frightening.  One man threw himself in through the big bay window at the front of a house, shattering it.  Screams from inside the house greeted the man.  He must have been one of the rampaging attackers.  Another man was standing on his roof preaching about the end of days.  Through his open front door, Alec saw streaks of blood.  Here and there were broken doors and shattered windows.  Sometimes people moved within those houses, sometimes they were stone quiet.  One house had gunfire going on inside it; a 9mm handgun, from the sound of it, being fired erratically.  Probably an inexperienced shooter.  A woman was clawing her way down the street.  Her legs were a bloody, pulpy mass, most likely run over by a car.  They reminded Alec of his own injury, and he unconsciously rubbed his thighs.

Michelle took a step toward this last woman, as if to help her.  But Rifle stepped between them and growled a warning, the hair on his shoulders raised in a bristly mane.

“Listen to the dog,” Alec whispered,  “we should keep moving.”

“She’ll die,” Michelle whispered back, but resumed pushing Alec along.  “Maybe I should call 911?”

“Listen to the dog,” was all Alec would reply.  He knew dogs had better senses and greater instincts than his own.  Rifle was the best asset they had right now, and he was going to use him.  He trusted his companion completely.  They moved on, and Michelle did call 911 on Alec’s cell phone, but the call never got through.

Alec was surprised at how few cars were on the road.  He expected a lot more people to be racing home or over to their loved one’s homes.  Only a small handful of cars went past.  One was driving so erratically that it was bouncing between the cars parked on the street and was constantly at risk of slamming nose first into a street lamp.  Alec didn’t have a long enough look to tell for sure, but he thought he saw a little kid behind the wheel.

Thankfully, Alec’s house wasn’t too far from the market.  They had been lucky so far, but he understood that luck was only a temporary asset.  He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the white panel, two-story home he shared with his brother.  He hoped Nathan was okay.

“What is that?”  Michelle had a higher vantage point than Alec had and could see the top of his driveway over the bushes that separated it from his neighbour’s yard.

“I can’t see, move me closer,” Alec commanded.

“I think it’s a man.”  Michelle pushed him to the bottom of the driveway.

It was definitely a man; a young man, almost naked, and badly wounded.  His arm was pinned under the garage door.  He was thrashing about and squawking like a wounded animal.  Michelle left Alec and went towards him.  Rifle starting barking and growling but Michelle ignored him.

“Michelle!”  Alec started up the driveway after her, but having legs meant she was faster.  “Michelle, no!”

Michelle bent down to try to help the man.  He grabbed her arm, almost as if relieved that she was there.  Almost.  Michelle pulled away with a shriek.

Alec reached her.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”  Michelle held out her arm.  There was a tiny amount of blood, but clearly, it was nothing deep, just a small flesh wound.  “He tried to bite me.”

“You’ll be okay.  I told you not to.”  Alec looked at the young man.  He reached for them, trying to grab them with his free hand.  His feet kicked pathetically against the asphalt.

“Is someone out there?” a small voice called out from inside the garage.

“Yeah, who’s in there?” Alec called back through the aluminium door.

“My name is Danny,” the voice replied,  “my friend is hurt.”

“Okay, we’re coming in.”

“No!” Danny yelled.  “Don’t let him in!”

“I’m not opening the garage door, don’t worry.”  Alec knew instantly that Danny was talking about the man who was pinned.  “I live here.  I’m going to come through the house.”

“Okay,” Danny said.  “Hurry.”

“Come on.”  Alec led Michelle up a ramp to the front door.  He pulled out his key and unlocked it.  “There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom upstairs.  If someone’s hurt, we may need it.  Go get it.”

Michelle ran off upstairs, taking two at a time.  Rifle went off to do a patrol of the house, moving quickly with his head lowered.  The boy pinned under the garage had put him on edge.  Alec wheeled over to a locked storage cabinet and opened it.  Inside was a duffel bag filled with all his military gear.  Knowing exactly where everything was located in it, he opened a pocket and took out a .45 pistol.  He quickly jammed in a loaded magazine and stuck two extras into the pockets on either side of his cargo pants.  He then closed up the duffel bag and slung it over his shoulders, kind of like a backpack.  Michelle came down the stairs.

“Got it.”  She held up the red box with the white cross.

“Come on.”  Alec put the pistol in his lap and headed for the door that led into the garage.

Since the garage door was broken and needed to be propped up by a wooden block, there was a simple bolt lock on the door that led into the house.  Despite working as mechanics, neither Alec nor his brother had gotten around to fixing the damn thing.  Alec slid the bolt back and rolled across the threshold.  He glided down the ramp on the other side to the garage floor.

“Please help.”  A boy, presumably Danny, ran over to him.  He looked surprised to see a man in a wheelchair.  He probably hadn’t figured his potential saviour would be handicapped.

“What happened?”  Michelle went straight to the girl in the corner.  Her leg was bleeding pretty badly.

“We were trying to find our friend’s house, but then we ran into that guy so we hid in a car,” Danny blathered.  “Then some other car hit him so we decided to hide out in here.  But the guy got back up and he attacked Emma.”

“Emma is the wounded girl?” Alec clarified.

“Yeah.  We live in a foster home together.  Please help her.”

“Hi, Emma.”  Michelle stroked the girl’s hair back.  She was pale.  “My name is Michelle.  I’m going to take care of you.”

“Hi,” Emma replied weakly.  She looked like she was going to be sick.

Rifle came in and walked over to Emma.  He sniffed at her wounded leg and whined.  Emma smiled weakly and started petting him.  Rifle let her.  Michelle inspected Emma’s leg, and then went over to Alec.

“I don’t know if just a first aid kit will cut it,” she told Alec in a low voice.  “She needs a real doctor.”

“There’s an ER doc who lives just a few blocks from here.  Nathan worked on her car once,” Alec remembered.  “If she’s home, I could convince her to come over.”

“And if she’s not?”

“Maybe she’ll have better supplies or drugs in her house,” Alec shrugged.

Michelle nodded and went back over to Emma.

“I’m coming with you.”  Danny stood at Alec’s side.  He had listened to their conversation.

“It’s too dangerous.”  Alec shook his head.

“Not if you have that gun.”  Danny had noticed the pistol in his lap.

Alec looked the kid up and down.  He was lanky and his dirty brown hair was a mess and needed a trim.  He was also pale in a way that suggested he didn’t get out in the sun very much.

“How fast can you run?” Alec asked him.

“Faster than you.”  He was apparently also a smart ass.

“Fine.”  Alec didn’t think the young girl had time for them to argue.  She was bleeding quite a bit.  “But you listen to every word I say.”

“Yes, Sir,” Danny snapped a salute.  Alec didn’t think he was being snarky about it either.

“Come on.”  Alec started back up the ramp.

Danny followed him and so did Rifle.

“Rifle, stay,” Alec commanded.

The dog looked at him with sad eyes and cocked his head to the side.

“You have to protect the girls and the house,” Alec told his pooch.  “I need you to keep them safe.”

Rifle sat with a huff.  The dog knew how to express himself quite clearly.

“Good boy.”  Alec gave him a biscuit from one of his pockets and rubbed his head.  “We won’t be long.”

Alec McGregor and Danny Cole left the house together, and Alec locked the door behind them.

“That won’t do much,” Danny said about the lock.  “They go through the windows.”

“Maybe, but it’ll keep more punks like you from getting in.”  Alec headed back toward the sidewalk.  He was halfway to it when he noticed Danny had stopped.  He turned and looked at the kid.  He was staring at the teenager trapped by the garage.

“You should kill him.”  Danny faced Alec.

“Come on kid.”  Alec waved him along.  “He can’t hurt anyone there.”

“He hurt your girlfriend.”  Danny caught up with Alec.

“A) Michelle is not my girlfriend and B) I told her not to go near him, but she didn’t listen.  If people are smart, he can’t hurt anyone.”

“But a lot of people are stupid,” Danny stated.

Alec didn’t argue with him.

8:

Alice

Alice picked a red square out of the bucket of pattern blocks and placed it next to the yellow shape she didn’t know the name of.  The hex-a-thinger.  Then she picked out a blue rom-something and put that next to the red square.  Lastly, she put some green diamonds around the rest of the yellow thing.

“What are you making there, Alice?”  Mrs. Lou kneeled down next to her.

“I don’t know,” Alice shrugged,  “I think it’s a person.”

“It does look a little like a person.”  Mrs. Lou pointed to certain shapes.  “Here’s his head, his hair, his shoulders.”

“I think it’s a girl.”  Alice liked girls better than she liked boys.  Boys were gross and icky.  They were also dumb.

“Yes, it could be a girl.  We’re going to make some paintings soon.  Do you want to paint?” Mrs. Lou asked.

“Yes!”  Alice loved to paint.

She was about to get up but Mrs. Lou stopped her.  “Put away the pattern blocks first, please.”

“Okay.”  Alice started putting away the blocks while Mrs. Lou went to tell the other kids.

There weren’t very many kids in day-care today.  Izzy, Lisa, Owen, Steven, Macy, Carol, both Joes, Betty, Ming, and Oscar all weren’t here today.  They must be sick or their parents got the day off work.  That sometimes happened.  Even Alice’s Daddy sometimes got Saturdays off.  She liked those days.  She got to stay home and watch cartoons.  Sometimes they’d go to the big park or Daddy would take her to a baseball game.

There were only four other kids here today.  Judy, Frances, Lester, and Paul.  Alice didn’t like Paul.  He was mean.  Judy was nice though, and she had very pretty hair.  It was straight, red, long, and in a ponytail.  Alice’s hair was blonde and it was all curly and she didn’t like it.  Her Daddy told her that she looked like someone named Shirley Temple, but Alice didn’t know who that was.

Alice joined the other kids at the painting table with Mrs. Lou and put on her painting smock.  At five years old, she thought of herself as a big girl and could put her smock on by herself, unlike four-year-old Lester who still needed help.

Mrs. Lou handed out paintbrushes to all the kids and put out the paint pots.  Since there were so few kids today, nobody had to share paint and everybody got an easel.  Alice liked using the easels, which she called eels.  They made her feel like a grown-up painter.  Mrs. Lou attached a sheet of paper to Alice’s easel (eels) for her.

“What are we supposed to paint today, Mrs. Lou?” Frances asked.  He always asked questions, even ones he should know the answers to.

“Today you get to paint whatever you want.” Mrs. Lou told them cheerily.

All the kids lit up at this idea.  Normally they were told to paint their families, houses, or flowers.  The prospect of painting anything filled them with glee.

Alice started painting her dog, Shoes.  She loved Shoes very much; he was her best friend, after her Daddy, of course.  But Daddy was Daddy, so Shoes was her best friend.  Daddy told her that Shoes was a Basset Hound.  Alice didn’t know what that meant, but loved the fact that he had floppy skin.  Shoes was a brown dog, but Alice didn’t have brown paint, so she used red.  He also had white feet, which was why he was named Shoes, but the paper was already white so she used blue for them.

While they were painting, Mrs. Lou went to the far corner of the room where a telephone was attached to the wall.  It was too high up for Alice and the other kids to reach, but Mrs. Lou could reach it just fine.  She made a telephone call on it, but spoke too quietly for Alice to hear.  She looked sad though.  Something about the phone call upset Mrs. Lou and she kept looking over at the children.  She smiled at Alice briefly when she noticed she was looking, but then turned her back to her.

Paul reached over to Alice’s painting and put a big gob of purple across the side of Shoes’ head.

“Hey!”  Alice turned to Paul.  “You ruined my picture!”

“No I didn’t.  I made it better.”  Paul turned back to his own painting.

“No you didn’t, you ruined it,” Alice huffed.  “You suck at painting.”

“No, you suck,” Paul retorted.

Alice looked at Paul’s painting.  “I don’t even know what that is.”

“That’s ’cause you’re stupid.  It’s a monster truck, duh.”

“I’m not stupid.  Monster trucks are stupid.”

“Your dog is stupid.”

“No he’s not!”

“Is so.  He’s a very dumb dog.  The dumbest ’cause he’s yours.”

Alice streaked a big gob of yellow paint across Paul’s paper.

Paul scowled and splattered black all over Alice’s paper.

Both kids started to paint all over each other’s paintings, getting more and more upset and angry at each other.  Eventually Alice shrieked.

Across the room, Mrs. Lou quickly excused herself from the phone and rushed over to the children.  It was pretty obvious what had happened.

“He ruined Shoes!” Alice sobbed.

“She ruined my monster truck!” Paul sobbed back.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Mrs. Lou tried to calm the kids.  “You can just paint another one.  We’re having extra painting time today.”

Mrs. Lou took Alice’s and Paul’s easels (eels) and put them a good distance apart.  She set up new paper for them both, and then went back to her sad phone call.

Alice was now next to Judy, which made her happy.  The girls chattered, giggled, and painted colourful portraits of each other.  Judy was two years older than Alice so they didn’t play together at school, or even very often at day-care, but being the only girls here today meant they had to stick together.  Girls always had to stick together against the nasty boys.

Alice noticed Mrs. Lou on the phone again.  “Mrs. Lou looks sad.”

“Maybe something bad happened.”  Judy looked over at her as well.

“I’ll go see.”  Alice put her paintbrush down and walked over to Mrs. Lou.  “Mrs. Lou, what’s wrong?”

“Oh!  Alice dear, I didn’t see you there,” Mrs. Lou was startled somewhat.  “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then why do you look sad?” Alice pointed out.

“I’m not sad,” Mrs. Lou told her, “I’m concerned.”

“Concerned?”

“It’s like being worried.”

“Why are you worried?” Alice continued to prod.

“There are bad things happening around the city today.  I’m concerned about you children.  I think you should be at home with your parents.”

“But Daddy’s working,” Alice reminded her, “he’s not at home either.  Shoes is there by himself, and he can’t answer the phone.”

“I’m trying to contact him and the other parents, hoping they’ll take the day off.”

“What’s the bad thing?”

“The what?”

“The bad thing that’s happening?  What is it?”

By now, the other children had wandered over and were all looking up at Mrs. Lou.  She hung up the telephone with a sigh.

“Let’s sit in the carpeted area.”  Mrs. Lou led them over to the one corner of the room that was covered in carpet.  Usually this area was used for story time.  It was weird to sit there in the painting smocks.

“Can you tell us about the bad thing before story time?” Alice asked.

Mrs. Lou didn’t answer her.  The children gathered around the rocking chair and sat down cross-legged.  Instead of sitting in the chair like she always did, Mrs. Lou sat down on the floor with them.  Alice frowned at this.  She didn’t know why anyone would sit on the floor when there was a chair you were allowed to sit in.  Especially a rocking chair.

“You kids understand there are bad people in the world, right?” Mrs. Lou asked.

They nodded.  Of course, Alice knew about bad people.  In stories, they wore black, were ugly, and liked to kidnap the hero’s girlfriend.  Strangers were also bad people unless Daddy said otherwise.  Alice knew never to talk to strangers.

“Well, there are bad people in the city right now, hurting people,” Mrs. Lou tried to explain delicately.

Judy put up her hand but spoke without being called upon.  “But we’re in the subbers.”

“Suburbs,” Mrs. Lou corrected her.  “And I’m including them when I refer to the city right now.  They seem to be all over the place.”

This made the children nervous and worried.  Alice’s Daddy was someplace.  What if he was someplace where there were bad people?

“I’ve managed to contact most of your parents and they’ll be coming to get you as soon as they can,” Mrs. Lou assured them.

All the kids started asking at once about their parents and when they would be there.  Mrs. Lou raised her hands, and they fell silent.

“I can’t say for sure how long it will take them, but they’ll be here.”  Mrs. Lou looked over at Alice after she said this.  Alice didn’t like that look.  It made her feel concerned.  “Do you guys want to keep painting?”

They all nodded, but the enthusiasm from earlier was gone.  The kids were all quiet while they painted.  Alice painted a butterfly but used a lot more blue than she normally would for the bug.  Butterflies would normally be red, yellow, and orange.  This one even had a bit of black in it.  It was a moth.

Mrs. Lou didn’t go back to the phone this time.  She walked around and complimented everyone on their paintings.  Soon though, painting time was over.

“What would everyone like to do now?” Mrs. Lou asked after everyone’s smocks had been removed, the paint put away, and the brushes cleaned.

Alice thought this an odd question.  After painting time, they always went to the little park up the street.  So she decided to voice this.  “I want to go to the park.”

“Yeah, the park!” Paul chimed in.  Soon every kid wanted to go to the park.

“I’m sorry, but we’re not going to the park today,” Mrs. Lou told them all.

“But it’s sunny!” Lester pointed out.  The only times they didn’t go to the park was when it was raining or really cold in winter.

“Yes, but remember that your parents are coming to get you,” Mrs. Lou reminded them.  “If we go to the park, they won’t be able to find you.”

The kids thought about this, weighing the love of going home with their parents against the fun times they have at the park.

“How about we have more free play instead?” Mrs. Lou suggested.

The children all agreed that this would be acceptable.  Alice went back over to the pattern blocks.  They were her favourite thing to play with.  Mrs. Lou went into the back room for several minutes.  Alice could hear the radio turned on low, but it sounded like boring old news instead of music.  Eventually the muted sound of the radio was cut off and Mrs. Lou came back into the room.  She didn’t look any better than she did before.  She looked more concerned.  It wasn’t long after that when Frances’s mom showed up.  She knocked politely on the door, and when Mrs. Lou opened it, she immediately asked where he was.

“Frances,” Mrs. Lou called into the room, “your mom is here.”

Frances jumped up from where he was playing with Lester with the action figures.  He ran over to his mom and wrapped his arms around her legs.  His mom stroked his hair a few times and said something quietly to Mrs. Lou.  Frances and his mom then left without even saying good-bye.

* * *

Sometime later, another knock came at the door.  The remaining four kids looked up expectantly, all of them hoping it was their own parents.  Mrs. Lou opened the door to reveal Lester’s dad.  Lester went to him and his dad scooped him up in his arms.  They left in a hurry.

Then came snack time.  Normally, the snacks were made before snack time, but since there were so few of them, they got to help make them.  They decided on milkshakes.  The remaining kids walked over to the little kitchen corner and got to go behind the counter.  They had never been allowed behind the counter before, so Alice was excited.  Mrs. Lou picked each of them up and let them sit on different parts of the counter.  She then got out the blender and poured some milk into it.

“So what flavour of ice-cream should we put in our milkshake?”  Mrs. Lou opened the freezer so that the kids could see what flavours were available.

“Chocolate!” Alice immediately cried out.

“Vanilla!” Paul shouted at the same time.

“Strawberry!” Judy yelled at that instant.

Mrs. Lou laughed.  “How about we put in all of them?”

“Eww.”  Judy scrunched her nose but still smiled.

Alice liked this mixture idea.  She had never tried mixing different kinds of ice cream before.

Mrs. Lou got out the ice creams and handed a spoon to each of the kids.  “You get to put in one scoop each.”

She let the kids put in their scoops, which were as large as they could make them, and then lick the remainder off the spoons.

“What else should we put in our milkshake?” Mrs. Lou asked after she put the rest of the ice cream away.

Alice was confused.  She and her Daddy only put ice cream and milk in theirs.  “What else can you put in a milkshake?”

“We put in bananas,” Judy told her.

“My mom adds chocolate sauce,” Paul also chimed in.

“We just happen to have both of those.”  Mrs. Lou found the items.  “You can put almost anything into it, Alice.”

“Can we put in peanut butter?”  Alice loved peanut butter, but she didn’t even know if the day-care had any because one of the Joes was allergic.

“If I can find some.”  Mrs. Lou handed Paul the chocolate syrup and Judy a banana and let them put in the ingredients themselves.  Judy knew how to peel the bananas by herself and was very good at it.  Mrs. Lou then looked through the cupboards.  “You’re in luck.  We still have some.”  She pulled out a mostly empty container of peanut butter that sat on a really high shelf.

She gave Alice the peanut butter and Alice started emptying it into the blender.  She would have to tell her Daddy all about this when he came to get her.

“None of you spontaneously got a nut allergy recently, right?”  Mrs. Lou was smiling again.

“Noooo.”  The kids giggled.

Mrs. Lou found some honey in a squirt bottle shaped like a bear.  “I think that’s enough of your ingredients.  I’m going to add one of my own to top it all off.”  She squirted some honey into the mixture.

“Honey is gross.”  Judy scrunched her face.

“Not when mixed into a milkshake,” Mrs. Lou told her as she put away the rest of the ingredients.  “Are you ready to blend it up?”

The three kids cheered.

Mrs. Lou poured some more milk in before securing the top.  The children counted down and then she pressed the blend button.  They watched the mixture of treats spin and spin.

A knock sounded at the door.  Mrs. Lou went to answer it and Alice looked over hoping it was her Daddy.  The other two hoped as well for their own parents.  Judy was the winner this time.  Both her mom and her dad entered the room.  Unlike the other two boys, Judy stayed where she was and let her parents come to her.  Her mom rushed over and hugged Judy tightly.

“We’re making milkshakes!” Judy told her happily.

“So you are.”  Her mother had a strange expression on her face that Alice couldn’t identify.  It was sort of like fear, but sort of like happiness too.  She saw it once before on her Daddy’s face when she was younger and had to go to the hospital because she had a very bad cough.  Something the doctor had told him made him look that way.

“We’re staying long enough to have some, right?” Judy sounded fearful about the possibility of not getting to try their creation.

Judy’s mom looked back at her dad.  Judy’s dad looked like he might be sick.  He was pale even though it was summer.

“Sure, why not,” her dad smiled.  Alice thought it was a fake smile.  Adults did that sometimes.  It was as if they were having their picture taken or something.

Mrs. Lou got out plastic glasses for all of them.  When everything was blended, she turned off the blender, and poured an equal amount into the glasses.  Alice was hesitant to try hers.  It didn’t look very good.  She watched the adults try theirs and they seemed to like it.  Still, adult taste buds were weird.  She waited until Judy and Paul also tried theirs.  Paul loved it and Judy seemed to think it was okay.  She said the honey made it not perfect, but Alice didn’t mind honey.  She took a sip.  She thought it was delicious.

After Judy and her parents finished their glasses, Judy said bye and they left.  Now it was just Alice, Paul, and Mrs. Lou.

“There’s still some left.”  Mrs. Lou looked into the blender.  “Would you two like another glass?”

“Yes!”  Paul thrust out his glass.

“Yes, please.”  Alice was far more polite as she held out her own glass.

Mrs. Lou filled each of their glasses one more time, and then poured the tiny amount that was left into her own.

When they had finished, and Mrs. Lou was putting the glasses into the sink, another knock came at the door.  Alice knew it had to be her Daddy this time.  There was no way she would be the last one to be picked up.  Mrs. Lou opened the door to reveal Paul’s mom.

“Hey, Pauly.”  Paul’s mom was nearly in tears for some reason.  Paul ran to her as she crouched down, and they gave each other a big hug.

Alice knew Paul’s mom.  She and her Daddy worked together at the police station.  Sometimes they were partners in the police car together.

Alice went and sat on the carpet.  She couldn’t believe her Daddy wasn’t there yet.  What was taking so long?

Mrs. Lou walked over and knelt down beside her.  Paul and his mom hadn’t left yet and were standing by the door as if they were waiting for something.

“Alice?” Mrs. Lou sounded solemn.  Alice didn’t like that word, solemn.  She had learned it just last week.

“Yes, Mrs. Lou?”

“You’re going to go over to Ms. Weston’s house for a little while, okay?” Mrs. Lou sounded too nice.  It sounded fake, like their fake smiles.

“Why?  My Daddy’s coming here, isn’t he?”  Alice had been to Paul’s house before.  Ms. Weston, Paul’s mom, had babysat her a few times just as her Daddy babysat Paul sometimes.

“I wasn’t able to reach your dad.”

“You reached Ms. Weston,” Alice pointed out.  Ms. Weston was still in her uniform and everything.

“She happened to be at the station when I called, but your dad was out providing security for a concert,” Mrs. Lou tried to explain.

“But they have radios.  They can radio him.”

“Because of all the bad people, they’ve been having trouble finding anyone on the radios.”

“No!”  Alice’s eyebrows came together.  She could have a seriously hard set face for such a little girl.  “My Daddy is coming to get me here.”

“Ms. Carter.”  Ms. Weston had walked over and sat down next to Alice.  “Your dad is fine.  We just haven’t been able to get through to him yet.  He’s helping a lot of people right now.  I’m sure we’ll be able to contact him soon and he’ll come right away.  Besides, I have my own radio and know people at the station.  We can reach him much quicker than Mrs. Lou can.”

Ms. Weston often called Alice, Ms. Carter.  It made her feel grown-up and reminded her of her mom, even though she only had a tiny smattering of memories of the woman and most of those were because of photos.

“We can play Connect Four.”  Paul had also walked over.

Paul hated Connect Four.  He liked Battleship, which Alice didn’t like.  This was the nicest he had ever been to her.

“Okay,” Alice finally agreed to go with Ms. Weston,  “but I get to be the red pieces.”

Ms. Weston smiled and stood up.  She took Alice’s hand in one of her hands, and Paul’s in the other.  They stopped at the door and waited for Mrs. Lou to grab her bag.  She was going home as well.  Mrs. Lou turned out the lights, locked the door, and they all headed to the parking lot together.  Mrs. Lou said good-bye as she headed toward the back of the building, and Alice and the Westons got into the car parked right near the door.  Alice climbed into the backseat while Paul got into the front.  Ms. Weston got into the driver’s seat, put the keys in the car, and started the engine.

Mrs. Lou screamed from the other side of the building.

* * *

“Stay put.”  Ms. Weston was out of the car in a flash.  She was Officer Weston now.

Paul and Alice watched through the windshield as she drew her gun and ran around the edge of the building.  They didn’t hear anything for what seemed like a long time, although the clock proved it a very short span of time.  Then came the pops, like fireworks.  Alice huddled lower into her seat while Paul leaned more towards the glass.

“Judy!”  Paul leaned over to the driver’s door and opened it.

Judy had come running around the corner toward the car.  Her beautiful red hair had darker red, clumpy stuff in it, and her nice clothes were torn and dirty.  She jumped into the car and slammed the door.  She was babbling and crying, and Alice couldn’t make out what she was saying.  Something about her dad.

“Where’s my mom?” Paul asked her.  When Judy didn’t answer, he asked again.

Judy’s dad then came running around the corner.  Judy screamed and screamed as he ran at the car.  He was covered in the red gunky stuff too, and he had several holes in his clothes.  He was bleeding from them.  Alice then realized the red stuff was blood.  Judy’s dad jumped on the hood of the car and started banging on the glass.

“Make him go away!” Judy screamed.  “Make him go away!”

Paul leaned over and started hitting switches around the steering wheel.  The windshield wipers came on and a moment of triumph crossed his face.  It vanished when he realized they swept only once and barely did anything.

“Make them go faster!” Alice suggested from the back seat.

“I don’t know what I hit!” Paul panicked.

Judy, still terrified, climbed into the foot well.  She was sobbing and shaking.  Paul took her place in the driver’s seat and hit more levers.  He hit a particular one and the car jolted forward.  They were moving.

“Stop the car!” Alice cried in the back.  She grabbed her seat belt and put it on.

“Judy!  Hit the brake pedal!” Paul called down.

Judy didn’t move.  She was too scared to move.  Judy’s dad continued to smash at the window.

“We’re going to crash,” Alice sobbed.

“No we’re not.”  Paul grabbed the wheel.  They were headed for the chain link fence at the back of the parking lot.  Paul pulled the wheel hard to one side.  Despite the fact that they weren’t going very fast, the tires still squealed.  They now were headed for the fence at the side of the parking lot.

“Get him off!” Alice yelled.  “Go away!” she yelled at Judy’s dad.

Judy curled up deeper into the foot well.  She pressed on the gas pedal a lot harder.  The car shot forward toward the fence.  Judy’s dad nearly fell off with the sudden acceleration but he managed to hold on.

The car hit the fence at high speed and plowed right through it.  It scraped Judy’s dad off the hood of the car.  On the other side of the fence was a street.  Paul pulled hard on the wheel again and they swung out onto it.  Alice held on for her life, thinking the car might tip over.

“We’re going to die!” she screamed.

“No we’re not!” Paul yelled at her.

They shot off down the street, with Paul behind the wheel.  He tried to control the vehicle, but they swerved around crazily.  Alice held tightly to the seat between her knees.

“Judy, brakes!” Alice yelled up front.

Judy had no response.

“No, we don’t want the brakes,” Paul corrected Alice.

“Why not?”  Alice could think of nothing but stopping right now.

“We need to go to the police,” Paul said.  “Judy’s dad got hurt and when someone is hurt, you call 911.”

“That’s a phone number, not an address.”  Alice was confused by Paul’s logic.

“I think I know how to get there.  I got to go with my mom a few times.”

The car continued to bounce down the street, swerving from side to side, hitting off obstacles along the side of the road.  It was amazing they hadn’t completely crashed yet.

“We should stop the car and ask a grownup for help,” Alice put as much command as she could into her voice.

“No.”  Paul wasn’t going to listen to her.  He looked like he was actually having fun.

“I wanna go home,” Alice whined.

“Do you know where your house is?” Paul said it like she wouldn’t know.

“It’s that way.”  Alice pointed forward.  She remembered the route to day-care from both sitting in the car when Daddy drove, and from walking there with him on nice days.  Daddy was a much better driver than Paul was.  “I wanna go home.  I want my Daddy.”

“They don’t know where he is.  He’s probably dead,” Paul shouted at her.

“Don’t say that!” Alice cried back.

“He’s probably dead just like my Mommy probably is.”  Paul burst into tears.

“I want Shoes!” Alice screamed.

“Fine!”  Paul gave in.  “We’ll go to your stupid house with your stupid dog!  Where do I go?”

Alice sat up on her legs so she could see, but kept the seat belt across her chest.  “Go down this road until I tell you.”  She was glad to have won that fight.  She wanted Shoes.

The car zoomed down the street with Judy still huddled on the pedal.

“That street there.”  Alice pointed ahead.  “The one with the big tree at the corner, past that guy.”

There was a man in the street wearing barely any clothes.  He was trying to get into a car that Alice assumed was his.  He was having a hard time of it.  The car pulled to one side and scraped alongside another car.

“Stop hitting stuff!” Alice yelled at Paul.

“Shut up!  You try driving!” Paul yelled back at her.  He pulled on the wheel but over-corrected.  They swung over to the other side of the road and hit the cars on that side.  Alice screamed as she watched the man in his underwear roll up on the side of the hood.  Paul screamed as well and pulled the car back across the road once more.  The man fell off and disappeared.

“You hit him!” Alice gasped.

“I didn’t mean to,” Paul sobbed a little.  “We’ll tell the police about him too when we get to your house.”

“Okay.”

They reached the street Alice had pointed out, and Paul swung the car down it.  Alice squeaked as she was knocked over from the force of the turn.  Again, she thought the car was going to flip over, and again it didn’t.

“Where next?” Paul asked her.

“Umm.”  Alice got up so she could see again.  “At that yellow house.  Turn…  This side.”  Alice waved her right arm up and down.

They got to that street and turned down it.  They probably would have flipped this time if they hadn’t bumped into a car parked at the side of the road.

“My house is the orange-y one, with the brown roof and the basketball net,” Alice told Paul as she righted herself again.

“I remember what it looks like,” Paul grumbled.

“How are we going to stop once we get there?” Alice wondered aloud.  “’Cause we should be there really soon.”

“Judy, hit the brakes,” Paul called down.

Judy still didn’t respond.

“Judy!” Paul yelled again, looking down at her.  “Brakes!”

Paul had taken his eyes off the road, causing the car to become even more unstable than before.

“Tree!” Alice screamed.

The car jumped a curb and headed straight into the big willow tree on Alice’s neighbour’s lawn.  Alice Carter was thrown forward despite her seat belt, and hit her head on the back of the seat in front of her.  She didn’t want to go to sleep, but she had no choice.

9:

Misha

Misha rolled over and covered his head with his pillow.  He needed better curtains.  The ones he had were white and paper thin.  They blocked no light whatsoever.  He couldn’t afford curtains though.  All his money had to go to three things: bills, food, and savings so that when the next semester started up in the fall, he could safely quit one of his jobs.  At the moment, he worked like a dog as a house painter during the day and as a cook at an all-night McDonalds.  He just wanted sleep.

Someone knocked on his door.

“Go away,” Misha mumbled into his pillow.  This was the first day he had completely off in a long while.

The knocking sounded again.

“Miiishaaaa,” someone called softly through the door.  “Oh Miiiiiishaaaaaaaa.”

Misha briefly lifted his pillow off his face.  “Go away, Dean, I’m sleeping!”  He then pulled the pillow onto his head again.

There was blessed silence after that.

Next thing he knew, something heavy was on top of him.  He pulled back the pillow to discover Dean sitting on him.

“Note to self: always make sure door is locked before going to sleep.  Get off me.”  Misha pushed Dean to the floor.

“Come on, Russian boy, you can’t just sleep the whole day away.”  Dean sprang up onto his feet.

“Watch me.”  Misha’s English was actually great and his Russian accent was slight.  Still, a lot of people had taken to calling him The Russian.  He didn’t really care.  Much.

Dean bounced on his toes.  “Come on, man, we never have a day to hang out together any more.”  Dean’s own British accent was also slight.  No one had nicknamed him for it however.

“I thought you were going to some concert thing with Cassidy?”  Misha looked over at his clock.  It read 2:42 PM.  He probably should get up.

“We were, but she called saying she wasn’t feeling very good.  Some sort of summer flu or some shit.”  Dean shrugged and sat in Misha’s computer chair.  “It sucks, but hey, I get to hang out with you now!”

“Lucky me.”  Misha sat up and swung his feet over the side of his bed.  “I’m going to shower.  If you’re not out of my room when I get back, I’m totally kicking your ass.”

“Considering you’ll be in naught but a towel at that point, I shall make haste.”  Dean got out of the chair and left the room.

Misha got out of bed and found his shower kit.  During the school year, he shared this house with six other guys.  There was no way he would leave his bathroom things in the bathroom, even when all but one of them went home for the summer.  Misha left his room and crossed the hall to the bathroom.  He was glad that Dean was the only one who stayed over the summer months.  It meant he never had to worry about someone else needing the bathroom, because two others were available: one downstairs on the main floor and one in the basement.

When Dean and Misha ended up moving into the same house, they knew each other only in passing.  Both of them had separate groups of friends who had asked them to move in; Misha’s on the top floor, Dean’s in the basement, and the one friend that hung out with both groups in the only room on the main floor.  Since then though, Misha and Dean had become best friends.  Neither of them could afford to go home very often, so they ended up spending the summers together and most of the holidays.  This summer, Misha had been working a lot and Dean had his girlfriend keeping him occupied, so they actually didn’t get to hang out that much.  Misha would never admit it to Dean, but he thought today would actually be pretty cool.

He jumped into the shower and went through his routine.  Scrub hair with shampoo; rinse.  Scrub hair with conditioner; rinse.  Scrub body with soup; rinse.  He then brushed his teeth in the shower and used an acne-fighting face cream, spending as much time under the hot water as he could.

When he was done cleaning, he spent a few minutes just standing under the water, letting it run over him.  Eventually though, he had to turn it off and climb out.  He used the same towel to scrub his scruffy black hair dry as he did to dry off his body, then wrapped it around his waist.

He walked over to the sink and looked closely at his face in the mirror.  The light blue eyes staring back at him were nearly white in colour, like certain huskies were.  Some girls really liked them while others thought they were creepy.  He had also been asked many times if he wore contact lenses that changed the colour, but he assured them that they were the same eyes his mother had.  He looked over the pale skin of his face, inspecting it for blemishes.  He was always pale, even with a summer job that meant working outside in the sunshine.  He wasn’t exactly vain, but Misha knew that being good looking had its advantages in life and working at a McDonald’s meant keeping a constant vigil against the pimples the grease fryer tried to create.  Today there was none.

He also noted that he didn’t need to shave today.  Misha rarely had to shave, which he found odd considering his father was pretty much a bear.  He was a lot more like his mother than his father.  His father was a big, burly man with a face made of sharp angles, while Misha’s own face was built much softer and his body was made of all bone and stringy muscle.

After leaving the bathroom, he crossed back over to his own room.  He threw on a fresh pair of boxers and a clean, comfy, black T-shirt.  It took him at least a minute but he hunted down his black shorts out of the pile of clothes on his floor and then put them on as well.  Misha’s wardrobe consisted of almost all black clothing.  It matched his hair and made his eyes stand out more.  He had been told that was a good thing.  Misha didn’t bother with socks or even his watch, planning on staying indoors all day.  Finally, he headed downstairs, but slipped on the middle step and landed on his butt.

“Graceful,” Dean called from the kitchen.  He didn’t have to see Misha to know he had slipped.  Everyone slipped on their stairs from time to time.  They were steep, narrow, rounded at the edges, and covered in a much worn carpet.

Misha walked into the small, narrow kitchen and went straight for the coffee pot.  There wasn’t any made.  He held out the empty pot to Dean.

“Why do you think I woke you up?” Dean grinned.

Misha started the coffee.  “Are you at least cooking me breakfast?”

“Breakfast?  It’s lunch time, dude,” Dean reminded him of the lateness of the day.

Misha scowled at him.

“I threw some Eggo waffles in the toaster for you.”  Dean thumbed over to their tiny and shocking toaster.  It was probably a fire hazard but no one had offered to replace it yet.

The waffles popped up and Dean pulled them out.  He dropped two onto a plate for himself.

“Think fast.”  Dean tossed the other Eggos at Misha.

Misha caught them, but had to keep passing them from hand to hand because they were so hot.  He gave up trying to hold them and set them down on the counter.

Dean grabbed some syrup out of the cupboard and two beers out of the fridge.  He handed one of the beers to Misha.

“I can’t afford beer right now.”  Misha tried to hand it back.

“It’s on me.”  Dean carried his plate, beer, and syrup out into the living room.

Misha grabbed his waffles and followed him.  They sat on either end of the couch and put their feet up on the coffee table.

“You realize you gave me a beer while I’m making us coffee, right?” Misha pointed out.

Dean turned on the TV with the remote.  “We can drink both.  Why not?”  Dean flipped through the channels until he found some stupid cartoon.

“Ugh, I hate this cartoon,” Misha commented while he started eating his waffles.

“Why?  It’s funny.”  Dean drenched his own waffles in sugary syrup before eating them.

“It’s stupid actually.”

“And what kind of cartoons do you find funny?”

“Roadrunner.”

“Okay, you got me on that one.  Those are fucking hilarious.”

Misha and Dean continued eating in silence while the cartoon continued.

“You wanna play some Mario Kart?” Misha asked once he was done eating.

“Not really.”

“C.O.D?”

“You know I can’t resist the Call of Duty,” Dean made a bad joke about the title of the game.

“You set it up, I’ll grab the coffee.”  Misha got up and went back to the kitchen, still half asleep.  He found the biggest mugs they had in the house and filled them to capacity, splitting the entire pot between the two.  He blew across the surface of his own mug and looked out the kitchen window.  Something was going on in the house behind theirs.

“Hey, Dean!”

“What?”

“Come look at this!”

“We don’t have mold again, do we?”  Dean walked into the kitchen.

Misha handed him his mug and pointed out the window.

Dean looked out while he took a sip of his coffee.  “What am I looking at?”

“I thought I saw something in the house over there.”  Misha pointed to a specific window on the second floor.

“Burger boy’s place?  I thought they were all on vacation.  Disney cruise or something.”

“That’s what I thought.”

There was movement in one of the windows.  A dark shadow passed across it.

“Oh shit, there is someone there,” Dean stated calmly.  “I guess they came back early.”

“Or someone is robbing the place.”  Misha thought that was more likely the case.

“That could also be true.”

The two of them stood there and sipped their coffee some more.

“Fuck, I guess we should do something, shouldn’t we,” Dean sighed.  “You have your phone on you?”

“No, I left it upstairs.”

Dean reached into a pocket and pulled out his own cell phone.

“If you had yours, why did you ask about mine?”  Misha’s eyebrows frowned and his mouth grinned in confusion.

“Duh, use your minutes instead of mine.”  Dean dialed.

“You’re an ass,” Misha laughed,  “besides, isn’t 911 free?”

“I love you too.  And I have no idea.”  Dean held the phone to his ear.  “Strange.  It’s busy.”

“What do you mean, busy?  Who did you call?”

“911. What, you thought I was ordering a pizza or something?”

“It’s you we’re talking about, remember?  And 911 can’t be busy.”

“Well it is, try yourself.”  Dean handed Misha the phone.

Misha dialed and held it to his ear.  Sure enough, nothing answered except for a series of annoying beeps.

“Maybe it’s not free and you’re out of minutes.”  Misha handed the phone back.

“Doubts, I bought more just last week.”  Dean pocketed his phone.

“Yeah, well you do spend a lot of time talking to Cassidy,” Misha reminded him.

“Not that much.”  Dean turned away from the window.  “Come on, Call of Duty awaits.”

“What about that?”  Misha pointed across the yards.

“We tried.  The police didn’t pick up; our job is done.”  Dean went back into the living room.

Misha looked from the living room to the window and back again.  In the end, he decided Dean was right.  They tried and no one picked up.  It’s not as if it was their job to go over there and check for themselves.  Misha went into the living room and took up his seat on the couch.  Dean handed him a controller.  They signed into their accounts and started playing.  Once they finished their coffees, they moved on to the beer.  They turned it into a drinking game where you had to take a drink every time you died.  They kept facing people who were really good, and so they died a lot.  They ended up having a lot more beer than they originally planned.

Suddenly the power cut out.

* * *

“Oh, come on!” Dean shouted at the ceiling.  “That better not have been a damn fuse blowing again.”

“Let’s go find out.”  Misha got up off the couch.  He swayed slightly at the sudden drunken head rush.

Dean noticed and laughed at him, but when he got up, he did the same thing.  This made him laugh harder.  The two of them went over to the stairs leading to the basement and headed down.  Neither of them managed to slip on these stairs.  They went to their housemate’s door and Misha tried the knob.

“It’s locked,” Misha frowned.

Dean pushed him aside and tried it himself.  “Goddamn wanker.  He was supposed to leave it unlocked just in case this happened.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should go see if the power is out in the rest of the house.”

“Or even the street.  We can’t trust the house.”  This last sentence Dean said was an inside joke among everyone who lived in it.  No one really knew when it started, but they all would say ‘we can’t trust the house’ whenever something remotely applicable happened.  It happened rather often.

“All right, let’s go.”  Misha headed back up the stairs.

Dean followed him.  “Onwards!  To adventure!”

The boys climbed up the stairs and headed for the front door.  Neither of them bothered to put on shoes, even though Dean was wearing socks.  Misha had noticed that Dean always wore socks.  Always.  He wore them around the house even on the hottest days.  He wore them while he slept.  Hell, he even wore them when he went swimming.  Misha often wondered if he wore them when he took showers.  He was pretty sure he did and that the only time he took them off was to put on another pair.  You could easily tell when he put on a new pair too, because they were all riotous colours and patterns.  Misha often wondered about this peculiar habit but never asked.  Dean was currently wearing bright red socks with Santa faces on them.

They went outside, crossed the very small stone patio, and stood on the lawn.  Misha stretched while they looked up and down the street.

“So how are we supposed to the tell if the other houses have power or not?” Misha asked.

“We can go ask one of them.”  Dean started walking to their neighbour’s house.

“Wait.”  Misha grabbed his shoulder.  “I think it’s better we ask our other neighbour, don’t you?”

Dean looked confused for a moment, but then realization dawned upon him.  “Oh, right.  Yeah, the other side is better.”

Living in a house full of college boys meant that all of them had to be ready for a party at anytime.  There was no telling when one of them would decide that a party was a good idea, and the next thing you knew the house was full of people.  They didn’t even live that close to the college so the neighbourhood wasn’t used to swarms of college kids showing up.  Especially their right-side neighbour.  He hated them all.  He called in noise complaints all the time, and if anything happened to his yard, they were to blame.  Even when someone else’s dog from the neighbourhood pooped on his lawn, it was their fault.  The boys weren’t even that loud with their parties.  Sure, some of them got a little out of hand, but none of the other neighbours seemed to mind.  After awhile, the police had even stopped coming to the door and would just cruise by to see if the complaint was valid or not.  Most of the time it wasn’t.  Still, this resulted in them trying to avoid confrontation with the man who lived next door whenever possible.

Misha and Dean walked over to the house on the left.  They stepped onto the porch, and Dean pressed the button for the doorbell.

“Dean?”  Misha raised an eyebrow.

“What?”  Dean pressed the bell again.

“If the power’s out, the bell won’t work,” Misha pointed out.

“Oh.  Well then, we know the power is out.”  Dean turned to walk away.

Misha stopped him.  “They could also just have a busted door bell.”  He opened the screen door and knocked on the solid door behind it.  He peered through the clear parts of a glass design that adorned the centre of the thick wooden door.

“I think I see someone,” Misha told Dean.

Dean squished in next to him and looked through another clear section.  “Yup.  Here they come.”

The boys waited at the door for the owner to answer it.  Whoever it was, they were slow moving.

“Have you ever seen the owner of this house?” Misha wondered.

“No.  You?”

“No.”

“Maybe they’re old,” Dean threw out an idea as to why he or she was taking so long.

Misha shrugged.

The person, a male, finally made it to the door.  His head was hanging but he didn’t look old.  His hand lifted up, as if to grab the knob, but instead, slapped into the glass right in front of Dean’s face.  Both Dean and Misha jumped back, Misha hitting the screen door.  Dean looked at him, then grinned, trying to hold back a laugh.  The door wasn’t opened.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir!” Misha called through the large door.  “We were just wondering if your power was out?”

The hand slid down the glass, then rose up and slapped it again.

“I don’t think he likes us,” Dean commented.

“I think something’s wrong.”  Misha stepped up to the door and placed his face near the glass again.  “Sir, are you okay?”

The man lifted his other hand and slapped it on the glass.  This one left a large bloody print.

“Oh God.”  Misha stepped away from the door again.  “Dean, I think he’s hurt.”  Misha reached for the doorknob.  He hoped the door was unlocked so that he could help the man inside.

Dean pulled him away from the door.  “Whoa, hold on there.”

“Dean, we should help him.”  Misha reached for the knob again.

Dean stopped him once more.  “What if he’s not hurt?”

“What do you mean?  His hand is covered in blood!”

“What if it’s not his blood?” Dean was being serious, a rare occurrence.  He actually looked frightened

“You think he hurt someone else?”  Misha looked back at the glass.  The man was still slapping his hands slowly against it, smearing blood all over.

Dean grabbed Misha’s arm and began pulling him back off the porch.  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Dude, either way, 911 would need to be called.”  Dean stopped once they were on the grass.  “We can’t do much he couldn’t have done himself if he was bleeding, and if it’s not his blood, we risk getting shanked.”

“911 was busy,” Misha pointed out.

“Exactly, we can’t do squat.  Let’s just go back to our place and wait for the power to come back on.”

“What if the power is just out at our place because of some crappy fuses?  We’re going to wait until Aiden gets back?  What’s today?  The sixth?  He won’t be back for another twenty days.”

Dean pointed up the street, past Misha.  “I don’t think we’re the only ones with our power out.”

Misha turned and looked.  Up the street, a power pole was leaning over onto someone’s house.  A delivery truck was smashed into the base.

“How did I not see that when we first came outside?” Misha wondered.  It was probably a combination of the beer, some bushes and trees doing a good job of hiding most of the damage, and the sheer unexpectedness of it.

“Now can we go back inside our own place?”  Dean started back across, not bothering to wait for an answer.

Misha looked at the truck a moment longer then followed Dean.  This was turning out to be a very strange day.  First the neighbours’ house out back, then their left side neighbour, and now the truck.  What else was going to happen today?

“Misha, did you leave the door open?”  Dean had stopped before stepping onto the porch.

“You came out behind me,” Misha told him.  “Why?”  He looked past Dean and saw that their door was standing wide open.

“I’m pretty damn sure I closed it,” Dean said.  “Like, 90% sure.”

“You think someone broke in?”

“Well I know I didn’t lock it, so I don’t think there was much breaking involved.”

The boys stood there, just looking at the open door.

“So, what do you think we should do?” Misha eventually asked.

“I guess we should go in and see if anyone is in there.”  Dean walked up to the door.

Misha had a bad feeling about this.  He felt guilty about doing nothing about the neighbours or even checking out the truck, but it also felt right to him, not doing anything.  Now something had happened to them, and they were going to do something.  It felt wrong.  Not just in a moral way either.

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Misha finally said.  Maybe it would have made a difference if they weren’t already passing through the doorframe.

Dean completely ignored him.  He went to a small closet near the front door and opened it.  The boys of the untrustworthy house kept sports gear inside it.  It was literally filled to capacity with hockey bags, as all of them played the national sport in the winter.  It was, by far, the worst smelling closet any of them had ever come across but the door actually made a pretty good barrier for it.  Also, no one was ever near the front door unless they were coming in or going out, or using the toilet in the half bath next to it.  The half bath was mostly used at parties, so no one really noticed the smell then either, or if they did, they thought it was something else.  Dean ignored all the hockey equipment and reached into the tiny nook that held other sports items.  A football, a basketball, a baseball, two baseball gloves, and, most importantly, a baseball bat.  Dean pulled out the metal bat and held it out in front of him.

Misha grabbed his hockey stick.  If he had to hit someone with it, it was likely to break and he’d just end up having to get a new one, but it was better than being completely unarmed.

“Check upstairs.”  Dean pointed his bat at the steps, and then moved down the short hall toward the kitchen and living room.

Misha listened, and headed up the creaky steps.  The house was optimised to have the most number of bedrooms possible.  This meant that everything was tight and narrow.  It also meant that there weren’t many places for Misha to look for a possible intruder.  Upstairs, the only rooms he could get into were his own, and the bathroom.  These were checked quickly and easily.  He tested the doorknobs of his two housemates’ rooms to be sure.  They were still locked tight.  He headed back downstairs to find Dean.  He hoped that when he found Dean, he didn’t hit him with his hockey stick.  He was pretty jumpy.  When he passed the half bath next to the sports closet, he couldn’t recall if he saw Dean check inside while he was heading up the stairs.  He decided to be thorough and check for himself.  He grabbed the handle.

* * *

An unearthly screech erupted from the basement causing Misha to jump nearly out of his skin.  A shout followed right after it.  It sounded like Dean.  Misha ran down the hall to the top of the basement stairs.  There was a lot of noise coming up from the basement, a lot of crashing and banging.  Misha ran down the steps, forgetting about the bathroom, holding tightly to the railing with one hand and his hockey stick with the other.  Now would not be the time to fall.  He was going too fast when he reached the ninety degree bend at the bottom and slammed a shoulder into the wall while trying to round it.  He stumbled off the stairs but managed to keep his feet.  The ruckus was coming from Dean’s room.  Misha ran past the other two rooms and the laundry nook.  He burst through Dean’s half open door.

A woman in a sundress was on the other side of the door.  When Misha ran through, the door hit her in the back, knocking her off her feet.  She landed with a thump at Dean’s feet.  Dean was covered in blood; so was his bat.  When the woman hit the ground in front of him, he cried out and raised the now-dented baseball bat above his head.  He swung it down, and it hit the woman with a thunk.  He lifted it up and swung again.  And again.  And again.  He turned the woman’s head into a bloody pulp.  Misha watched from the doorway in a dazed, wide-eyed horror.  Dean swung until he collapsed.

Misha finally snapped out of it and crossed the room quickly to Dean, trying to avoid looking at the woman’s body.  There was no way she was alive after that.  Dean lay on the ground, cradling one of his arms.

“Dean!”  Misha dropped to the floor next to him.  He put his hockey stick down and helped Dean sit up.  “Dean, what happened?  What did you do?”

“Fuck off, Jovovich,” Dean mumbled and tried to roll away.  “Don’t touch me.”

Misha had already felt his skin though.  “Dean, you’re burning up.”

“Go away.”  Dean curled up against the edge of his bed.

“Dean, tell me what happened.”  Misha moved around to be in front of him again.  He grabbed his arm and when Dean tried to pull away again, he got a good look at it.  “Jesus Christ.”

Dean’s inner arm looked like raw meat.  Misha hadn’t noticed it earlier because of the violence Dean was laying down on the woman.

“Dean,” Misha tried again to get his attention,  “tell me what happened.”

“She bit me,” Dean moaned.  He continued to try to get away from Misha.  “She bit me so many times.  She fucking chewed on me.  I tried to fight her off but she just kept coming back.  Even after I heard her ribs snap, she just kept coming after me.  I took care of her though.”

“Your skin is hot, you’re running a fever.”  Misha pulled Dean’s blankets off his bed and started to wrap them around his arm.  Misha noticed that Dean had other wounds, but none as bad as his arm.

“I’m on fire!” Dean screamed.  He threw his head back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling.  His eyes and mouth hung wide.  His gums were bleeding.  Also, his eyes had a slightly milky look to them.  His pupils were wider than Misha had ever seen and many veins were visible all throughout the whites.  Dean started to sing Run To The Hills by Iron Maiden but the words had a drunken slur to them.  He didn’t get very far into the song before he trailed off.  Dean’s skin was going very pale.  Paler than Misha’s.  The skin around his eyes had taken on a purple tint.  He stopped struggling against Misha’s attempt to assist him.  Then he started seizing.

“Shit!”  Misha slid Dean to the floor, trying to keep his head stable.  He had no idea what to do if someone seizured, but he figured a flat surface was better than sitting up, and keeping the neck as stable as he could seemed like a good idea.  Dean’s body jumped about like a fish out of water.  Eventually though it stopped.  Misha quickly searched Dean’s pockets until he found his cell phone.  He flipped it opened and called 911, but it was busy like before.

Misha stood up and paced, not knowing what to do.  His friend was probably dying, and an unknown woman was already dead.  He kept trying to call 911 but he never got anything different than a busy signal.  He decided to call someone else, anyone else.  Maybe Cassidy would know what to do.  Misha found her number in Dean’s phone and called.  He got a busy signal.  He called Juliann, another one of their housemates, but that number gave a busy signal also.  He tried three other numbers in Dean’s phone, including the sports store Dean worked at part time.  Each time he got just a busy signal.

“Fuck!”  Misha threw the cell at the wall.  What was he supposed to do?  What could he do?

Dean moaned on the floor.

“Dean?  Dean, you okay?”  Misha knelt down beside him.

Dean stirred and rolled his head.  Misha placed a hand on his chest and shook him slightly.  Dean weakly grabbed Misha’s wrist.  As he turned his head toward Misha, his mouth hung open.  He tried to put Misha’s hand in his mouth.

“Dean!”  Misha pulled his hand away.  Dean’s teeth snapped hard on empty air.  He reached for Misha again but Misha scrambled out of reach.  “Come on man, that’s not funny.”

Misha bumped into his hockey stick.  He grabbed it, then stood.  Dean started to get to his own feet slowly.

“What’s wrong with you?” Misha asked.

Dean got to his feet but was slouched far over, basically bent in half.  His fingers brushed his baseball bat.  Then they wrapped around it and Dean stood taller, now holding the bat.

“Dean?”

Dean swung the bat at Misha.  Misha lifted up the hockey stick on instinct.  The bat struck it in the middle smashing it in two.  This left Misha holding a pair of slightly pointed wooden stakes.  Dean swung the bat again, driving Misha away.  Misha slid in the blood on the floor, the strange woman’s blood.  He fell over, one of the broken ends of the hockey stick sticking up in his hand.  Dean fell upon him, teeth snapping.  The stick held him back for only a moment.  Dean pressed down hard, driving the broken end into his own chest, between his ribs, and into his heart.  Yet, he continued to bite at Misha.

Misha was terrified for his life.  He had never been so scared before.  His best friend was trying to rip out his throat with his teeth.  His best friend had stabbed himself in the heart trying to do this, but was somehow still alive.  Misha brought up the other end of the broken stick.  He squeezed his eyes shut and stabbed out with the broken end.  He felt a little resistance, then heard a squelch followed by a crack.  The stick slid forward a bit, and Misha felt something hot and wet drip onto his hand and the side of his face.  A much larger and heavier weight followed.  Misha knew that was Dean’s body.

He shoved Dean off him and scrambled to his feet.  He fled from the bedroom blindly, eyes still closed.  He didn’t want to see what had happened.  He stumbled about the basement and somehow ended up in the bathroom.  He found the shower and turned it on.  He huddled under the water scrubbing blindly at his face and hands.  If he opened his eyes to find any blood on him, he was going to freak out.  He was already freaking out.  There must be blood on his shirt.  Blood didn’t wash out of clothes as easily as it did skin, even black clothes.  With his eyes still closed he peeled off his shirt and threw it somewhere in the bathroom.  It landed with a wet plop and reminded him of the sound he heard back in Dean’s room.  Only that was more of a squish than a plop.

Misha’s thoughts whirled and reeled.  Dean was dead, but not dead.  He was the living dead.  He was indestructible.  He was coming for Misha.  He was right outside the shower.  He was leaning down…

* * *

Misha’s eyes flew open, fully expecting Dean to be looming over him.  Nothing was there but the dark bathroom.  The only light came from a tiny frosted window that was perpetually stuck in the shade between houses.  It let in just enough light to see and navigate by.  Misha finally got to his feet, his legs shaking.  He turned off the water and listened carefully.  There wasn’t a sound except for the water dripping off his body.  He stepped out of the shower and then out into the hall, leaving a trail of puddles behind him.  Misha was torn between going upstairs and checking out Dean’s room.  He’d flip out if Dean was dead, but the thought of him not being dead and wandering around made him panic more.  He headed for the bedroom.

He went carefully, taking each step in a slow and calculated manner.  He listened intently, expecting to hear something, perhaps the chorus of Run To The Hills.  He didn’t hear anything.  He made it to Dean’s room and stood near the wall, just outside the doorway.  Every fibre of his being was terrified about looking in.  He kept expecting that at any moment, Dean would walk out.  His muscles were tense in case he needed to flee.  He peered around the corner.

Dean still lay on the floor, crumpled onto one side.  He lay next to the woman that had her head beaten in.  Half of the hockey stick still protruded out of Dean’s chest, out of his heart, the blade of the stick making it look like a badly made flag.  The other half had been rammed into his eye socket.  Pure luck on Misha’s part.  Dean wasn’t moving.  He must be dead.  Even so, Misha still expected him to rise up.  He closed the bedroom door.  Since the door opened into the room, it was pointless to try and block it with anything.  He headed up the stairs, moving a lot faster than he did on his way down to Dean’s room.

The top of the stairs had a door that opened into the living room.  The door had probably never been closed the entire time that Misha had lived there but he closed it now.  Then he shoved the couch around so that it barred the door.  Of course, it might not stop a determined undead, but it did make Misha feel slightly better.  Then he noticed the half bath’s door was open.  It wasn’t open earlier.  When he had run to help Dean, he hadn’t turned the knob.  That meant that either someone was in there earlier, when he almost opened it, or someone was in there now.

Misha decided he didn’t want to know and went out the back door.  He had no idea where to go from there.  He remembered the movement in the house behind his, and the sick-looking neighbour next door.  And of course, no matter what happened, he would not go to the grumpy neighbour’s house.  That meant going around to the front of the house and crossing the street.  Although a path led easily around one side of the house, Misha decided to go around the other side.  He didn’t want to pass by Dean’s window.  He got scratched up by the untamed weeds, but made it to the front of the house.  He focused on the house across the street and started making a beeline for it.

It was when he was about to step into the street that a sharp bark sounded behind him.  He was startled to a stop, which in turn, saved his life.  A large moving van roared past right where Misha had been about to step.  He was so frightened by the sudden appearance of the van that he fell over backwards and scraped his hands trying to catch himself.  He sat there for a while, breathing heavily, trying to calm his heart.  That was twice today he nearly died.  That he knew of anyway.

Remembering the dog bark, Misha turned around.  A big German shepherd stood on his lawn behind him, its head lowered, sniffing in his direction.  Misha didn’t know how to react to the dog, so he waved at it.  It seemed like a dumb idea once he did it, but the dog came closer, keeping low and looking from side to side.  When it got close enough, it sniffed Misha all over.  Misha was too confused and exhausted to push the dog away.  And possibly still a little drunk, although the adrenaline seemed to be quickly burning that off.  The dog sat next to Misha and looked around, ears pricking this way and that.

“So where did you come from, eh?”  Misha rubbed the dog’s shoulder.  The dog appeared to be well groomed but a small bloody handprint in the fur on its side ruined its perfect coat.  He also noticed a few twigs and burs stuck in its fur as well.  Apparently, the dog had been skulking around in some brush much like Misha. It was wearing a harness too, which he found unusual.  However, it also had on a collar and Misha found its tags.  He read the name ‘Rifle’ on one of them.

“So you’re Rifle, huh?”  Misha rubbed the dog again.

Its ear flicked in his direction when he said its name.

“I kind of wish I had one of your name sakes with me.”  Misha read the rest of the tags, including an address.  “857 Jackson Ave.  That’s not that far from here.”

Rifle whined.

“What?  You can’t possibly recognise your address, can you?”

Rifle whined again and got to his feet.  Misha turned and looked at whatever the dog was focusing on.  A man in a UPS uniform was coming up the street.  He was running in a shambling manner.  He tripped, got back up, ran a few more steps, then tripped again and repeated the process.  He didn’t seem to register any pain.

Misha quickly got to his feet.  “So where do you think we should go, Rifle?”

The dog looked up at Misha then back at the UPS guy.  He whined, growled, and then whined again.  He was shuffling his paws about in an urgent manner.

“I guess anywhere but here is fine, right?”  Misha Jovovich decided to head to the dog’s owner’s house.  If the dog was loose, it was likely something bad had happened there too, but it was a destination and he thought he might not even go all the way there.  Misha thought he’d just get over to the next power grid.  Surely, there would be someone there who could help him.

10:

Kara

Kara sat in her bus seat, patiently waiting for her stop.  Her cane stood on the floor between her feet, her hands resting lightly on top of it.  She needed the cane eight years ago when she had badly twisted her ankle on poor pavement outside a supermarket.  She didn’t need it for its proper purpose anymore, but kept it anyway.  It had its uses, like now on the bus.  The bus was very crowded when she got on, but because she had the cane, and faked that she needed it, a nice young man gave up his seat for her.  She felt no guilt about taking it and enjoyed her ride.

At sixty-eight, Kara felt very little guilt about anything.  If she took a cab from someone else, oh well, they weren’t fast enough.  If she took the last box of cereal that some kid had been begging his mom to get, oh well, it’ll teach the kid respect.  If she stepped on somebody’s toes, oh well, they shouldn’t have been standing so close.  Kara looked out for herself, and herself alone.  She always had, because she always needed to.

The bus rattled and bounced along, the people inside swaying with the motions.  Some of them bumped into each other, muttering soft apologies.  Kara didn’t even need to take the bus, but she did it anyway.  Her family had built a very successful career in groundbreaking sciences.  Her grandfather and his brothers had been the key founders of Marble Keystone Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest research and development companies in the world that had gone on to become the Marble Keystone Corporation.  Kara’s mother had passed away when she was young, and when her father, who had followed in his father’s footsteps, had died several years ago due to a job-related accident, he left Kara everything.  It upset his mistress greatly, but it meant Kara could continue never to work a day in her life unless she wanted to.  Her father’s money was now officially hers.  Considering he had always gotten her what she wanted when she wanted, very little changed.  She still did a few things for the company: going to charity and fundraising events, deciding who was to receive donations, settling a few petty disputes among some of the higher-ups, many of whom were her cousins or second-cousins.  She was the one who thought to have the concert they were throwing today for spinal cord research.  She knew little about what Keystone was working on specifically, but she knew what the public liked to hear.  That was why Kara rode the bus.  Being amongst the general public gave her an understanding of their general mood.  That, and people watching had always been a favourite hobby of hers.

The bus pulled over to the side of the road and Kara looked out the window to see what stop they were at.  They weren’t at any stop; they had just unexpectedly pulled over.  Those that noticed groaned, most likely thinking the bus had broken down.  The bus driver stood up and addressed the passengers using the little overhead speakers.

“We’re sorry for this folks, but it looks like we’re shutting down,” the bus driver announced.

Kara frowned from her seat near the bus driver, “What do you mean, shutting down?”

“Just what I said, ma’am.”  The bus driver lifted his mic back up to his pudgy mouth.  “I truly am sorry for the inconvenience but there seems to be some sort of public emergency and all public transit has been asked to shut down.”

Several more groans greeted this announcement.  One passenger yelled out asking how he was supposed to get to work.  Another mentioned she had a child waiting for her at home.  Although on the surface these appeared to be normal disgruntled people, Kara was an expert people-watcher and noted the worry underneath.  The bus driver had spoken troubling words.

“What’s the public emergency?” Kara asked what no doubt, most everyone was thinking.

“I don’t know, they didn’t tell us anything.  Just to pull over and tell everyone that public transit has been shut down.  They’ll probably fill us in later, but I can’t say when that will be.”  The bus driver hung his mic back up and sat his plump butt back down into his chair.  He really did look like he knew nothing; the passengers’ worry was mirrored in him.

Riders started to disembark the bus through its doors.  A few tried to get more information out of the bus driver, but he had nothing for them.  The bus driver told some of them they could wait on the bus if they wanted, but that he didn’t expect to move anytime soon.  Once a seat next to Kara opened up, Walter sat down next to her.

“Do you want to stay on the bus?” Walter asked her.

Walter had worked for Kara for the past ten years.  She didn’t know what official title to give him as he was a bodyguard, a butler, a cook, a chauffeur, a maid, a gardener, and an assistant all rolled into one.  Manservant best covered all the bases.  Of course, Kara had hired others to fill these roles formally, but Walter stepped in whenever it was required of him.  Kara had known him since he was twenty years old, and he had stuck around longer than all the rest had so far.  Some of her cousins used to titter about how she always had a young white male following her around, but Kara paid them no mind.  Her servants were usually young because they were eager and more malleable, and male because she happened to get along with males better.  As for the white part, she didn’t even think about it.  Skin colour was never something she paid attention to.  She often forgot that the dark skin she had inherited from her mother made her stand out amid the rest of her white family.  Her skin, combined with her sharp, bird-like features, made her look completely unrelated to the rest of the flat-faced Taggarts.  Kara knew her cousins thought she was one of those people who were deeply into their black heritage and always hired white men as a way of snubbing them in some fashion.  She had absolutely no idea why they thought this, as she never showed any interest at all.  She treated everyone around her equally.

Kara sat and thought about Walter’s question for a moment.  “No,” she finally decided.  She got up and headed for the door.  There was only one other teenage girl left on the bus.  “You’re not getting off?” Kara wondered.

“I’m in no rush to get anywhere,” the girl shrugged,  “besides, I have everything I need right here.”  She patted a backpack sitting on the seat beside her.

Kara departed the bus.  She was amused by the girl who stayed on it.  The last time she had run into someone who wasn’t in a rush to get somewhere was many years ago.  Everyone was always so busy.

“Would you like me to call for a car?” Walter asked once they had cleared the bus.

“No.”  Kara shook her head and strode off down the street.  “At least not yet.  It’s a nice day.  A walk will do you some good.”

Walter nodded and walked alongside her.  Kara knew she didn’t need the exercise; she was incredibly fit.  She swam laps in the indoor pool nearly every day, ate only healthy foods, and never took the elevators or escalators when stairs were easily an option.  She also did yoga on her less busy days.  Walter, on the other hand, was rather pudgy and often gave in to temptation when candied and chocolate goods were present.

“What do you say to wandering through the mall, Walter?”  Kara had noted they weren’t far from one of the more decent shopping malls that were dotted around Leighton.  Kara had seen much of Leighton get built over the span of her life, going from one single, soaring skyscraper, to a decent-sized city with ever-expanding suburbs.  It was truly amazing how fast the place popped up considering its size.  Construction was constant.

“I don’t mind,” Walter replied.

Walter never minded.  You could ask him if he’d like to swim to Antarctica and he’d say he didn’t mind.  The only time he voiced an opinion was when he thought Kara’s safety was involved, or when he thought something would be cutting into her schedule.  Today however, she had nothing planned.  She had taken the bus to her favourite hairdresser and gotten a trim, a pedicure, and a manicure, then got on the bus to head home.  A little side shopping trip would fill out the rest of the day nicely.  Best to make the most of things.

Kara and her servant continued up the street.  When they reached the mall, they didn’t bother walking all the way to the parking lot entrance, but crossed over the little barrier and the little strip of grass.  Even though Kara could easily step over the barrier on her own, she accepted Walter’s offered hand of help.

The two of them then crossed the parking lot toward one of the department store entrances.  It looked like several other people from the bus had also decided to stop by the mall, whether to go shopping or to wait for rides.  For some, this may have been their destination to begin with, and others may actually need the pay phones.  Kara was like them; she didn’t have a cell phone.  She didn’t like the fact that people could reach her anywhere at anytime.  Walter had one, in case of emergencies, but if anyone called it looking for Kara, she wouldn’t accept the phone.  That probably also made Walter her messaging service.

They reached the entrance to the department store and went inside, feeling the cool breeze of a powerful air conditioner wash over them.  The entrance to the store was surrounded with its usual collection of clothes.  They were inexpensive, but Kara knew that cost didn’t always equal quality or style.  Sometimes she found something she liked in these places.  If it fit and was comfortable, then she’d buy it.  Sometimes though, she would only wear it once before deciding that she didn’t like it as much as she first thought and then would donate it to a clothing drive.  She had donated a lot of clothing over the years.

Kara led Walter past all the clothes, then the watches and jewellery, and then the makeup.  Finally, they reached the actual mall.

“Is there anything you need?” Kara asked her servant.

“Actually, I was thinking of getting some new sneakers,” Walter told her.  “I’ve been seriously considering joining a gym.”

“Good.”  Kara was an ardent believer in keeping one’s self fit and healthy.  “If you promise to join the gym, I’ll pay for your shoes myself.”

Although Walter lived in her not-quite-a-house-not-quite-a-mansion, and worked with Kara most of the time, he did get time off.  With the prospect of going to a gym, he was likely to get even more time off.  Kara wondered if maybe a woman was involved.  That’s usually how she lost her servants.  They would meet a woman and want more time off than Kara could give them.  If Walter now had a woman, that meant he might be leaving Kara soon.  Although the thought of this somewhat upset Kara, she always knew it would happen eventually.  Perhaps her next employee would be an older gentleman.  Perhaps even someone who had been around for roughly the same amount of time that she had been.

They walked through the halls of the mall until they found a large sports store that sold athletic shoes.  Kara walked up to a man who was busy behind the cash register.

“I’m looking to buy a good pair of running shoes for my associate here,” she told the man.

“All right, but I’m very busy.  Could you give me a moment?”  The man did indeed look to be very busy.  There were a number of customers around the store but not a lot of people seemed to be working there.  In fact, the man was the only employee that Kara could spot.

“It’s all right,” Walter told the man, sounding almost embarrassed,  “we’ll just look around.”

Walter walked over to the wall of shoes.  Kara followed him this time.  She believed highly in personal service but if the man was busy, then the man was busy.  Walter started looking over the athletic shoes, picking up ones he liked the look of and turning them over in his hands.  Kara sat down on the bench meant for trying on shoes and watched.  She had recently bought a new pair and had no need to browse for herself.

“What do you think of these ones?”  Walter held out a shoe.

“The neon stripes are hideous,” Kara told him.  And they were too: bright orange with smaller, yellow stripes inside.  Kara couldn’t see how anyone could think they looked good, but then it seemed to her that younger fashion was about being as daring and garish as possible.  Her own clothing choices when she had been younger probably came across the same way.

“Okay.”  Walter put down the shoe.  He picked another one.  “How about this one?”

“Better, but I don’t think the green suits you.”  She thought Walter was much more suited towards blacks and greys, but the man seemed to insist on bright, sometimes hideous colour.  “Try something with blue.”  Blue was better than the red he had turned to look at.

Walter browsed the shoes a little longer and then picked out a white shoe with blue piping.

“Much better.”  Kara still thought it didn’t suit him, but she doubted he would pick out anything that would.

Walter looked at the display shoe’s size.  “This pair is too small. We’ll have to ask someone to get a larger size.”

Kara stood up and took the shoe from Walter.  She walked over to the counter where the man was still busy with something.  “We need this in another size.”  She put the shoe on the counter.

“I’m still busy,” the man mumbled rather rudely.  He was trying to ring up another customer’s purchase but was having problems with the machine.

“I can see that,” Kara quipped.  “I’m asking you to find someone else who can help us.”

“There is no one else, lady.”  The man finally got the purchase to ring in but he was still agitated.

“You can’t be the only one working here,” Kara huffed.

“Do you see anyone else?” the man snapped, waving his hand to gesture at the rest of the store.

“No,” her eyes narrowed and her voice dropped a degree.  She didn’t like people snapping at her.

“That’s because they all called in sick, or just didn’t bother showing up,” the man complained.

“Well, bully for them.  I still need this shoe in another size.”  Kara didn’t care about this man’s problems.

The man grabbed a key card from one of his pockets and slammed it on the counter in front of her.  “Here.  The back rooms are over there.  You can look for the shoes yourself.”

“Thank you,” she said curtly.  She took the key card and walked toward the back room.  Walter followed her.  He probably felt badly for the man but he had seen Kara do this many times before.  He knew it was best not to argue, and Kara was glad he didn’t utter a sound about it.

Kara waved the card over a device next to the double doors, and the locks inside both snapped open.  They both stepped inside and left the two doors open behind them, in case someone else was sent back here by the cashier.  It was a warehouse-like room with shelves reaching up to the slightly higher than average ceiling.  Every one of them was loaded down with boxes.  They were well stocked.

“So how do we find these shoes?” Kara wondered.

“Umm…”  Walter turned over the shoe in his hands until he found a tag.  “I think we have to find this serial number.”

Walter said ‘we’ but then went off looking on his own.  Kara waited patiently by the door.

“I think I found it,” Walter called from one of the shelves.

Kara found the aisle he was in and joined him.

“Does this look like the same shoe?”  Walter held out an open box.

Kara looked inside and compared the shoes to the one in his hand.  “Yes, that’s the same shoe.  Do you know what size you wear?”

“No, I can only visually tell that it’s larger than the display shoe.”

“Well then, start trying them on,” she sighed.  Unlike the main store, there was nowhere for Kara to sit back here.

Walter grabbed a few boxes of different sized shoes and sat on the floor with them.  He began trying them on one by one.  When he was trying on the third pair, someone slammed one of the doors closed, startling both him and Kara.  They both hurried down to the end of the aisle.  It was the salesman, and he was trying to hold the second door closed against someone trying to get in.  He saw them standing there looking at him.

“What are you…?” he started.  “Oh never mind.  Get over here and help me!”

Walter took a step toward the man, but at that moment, the force against the door was too great.  It burst inwards and a pair of teenagers rushed through.  The salesman fell over from the force, and the teenagers landed on top of him.  They began beating on him and tearing at his flesh.

* * *

Walter took back his previous step, surprised by the sudden introduction of violence.  He was going to step forward once more, but Kara raised her cane in the way.  Walter looked over at her, and she just shook her head.  There was nothing they could do for the man.

“Did you happen to see if there was a back door out of here?” Kara whispered.

Walter nodded.

“Then take us to it.  Hurry.”  Kara didn’t quite know what was going on, but she knew it was best not to stick around.  Murder witnesses made good secondary targets.

Walter took a few steps backward, not able to take his eyes off the carnage before them.  He finally turned away.  Kara was about to turn and follow him when one of the teenagers looked up.  Her face was bloody, and her eyes pale.  Her jaw snapped open, and a low groan escaped through her parted lips.  She turned her attention back to the salesman, but the teenage boy snapped his head around to look at Kara.  He shrieked and got to his feet.

“Run!”  Kara could easily figure out what would happen next.  She had seen enough predators in the wild to know.  She turned on her heel and swatted Walter in the butt with her cane to make sure he’d move.

They began running; Walter leading them to what Kara hoped was an exit.  The teenage boy gave chase, his sneakers slapping on the cement floor behind them.  They turned down a final aisle and Kara saw the door past Walter.  It was one of the big roll up kind for loading things.  There was no way they could get that open before the boy caught up to them.  Kara only hoped that Walter would be enough of a distraction for the teenager so that she could get away.  She would be saddened, but she could always get a new servant.

When the teenager rounded the corner, he was off-balance and slammed into some shelving.  A few boxes fell around him, tripping him up further.  Kara thanked her stars for it.  She had felt his hand brush the ends of her hair, but now had a bit more distance between them.  The roll up door still presented a problem though.  Walter turned the corner ahead and ran to the side of the roll up.  Kara didn’t know where he was going until she heard the click of a security bar being pressed.  There was a person-sized door next to the roll up: an emergency exit.  And if this wasn’t an emergency, then Kara didn’t know what was.  She pushed herself harder to get to it.  Behind her, the teenager slammed into the roll up as he turned to take the corner.  The sound he made echoed loudly through the large room.  Kara burst through the door and into the sunlight, nearly launching herself right off the edge of the platform that the door led onto.  Walter was there, and as soon as she was through, he shoved the door closed.  The teenager slammed into it, trying to force it back open.  He stuck his arm out through the gap, reaching for Walter.  Kara started slamming her cane into the boy’s arm, but the pain that must have caused did nothing to help.  She changed tactics and started poking and prodding, trying to shove the arm back through the gap.  Eventually it worked and Walter got the door to slam all the way closed, but the teenager persisted in trying to get out.

“Find something we can use to jam the door closed,” Walter gasped.

Kara nodded and began looking around.  They were in a nook off the parking garage where trucks would off-load their wares into the sporting goods store.  Thankfully, a bunch of dumpsters was also nearby, and a lot of junk was laying around.  Kara ran down the few steps and started looking through the junk.  Most of it appeared to be broken or unsellable items from the sports store.  She found a badly scratched snowboard and pulled it out of the pile.  After carrying it over to Walter at the door, she placed one end against the metal railing and tried to jam the other end under the handle.  She couldn’t do it alone, but Walter lent a helping hand, and eventually they got it under the handle.

“That’s not going to hold for long.”  Walter continued to keep his shoulder against the door.

“It doesn’t need to,” Kara told him,  “it just needs to hold long enough for us to get away.”

“Away to where?”

Kara pointed into the parking garage.  “There are a lot of cars over there.  We’ll just hide amongst them.”

“You think that’ll work?” Walter sounded hesitant.

“Why not?”  Kara left Walter’s side and headed for the cars.  If he wanted to stay behind and continue holding the door closed, that was his problem.  Kara wasn’t going to wait around.

Just as she reached the first few cars, Walter caught up to her.  Apparently, he had decided that Kara might have had an all right idea.  The two of them chose a car, a generic 1997 Cavalier, and crouched down behind it.

“How long do you think the snowboard will hold?” Walter wondered aloud.

Before Kara could even think about answering, there was a large crash.  They both crouched lower behind the vehicle.  Kara slowly lifted her head up until she was peering through the car’s windows.  They weren’t tinted which made viewing easier, but not hiding.  She could just make out the platform from where they were.  The teenager stood on it, looking around with his teeth bared.  The snowboard lay at his feet, sporting more scratches than before.  He disappeared as he headed down the steps, but soon was in sight again.  His head scanned from side to side, like an animal on the hunt.  Kara wondered if he was actually sniffing at the air.  He took several hurried and jerking steps forward and then stopped and scanned again.  He took a few more steps then stopped once more.  He was slowly coming closer.  He would find their hiding spot.

* * *

Walter shifted slightly and scraped some pebbles across the asphalt.  The teenager’s head snapped in their direction, and Kara quickly ducked out of sight.  She gave Walter a cold and very annoyed look.  Walter looked very apologetically back.  If they died, Kara would not be accepting that apology in the afterlife.  The teenager started coming towards them.  Kara could tell by the sounds of his jerking footsteps on the asphalt.  He didn’t seem to quite know where they were, but knew the general direction.  If she thought he was going to find their hiding spot before, it was a guarantee now.  Kara quickly opened her purse and started rooting through it.  She a found a makeup compact and pulled it out.  Very slowly, Kara looked under the car to see where the teenage boy was.  He was close enough for Kara to see his feet, which was too close in her opinion.  With one quick move, she threw the compact away.  It bounced off a car an aisle over.

The teenager ran after the sound.  Kara peeked her head up and looked through the car windows again.  The teenager was still close, but was now looking elsewhere.  Kara started looking through her purse again.  Walter wasn’t daring to move; he was barely even breathing.  His eyes looked like they might fall right out of his head.  Kara found her emergency deodorant stick and pulled it out.  She picked her target more carefully this time.  She chose the most expensive car within her throwing range, a Lincoln, and took aim.  The deodorant stick flew true and bounced off the rear windshield.  The teenager ran towards the sound and smacked into the car.  This set off the luxury car’s alarm.  The teenager freaked out more and started beating on the car.

“Come on.”  Kara grabbed Walter’s shoulder and pulled him up.  They quickly headed in the opposite direction, glancing over their shoulders every now and again.  The alarm covered the sound of their escape.

* * *

“How did you know that would work?” Walter finally asked her when they took a breather at the edge of the parking lot.

“I didn’t,” Kara admitted.  “But it worked and that’s all that matters.  Don’t you think you should be calling the cops right about now?”

“Oh right.”  It seemed Walter had forgotten all about his cell phone.  The adrenaline rush and the fear were probably new to Walter.  Kara often said he was her bodyguard but she never actually had a use for one.  She, on the other hand, had felt the rush of adrenaline many times throughout her life.  She hadn’t felt it in quite a few years, but the instincts came back quickly.

Walter finally fished out his phone and held it out to Kara with a slight tremble in his hand.

“It’s your phone.”  Kara pushed it back to him.  The normality of talking on a phone might help calm his nerves somewhat.

Walter took the phone and dialed.  The first time he managed to misdial, but he got it the second time.  He held the phone to his ear and shuffled his feet.  He kept looking back into the parking garage.  Suddenly, he frowned and looked at his phone as if he had misdialed again.  He hung up and dialed a third time.  His frown deepened.

“What is it?” Kara held out her hand for the phone.  Walter gave it to her without hanging up.  She put it to her ear and heard the busy signal.  She looked at the phone and clarified that it was indeed 911 Walter had dialed.  Kara sighed and handed him back his phone.  “We should be going.  Call George and tell him to bring the car.”

“Yes, Ms. Taggart.”  Walter seemed to be falling into the formal pattern he used at functions.  He stood straighter and spoke softer.  He wanted to be told what to do.  Good thing Kara was ready to command him.  Walter dialed the phone again.  He stood there for several minutes before hanging up.

“No answer.”  Kara could easily tell.  “Try again.”

Walter did but he got the same non-response.

“Looks like we’re walking.”  Kara headed for the street.

“Why don’t we try calling a cab?” With another look into the parking garage, Walter followed her.

“The buses stopped running.  Who do you think all those passengers have called?” Kara pointed out.  “We’re unlikely to get one anytime soon.”

Walter walked with his shoulders hunched around him as if he expected another attack at any moment.  “Where are we going?”  He sounded like a child.

“Home, where else?”  Kara thought it was fairly obvious.

“I thought maybe we could go to the police station,” Walter mumbled as if he were ashamed of this reasoning.

“If the phone lines are jammed, can you imagine what the actual station must look like?”

“What do you think happened to jam the phone lines?”

“Probably a terrorist attack,” Kara shrugged.  In truth, she thought maybe what she saw the teenagers doing had something to do with it, but she didn’t want to tell Walter that.  He was already being wimpy, something she hadn’t expected from him but should have.  She hoped these odd mood swings would end fairly quickly.  They reached a main street and Kara began to cross.

“Home is that way.”  Walter pointed across the other street.

“I don’t want to stay on the main roads.”  Kara continued forward.  She slung her purse strap over her head so that she wouldn’t have to worry about it sliding off her shoulder. At least she had worn her flats today.  If she had opted for heels, she would have surely been killed by that teenager in the store.  She wished she were wearing something better than a skirt though.  “Which shoes are you wearing?”

Walter looked down at his feet as they reached the other side of the road.  He had the new sneakers on instead of the loafers he had left the house wearing.  “Oh!”  Walter turned as if to head back to the mall but Kara stopped him with her cane again.

“I think a pair of accidentally stolen shoes is the least of their worries, but if you really want to go back, you’re on your own.”  Kara didn’t need to add that last part but she did.  It added just enough seriousness to make sure Walter wasn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

Kara continued to lead Walter down the side streets.  They were heading in generally the right direction but the streets here weren’t always straight.  Kara had an excellent sense of direction though and made sure they were always heading in the right direction.  She focused on where they were going as opposed to what had happened.  Kara was good at compartmentalising and would deal with those thoughts later.

“What’s going on?” Walter eventually whispered.

Kara had begun to notice the oddities on the suburban streets.  She had been hoping Walter hadn’t, but it seemed he had.  “I honestly can’t say.”

Everywhere was the feel of something hunting something else.  A wilderness feel.  The longer they walked, the more this feeling grew.  They came across increasing amounts of destruction and heard more and more distressing noises.  Kara suddenly decided to head down a pedestrian walkway that led between two houses.  It went perpendicular to the direction they wanted to go, but she had the sudden feeling that the street they were on wasn’t safe.  Since the adrenaline kick, her habit of obeying all instincts had come back full force.  They wound up on a street lined with large, old-growth trees.  Kara liked that the trees would help hide them, but didn’t like the fact that they could hide other things as well.  Especially the willows with their thin, sweeping branches hanging all the way to the ground.  As a little girl, she loved willow trees.  The hanging branches made a natural fort that she loved to play adventure games in.  This was an adventure, but it certainly wasn’t a game.

They came across just such a tree with a car smashed into its trunk.  Walter stopped for a moment to look at the car while Kara kept walking around it.  On the other side of the car, she found the crumpled form of a small boy.  His head was brutally smashed in and broken glass and torn willow branches lay all around him.  She looked back at the car and saw the smashed-out windshield.  The boy must have been driving, as absurd as that sounded.  If he had been in the passenger seat, he would have hit the tree trunk, not landed over where Kara was.

“Walter?”  Kara noticed that Walter was still somewhere near the rear of the car.

“Ms. Taggart!  Come quick!” Walter called out.

Kara hurried back around the tree, gripping her cane with both hands, just in case she would need to use it on something, or someone.  Walter was leaning through a back door he had managed to pry open.

“What are you doing?” Kara asked him as she strode over.  Clearly, there was no immediate threat.

“There’s a little girl in here.  She’s hurt, but she’s breathing.”  Walter stood up, holding a tiny chubby girl in his chubby arms.  “I think she’s going to be okay.”

Kara strode over and placed her hand on the girl’s neck.  Her pulse was good.  She walked over to the car and looked around inside, discovering what was probably another child in the driver side foot well.  That section of the car was so badly crushed and mangled it was hard to make anything out other than blood.  Kara was pretty sure the child would have died instantly.

“Ms. Taggart, she’s waking up,” Walter told her from where he stood outside the car.

Kara stood upright again and looked back at the girl.  Her head was rolling slightly and her eyelids began to flutter.  “Put her down, Walter.”

Walter did as he was told and knelt down on the ground next to her.  Kara stood over them both.  The little girl groaned in a way that reminded Kara disturbingly of the female teenager in the back of the store.  Her eyes opened and she looked at Kara first, and then Walter.  They were crystal clear blue, which was very unlike the teenage girl’s.

“Hey there little sweet pea,” Walter said in the friendliest voice he could.

“I don’t talk to strangers,” the little girl mumbled.

Walter smiled and looked up at Kara.  “I think she’s going to be just fine.”

“Little girl,” Kara didn’t soften her sharp voice in the slightest.  “What happened?”

“I want Shoes,” the little girl said.

Both Kara and Walter looked down at her feet.  She wore a pair of kid’s sneakers over her white knee high socks.

“You’re wearing shoes,” Walter told her.

“Shoes!”  The little girl sat up.  “Where are you Shoes?”

Kara didn’t like her yelling like that.  “Keep quiet child.  There are dangerous people around.”

“I don’t think they could be more dangerous than Judy’s daddy.”  The little girl began to get to her feet.  Walter helped her stand.

“These kinds of people would kill you,” Kara told the girl, assuming the man she spoke of was just someone unpleasant.  Walter gave her a disapproving look.  He was the kind of man who would lie to a child.

“So would Judy’s daddy,” the girl stated.  “Now I want Shoes.”

The little girl began walking toward a house.  She stumbled and fell to her knees.  Walter rushed over to her and put her back on her feet.

“Let me help you.”  Walter took the little girl’s hand.  “My name’s Walter, what’s yours?”

“Alice Carter.  I live there.”  Alice pointed to the house she was heading for.

Kara Taggart rolled her eyes.  “Come on, Walter.  We’ll put the little girl in her house and then move on.”

“We can’t leave her alone,” Walter frowned.

“And we can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Have you seen all the broken windows we passed on our way here?”  Kara pointed across the street where there was just such a window.  “Wouldn’t you rather be at home where we have a large fence around the property?”

Walter thought about it.  “I guess so.”  He took a breath.  “But if no one is in that house, we’re bringing Alice with us.”

“Not without Shoes.”  Alice had been listening to them.  Apparently she wasn’t going anywhere without shoes, even though she was already wearing a pair.

They reached the door to the house and Walter tried the knob.

“It’s locked, silly,” Alice giggled.  “Daddy always locks the door when nobody’s home.”  She stood on her tiptoes and reached a small hand behind the mailbox.  She pulled down a key and stuck it in the lock of the door.  Kara didn’t believe the girl actually lived there until the door opened.  And if she was right, nobody was home to look after her.

“Shoes!” Alice called into the house.  “Shoes!”

There was a low woof and a basset hound came waddling around the corner.  Its loose skin swung from side to side as it hurried toward the girl.

“There you are, Shoes!”  Alice knelt down as the dog approached her.  It gave another low woof just as it reached Alice and proceeded to lick her face.

“Does Shoes have a leash?” Walter asked.

Kara couldn’t believe she was agreeing to this.  She should probably just leave them all behind.

“Yup.”  Alice opened a closet next to the door and took a blue leash down from a hook there.  “Wanna go walkies, Shoes?”

The dog woofed twice and lifted its front legs slightly in a hopping, almost hopeful manner.  The way the loose skin slid over the dog somewhat disgusted Kara.  If she had to choose, she much preferred cats.  Alice clipped the leash to the dog’s collar.

“Would you like me to take him?” Walter offered to take the leash.  Clearly, he believed the girl when she said no one was home and didn’t want to take the time to check.  Kara was perfectly okay with that.

“I can walk him myself,” Alice stated proudly.

“All right then.”  Walter let the girl keep the leash.

“Can we get moving now?” Kara wondered.

“What if Shoes poopies?  We need plastic bags.”  Alice looked back into the house.

“Oh, didn’t you hear?  Today is ‘don’t pick up dog poo day’,” Kara sighed with sarcasm.

Alice closed the door to the house and locked it.  “Oh, okay then.”

11:

Mathias

Mathias Cole lay on his bunk staring at the ceiling.  The white stucco stared back at him, mockingly.  At least, the little bit that kind of looked like a face did.  He needed to get out of here.  He was making himself sick with worry about his little brother, Danny.  The morons in charge weren’t telling anybody what was happening on the surface.  They weren’t even telling the surface.  He tried every way he could think of to get out of that damn complex, but it was just that; it was too damn complex.  Everything was locked down tighter than a CEO’s blackmail pictures.  All he could do was lay there and stare at the damned ceiling.

“Cole!”  Someone hammered on the door.  “Cole, are you in there?”

Mathias sat up and got off his bunk.  It took him only two steps to reach the door of his little cell of a room.  He pressed the big button next to the door and it slid open with a faint hiss and a grating groan.  Most doors were totally silent here, but Mathias’s luck insured that he got the noisy one.

“What do you want, Roy?” Mathias grumbled.  Roy was a scientist who thought he was Mathias’s friend.  He hadn’t seemed to get the memo that scientists and mercenaries just couldn’t be friends.  Too much work tension between the two groups.  Not to mention that the scientists were creepy, arrogant, and too smart for their own good.

“I got you a way out!” Roy crowed triumphantly.

“What?”  Mathias rubbed his eyes.  Surely he wasn’t talking about out out.

“I told Christopherson that I needed some research materials I had left back at my house last time I was there,” Roy started babbling.  He was nervous for some reason.  Energetic, excited even, but nervous.  He wouldn’t meet Mathias’s eyes either, although that wasn’t new.  “I explained to him how I really needed them and he said I could get them, but that I’d need a security escort.  I got you on the escort list!”

A huge grin broke out on Mathias’s rugged face showing every tooth.  Maybe he could try to be friends with Roy after all.  “When?”

“Like, right now, grab your gear.”  Roy was literally hopping from one foot to the other.  He looked like he was going to explode.

Mathias dragged a pack out from under his bunk and slung it onto his back.  “What are we waiting for?”  Living in the facility meant living out of your bag.  You never knew when they were going to assign you to different quarters or send you out on a month-long assignment.

Roy stepped aside and let Mathias walk out of his room.  He headed down the white hall, following the blue arrows.  All of the halls were a seamless white, made of something similar to glass.  Behind them was some sort of screens that once you punched in your destination on handy consoles located about, would light the way for you with coloured arrows.  Most people who worked in the facility had a tracker on them so that the building knew where they were and where to direct them.  It was actually a little creepy.  Without it, though, it was all too easy to get completely lost in the generic, white facility.  Mathias knew first hand because he didn’t like his whereabouts known, so he often didn’t have his tracker on him, like now.

Roy must have keyed in the destination before knocking on Mathias’s door because it was lit up before he even stepped out.  Mathias didn’t actually need these arrows, as they were heading to a location he went to often enough.  Roy’s short little legs hurried to keep up.

It was strangely busy in the facility.  Lots of people were buzzing about, following their own lighted arrows.  Mathias had noticed that, ever since the incident, there seemed to be more people here.  Which was saying something because there was already a small city’s worth.  It looked like more security had been brought in.  He had even run into an old colleague who had been called in from Australia.

“Who else is on the team?” Mathias asked.

“East, Chant, Edelstein, Cole… well, you know you…  LeBlanc, Coombs, and Grey.”  Roy clearly had taken his time memorizing the list.  He so desperately wanted to be friends with the hired goons.

“A seven man team?  What do they expect out there?”  LeBlanc was good; he wanted to ditch just as badly as Mathias.  Chant and East wouldn’t stop him, but Coombs was unpredictable and Edelstein would definitely stand in his way.

The happy grin that had plastered Roy’s round face fell.  “You know exactly what they expect to find out there.”

“It couldn’t have gotten that bad, could it?”  Mathias knew what had been let loose, but for it to spread that quickly seemed unlikely.

“Do the math.”  Roy waved a hand around his own head.

“I don’t know the math,” Mathias grumbled.  There was that scientist/mercenary barrier that often popped up.

“Right,” Roy sighed.  “So, three rats got out, yes?”  Roy ticked off a finger.

“Yeah, we caught the other three,” Mathias nodded.  That had been an interesting few days, trying to hunt down six white rats in a white complex.

“So, those three rats are going to infect other rats, either by biting them, or procreating, or possibly even just by nuzzling.”  Roy ticked off a second finger.

“Okay, more infected rats.”  So far, he made sense.

“Now, we have a pretty large number of rats infecting more and more as they go.  Infected rats spreading everywhere.  These rats are going to come into contact with people.  Say, homeless people.”  Roy ticked off one more finger.  “The extra aggression is going to make them hostile toward these people, provoking them to bite.  Now we have infected poor and homeless people.”

“Rich people can run into rats too, you know,” Mathias said smugly.

“Fine, some rich people too.  Now we have infected people, but these people haven’t been altered yet.  Still following me?  They’re more like carriers, like the rats are at this point.  The people may only be a bit more irritable, if even that.  There are no symptoms.”

“Yes, yes, infected but not zombified,” Mathias sighed.  Sometimes the scientists treated the mercenaries like children.  Other times, they spoke in terms that went miles above their heads.  Mathias could never find a happy medium with them, and that was just one of the reasons he didn’t like them.  The other was he didn’t always agree with what they did.  In fact, in this particular place, he rarely agreed.

“Don’t use that word,” Roy glowered.  The scientists hated the word ‘zombie.’  Everybody else had quickly latched onto it.  “Now these infected people are going to infect others, by sharing a fork or a bottle, possibly from biting, from kissing.”

“To be fair, I don’t think homeless people get a lot of action,” Mathias joked.

Roy just frowned.  “Either way, they spread it.  And remember that the rats are still spreading as well.  Seven to ten days after the first rat has bitten someone, they become altered.”

“A zombie.”

“Altered.  Now, you know what they do, right?”

“Try to rip your guts out and show them to you.”

“Pretty much.  But they will almost always try to bite you, at least once, which will make you infected.  It’s the prion’s way of spreading itself.”

“Prion?”  Mathias always thought of the thing as a virus.

“A prion is an infectious agent made up of protein,” Roy explained quickly, as if this made sense.  “Although it’s not a true prion; we managed to combine it with a virus.  Anyway, some people will get away with only a simple bite and bring the infection with them; others will die on the spot.  Those that die on the spot-”

“Become zombies.”

“Become altered.”  Mathias could tell he was really starting to piss Roy off, but he couldn’t help it.  Zombie just sounded so much more honest.  “Those altered are going to try to bite more people.  Those just carrying it will carry it all over the world, spreading it through blood and saliva contact.”

“And sex.”

“Yes, yes, and sex.”  Roy rolled his eyes.  “That first batch, who was infected by other humans, will take only three to five days to become altered.  When they do, they will attack others.  Human to human infection also leaves most altered smarter and more violent.  Many will still have the capability to run, and some will be able to perform more complex tasks, like opening doors, climbing ladders, removing obstacles-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know all that stuff.  I’ve seen them.”  Mathias involuntarily shuddered.  Those poor bastards volunteered, thinking it would lead to an early release from prison.  Turned out to be an early release from life.

“Of course.  But that means the attacks will spread a lot quicker.  Especially since the altered will be trying to kill others, making them become altered quicker.  A faster spread.  Also, the further down the human-to-human contact chain someone is, the faster they turn, if they manage to survive the attack.  And all this time, the rats are still spreading and people, altered by the rats, are still spreading…”

“Okay, okay, I see your point.  The shit can hit the fan.  What am I saying?  The shit has hit the fan.”  Mathias thought about Danny being alone on the surface.  “Do you know how bad it is up there?”

“No, they don’t tell us much more than they tell you.”  Mathias knew that was a bald-faced lie, but let it go.  “We have a prediction, though.”

“And what’s your prediction?”

“Well, there’s a time we call the ‘boiling point’,” Roy made little air quotes with his fingers,  “which is when there are enough human to human altered in existence, that the problem can’t be ignored.  It’s almost like an infection explosion where they suddenly seem to be everywhere, infecting more and more people.”

“And when do you think this boiling point will occur?”

“Our calculations predict that it could occur anywhere between two days ago and four days from now.”

“So we’re right in the hot zone is basically what you’re saying?”  Poor Danny, he had to get to him.

“I’m saying, I have no idea what we’ll find out there.”

Mathias didn’t quite believe him, but nodded anyway.  Why would he choose this day in particular to go outside?  Surely, it wasn’t for his benefit.  They had almost reached the prep chamber where the others were surely waiting.  Mathias stopped Roy for one last question.  “When I find my brother, will they let me bring him down here?”

Roy looked at his feet and shuffled them.  “It’s highly unlikely.”

“Then where else can I take him to keep him safe?”

Roy shrugged and used the pass hanging around his neck to open the door.  Mathias let Roy step through first.  He always worried about being led into some sort of trap down here and being killed off for some experiment.  If Roy went in willingly, then it must be okay.  Well, that was the hope.

The prep chamber was a large, white, cylindrical room with one door, the door they entered by.  Inside were all the team members Roy had listed off.  Mathias walked over to LeBlanc who was carrying a loaded rucksack like his own, except it had a rifle strapped to the side of it.

“So you’re getting out too, huh?” Mathias spoke to him in a low voice.

“I can’t take this place much longer.  I’ll probably survive longer outside with the zombies.”  LeBlanc sounded Irish despite his French name and Japanese looks.  “You going to look for your brother?”

Mathias nodded.

“Maybe I’ll come with you then.  More fire power has got to equal better odds, right?”

Mathias nodded again.  “Thanks.  What is it that Edelstein is carrying?”

“I don’t know, and he won’t tell me either.”

The always stern and proper Edelstein had a black, hardcase backpack and two metal suitcases.  He kept looking disapprovingly over at Mathias and LeBlanc.  He clearly knew what was going on.  East walked over to them, making their pair a trio.

“Hey guys.”  She didn’t have a backpack or any cases, just her rifle and whatever was on her wide belt.  She was known for having basically zero personal items, just a locket around her neck, and no one knew whose pictures were in it.  Mathais’s money was on her parents.

“Hello, my beautiful East!”  LeBlanc threw his arm across her shoulders.

“Fuck off, LeBlanc.”  East grabbed his arm and twisted it around behind his back.  He was always doing stupid shit with the girls.

“All right, all right, I give.”  He grinned as East let go.  “Hey, what’s that Edelstein’s got?”

“I don’t know.  Chant and Coombs also have some non-standard equipment, but they won’t talk to me either.  Guess it’s for whatever their mission really is,” East shrugged.

“What do you mean ‘their’?”  Mathias had noticed her self-exclusion.

“Oh, I’m ditching with you guys, didn’t LeBlanc tell you?” East frowned at LeBlanc.  Mathias did too.

“What?” LeBlanc shrugged.  “It didn’t come up.”

“I didn’t know you wanted out.”  Mathias really didn’t know and he thought he kept up with the gossip.  Then again, he had been pretty much out of the loop since the rat hunt.

“I tried not to let it get around ’cause I thought it would improve my odds of escape, but Chant figured it out.  I guess it’s for the best, ’cause it looks like they’re getting rid of the trouble-makers before everyone else decides they really don’t like it down here either.”  East took a stick of gum out her pocket and popped it into her mouth.  “Notice that they got more weaponry than us?  We’re being cut loose with as little fire power as they feel comfortable giving us.”

“Maybe we should leave some behind, eh?” LeBlanc grinned.  “Like in Roy’s big, fat head.”

“Cut it out,” Mathias rolled his eyes.  “We’re getting out, that’s all that matters.  Speaking of guns, I gotta go get mine.”

Mathias left the other two and went over to a small, barely visible panel in the wall.  He held out his dog tags, and a blue light scanned down them.  He was supposed to have dog tags made by the company, but he refused them.  He wanted to keep the old ones that he had before he was dishonourably discharged from the Rangers.  The company didn’t like this, but they gave in and adjusted the system to read his dog tags.  He said it was entirely for sentimental value, but really, it was partly because he knew they built trackers into theirs.  They had to give him his tracker separately, one that he carried in his pocket, and no one would notice if it was missing or not.  The dog tags had to be visible at all times, just like the scientist’s badges.

There was a click of fine mechanisms running for a moment and then a hiss.  Seams appeared in the wall and a hidden panel flipped open.  It held a rifle specially made by the company, a few magazines of their own brand of bullets, and a company side arm.  Mathias slung the rifle against his bag like LeBlanc, then holstered the pistol.  Lastly, he pocketed all of the ammo.  He often wondered how much more Keystone could do if they weren’t so busy making all these fancy rooms with their silent mechanisms.  Their guns and bullets were of really good quality, but what they had just supplied Mathias with was the bare minimum any mercenary was allowed to have when leaving the complex.  At least, when it was a potentially hostile environment and they weren’t just guarding some formal party nor doing bodyguard duty.  It seemed they really were planning on cutting him loose.  So why did that make him feel nervous?

Another panel near the high roof slid open.  This panel was much larger than the other was and revealed a glass window behind it.  A man stood up there behind a console.  The guys jokingly referred to him as God because of his position, but in reality, the scientists were closer to that title.

“One at a time, you will enter the spray chamber…” the man in the high room spoke over some hidden speakers.  Mathias tuned him out; he had heard it all before.  Roy was probably the only one paying attention to the instructions.  Unlike the grunts, the geeks didn’t get to go out all that often.  Which was weird because they were allowed to own houses topside while the mercs weren’t.  Someone tapped Mathias on the shoulder.

“Cole.”  Mathias turned to find Chant standing before him.  “Take this.”  She shoved a bulletproof vest into his arms.  “Hide it until you get into the sprayer, then put it on under your shirt.”

“Why are you giving me this?”  Mathias quickly slid it between his bag and his back after he was sure no one was looking.

“It was part of my kit, but you’re going to need it more than I will.”  Chant quickly glanced over at Edelstein, Coombs, and Roy, who were now giving her glances.  “I’m sorry.”

Chant gave Mathias a quick kiss on the cheek and hurried away.  Mathias and Chant had had a thing going for the last week or two, but the kiss on the cheek was out of character.  And what would she be sorry for?

Suddenly, the whole room began to turn.  The entrance was sealed off with a panel and the whole wall swung around so that it was on the other side of the room.  Once there, the panel slid away again to reveal an ugly metal hatch.  The company stopped caring about the aesthetics of anything outside the prep room.

“Silvia Chant, you’re first,” God spoke.

Chant quickly disappeared through the hatch.  Mathias walked over to LeBlanc and East.

“What was that about?”  LeBlanc tapped his own cheek.  He had seen the kiss, although apparently not the vest.

“I have no idea,” Mathias shrugged.  “East, you’re with her more often.  You know what it was about?”

East shook her head and shrugged.

Mathias looked at the door Chant had disappeared through and scratched the back of his neck, just below his dark stubbly hairline.

“Mathias Cole, you’re up,” spoke God.

Mathias headed toward the door, which slid open.  He stepped through and it slammed closed behind him, sealing out all light and sound.  Trapped.  A blue light came on ahead of him, the only illumination in the room.  There were three doors that looked like they belonged on a submarine.  Each of them had a light above it, but only the one on the left was on: the blue door, as it was called, because of the blue light.  The middle one was the green door and the right side one was the yellow.  You never wanted to see red; red was always very bad.  Each door led to its own spray chamber and allowed for the processing of three people at once.  Mathias walked over to the left side door and opened a hatch that reminded him of a garbage chute.  He guessed it was symbolic, saying all his stuff was garbage.  He dumped his pack, rifle, and the body armour into it.  A conveyor belt inside started up and took everything away.  He then began to strip off of all his other gear and clothing and dump them onto the conveyor as well.  The only thing that stayed on him was his dog tags.  He closed the hatch to the conveyor, shivering slightly from a chill that perpetually clung to the metal chamber.

Standing there naked always made Mathias feel very uncomfortable and vulnerable.  He always expected some jackass, like LeBlanc, to pop through the door behind him yelling ‘Surprise!’ although it never happened.  Today he felt especially uncomfortable knowing what could be going on topside.  He didn’t have to stand there very long, maybe only a second or two, but it always seemed so much longer.  There was a loud clunk and the door visually popped backwards somewhat.  Mathias pushed it open and stepped through.  He shoved the heavy metal door closed behind him and it sealed itself with a hiss.

This new chamber was tiny and even colder.  The sides and ceiling were made of solid metal, and the floor of old-looking tiles.  There was a sprinkler set into the centre of the ceiling and a drain in the floor directly beneath it.  Once the door was sealed, the sprayer was turned on.  Freezing cold disinfectant spray poured out of the sprinkler, making the tiny room fill with a torrent of rain.  It wasn’t supposed to irritate the eyes, but it stung anyway.  Mathias naturally shivered more and curled his arms to his chest on reflex but then relaxed and turned, making sure he got completely covered.  Thankfully, the spray-down never lasted too long.  When it stopped, another hatch popped open, and Mathias hurried through it, being careful not to slip on the slick tiles.

The next small room was just like the last, but without the drain in the floor, and with heaters in the ceiling rather than a sprinkler.  A towel rack hung from one wall with fresh towels.  They wouldn’t be fresh by the time everyone went through, but that was the advantage of having a last name that started with a C.  The guys further down the alphabet hated it when large teams went out on missions.  Mathias dried himself quickly under the heaters and then moved into the final chamber before it got too hot.

This final chamber was slightly bigger than the last two.  The conveyer belt ended here and dumped everything into a bucket.  Mathias had no idea what kind of decontamination his stuff went through, but everything always smelled like cheese.  Whatever it was, nothing ever came out damaged and it was always dry.  He quickly got dressed, making sure to put on the vest Chant gave him underneath his black T-shirt.  It was a little itchy, being directly against his skin, but he didn’t mind.  He was more concerned about how hot it would get.  Thankfully, Keystone was on the cutting edge, and their vests breathed more than the standard kind did.  They were slimmer too, so it was likely that no one would notice.  He put his pack back on and slung his rifle over his shoulder once more.  He thought it stupid that you were issued the rifle, and then sent it through decontamination.  It was so pointless.  Why didn’t you just get it on the other side?  He had never known the mercenaries to need guns inside the complex, even during the rat hunt.  They were given heavy gloves and cages for those because the company wanted them captured alive.  Mathias often wondered how the other rats had gotten out.  The place was supposed to be completely sealed against everything.  So far, no one had given him a sensible answer to that

Once he was ready, he walked up to the final door.  There was a slot in the wall next to the door with a little screen above it.  Mathias stuck his arm into it and felt the sharp prick of needles.  Some of his blood was taken for quick testing.  The screen lit up green with a cheesy little thumbs up icon.  Mathias was then able to open the door and head into a much larger room.  Chant was already there, waiting.

“Hey.  Is there something you should be telling me?” Mathias asked her.  Even the way she was standing was out of the ordinary.  Something was going on.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then the right side door opened and Coombs came through.  He must have dried quickly and dressed at lightning speed to be through so fast.  Chant closed her mouth again.  Whatever it was she wanted to say, she couldn’t say it in front of Coombs.

They stood around in the ugly utility room while they waited for everyone, an uncomfortable silence in the air.  You could tell that the big wigs never had to go through this way.  There wasn’t even good lighting, just a bare bulb on a wire.  The big wigs went through ‘heaven’, the upper area where God resided.  No one Mathias personally knew had ever been up there, but apparently, it was completely sealed and separate from the labs it looked down upon, so they never had to worry about containment protocols.  As if those protocols really mattered now.  The worst thing that could get out did.  Well, maybe not the worst.  Mathias had heard rumours that there was a disease down here that would make you feel sicker than anything you could imagine, for three days, but then you’d feel fine.  After feeling fine for about a week, and transmitting the disease to others, you’d just drop dead of sudden massive organ failure.  That could be worse than zombies.  Maybe.

Eventually, the whole team came through, Roy being last.  He looked a little harassed or something.  He clearly didn’t visit home very often and wasn’t used to the procedure.  Maybe once every other month or so.  The mercenaries were used to it, as they had to go in and out all the time for various exercises and the occasional field mission.  Mathias remembered one day when they must have gone in and out about five times.

“Move out!” Edelstein barked.  He was usually put in charge of missions, not because he was a good leader or anything, but because he was an ambitious suck-up and always did as he was told by the higher ups.  Mathias hated him and usually tried to piss him off, but today he thought he’d follow along until the opportunity came to ditch.

They went through a normal door for once and entered a large garage.  Next to them was another door that led to more spray chambers, but in reverse order for those coming back inside.  The garage was filled with an odd variety of vehicles with different purposes.  Some were special vehicles built by Keystone, while others were simply normal civilian cars.  The group headed toward a large, green military truck.  They didn’t use the military gear too often because it looked suspicious, but apparently, they decided stealth wasn’t a big deal today.  Coombs climbed into the driver seat, while Roy went around to the passenger side.  This meant Mathias had to climb into the back with the others.  The benches on either side of the canvassed rear were uncomfortable, and there wasn’t much to hold on to.  Nobody liked sitting back there, but today nobody complained about it.  Edelstein took up a position near the tailgate; he was watching everyone closely.  Something was going on, but Mathias couldn’t figure out what.  There was some piece of the puzzle he was missing that he couldn’t figure out on his own.

The truck’s engine started with a grumbling roar, and they began moving.  They crossed the lot and passed through a massive pair of blast doors.  They were large enough for a tank to drive through, because the company actually had a tank.  Mathias had always dreaded the day when they would need it.  The truck rumbled its way up a long, spiral ramp.  They passed several pairs of blast doors just standing open until the horrible day came when they might be needed.  If there was ever a blast that required all these doors, then there was sure to be nothing left of the world above but ash and fire.  Keystone was big on overkill.  The final door they passed through lead outside into the woods.  A great big slab of stone lifted to reveal the entrance, and they bounced down a dirt road toward town.

Mathias and the others in the back tried to stay in place on the benches, but with very little to hold onto, and major bumps in the road, this wasn’t an easy task.  They all sighed with relief when they got onto pavement.

“So this girl ends up in heaven, right?” LeBlanc started to say.

“Oh, God, not another one of your stupid jokes,” Chant sighed.

“Shut up, I haven’t told you this one yet.  So she’s in heaven.”  LeBlanc always told jokes when they drove somewhere.  Sometimes they were funny, sometimes they weren’t.  “And St. Peter is like, ‘Welcome to heaven.  We only have one rule here: don’t step on the ducks.’  So this chick’s thinking, sounds easy enough, right?  Little did she know that heaven is full of ducks.  Like, super full.  Ducks everywhere.  So she’s trying not to step on these ducks, but there’s just so many.  Eventually, she steps on one, of course.”

“Of course,” Mathias grinned.

“So St. Peter walks up to her, shaking his head.  ‘You stepped on a duck,’ he says.  ‘I’m sorry,’ says the chick, ‘What happens now?’  ‘Well,’ says St. Peter, ‘you have to be chained up to this annoying and ugly man for the next week.’  Of course, the chick doesn’t think that was too bad at first.  By the end of the week though, she was so pissed.  He really was annoying and ugly.  After that, she was even more careful about the ducks.  St. Peter had said the punishment would be worse if she did it again.  So she’s being real careful, watching out for all these ducks.  But wouldn’t you know it…”

“She steps on a duck?”  Mathias actually liked LeBlanc’s jokes, even if they were stupid.

“Yup.  So St. Peter comes back shaking his head again.  This time the chick is chained to an even uglier guy who’s even more annoying.  And she’s told she’s going to be chained to him for a month.  Total disaster right?  Of course, she’s super-pissed off and annoyed by the time the month is through.  After that, she’s real careful about the ducks.  She tries her absolute hardest not to step on any of them.  And she does a really good job.  She goes a long time without stepping on any ducks.  One day St. Peter comes up to her with this gorgeous looking guy in tow.  He chains her up to the guy and then walks away without saying a word.  ‘Wow,’ says the chick, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’  The guy replies, ‘I don’t know about you, but I stepped on a duck.”

Mathias started laughing.  The girls rolled their eyes but East was clearly trying not to laugh, hiding her mouth behind her hand but giving it away in her eyes.  Edelstein sat like a rock with no reaction.  He had zero sense of humour.

“Oh, I got another good one too,” LeBlanc grinned.

* * *

The ride continued with LeBlanc telling bad jokes the whole way.  He was a well of never-ending jokes; Mathias couldn’t recall ever hearing the same one twice.  He wondered where he had learned them all.  Eventually they reached their destination and the jokes dried up.  Once the truck stopped, Edelstein dropped the tailgate, and they piled out.  Mathias’s legs felt numb from the constant vibrations.  Clearly, Chant’s felt the same; she nearly fell over when she hopped out.  Mathias took a quick look around.  They were at the elementary school.  LeBlanc walked over and stood with him.

“Either Roy upgraded his place or I was lied to about this mission,” he said.

“We’re closer to my brother though, so I don’t care.”  Mathias knew exactly where they were in relation to the house Danny currently lived in.  This was his school after all.

“You two!” Edelstein barked.

Mathias and LeBlanc turned to face him.

“Stay out here and guard the truck with East,” he ordered.  He grabbed the equipment with Coombs, Chant, and Roy, and they all headed into the building.  Chant gave Mathias one last, sad look before disappearing into the school, her golden hair flashing in the sunlight.

“So I guess they are cutting us loose,” East smiled, clearly having thought it couldn’t be true.

“It just doesn’t seem right to me that they would,” Mathias frowned.  Something was very wrong.

“I need to piss.”  LeBlanc walked around to the back of the truck, ignoring Mathias’s misgivings.  Mathias heard him unzip and then heard him peeing.  He was probably peeing on the tire.

Suddenly there was a small flash and a crack from an open, upper window, and East’s chest exploded.  Mathias reacted on instinct, reaching for his pistol, but something heavy slammed into his own chest, knocking the wind out of him and dropping him to the ground.  A sniper.  His chest was on fire but he managed to get his pistol out anyway.  He opened fire on the window where he had seen the flash.  Unlike the sniper’s rifle, his pistol wasn’t silenced, and the sound boomed across the play yard.

There was a movement of curtain as the sniper hid from Mathias’s shots, the glass around the open window cracking and breaking.  Mathias had no breath to warn LeBlanc, but he got it anyway.  LeBlanc had zipped up and come back around the truck when he heard Mathias’s shots.  He now grabbed the handle at the top of Mathias’s bag and dragged him into cover behind the truck just as Coombs and Edelstein came back out of the school.  One of them opened fire with a rifle, the bullets shredding and pinging into the side of the truck.  Mathias gasped for air and clutched at his chest.

“You’re all right, buddy.”  LeBlanc patted his shoulder.  He dropped to his stomach and fired his own rifle underneath the truck.  There was a loud grunt.  LeBlanc must have gotten one of them in the legs.  Probably whoever had the rifle because the sound of the shots stopped.  Mathias had to hand it to the guy for not screaming.

The world was then filled with a terrifyingly familiar roar.  Mathias was suddenly wrapped in heat.

“Gotta go!”  LeBlanc hauled Mathias up to his feet.  “Head for the playground equipment, it’s the only cover between here and the fences!”

Keeping their heads down, the two of them took off running.  Mathias was still gasping, but burning lungs were better than burning flesh.  The bastards were using a flame-thrower on them.  There was another roar as napalm was launched in their direction.  Thankfully, even the Keystone brand of flame-throwers had range limits, and, as a plus, all the fire and smoke were giving them cover from the sniper.  Just as they made it to the playground equipment, the automatic rifle fire started up again.  Bullets pinged off the metal bits and made hollow thumps when they struck plastic.  LeBlanc grunted as a bullet ripped past his thigh.  He got very lucky that it was only a graze.

Whoever was firing the automatic couldn’t see them any better than the sniper, but he probably had a lot more bullets to spray in their direction.  Mathias and LeBlanc didn’t dare take a breather amongst the equipment, because a stray bullet was likely to embed in one of them sooner or later.  They continued on to the chain link fence, LeBlanc ripping his dog tags off as he went, to get rid of the tracker, and quickly climbed up and over it.  On the other side was a small path behind a bunch of backyard fences.  LeBlanc gave Mathias a boost up and over one of the tall wooden fences.  He landed heavily on his back.  His chest was killing him.  LeBlanc was over the fence in a moment and dragged Mathias back up onto his feet.  He didn’t want to run anymore, but he knew he had to.  His vision was tunnelling, focusing on where his feet needed to go.  LeBlanc led the way around the side of the house.  He fired off a single shot as they neared the front.

“What…?”  Mathias snapped his head up, the tunnel vision being pushed back slightly.  He was afraid that Edelstein had set up an advance team around the place.

“Zombie,” LeBlanc answered him simply.

Mathias looked at the body as they passed it.  It was a woman, looked like a housewife, with blood covering her hands and mouth.  A perfect, round hole was placed in the middle of her forehead.  LeBlanc had always been a damn good shot.

They ran across the yard and out into the street.  There, they were nearly hit by an ambulance.  Its tires screeched as it slammed on the brakes, stopping inches from them.  Mathias looked at the backwards lettering on the hood and then collapsed sideways onto the ground.  He couldn’t breathe anymore, and the darkness was creeping in.

Mathias lay gasping in the road trying to get a lungful.  He could hear LeBlanc yelling at someone but he couldn’t make out the words.  Air, he needed air.  It wasn’t just the edges of his vision going black now.

Everything snapped into focus again when a new wave of pain shot through him.  LeBlanc had grabbed his shoulders and was heaving him up while someone else had his legs.  Whoever had his legs was struggling with the weight.  He was upside down though and couldn’t see them, just the pavement passing by, inches from his nose.  He looked around through the returning darkness and saw that they were moving him to the back of the ambulance.  He was then thrown unceremoniously inside it.  LeBlanc climbed over him and Mathias guessed he climbed into the driver’s seat because they started moving.  The other person got his pack off him and rolled him onto his back.  It was a woman in a lab coat and scrubs.  She was a lovely brunette with her hair tied back into a French braid.  Her grey eyes were giving him a very severe look.

Mathias tried to say something, to ask her to help him, but he could only wheeze.  The blackness was nearly complete.

“I’m Dr. Bishop,” the woman told him harshly.  “Shut up and I’ll fix you.”

Bishop rolled up his T-shirt and looked at the body armour.  She grabbed the Velcro straps that held the vest on him and pulled.  There was a familiar tearing sound as the Velcro was pulled away from itself.  Suddenly the pressure on Mathias’s chest released.  He took a huge gulp of air and coughed.  His lungs kept greedily sucking in more air than they could take, which caused further coughing.  The coughing made his chest ache.

Bishop rolled her eyes and then Mathias onto his side.

Mathias closed his own eyes as he got his breathing under control.  His chest still hurt fiercely, but he could breath.

“You good now?” Dr. Bishop asked him.

Mathias nodded.

“All right, let’s sit you up then.”  Bishop helped him to rise up and get into one of the little seats located in the back of the rig.  “Take your shirt off so I can get a look at you.”

Mathias painfully removed his shirt and then pulled off the last of the Velcro straps so that the bulletproof vest slid off.  He looked at the vest.  A bullet was wedged deep into it, right over where his heart was.  Right where the pain was radiating out.

“LeBlanc,” Mathias called up front.  His voice was hoarse from the coughing.  “It wasn’t Chant.”

“What was that?”  LeBlanc glanced back over his shoulder and then faced the road again.

“It wasn’t Chant.  The sniper.”

“I know, buddy.”  LeBlanc turned his full attention back to the road.

Bishop started poking at his chest causing Mathias to hiss in pain a few times.  For a doctor, she certainly didn’t have a gentle touch.

“You’ll be all right,” she finally said.  “You’re going to have one hell of a bruise but it doesn’t look like any of your bones are cracked or broken.  You should probably get to a hospital and get an x-ray though, just to be sure.”

“Aren’t we going to a hospital?”  Mathias looked around the ambulance.

Bishop just gave him a sly smile and started to climb into the front passenger seat.  Mathias grunted and began getting dressed again.  He put the vest back on, but he didn’t wear it nearly as tightly as he had before.  He shifted around so that he was kneeling in the back behind the two front seats, his arms resting on each of them.

“So where are we going?” Mathias asked.

“I don’t know,” LeBlanc shrugged.  “Where does Danny live?”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Bishop cut in.  “This is my ambulance.  I was already going somewhere before you hijacked me.”

“Where were you going?” Mathias asked her.

“To my house first.”  Bishop had a stern and sharp look in her eyes.  Mathias could easily tell she was not just a hard woman, but a bristly one as well.

“Your house in this area?”  Mathias coughed once more.  He found his pack, took out a water bottle, and took a quick drink while Bishop answered.

“Yes, it’s just a few blocks away.”  She pointed in the direction of her place.

“Well, we’re making a detour.  LeBlanc, turn right at the next street.”  Mathias already had his bearings again.

“Great, so I save your sorry ass and you steal my ride.”  Bishop crossed her arms over her chest.

“Sorry, lady Doc,” LeBlanc grinned as he took the turn.

“If it makes you feel any better, it’s so we can find my little brother,” Mathias tried to explain.

“Do you know what’s going on?  What’s happening out there?”  Bishop was clearly aggravated.  “You might not survive just protecting your own ass, let alone someone else’s.”

“I know exactly what’s going on, thanks.”  Bishop was getting on Mathias’s nerves a little.  She had quite the attitude.

Bishop looked him up and down and then LeBlanc.  She just realized what they were wearing.  “You actually do know what happened, don’t you.  Tell me.”

“After we find my brother.”  She clearly wanted to know very badly.  Good, let it hang for a while.  Mathias wasn’t above baiting to get things.

Bishop looked like she was going to say something more, but something in Mathias’s look caused her to stop.  She leaned back in her seat, looking out the window.

“I’m Mathias by the way.”  He held out a hand in front of her.  “Mathias Cole.”

“Dr. Riley Bishop.”  Bishop shook his hand briefly without turning away from the window.

“Riley?  Interesting name.”  Mathias sat back on his haunches.  “LeBlanc, take the next left, then the third right, then look for 47.”

“You got it,” LeBlanc nodded.

“I prefer if you just call me Bishop,” Bishop grumbled.

“Bishop it is then.”  Mathias got up and sat back in the side seat with a groan.  His ribs were going to be sore for days.  “Is there any pain killer in here?”

“You’re joking, right?”  Bishop turned and cocked an eyebrow at him from around her seat.

“Care to tell me where it is then?”  Mathias had no idea what most of the stuff in here was for.  Some of it was practically alien.

“Check the box on the floor.”  Bishop faced forward again.

Mathias dragged the box over to him with his foot and rooted around in it.  He found a bottle of aspirin and popped a few.  “What did you do?  Rob a pharmacy?”

“No, a hospital.”

Mathias found his water bottle and took another swig of water.  He closed his eyes and leaned back.  He prayed Danny was still at the house.

i:

Path of Infection

A rat bit Louey while he was searching through a dumpster outside a pizzeria.  He found more food than usual that day.

A homeless man bit Marcus Detter when he stopped to see if he needed help.  After his trip to the hospital to get it disinfected, he made love to his wife, then flew to Africa a few days later.  He was going there as a doctor to help people.

Mrs. Detter kissed both her children good night, every night.  She worried about her husband going to Africa.  The fevers were unexpected.

A child attacked Justin on his way home from the movies.  He had been on a date that didn’t go well.  He died in an alley from blood loss from several severe arm wounds.

Kevin Henderson was taking out the trash when he was attacked.  He died quickly from a broken neck, but not until after his shoulder was bitten.

Ellen was out jogging when she came across a fallen man.  When she tried to help him, he ripped into her throat.  She managed to get a few blocks before dropping from blood loss.

Kristina Dunbar was washing the dishes.  A woman broke in through a window and knocked her to the ground.  She was bitten only once on her hand, but then stabbed repeatedly in the back by shards of broken dishes.  Afterward, the fever took her upstairs to her children’s rooms.  She was put down outside, near the corner of her home, by a well-placed bullet to the head.

Section 2:

Infection

12:

The Cameraman

Tobias took another careful step down the alleyway.

“This is stupid,” Cillian whispered to him from the street.

Tobias held up a hand for him to be quiet.  It probably was stupid.  Really stupid actually, but Tobias was doing it anyway.  He took another step toward the body, tightening his two-handed grip on the fire axe.  His goal was to get the handy cam lying near the body’s feet.  He didn’t know why, but he wanted to be able to keep filming what was going on.  He needed a new camera to do this, however, and this was the first one they had come across.

He took another step and was now right next to the body’s curled back.  It smelled like… well, like something had died.  He let go of the axe with his left hand and reached for the camera.  He grabbed the strap and lifted it up carefully, slowly, trying not to make a sound.  He almost succeeded, but then the lens cap, which hung from it on a string, scraped across the asphalt.

The body wheezed out a groan and rolled over, revealing its pale and mutilated face.  Tobias yelled and brought down the axe.  It thunked into the man’s head, but since Tobias had only used one hand, it didn’t go deep.  The body reached for his legs.

Tobias quickly stood up, pulling the axe out of the man’s forehead and leaving a huge gash amid the smaller ones.  He trotted backwards out of the alley, keeping an eye on the body.  It was trying to drag itself along, although it wasn’t moving very fast.  It couldn’t seem to move its legs.  Tobias was reminded of all those zombie movies he had watched with his buddies.  Although ridiculous, those movies were very similar to what was going on around him.  Was it possible that these things were really some sort of zombie?

He reached the end of the alley and joined Cillian.

“I got it.”  Tobias held up the camera.

“Good for you,” Cillian grunted,  “does it even work?”

Tobias looked the camera over.  It was a handycam made by Sony, maybe worth about three-hundred bucks.  Nothing really special, but it did have a viewfinder beside its LCD screen which was good.  Not having to use the LCD would save on batteries.

“Looks like it.  Can you hold this a minute?”  He held out the axe to Cillian.  Then, realizing Cillian wouldn’t give it back, he tucked it under his arm.  The men passed a look between them, both knowing exactly what had occurred and that Tobias’s decision was right.  Well, right for Tobias because he got the axe.  He opened a little hatch at the back of the camera and took out the memory card, stashing it in one of his pockets.  Maybe the original owner had gotten some good footage.  He then took his own card out of his pocket and put it into the camera.  He got lucky that they used the same kind of flash memory.  “Here goes nothing.”

“Nothing is right,” Cillian rolled his eyes.

Tobias flipped the power switch, and the camera came to life.  He looked through the viewfinder and did a test recording.  “Cillian, say something.”

“Like what?” Cillian frowned.  “Get that stupid camera out of my face!”

“Good enough.”  Tobias lowered the camera and reviewed what he had just filmed on the LCD screen.  “Well, there’s a small crack in the lower left corner, and the sound isn’t great, but that could also just be the playback.”

“Cool, can we get going now before legless catches us?”  Cillian gestured to the body down the alley.  Scraping sounds indicated it was still coming after them.

“Yeah, sure.”  Tobias put the camera strap around his neck and held the fire axe in both hands again.

They continued cautiously up the street, using the stalled, crashed, and/or abandoned cars for cover.  Occasionally they spotted other people doing the same.  When this happened there was a moment of pause for both parties, each wondering if the other was going to attack.  Tobias had already become paranoid of everyone, and clearly, so had Cillian.  Every time they spotted someone, the first reaction was to find somewhere to hide.  Tobias was glad Cillian was around because doing this alone would make it ten times more frightening.

As they scurried along, Tobias mentioned his thoughts about the zombie movies.  Cillian was oddly receptive to the idea; he didn’t laugh or mock Tobias, which was what he kind of expected him to do.  It was actually a bit disconcerting, because an idea like that should be ludicrous.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Tobias whispered to Cillian after several more minutes.  Cillian had been the one leading so far.

“Yeah, I know where the hospital is.  I’ve had to drive there several times before,” Cillian assured him.  “It’s part of my job.”

“Okay.”  Tobias still wasn’t completely sold on the hospital idea, but at least it was something.  Cillian seemed to think they would know what was going on there, although Tobias had no idea why.  “So I guess you were part of the security at the concert?”

“More like I was there for show,” Cillian didn’t explain further.  He didn’t ask any questions either, maintaining a single-minded focus on the task at hand.

Tobias started looking over his newfound camera as they travelled, if ‘travelled’ could be the right word.  It was like stalking, except they were the prey.  Tobias didn’t know a word for that.  The camera wasn’t a very good model, but it would do.  He’d have to keep it off most of the time to conserve power, but at least it had a quick start-up.  Although if he could find a way to jury rig some wires, he still had the battery from his last camera hooked up to his waist…  That line of thought was likely to get him electrocuted.

While Tobias was thinking and not paying attention, Cillian had stopped.  Tobias walked right into his broad back.  Cillian turned and frowned at him.

“Sorry,” Tobias mumbled.

“If you want something to film, film that.”  Cillian pointed ahead, and then shuffled out of the way so Tobias could see.

Up ahead was a fairly major intersection.  Cars had crashed all around it, but right in the middle stood a city bus.  A guy stood on the bus brandishing a large piece of pipe, and all around the bus was a veritable horde of sick and bloody people, reaching up to him.  Most of them just pawed at the bus, but a few were smart enough to find ways to climb it.  Those that did were met by a pipe to the face.

“Come on!” the man yelled at those around him.  “Come on and get me!”

Tobias started filming.  It was like a deranged whack-a-mole, only this was more like whack-a-zombie.  There was that word again, zombie.  The smart ones confused Tobias, however.  His understanding was that zombies were all supposed to be slow and stupid.  Some of these were fast though, very fast.  And others were smart.  Earlier, they had seen one use a set of fallen keys to get into a car that a woman had locked herself into.  It was creepy.  Then again, zombies were supposed to be fictional, found only in movies and books.  In the real world, who knew what the rules surrounding them were?  Still, maybe he’d keep using the word, as it sat better with him than dead people did.

The man on the bus had to be getting tired, but he kept at it, kept swinging his pipe.  Tobias wondered how he got up there in the first place.  Then he imagined what the scene must look like from his perspective and regretted it.  He thought crowds were bad enough on their own, but an unstoppable mob that had you surrounded and was bent on killing you?  Tobias shuddered and stopped filming.

“Thanks for letting me get that shot.”  Tobias knew the man couldn’t possibly be helped by just the two of them, not without a tank, but at least now his possible… probable… last moments were immortalised on film.

“Well, it gave you something to do while I thought,” Cillian told him.

“Thought about what?” Tobias frowned.  He didn’t appreciate the fact that he had just been treated like a kid.

“About the best way to get around that mess.  We clearly can’t go through the intersection.  I figure we head back to Osgood and then travel either way a few blocks, and then cross.”

Tobias shook his head.  “You don’t know if the other intersections will be the same.  Jalice is always a really busy street, and we don’t know where the people from the cars have gone.”

“Then what do you suggest?”  Cillian was being very condescending.  Tobias guessed he thought of him as just some news junky, trying to get a good story.  He supposed, given what he was doing when they met, and his need for the camera, that he definitely came off that way.  He did need the camera though as a kid needed a security blanket.  It just made him feel better having it.  It felt like he was doing something besides just running for his life, which, although an important task, was a heavy and terrifying burden to bear.  The camera comforted him; it let him think about other things.

Tobias pointed to a nearby building.  “There, the Isaac buildings.”

“What about them?”

Tobias sighed.  “You don’t remember what the Isaac buildings are famous for?”

Cillian frowned as he thought about it.  Tobias watched as the light dawned in his eyes.  “Right.  Good thinking.  Come on.”  Cillian led the way through the dead cars toward the nearest entrance to Isaac One.

The Isaac buildings were twins across the street from one another.  Not only were they twin buildings, but they were attached by several glass and concrete walkways that crossed over Jalice Ave, one of the city’s main streets.  They were two of a handful of structures in Leighton that were becoming recognized around the world, and they weren’t even completely finished yet.

They reached the glass entry and Cillian pulled open the door.  The Isaac buildings were always open to the public because the lower five floors were dedicated to shopping: basically, a mall.  The other five floors were offices, mainly for the businesses that had shops below.  Cillian looked around carefully as he stepped through the doors.  Tobias followed him, gripping his axe tightly.  It was very bright in Isaac One but eerily quiet.  Usually it was filled with the sounds of busy shoppers and sellers in kiosks trying to off-load their wares.  Today it was almost entirely silent.  Tobias could hear the humming of all the fridges in the food court they had stepped into.

“Where do you think everyone is?” Tobias whispered, but he felt that his voice carried too much in the empty space.

Cillian answered by pointing over to some tables.  Almost every chair in the food court had been toppled over and kicked around.  The tables would probably have been the same if they hadn’t been bolted to the floor.  Many of them still had trays of food on their surfaces, and a few abandoned bags lay scattered about.  One of the tables that Cillian had pointed to was covered in a bloody smear that, for a moment, Tobias thought was just an exploded ketchup pack.  A streak of red stained the floor from the table to a Subway shop.  Tobias turned on the camera and filmed through it.  He didn’t want to be there, to be seeing that, but he couldn’t leave, so he resorted to the next best thing.

For the first time that Tobias could remember, he was utterly disturbed by the lack of a crowd.

“I don’t mind you filming, but use your eyes,” Cillian whispered quietly,  “you don’t want something sneaking up on you because you have no peripherals.”

Tobias nodded as he lowered the camera.  Cillian was right, of course.  His real safety depended on using all his senses.  His mental health would have to take a back seat unfortunately.

They crept through the food court giving the Subway shop a wide berth.  Here and there were more bloodstains or sometimes just a few drops, a handful of which could actually have been just ketchup.  Food was all over the place.  Although some trays were completely undisturbed, others had been scattered everywhere.  In the splattered contents of a Mayo packet was a perfect footprint.  Tobias wondered if it was from a zombie or someone normal.  He was getting used to thinking of them as zombies now.  When he eventually learned what they really were, he was probably going to feel like an idiot, but zombies was a good name for them in the meantime.

The delicious aroma coming off the fast food made Tobias suddenly very hungry.  It disgusted him that he should be hungry at a time like this, surrounded by such markings of death.

The two men finally made it out of the food court and to a staircase.

“Do you know what floor the closest walkway is?” Cillian whispered back to Tobias while looking up the stairs.  He couldn’t see very far.  Due to ongoing construction, a wooden barrier had been erected around the entire staircase.

Tobias thought for a moment, going over the layout of the mall in his head.  It was probably the only place in this part of the city that he even somewhat knew.  “There’s one on the second floor but deeper into the building.  On the third floor, I remember there being one near this staircase.”

“Third floor it is then.”  Cillian started climbing the stairs.

Tobias didn’t know if he liked the fact that the stairs were enclosed.  The wooden structure had been put up to protect the mall patrons from potential hazards.  Too bad they couldn’t protect them from the disaster that had happened… was still happening.

As they reached the landing, they took it slowly, rounding the corner with caution.  They both crawled up the next set of stairs so that they could see over the edge without exposing too much of themselves.  They lay side by side, as they looked around the second floor.

“You see anyone?” Tobias asked Cillian in a whisper.

“No, you?”

“No.”

After taking a deep breath, they stood up and exited the stairwell.  When they weren’t immediately attacked, Tobias slowly let out his breath.

“I wonder where everyone is,” Cillian spoke above a whisper and his voice echoed.  His face paled as he clearly regretted his volume.  Both Tobias and Cillian stood perfectly still, waiting for something bad to descend upon them.  Nothing did.

“Well, most of these upper floors are closed for construction,” Tobias whispered, gesturing to the wooden barrier around the steps.  “Mostly it’s just the food court open downstairs and only a handful of shops up here.  I guess everyone was downstairs when it happened, and they probably fled the building.”

“Sounds logical to me,” Cillian lowered his voice to a whisper again.

They turned the corner and headed up the next flight of stairs.  Although they were still being careful, they climbed faster.

“All right, which way to the walkway?” Cillian asked once they reached the third floor.

“This way.”  Tobias now took the lead.  They headed around the construction blockades meant to keep patrons out.  There was clear evidence of construction on this floor, with scaffolding and tools littered about.  Tobias wouldn’t be surprised to find that the higher floors were completely closed to the public.  As they passed by a pile of tools, Cillian bent down and picked up a crowbar.

“Not as good as the axe but at least I’m armed now,” Cillian shrugged when Tobias gave him a quizzical look.

Although they kept a constant lookout, they didn’t see any signs of life.  Or unlife for that matter.  They still went slowly, just in case, but finally made it to the entrance of the walkway.  There was a big sign labelling it as walkway two, and under it hung a giant plastic sheet that covered the way through.  Tobias slowly pulled back the sheet and looked into the walkway.  He saw someone standing in the middle of the passage and quickly dropped the drape back in place.  It crinkled slightly causing Tobias to wince.

“Someone’s there,” he whispered very quietly to Cillian, placing his head near the firefighter’s.  If the crinkle didn’t cause instant murder, then that level of whispering should be safe.

“Then go deal with them,” Cillian whispered back.

“Why me?” Tobias frowned.

“Hey, you wanted the axe.  All I have is this damn crowbar.”  Cillian shook the crowbar for emphasis.

“What if it’s not a zombie?”  Tobias feared killing someone innocent.

“Talk to them.  If they don’t answer, axe to the head,” Cillian shrugged.  He also made a gesture with his crowbar to his own head, nearly hitting the helmet.

“What if it’s one of the ones that screams, and it draws others?”

“And what if it’s the queen of England?” Cillian sighed.  “You gotta deal with it.”

Tobias sighed as well and looked back at the curtain.  “Hold this.”  He took the camera off his neck and handed it to Cillian.  He didn’t want to risk getting it more damaged, or having it get in his way.  Once Cillian took the camera, Tobias drew the curtain aside and stepped into the tunnel made of glass and concrete.  Cillian hung back, watching from the entrance, even lifting the camera to film.  Tobias didn’t really want this on tape, but he couldn’t very well ask him not to do it now.  Especially not after he had put up with Tobias getting the camera in the first place.  He stepped down the tunnel keeping a close eye on the pedestrian.  It was an elderly woman judging by her clothes and grey hair.

“Excuse me?”  Tobias barely heard his own whisper, his throat choking it out.  There was no reaction.  Tobias looked back at Cillian who waved him forward.  He was filming, but kept the camera at chest level so that he could still see all around himself.  As Tobias was looking at him, Cillian took a quick glance behind him to make sure nobody was sneaking up on him.  Tobias was going to have to get better at that himself.  So far that day, he had learned he was decent at running away from things, but not very good at avoiding them in the first place.  Cillian was better at that part.  Of course Tobias’s escapades on the roof suggested he wasn’t that good at running away either.

At the moment though, he had to deal with a confrontation he couldn’t avoid or run away from.  “Excuse me, ma’am?” Tobias said a little louder.

The woman’s head snapped around and looked at Tobias.  Her eyes were a pure white.  At first, Tobias hoped she was just blind, but then she started running straight at him, teeth bared.  She was so silent.

Tobias lifted the axe up like a batter at the plate.  When the woman got close enough he took a quick side step and swung with all his might.  The axe buried deep into her upper chest, lifting her up off her feet.  She fell on her back, and Tobias placed his sneaker on her neck to keep her down, but the axe wouldn’t come out no matter how hard he pulled.  He was concerned the woman was going to bite his ankle or claw his leg through his pants.  She was making a good attempt at doing just that.

“Cillian!” he whispered as loudly as he dared.  “Help!”

Cillian quickly placed the camera on the ground and rushed over.  Without hesitating, he swung the crowbar into the top of the old lady’s head.  The clawed end thumped into her skull.  She stopped clawing at Tobias’s leg, and her snapping jaws relaxed, but she still moved slightly, jaws working open and closed at a sluggish pace.

“I’ll hold her, you get the axe out,” Cillian told him.

While Cillian held her head still with the crowbar, Tobias moved his foot onto the woman’s breasts and pulled the axe.  He had to jiggle it around before it slid free of the ribs.  The sound was one he would rather forget, but likely wouldn’t.  He seemed to have found what he was good at, though: being an axe murderer.

“Aim for the neck,” Cillian gestured.

Tobias grimaced as he lifted the axe up and swung it down on the poor old woman.  It took three swings to sever her head completely.  Tobias then quickly walked away, back to the camera.  He didn’t want to watch how Cillian was going to get the head off the crowbar.  Whatever he did, there was a slight squish and a crunch.  More sounds to stick in his mind.  He bent down and picked the camera up off the floor.  If he didn’t have an empty stomach, he might have thrown up just then, as his stomach clenched painfully.  He stopped the camera’s recording and slung the strap around his neck again.  When he turned around, Cillian was standing halfway down the tunnel, looking out of its glass side.  The woman’s head lay against its body, and if Tobias hadn’t chopped it off himself, he would have thought it was still attached from this angle.

“What are you looking at?” Tobias whispered.

“Our friend on the bus.”  Cillian pointed.

Tobias walked over next to him and looked out the side of the tube as well.  The man on the bus was still going, but he was flagging badly.  More and more zombies were making it up on the bus and he was being bitten a lot.  His legs were shredded in such a way that it was impossible to tell what was torn pants and what was torn flesh.  Tobias lifted up the camera and started filming again.  They stood there watching until the man fell.  A swarm had made it up on the bus and buried him under its mass.  When it dispersed and cleared off the bus, the man was gone.  They had no way of knowing if he had become one of them or if he’d just been dragged off.  Tobias stopped recording and turned around.  He looked out the other side of the tunnel.  The street was in ruins all along it, cars piled everywhere into wrecks.  There were a lot more car crashes here than simply abandoned vehicles.  Some fires were starting as well.  He spotted a few people moving among them and couldn’t tell if they were zombies or not.  He filmed a few of them anyway until Cillian tapped him on the shoulder.

“What?”  Tobias turned to him.

Cillian just pointed up.  Tobias looked and saw one of the other tunnels on the fourth floor, the one nearest theirs.  There was a zombie child pressed up against the glass, smearing its bloody face and hands against the wide window.  Tobias filmed him too.  He tried very hard not to think of him as a child and had to put the viewfinder against his eye to do it.  For some things, he wasn’t ready to give up the detachment it provided.

Eventually though, he did put down the camera, but he turned away first.  “We should keep moving.”

Cillian just nodded and they walked to the other end of the tunnel.  This side was also covered in a tarp and Cillian poked his head through first.

“Clear,” he whispered and then crossed to the other side.

Other than the tarp and the little ‘sorry for the mess’ signs, there weren’t any construction-related things over there.  Although the Isaac buildings were twins on the outside, they weren’t on the inside.  They hadn’t originally been built to be a super mall, but somehow that’s what they had become.  They were now doing a lot of interior reconstructing to make them more mall-like.  Isaac Two had been remodelled first, and now it was Isaac One’s turn.  Where Cillian and Tobias now stood was an open space with a cell phone kiosk and a map of the mall.  To one side of the space was an electronics store and to the other was some sort of teen’s clothing store.  The lighting for the space came from some impressive windows around the walkway and eco friendly lightbulbs hidden in the ceiling.  Light also came from a wide open space ahead.  One of the biggest changes being made was a great big gaping hole cut through all the floors so that windows in the roof let light down through the whole building.  Tobias had seen it once before, and it was pretty impressive from the fifth floor, probably even more so from the tenth.  They walked over to the railing surrounding the hole.

Down below were hundreds of people, all of them zombies.

* * *

“I guess we found the shoppers,” Cillian grumbled,  “why did they all mass here?”

“There used to be a petting zoo for little kids there, right next to a pet shop,” Tobias grimaced.

Cillian frowned.  “So not even animals are safe.  Surely they would have devoured them by now, right?  So why are they still here?”

“Nothing has drawn their attention away?”  Tobias shrugged,  “how should I know?”

“Can you name three zombie movies?”

“Uh, Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and Zombieland.”  Tobias named the three that popped into his head first, but he didn’t understand why Cillian had asked.

“See?  You’ve seen more zombie movies than I have.  Unless there’s some documentary or handbook I don’t know about, that’s all we really have to go on,” Cillian shrugged.  “So, how are we supposed to get outside, past that?”

Tobias was greatly unsettled that their only knowledge came from films.  Having seen production crews work, he knew all too well that their facts could be completely and even deliberately fudged to add drama.  Again: zombies.  The people who made those movies didn’t have a guide either and just made stuff up as they went.  Tobias filmed the hoard while the two of them thought of a way past this dilemma.  Neither of them wanted to suggest doubling back.

“Maybe there’s a way to distract them?” Tobias offered.

“How?”  Million dollar question.

Tobias thought some more and started looking around.  “Do you think they’d come if we broke one of these windows?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”  Cillian turned around and looked at the windows as well.  “It’s worth a shot I guess.”

“There’s a staircase on this side of the mall that they’re likely to use, but there’s one on the other end as well that we can use to get down.”

“Let’s go up first.”  Cillian turned and looked up the hole.  “I want to have as many stairs between us and them as possible when we ring the bell and run for our lives.”

“All right.  We’ll go to the fifth floor then.  Come on.”  Tobias led the way to the next staircase.

Tobias learned he liked the enclosed stairs.  These didn’t have construction barriers around them and were open to the massive space. Only a waist high concrete barrier topped with a hand railing surrounded them.  Tobias and Cillian crawled up the stairs, side by side, staying lower than the barrier.

“I wish they built these higher,” Cillian said of the barriers in the merest of whispers.

“Just be glad they didn’t go with the modern style of Plexiglas,” Tobias whispered back.

They got to the fourth floor and, remembering the boy in the walkway, hurried around to the next set of steps.  They began crawling up again, trying not to let their weapons or the camera drag or click.

“I take it you come here often?” Cillian mumbled halfway up the next flight.

“Not that often, only whenever I need to do some serious clothes or gift shopping,” Tobias told him.  “This place is so big you can literally find anything.”

“Does it have a movie theatre?”

“That was in the other building,” Tobias grinned.  The common conversation held in whispers and in such strange circumstances somewhat amused him.

“Ever take a girl there on a hot date?” Cillian also grinned.

“A few times, yeah.”

“Same girl or different ones?”

“Different ones.”

“You dog.”

Tobias almost wanted to laugh but easily held it in.  “You have a girl?”

“I did,” Cillian sighed,  “we went our separate ways awhile ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”  Tobias meant it.

“It was for the best.  Especially if it means she’s not here in the city right now.”

Tobias nodded his agreement.  He would give anything to be out of the city at this moment.  To be back in British Columbia, where he grew up, and up on some high and empty mountain seemed like heaven.  Instead, they were in hell.

They reached the top of the stairs again.  Once more, they crawled out onto the floor on their bellies, like alligators, and looked around.

“Clear,” Tobias whispered.

“Clear here too.”  Cillian got up on his feet.

Tobias followed suit.  “So how are we doing this?”

“That glass is going to be pretty tough.”  Cillian looked over at it.  “Give me the axe and I’ll smash it out.  You stay near the railing and yell when or if they start heading up.”

Tobias looked at the axe in his hands.

“I’ll give it back,” Cillian rolled his eyes.  “It’s just that the axe has a better chance of smashing through the glass.”

“Why don’t I break it then?” Tobias suggested.  Being an axe murderer wasn’t the best skill to have under normal circumstances, but these were way beyond normal.  He wasn’t quite ready to give up the axe.

“First, I’m betting I’m stronger than you.”  Tobias frowned even though he was probably right.  “Second, I’m not going to get torn to bits by flying glass.”  Cillian held out his arms to remind Tobias of all the firefighter gear he had on.

“Fine.”  Tobias reluctantly held out the axe.

Cillian took it and handed him the crowbar.  “Now go watch.  We’re going to need to run fast and you gotta lead the way.”

Tobias nodded and walked over to the railing.  They were so far down and yet still way too close.  Even that high up, the stink coming off them was something fierce, like every imaginable human odour and then some.  Tobias looked back and watched Cillian walk over to the big window.  When he got there, Cillian turned and looked at him, meeting his eyes.  He was scared but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.  Tobias gave him a thumbs up.  Cillian hoisted the axe up and took a batter’s stance just like Tobias had with the woman.  He then lowered the visor of his helmet.  Cillian screamed at the top of his lungs and swung the axe as hard as he could.

The axe bounced off the shatter-resistant window leaving only a small scratch.  Either way, several screams and roars from below answered Cillian’s.  Tobias looked down and saw the runners already hitting the stairs.

“Run!” Tobias screamed as he took off down through the mall.

He glanced back once, quickly, over his shoulder to make sure the heavy boot falls he was hearing behind him were Cillian’s.  They were.  He then took another quick glance at the stairwell.  A flood was rushing up it.  Several runners were ahead, but others were pretty much pushing the walkers along at a hurried pace.  Some took the corners too eagerly and ended up throwing themselves over the sides, only to get back up and start up the stairs again.  Some were almost near the top already, holy hell.

Tobias looked ahead again.  A little girl made her way out of the Disney store.  She was wearing a pink princess dress.  She looked at Tobias and held out her arms as if she wanted him to pick her up.  Both her hands were gone.  She shrieked.  Tobias held the crowbar out in one hand, and as he ran past her, he hit her square in the side of the head.  She went down hard and he didn’t bother looking back to see if she got up again.

He was nearing both the end of the mall, and his ability to keep running.  As he reached the far end, he saw their way down.  Instead of stairs, this side had criss-crossing escalators and a pair of elevators.  The glass sides let Tobias know that one elevator was at the bottom and would be useless and the other had several zombies standing around in it.  Escalators it was.

When he reached the first one, he slowed down to turn into it, but then realized it was an up escalator and it was still running.  He ran past it and turned around the edge of the great gapping hole.

“What are you doing?” Cillian yelled at him.

“It’s the up escalator!” Tobias yelled back.  “Other side is down!”

Cillian was further back than he thought.  The firefighter gear was weighing him down.  Thankfully, he was near one of the several small bridges that crossed the gap and was able to take that as a short cut.

Tobias rounded the corner and nearly wiped out.  His old and well-worn sneakers didn’t have the best grip.  He ran to the other side and made it to the down escalator.  Just as he reached it, so did Cillian, and they started rushing down one right behind the other.  The downward movement of the escalator and just the fact that they were going down, allowed them to pick up some of the speed they had lost from exhaustion.  As they reached the halfway mark, the faster zombies reached the top on both sides.  Some of them rushed down after them, but others jumped over the railings.  One hit the escalator’s railing right in front of Cillian and went spilling over the side.  Another missed completely.  Tobias wished they all did this but he didn’t have such luck.  One landed on the stairs in front of Cillian.  Cillian didn’t hesitate and swung the axe right into its face.  It went down and Cillian pulled out the axe in one swift movement, the back swing nearly taking out Tobias.  One sounded right behind Tobias.  He turned and caught it with the crowbar.  It pitched to one side and flew over the edge.  They reached the bottom of the escalator and quickly turned to head down the next one.

More zombies tried to jump down, but now the other up escalator was safely above the running men.  Most of the zombies missed or landed on the rails where they could be batted off.  The worry was from those on Tobias’s ass.

One of them leaped onto his back.

“Cillian!” Tobias screamed as he was pitched forward into the firefighter’s back.

Cillian lost his footing and they all went tumbling down the stairs.  Tobias felt a sharp pain in his shoulder.  He prayed he hadn’t been bitten.  Please don’t let it have been a bite.

They crashed at the bottom of the escalator.  Cillian got to his feet quickly and dragged Tobias up.

“Where is it?” Tobias panicked about the zombie that jumped him.

“It fell off the side, come on.”  Cillian dragged him along.  He was heading away from the escalators.  He threw Tobias into the nearest store and then quickly turned and dragged down the big security fence.  Just as it clacked to the bottom, the zombies on their butt hit it, arms reaching through, teeth snapping.

“My arm.”  Tobias looked at it; it was bleeding.

Cillian hurried over and took a look at it.  “You’re fine.”  He patted his other shoulder.  “That’s not a bite.  You most likely just hit it on the edge of a step.”

“You sure?”  Tobias didn’t know if he could believe him.

“I’m a firefighter, dude, I’ve been on paramedic runs before.  That does not look like a bite to me.”  Cillian hauled Tobias up to his feet.  “I dropped the axe.”

Tobias had just noticed he no longer had the sharp implement.  “It’s okay,” he shrugged.  “You got us in here.”  Tobias was amazed he had held onto the crowbar.  Even more amazing was that the camera looked intact.

“Yeah, they’re going to figure out how to get in here soon, too.”  Cillian gestured to the horde.  “Come on, we need a way out.”

They headed toward the back of the store.  It was a trendy businesswoman’s clothing store styled in chrome and black trim.  Some music was playing, but thankfully it was light and not the crazy dance music other stores played.  Tobias grabbed a fancy, cream and gold scarf off a rack.  With Cillian’s help they got it tied around his wound.  Cillian said it didn’t look deep and he should be fine.  Of course, looks could be deceiving.  If Tobias wasn’t sure about going to the hospital before, he was now.

“There are no doors in this place,” Tobias came to realize.

“Check the mirrors.”  Cillian started pulling at the sleek, black frames.

“Why?”

“Places like this hide their dressing rooms and storage rooms behind the mirrors.”  Cillian opened one up to show Tobias the dressing room inside.

“Why do you know that?” Tobias wondered.

“My girl used to love shopping in places like this.  I had to do a lot of bag holding,” Cillian told him.

“Oh.”  Tobias found a mirror that looked like it should open but it didn’t budge.  “Hey, I think I found the back room, but it’s locked.”

“Step aside.”  Cillian took the crowbar from Tobias and started to pry at the edges.

Tobias picked up the camera around his neck and tested it.  It still worked but there was another, larger crack in the lens.  He filmed the zombies trying to get through the gate.  It looked like they were starting to figure out they just needed to lift it up.  Some were already trying to lift it, but others had their arms stuck through the bars and hindered their efforts.

“Hurry up,” Tobias needlessly told Cillian.

“I’m hurrying,” Cillian grunted.  Finally, the door popped open, its lock broken.  “Got it.”

The door swung inward and they hurried through.  Just as Tobias went through, he saw the first of the zombies crawling under the gate.  Once through the mirrored door, they slammed it shut.  Cillian started dragging over shelves and leaning them across the door.  Tobias tried to help but sharp protests from his shoulder made him fairly useless.  It wasn’t long before there was a ceaseless hammering on the door outside, followed by a loud crash as the mirror was shattered.  Tobias couldn’t help but think that the zombie was going to have seven years bad luck.  While Cillian reinforced their barricade, Tobias walked around the storage room, exploring.

“Umm, Cillian?  I think we have a problem.”  Tobias walked back over to him, stepping around all the merchandise that had fallen to the ground from his labours.

“What?”  Cillian shoved one last shelving unit into place, looking satisfied with his work.

“There are no other exits from this room.”

The pounding got louder as more and more zombies tried to get in.

13:

The Continuity Girl

Abby held her fists tightly to her chest, not even daring to breathe.  The car offered no protection from the shuffling attacker on the other side of it, only a barrier.  Jessica was huddled next to her, shaking soundlessly with a white-knuckle grip on the field hockey stick.  For what seemed liked hours, but what was probably only minutes, they listened to it scratch and paw at the doors and windows of the car.

Eventually the scratching stopped and its shuffling footsteps headed away from the vehicle.  Jessica quickly dropped to her belly like a cat and looked under the car.

“He’s gone,” she sighed in relief.

“What the hell,” Abby let out her breath in a whoosh of words, and then took in another lungful.

“I told you things were crazy out here.”  Jessica had warned her.  So had Jon and Mark, Claire’s story about Mr. Fargus, and her neighbours’ attempts to kill them.

Abby shook her head.  “Doesn’t matter, I still want to get to the hospital to make sure Claire is okay.  Jon too.”  There was nothing she could do about Mark except pray.

“You’re nuts, but you stick to your guns.  I admire that.”  Jessica nodded and got to her feet.  Abby’s hiking boots looked ridiculous with her smart business attire.

Abby got to her own feet.  She looked in the direction of the attacker and saw him shuffling toward a fast food restaurant.  Some people were huddled inside watching.

“Hey.”  Abby turned Jessica’s attention to the people in the fast food place.  “They aren’t safe in there.”

“So?”  Jessica wiped some dirt off her skirt and blouse.

“So?  We should help them.  Tell them to leave,” Abby frowned at Jessica.

“You want to help them?”  Jessica raised an eyebrow.  “Forget what I said, you’re just plain nuts.”

“What if that were us?  Wouldn’t you want someone to help us?” Abby argued.

“How do you propose we do that?  Just run up there and clock that guy in the head?  Then what?  He eats us from the ankles up, is what.”  Abby was quickly learning that Jessica could be quite bitter.

Since leaving the apartment, Abby had new, unwanted memories stored in her head.  Ones that disgusted her.  They had watched as four people jumped on a man and tore him to pieces with their bare hands.  They had also seen a toddler sitting on a woman’s chest, presumably his mother, eating her throat out.  Then there was the guy they had just hidden from.  He had come out of an alley unexpectedly and tried to grab them.  They managed to knock him down and hide behind the car, but clearly, he didn’t stay down.  Jessica may have been bitter but she was right.  Abby couldn’t think of anything they could do to help those people.

“Look, there’s just one of him,” Jessica reasoned.  “He probably won’t be able to get in, but he’ll scare them into finding a better hiding place.  And if he does get in, they probably have better weapons in there than we do.  Kitchen knives and stuff.”

Abby sighed. “Fine.”  She really didn’t like the idea, but she also couldn’t see another choice.  “Let’s keep moving.”

“We’re not far are we?” Jessica asked.  Again.  Considering she had lived in the city longer than Abby, she didn’t really know her way around it.

“A few more blocks,” Abby told her.  Again.  The hospital really wasn’t that far.  They would be there by now on a normal day.  Too bad today was anything but normal.  Abby had been frightened of the city, and always expected to be mugged by everyone on the street, but this was a totally different fear.  She actually had to worry about being torn to shreds at any given moment by literally anyone.  Abby even feared Jessica a bit, although she couldn’t think of any reasons why.

They wove around the cars, sticking to the middle of the street.  Neither of them felt like crossing in front of any more alleyways due to the last encounter.

“Wait, are we heading toward Jalice Ave.?”  Jessica looked around at the buildings.

“Yeah.”  Abby may have still considered herself relatively new to the city, but she had a map laid out in her head of all the major streets and many of the more minor ones.  It helped that she didn’t own a car and walked virtually everywhere.

“I take it there’s no way around that street, is there,” Jessica sighed.

“What do you mean?”

“Jalice Avenue is always packed with cars and people.  It’s going to be a mess.”

Abby had never actually seen Jalice Avenue.  She had only noted it on a map.  It was the same with the hospital they were headed to.  She had never actually seen the building.

“Well, we have to cross it.  Aren’t those the buildings, the Isaac buildings, that have walkways which cross over the street?”  Abby knew that they did; it was one of the things she looked up before moving here.  But she had learned long ago that it was best to make some things sound more like questions, in order not to always sound so sure.  It made people around her feel dumb, and then become somewhat hostile toward her, if she didn’t make herself seem less knowledgeable.  From all the quirks that singled Abby out over her life, she had learned how to blend in exceptionally well.  She never had any interest in sticking out.

“The Isaacs?  Yeah, they do, but we’re not going there,” Jessica told her,  “it’s a mall.”

“I know, but why does that mean we can’t go through them?” Abby asked a real question this time, as she didn’t follow Jessica’s reasoning.

“Malls are filled with people.  How many of them do you think have become these crazed attackers?” Jessica pointed out.

“Oh.”  Abby hadn’t thought of it like that.  She was just trying to figure out how to avoid the street, get from point A to point B.  “Well, if we can’t go over the street, how about under?”

“You’re not suggesting the sewers are you?”  Jessica made a disgusted face.  “Drop!” she then said in an urgent whisper.

Both girls dropped and huddled up against another car.  The sound of running footsteps was coming toward them.

“Under the car,” Jessica whispered in Abby’s ear.

They both lay on their bellies and scooted backwards underneath the vehicle, which happened to be a pickup truck.  With both of them under there, it was extremely cramped, but neither of them complained.  It smelled of oil, grease, and rubber, but at least the car wasn’t running.  A small spider crawled across the edge of the truck.  Abby didn’t know Jessica very well, but if she had to guess, she’d say she was afraid of things like spiders.  She decided not to point it out even though she found it to be kind of pretty.

A pair of feet pounded up the street and stopped next to the car across from their hiding place.  The feet then turned on a dime and ran over to the pickup truck.  The shoes were right in Abby’s face.  She was guessing it was some sort of teenager out there judging by the shoes.  They were close enough that she could see the owner had once written something along the laces, but it was now too faded and smudged to make out more than a handful of letters.  Abby could also see dried drops of blood on the scuffed white material.  She wondered if it was the owner’s blood, or someone else’s.  The shoes scuffed around in a circle, the owner facing this way and that.  They would take a few steps in one direction and then hurry back the other way.  Abby decided to focus on the pebbles of asphalt in front of her nose.  They were far less threatening.  She didn’t know what asphalt was made up of.  She’d have to look it up when the timing was better, like when she wasn’t trapped under a pickup truck with someone wanting to kill her right next to it.

The shoes ran back across to the other car and the body attached to them slammed into it.  Whoever it was fell over backward, slamming his head into the pickup truck and slumping down in front of Abby.  He tried to get up but wasn’t very co-ordinated and ended up flat on his back.  Abby had been thinking of it as a boy right then, but it dawned on her that it was actually a girl with very short hair.  The girl’s back arched and her head lifted in such a way that allowed her to see under the truck.  To see Abby and Jessica who were likely making an excellent deer-in-the-headlights impersonation.  Her mouth opened and a cat-like hiss came out.  She quickly flipped over onto her belly and reached under the car.

Abby screamed and tried to scoot backwards, but the girl grabbed her arms.  Jessica was beside her with the field hockey stick and she stabbed out with the rounded end right into their attacker’s mouth.  A few of the girl’s teeth got knocked out but she started chewing on the end of the stick anyway.  While Jessica held her at bay with the end of the stick, Abby fought to free herself from the grip of the girl.  She was unbearably strong though; her grip was like a bear trap.

There was a gunshot and both the girls screamed.  The undercarriage of the truck amplified the sounds to painful volumes.  The attacker went limp.  Abby noticed that blood didn’t flow from the hole that suddenly appeared in the side of her head, but sort of glopped out in chunks.  Some of it might have been brains.

“It’s all right, you can come out,” a male voice came from near the hood of the pickup.

Abby and Jessica looked at each other, but then backed out from under the trunk and away from the body.  Abby could feel that all the blood had drained from her face and saw that the same thing happened to Jessica.  A man in cowboy boots walked over and offered his hand.  Jessica used it to help herself up but Abby didn’t bother.  The man had a large revolver in his other hand.

“You two all right?” he asked them once they were up.

“Fine.”  Jessica brushed and straightened her clothes again.  She still held the field hockey stick tightly in her other hand though.  It was a white knuckle grip with the same strength that the girl had grabbed Abby with.  When she noticed the gun in the man’s hand, she gripped the stick with her other hand as well, equally hard.  The colour in her face wasn’t coming back.

“We’re not hurt if that’s what you mean.”  Abby’s head was still going on a little trip.  Part of it still wondered if the globs were brains.  This was a very strange day in which the only thing that was supposed to be different was Abby’s trip to the doctor.

“Good to hear.  You got to get them in the head.”  The man tapped his temple with the muzzle of his gun.  Jessica wasn’t taking her eyes off the weapon for a second.

“What are you talking about?”  Abby didn’t follow what he meant.

“To keep them down.”  He gestured to the other side of the truck.  “I don’t know why, but they only seem to be staying down if you get them in the head.  A real good whack with that stick might do it, but you’ll probably need to hit them several times.”

“Umm, thanks.”  Abby glanced over at Jessica again, but she was still intently following the gun.  This guy was strange.

“Do either of you ladies know how to get to Larson Street?”  The man finally put his gun away by tucking it into his belt.  His plaid shirt hung over it, hiding it from sight.

“I don’t.  Jessica?”  Jessica didn’t respond.  “Hey, Jessica!”

“I’m sorry, what?”  Jessica snapped out of her daze, her colour finally returning.

“Do you know where Larson Street is?” the man asked her.

“Oh sure, it’s that way.”  Jessica pointed in the opposite direction she and Abby were going.  “This street intersects with it several blocks down.”

“Thanks,” with that, the man headed off.

Abby thought the whole encounter was very strange.  She also had the feeling that Jessica lied about where Larson Street was just to get the guy away from them.  “Are you okay, Jessica?”

“Yeah, sure, I’m fine.”  Jessica seemed back to normal.  “So what was that you were saying about going under Jalice?  I really don’t want to be going into a sewer.”  She picked up their previous conversation as if nothing happened.

“Well, the subway line runs under Jalice, right?  We just have to find a stop.  A busy street like this is sure to have subway openings on both sides of the street so we can just cross under it.”

“Yeah sure.  The closest stop should be only one block over.  Come on.”  Jessica led the way.

When she rounded the corner of the next small street, Jessica groaned.  Abby also rounded the corner and frowned.  Their route was blocked by a massive construction site.  Apparently, they were getting rid of the entire tiny street to erect some tall and skinny condo building.

“Jalice is the next street ahead.”  Jessica looked up the street.  “I guess we’ll have to head backwards to the last street we passed.”

Abby looked back at where they had come from.  “Uh oh, big and bloody heading up the street.”  A huge football player-sized man, soaked in blood, was wandering their way.

“Crap,” Jessica said under her breath.  He also wasn’t alone.  A few others were shuffling their way along with him.  The gunshot probably attracted them.

“I guess we’ll just have to go through the construction site.”  Abby started looking around the barrier.

“How?  That wall doesn’t have a door in it.”  Jessica just stared at the big wooden wall, a hopeless expression darkening her features.

“There.”  Abby pointed to some scaffolding that crossed over the wall.  “We can use that to climb over.”

Abby hurried to it.  Jessica hesitated a moment but then followed her.

“You expect me to climb that?” Jessica managed to sound even more hopeless.  “In a skirt?”

“Screw your skirt.  Roll it up if you have to.”  Abby grabbed the first of the bars and started hauling herself up.  “Would you rather stay down here with them?”

“No.”  Jessica threw the field hockey stick over the wall and hiked up her skirt to inappropriate heights.

Abby got to a walkway made of loose boards first.  She lay on her stomach and reached a hand down for Jessica.  Jessica was struggling, but she managed to take hold of Abby’s hand.  When she got up, she crawled over Abby into the construction site.  Before turning around, Abby looked up at the street.  She just spotted the big guy coming into view when she decided to scrabble backwards.

* * *

Abby passed over the wall and heard Jessica thump down into the dirt beneath.  Abby swung sideways and practically threw herself over the edge.  She landed on her feet, but crumpled her legs and rolled to take the shock.  Years of climbing trees as a child had taught her that.  She hoped the big guy hadn’t seen her.  He looked like he could just bull his way through the wooden wall.

Jessica found the field hockey stick and clutched it to her again.  She rolled down her skirt but this time she didn’t bother brushing off the dirt and grime.  Abby looked around the construction site.  The ground was completely made up of dirt as the street had already been dug up.  The buildings flanking the zone had already been closed for destruction, walls already knocked out.  Big cranes, diggers, and dump trucks sat around what was the start of a big hole.  None of them was idling, which was a shame because Abby would have loved to drive one of those dump trucks out of here.  She wasn’t willing to spend time looking for keys though.

“There’s always so much construction going on in this city,” Jessica complained,  “it’s such a nuisance.”

“Shh,” Abby quickly hushed her.  “They might hear us.”  She was all too aware of what could be on the other side of the barrier just then.

Jessica frowned but stayed quiet.

They began crossing the construction site, sticking to the middle of the zone.  Abby didn’t trust the partly destroyed buildings to stay upright, and the vehicles provided enough cover.  It was strange how much she was hiding behind cars.  It reminded her of playing tag with her brothers in the church parking lot on the Sundays of her childhood.

Along the way, they came across a short-handled shovel sticking up out of the dirt.  Abby picked it up and tested its weight.  It wasn’t too heavy and its slightly pointed, spade head would make a fairly good weapon.

“Trade you,” Jessica whispered holding out the field hockey stick.

Although Abby knew the shovel was the better weapon, she traded with Jessica, who looked like she needed it more.  That, and after watching her with the field hockey stick under the car, Abby knew she could count on her to use it.

They walked around a large bulldozer and came across a man lying in the dirt.  The middle of the man’s back was clearly broken.  He lifted his head and looked at the girls.  A gasp escaped his lips as he reached a hand toward them.  The girls quickly hurried off, taking the long way around that particular vehicle.

Abby wondered if the man was like the attackers.  She didn’t see any blood other than what pooled around his broken back, but that didn’t mean anything.  She also couldn’t tell if he was pale like most of the other attackers were because he was covered in dirt.  He could have been just an injured man, reaching out to them for help, and they were leaving him behind.

“Hey, Jessica?”  Abby couldn’t get that man out of her head, not while she was so unsure.

“If you’re thinking of turning around and checking that guy out, you’re nuts,” Jessica answered simply.  Obviously, she was thinking about him too.

“But what if he’s just hurt?”  Abby hated leaving someone in need behind.

“What if he is?”  Jessica shrugged.  “What can we do?  You saw his back; it was a complete mess.  He wouldn’t be able to walk, which means we’d have to carry him.  Plus, you want him hung between us when we’re back on the street?  Where there are clearly psychos wandering around?  You think we have the strength to get him all the way to the hospital?”

Abby backed down.  She looked at her feet and shrank into herself a little.  Again, Jessica was right; there was nothing they could do.

“Look,” Jessica sighed, feeling badly about her outburst,  “when we get to the hospital, we can tell the authorities about him.  They’ll be able to send someone out for him.”

“Yeah, sure.”  Abby nodded, although she didn’t really believe it.  They had yet to see any authority figures helping anybody.  So far, the only assistance they’d witnessed was the random man with the revolver.

The girls continued to make their way to the other side of the construction site in silence.  There was a gate there, which was big enough for the heavy machinery to travel in and out.  Although the gate was chained and padlocked, it was loose, probably done in a hurry.  The girls were able to push on the gate and squeeze out through the opening.  Abby noted that this new block looked just like the last, except no threats were in sight, thank God.

“Come on,” Jessica whispered and started to lead the way toward Jalice.  She hurried along in a half crouched position, sticking near the cars.  Abby followed suit.

Before they reached Jalice, they came across the subway entrance.  Looking down into it, Abby wasn’t so sure of her decision.  The lights were all on, but it still had this dark, ominous quality to it.  She started down the steps anyway.  The pale green tiles on the walls were old and crusty.  Abby despised the look of it.  Nothing should be that exact shade of green, especially if it was going to be uncared for and submitted to almost constant human traffic.  She looked at the floors instead.

“Abby!” Jessica hissed in her ear, pulling her backwards by the collar of her shirt.

“Huh?”  Abby was confused by Jessica’s angry and panicked expression.  She looked around the corner Jessica had pulled her behind.  There were some people milling about the exit they wanted to use.  The area they were milling about was not so much pale green anymore as it was dark red.  Abby couldn’t believe she had let her guard down like that.  She vowed not to do it again.

“We can’t get past them, what do we do?” Jessica whispered very closely to her ear but was still barely audible.

Abby searched for a way out.  She spotted what might be a solution but Jessica wasn’t going to like it.  “There.”  They could reach the entrance down to the subway platform simply by jumping the turn styles.

“What will that do?”  Jessica didn’t know what Abby was getting at.

“We can walk along the tracks to the next station, and then surface there.”

“What if a train comes?  And it’ll be pitch black.”

Abby sighed, “The lights here are still on so the lights at the next station will probably be on too.  Also, there are lights along the inside of the tunnel that will help us.  As for the trains, I highly doubt they’re running.  If you want though, we can wait on the platform for a few minutes and if a train comes, we’ll ride it to the next station.”

Jessica shifted around Abby and looked around the corner.  She fretted for a moment, but then nodded.  The subway tunnel it was.

As they neared the tunnels, a sound could be heard coming up from them.  The women had no time to think about it though, as they needed to get away from the lingerers as fast as possible.  They quickly hopped the turn styles and headed down the steps.

“What’s all the banging?” Jessica had to speak up a bit because it was so loud.

“I don’t know,” Abby shrugged.

They made it to the bottom of the stairs and quickly found out what the source of the noise was.  A subway train was stopped at the station and every one of its cars was filled to capacity with people.  They were banging on the windows and doors, trying to get out.  There was a great deal of blood.

“I guess we know that the trains aren’t running,” Abby rasped.  Her mouth had suddenly gone completely dry, while conversely, her palms became very sweaty.  She tightened her grip on the field hockey stick so it wouldn’t slip out of her hands.

Jessica walked over to the track opposite the train and looked up and down it.  “This side looks clear.”

“Okay.”  Abby couldn’t take her eyes off the trapped people.  Many of them had facial lacerations and bits of skin missing.  Several had chunks taken out of their hands and were missing digits.  Everywhere she looked, up and down the length of the train, were these bloody, grotesque people.  They were all very pale and their eyes…  Some were pure white, some were red, some were a putrid yet vivid green, and others looked almost normal, but they all looked dead.  There was nothing behind them, no soul.

Suddenly, one of the windows cracked, causing Abby to jump.

“Come on!” Jessica called.

She turned and saw that Jessica was already down on the track.  She ran over and nimbly hopped down.  She stumbled slightly on the landing, but Jessica caught her and helped her keep her balance.

“That way looks closest, right?”  Jessica pointed in one of the tunnel’s two directions.

Abby looked up and down the tunnel.  “Yeah, that side looks closest.”

Huddling together, the girls headed off down the track.  Despite the fact they knew the trains must have not been running, they kept looking up and down the track anyway, searching for the telltale light of an oncoming train.  They went slowly, being careful of the tracks and other things covering the ground.  It was all covered in a fine layer of grime.

“Eww, a rat,” Jessica said from just ahead of Abby.

“Rats happen,” Abby shrugged.

“It’s coming right toward us.”  Jessica stepped back and put Abby ahead of her, almost like a shield.

It was indeed a rat and not just a mouse, and it was indeed running right at them.  “Shoo!” Abby yelled at the rat, trying to be intimidating.  It didn’t work.  Maybe they were near its nest or something.  The rat had nearly reached them.  Abby stuck out the field hockey stick and hit the thing.  It squeaked and slid back, but then turned around and launched itself at Abby, landing on her shoe.

“Get it off, get it off!” Abby squealed.  She didn’t mind rats, provided they kept their distance or if they were someone’s clean and trained pet.  A subway rat on her shoe however, was not acceptable.  She started hopping around on one foot, shaking the other, trying to dislodge the rat.  It held on tightly.

“Hold still,” Jessica commanded.

While Abby held still, Jessica used the shovel to scrape the rat off the top of her shoe.  It clung to the shovel and Jessica catapulted it down the tunnel.  The rat bounced twice then turned around and ran at them again.

“Little bugger is determined,” Abby noted.

“He must really like your shoes.”  Jessica shrugged.

When the rat got close enough, Jessica brought the shovel down hard and splatted the rat against the tunnel floor.

“Ewww,” both girls protested at the same time when its little guts squished out.

Abby looked down at her shoe and found that the laces were all torn.  “He tried to bite through my shoe.”

“Then I take back my statement.  He must have really disliked your shoes.”  Jessica scraped the underside of the shovel along the skinny ledge lining the track, trying to get any bits of remaining rat off it.

“I really liked these shoes,” Abby huffed.  She had spent most of a day trying to find the perfect shoes for walking around the city.  She hoped it was just the laces that were destroyed, because those would be easy to replace.  If the shoe itself had been damaged though, she didn’t know if the store she bought them from would still have more in stock.

“Come on, let’s keep going before more rats show up.”  Jessica stepped around Abby again and took the lead down the tunnel.

“Not much further now,” Abby noted happily.

That’s when all the lights went out.  The subway tunnel was plunged into a pitch black nothingness, temporarily throwing off Abby’s sense of balance.  Then there was a loud crack from behind them.  It sounded like the Plexiglas of a subway train’s window breaking.

14:

The Young Teen

Danny held the handles of Alec’s wheelchair even though he didn’t need to.  Alec was using the strength of his own arms to wheel down the street, but Danny held on to make sure he kept pace.  He felt a lot safer with Alec, even though the man was in a wheelchair and he barely knew him.  He was a man, not a boy, and he had a gun.  He hadn’t used it yet, but it was ever present.

“So where did you get the gun?” Danny asked.

“I was in the military,” Alec answered.

“Oh.  What part?  Army?  Navy?”  Danny had never met someone from the military outside of Mathias.

“I was an army ranger,” Alec answered him in a monotone voice.  His attention seemed completely focused on their surroundings, which Danny figured was a good thing.  “I was a sniper.”

“So you killed some people.”  Danny thought snipers were pretty cool, but he didn’t know too much about them.

“Some, yes.”  Mathias would never tell Danny if he had killed anybody.  This guy was cool.

“I was thinking of joining the Air Force when I’m old enough,” Danny told him.

“Air Force, huh?” Alec grinned slightly.  “Do you want to fly jets or helicopters?”

“I’m leaning towards helicopters right now.  I really like the Ostra class.”

“Ostra?  I don’t know that one.”

Danny smiled broadly.  “Not too many people do.  It’s a new prototype being made by Keystone.  I figure it’ll be put into full production by the time I join.”

“How does a kid like you know about Keystone’s prototypes, huh?”  Alec actually stopped briefly in his scan of their surroundings and spared him a quick glance over his shoulder.

“My brother works on their security team.  He’s not supposed to tell me stuff, but he does.  He even got me the plans for it, so I could study the systems.  Most of it is still over my head, but I’m learning.”  Danny shrugged nonchalantly.  He was trying to act cool.

“Fucking Marble Keystone Pharmaceuticals,” Alec sighed and grinned.  “They expanded so far beyond just pharmaceuticals; I wonder why they still bother keeping it in the name?”

“They don’t,” Danny informed him.  “They have a bunch of different branches that have different names.  People just always remember the pharmaceuticals part because it’s the first thing they did and what they advertise most often.  They’re actually the Marble Keystone Corporation.”

“Hmm.  So where’s your brother in all this?” Alec changed topics.

“I don’t know,” Danny sighed.  “He’s probably fine though.  He works in a big secret facility.”

“Secret facility?”  Alec suddenly took even more interest in what Danny was saying.

“Yeah.  I don’t know where it is, but they do all sorts of stuff down there.  Mathias doesn’t tell me too much though, just in case they find out.  He only tells me about the things that are about to go public, like the Ostra.”  Danny suddenly went pale.  “There’s one of them,” he whispered to Alec.

He pointed to one of the crazed people who were wandering around between two houses.

“Yeah, I noticed him,” Alec nodded.  “He can’t see us though, his eyes are gone.”

Danny took another look.  Indeed, the man’s eyes were gone, just shredded holes in their place.  He bumped back and forth between the houses.

“Are we almost there?” Danny lowered his voice.  His eyes may be gone but his ears still seemed to be intact.

“Just a little further,” Alec assured him.

Danny was worried about Emma.  Her leg looked pretty bad.  It looked to him like she had lost a lot of blood too.  If they didn’t get the doctor soon he was scared she wasn’t going to make it.  She had to make it, she just had to.

“Can we hurry up?” Danny asked.

“If you think you can keep up, sure.”  Alec picked up his pace.

Danny had to trot to keep up.  His legs ached a little at first, from all the running he had done earlier, but that went away quickly.  During the school year, his gym teacher told him he should join the track team, but he didn’t.  He wanted more time for his video games.  That seemed like a really stupid decision right now.  He was a natural runner, but he never really exercised.  At least he didn’t pig out on junk food all the time like the other kids did.  He’d be fat then and would probably be dead by now.  He promised himself that if he survived this, he would exercise a lot more and spend a lot less time in front of the TV.

“There’s the house.”  Alec pointed up ahead.

It looked like all the other houses in the area, except that it was on a corner, so it was more open on one side.  Danny liked that; less spaces for the crazies to be lurking.  They approached the house and Alec frowned.  To get to the door, they had to cross a cement patio, which was a step up from the driveway.

“All right kid, I’m going to need your help,” Alec sighed.

“Sure.  What should I do?”  Danny stood up straight.  Being needed made him feel better about his decision to come.  Up until then, he had been feeling like a nuisance, like he was just slowing Alec down.

“I’m going to hoist myself up, and you’re going to lift the chair up onto the patio, okay?”  Alec took his pistol off his lap and slid it into a pocket, then grabbed hold of an iron railing.

“Okay.”  Danny tightened his grip on the handles.

“All right, on the count of three.  One, two, three!”  Alec pulled himself up and out of his chair.  He actually stood somewhat, but clearly most of his weight was on his arms, and he was very shaky.  The railing trembled beneath him.

Danny pulled and heaved the chair up the step.  It was a lot heavier than it looked, but he managed to get it up.  “I got it.”

Alec swung his body around and collapsed into the chair.  He used his strong arms to put his legs back into position.

“You stood.”  Danny thought he would have just collapsed.

“I’m not totally paralysed.”  Alec took a short breather.  “My legs were shredded by gunfire but they’ll heal eventually.  This is temporary.”  He patted the chair.  “But I have to relearn how to use my legs and it’s hard.  Painful too.  These help though.”  Alec rolled up a pant leg and showed Danny a metal brace attached to his leg.

“Cool,” Danny said in an automatic way.  “I mean the braces,” he quickly realized he might have insulted the soldier.  “Not that you’re in a wheelchair or were shot or anything.”

“It’s okay.”  Alec grinned and patted him on the shoulder.  “I think the braces are kind of cool too.  They make me like a cyborg.”

Danny smiled.  The two of them crossed the cement patio over to the door.  They passed by a big bay window but the curtains were drawn, so they couldn’t see much inside.

“Well, the fact that this isn’t broken is a good sign.”  Alec lightly rapped a knuckle on the window as they passed.

Danny pressed the doorbell, and soft chimes sounded from inside the house.  They waited, but no one came to open the door.

“Maybe they’re not home,” Alec shrugged.

Danny frowned.  Emma needed a doctor.  He opened the first door, which was basically a large pane of glass, and pressed his face against the frosted glass that adorned the second, big wooden door.  Soft chimes sounded again as Alec stretched up and pressed the door bell himself.  Not a single shadow moved inside.  Danny tried to open the door, but it was locked.

“Step aside; hold the door open for me.”  Alec grabbed Danny and pulled him back.

Danny stood to one side, holding the glass door open so that it wouldn’t close on Alec.  Alec swung his big bag around and searched inside until he found a small leather case with a zipper along three sides.  He unzipped the case and folded it open.  Inside, there were little tools that Danny didn’t recognise.

Alec noticed Danny looking over his shoulder.  “Lock picking set,” he filled him in.  He selected the tools he wanted and started to work on the lock.

Danny wanted to watch him work, but he suddenly felt like there were eyes on them.  Turning to look around the neighbourhood, he spotted the watcher.  Across the street, a man stood behind a window.  He was wearing a black suit with a loosened tie, as if he had just come home from a funeral.  He wasn’t bloody, but his mouth hung wide open, and something was wrong with his eyes, but the distance made it impossible to tell what.  He stood perfectly still, just watching Danny and Alec from behind the glass.  The curtains hung around behind him, giving the impression, he was a little kid playing hide and seek.  Remembering what Nelly looked like in the park, Danny shuddered.  He had to save Emma.

“Got it.”  Alec swung the door open.

“Do you need help getting in?”  Danny turned away from the watcher and noticed that there was still a minor step to get into the house.  It wasn’t as bad as the one onto the patio, but it was still a step.

“No, I got it.  Just keep holding that door open for me.”  Alec tilted back onto the big rear tires of his wheelchair.  Once the front wheels were on the step, he used one hand to grab the doorframe.  By turning the back wheels with one hand, and pulling on the doorframe with the other, he was able to pull the chair up with him.  “Piece of cake.”

Danny looked back across the street.  The watcher was gone; the soft swaying of the curtains was the only thing to acknowledge he had even been there.  Danny quickly got into the house and shut the big door behind him.  He locked it as well, even though the big bay window was an easy break-in point.

“Whoa.  Come look at this, kid.”  Alec had wheeled into the living room.

“What?”  Danny walked down the short entry hall and joined Alec in the living room.

“This chick’s prepared for anything,” Alec commented.

Strewn around the off-white living room were various out of place objects.  Gas masks sitting under the dark wood coffee table, a crowbar in the corner between a white floor lamp and the window, a big wooden board the size of the bay window along one wall, and two pistols sitting on end tables, that matched the coffee table, across the room from each other.

Alec went over and checked out one of the pistols.  “This thing is loaded.  Well taken care of too.  Do you think she knew what was going to happen?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe,” Danny shrugged,  “or maybe she’s just crazy.  Let’s get what we need and go.”  The house actually creeped him out with its strangeness.  The only reason he was willing to spend any time in it, was because Emma needed him to.

“Okay.  I’ll check this floor.  You go check out the basement.”  Alec put down the pistol.  “Anything that looks like drugs or medical supplies, you bring up here.  If anything happens, scream at the top of your lungs and try to get back to me.”

“Okay,” Danny nodded.  At least the house was a bungalow, so there was no upstairs to check.

Danny found the stairs leading into the basement through the kitchen and flipped a light switch at the top of them.  When the lights illuminated the space below, Danny took a moment to stop and listen.  A minute or two passed without any sound or movement, so he made his way down.  The basement was finished, with a nice beige carpet and chocolate coloured walls.  First, he looked around an open area that was set up as a home theatre.  There weren’t any medical supplies, but he did find more weapons and gas masks.  There were also more window-sized boards leaning against the walls.  Danny was thinking that maybe this person had some idea about what had happened.  Clearly, he or she didn’t know everything though or else the doctor would be here.  Then again, a lot of things happened that made some people think the world was going to end, and they went totally overboard.  The doctor was probably one of those people.  A crazy doctor: Danny shuddered at the thought.

He found a small bathroom next.  It was done up in whites and pale blues which made the red handled axe stand out.  Crazy.  The next room was a storage room.  It had guns of all kinds with bullets to match, full biohazard suits, lots of tools, what looked like explosives, blankets and camping gear, but mostly food.  There was a lot of canned and jarred food filling the shelves.  There was also a shelving unit of medical supplies.

A red, normal-sized backpack was mixed into a pile of camping packs.  Danny picked it up and started putting the medical stuff into it.  He didn’t know what would be needed, so he took at least one of everything and then doubled up on what looked most important: things like bandages, and painkillers, for instance.  Once the bag was filled, Danny walked toward the door again but stopped next to a rack of pistols.

He picked up one of the smaller pistols and looked it over.  Danny’s brother had taught him all about guns but had never let him hold a loaded one.  This one wasn’t loaded either, but the clearly labelled ammo clips sat right next to it.  Looking around like someone might see him, Danny stuck the pistol into the waistband of his shorts.  He then took two clips of ammo and put them in either pocket.  He wanted more, but his pockets would bulge, and Alec would ask questions.  If the Ranger were going to let him have a gun, he would have given him one already.  Danny left the storage room and went to the last door.  It opened into a short hallway that had a huge, thick, metal door dominating one side.

“Alec!” Danny called in a non-panicked voice.  “Alec, I found something!”

A moment later, Alec replied from the top of the stairs.  “What is it?”

“Looks like some sort of panic room!  The door’s open!”  It was practically a vault.

“Don’t go in it!” Alec warned him.  “I found some supplies up here we can use, so there’s no need to look!  That door could seal automatically and trap you inside!”

Danny hadn’t thought about that.  “Okay!  I found some things too!  I’m coming up!”  He crossed the basement quickly and climbed the stairs two at a time.  Alec was waiting at the top in his chair.  Behind him, his tires had left dirty tracks across the kitchen tile.  That was when Danny realized he had tracked dirt all around the basement.

“Come on.”  Alec headed back to the front door, and Danny tagged along after him.  “You said you found some stuff?”

“Yeah, there was a whole supply room down there.  I grabbed one of everything from what looked like the medical supplies.”  Danny held out the backpack.

“Good job.  I found a few things around the house too, so we should have enough to fix up your friend’s leg.”  Alec didn’t look like he had more stuff, but then again, his duffel bag was pretty big.  “Stop,” Alec hissed and held up a clenched fist.

Danny stopped.  “What is it?” he whispered.

Alec pointed toward the bay window.  The watcher was there.  He looked just like he did from across the street, only now the window was much closer, and the curtains were between them.  The light coming in made the curtains more transparent from the inside than from the outside, providing some protection from his gaze.  His eyes were easier to see this closely.  They had thick, black veins, like marked rivers on a map, pulsing in the skin around them.  Danny stood perfectly still, but he knew the watcher had seen them.  He was staring right at them.

“What do we do?”  Danny reached behind him, gripping the pistol.  Even unloaded, feeling it in his hand was reassuring.

“We’re going out the back way,” Alec spoke very quietly and very calmly.  “Move very slowly, no sudden movements, okay?”

Danny nodded, even though Alec couldn’t see it.  He very carefully walked backwards, slow step by slow step.  Without being asked to, he grabbed the handles of Alec’s chair and pulled him backwards with him.  They backed into the kitchen where they could no longer see the watcher.  Alec had his pistol held out in both hands.  Danny hadn’t even seen him pick it up.  As Alec kept watch, Danny went to check out the back door.  He drew back the slats of the blinds and unlocked the sliding door.  Opening it wide, he stuck his head out.  The tiny backyard was clear of threats, but there was a whole other problem.  He turned back to Alec.

“Umm…”  Danny didn’t know how to word it.

“What is it?” Alec whispered without turning. “Are there more?”

“No, the backyard is clear, it’s something else.”  Danny grabbed Alec’s chair and pulled him to the back door.

Alec glanced over his shoulder.  “Great.”

The back door led out onto a wooden deck that was rather high, with several narrow wooden steps to the ground.

“Whatever, I’ll manage.”  Alec popped his wheels over the doorframe and rolled out onto the wood.  He took his duffel bag off his shoulders and dropped it over the side.  It hit the gravelled ground below with a thump and a clatter.  “Wait down there, kid.”

“You sure I can’t help?”

“Do it.”

Danny hurried down the steps.  He picked up the duffel bag, but he couldn’t hold it for too long.  It was heavy.  He managed to stand it up on one end and wrap his arms around it.  As he held the bag, he looked up and watched Alec.  Putting his gun back into his pocket, the Ranger grabbed the wooden railing with one hand and placed his other against the wall.  He rolled back on two wheels again, and rolled over the edge.  Very carefully, and very slowly, he thumped down one step at a time, straining his arms to keep from rolling down out of control.  The wheels were almost too large to fit on the steps and constantly threatened to push him down faster.  Alec was halfway down when they heard the explosive crash of the bay window shattering.

* * *

Alec looked over his shoulder toward the door.  “Fuck it.  Look out kid!”

Danny just managed to step out of the way, dragging the large bag with him, as Alec threw his body up out of his chair and over the railing.  He hit the gravel, his legs crumpling under him and causing him to roll.  As he rolled, he pulled out his gun again in one swift motion and came to a stop with it pointed at the deck.

“Get my chair.”

Danny dropped the bag and hurried over to where the chair lay battered at the bottom of the steps.  He righted it, giving it a quick inspection.  Nothing on it looked broken.  He turned around just in time to see the watcher standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at him.  Those black sludge veins stretching across his face, radiating out of his blood-shot eyes, and that wide stretched mouth opening to an abyss lined with teeth.  Danny couldn’t look away.  Before he could draw a breath, Alec fired his pistol.  The watcher’s head exploded sideways at the same moment his knees came unhinged and he collapsed.  Something in the next yard over screamed and ran into the fence.

“Something didn’t like that.  Chair, quick.”  Alec held out his arm.

Danny wheeled the chair over to Alec, glancing up to the deck one more time.  One of the watcher’s hands hung over the side.  Alec grabbed the chair and pulled himself into it on his own.  Danny wanted to help, but didn’t know how.  Instead, he grabbed Alec’s bag and handed it to him once he was settled.  Something hit into the fence again, the boards rattling like dry bones.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”  Alec rolled across the gravel toward the side yard.  Danny hurried after him with a quick glance over his shoulder at the fence.  The boards were rattling ceaselessly now.  “Danny, I have a request for you that’s going to sound strange, and extremely uncomfortable.”

“What?”  Danny didn’t like the sound of that.

Alec was silent a moment as he rolled out into the street.  “Did you notice that the entire way here was uphill?”

“No, why?  What are you asking me to do?”

“This is going to make me sound like such a pervert,” Alec sighed.  “If you sit in my lap, we can get back to my place faster by rolling downhill.”

“Yeah, that makes you sound like a perv,” Danny nodded.

“Which is not how I intend it,” Alec quickly said.  “Believe me, I am way more interested in women my age.  I just don’t think you’ll be able to keep up on foot.  If it makes you feel better, I still don’t have much feeling down there.”

That actually both repulsed and amused Danny.  The sound of wood splintering decided for him.

“All right, let’s try this.”  Danny opted not to actually sit on Alec, but to stand on the bar that acted as his footrest, lean forward, and grab his wide-set shoulders.

Alec used his considerable strength to get the chair rolling.  It was taking awhile to get speed though.  Since Danny was facing backwards, he could see the crazy person burst out from between the houses.  Further up the street, three more people were running at them as well.

“Umm, Alec,” his voice cracked with panic,  “we’re being followed.”

“Hold on tight.”  Alec wrapped an arm around Danny and quickly swung the chair around to face the other way.  “Kneel on me now, and get those wheels spinning as fast as you can,” Alec ordered.

Danny awkwardly rested his knees on Alec’s legs.  He had never been more uncomfortable in his life.  Still, he did his best to get the wheels spinning faster.  It was hard though.  He didn’t think he was doing a very good job, but at least they were gathering momentum from the slope of the hill.  Alec leaned to one side to see around Danny and held out his pistol behind him.

“Why don’t you just shoot them?” Danny wondered.

“I think the first gunshot is what drew them and I’m waiting for a good shot.  I don’t want to waste any ammo if I don’t have to.”  Alec’s voice had gone monotone as he focused.  “If I have to shoot, I’m going to warn you by saying ‘firing.’ The moment you hear me say that, let go of the wheels and lean away from the gun.”

“Okay.” Although facing forward had its advantages, Danny didn’t like wondering how close the people behind them might be.  He also didn’t want to look over his shoulder to find out.  What if they were closer than he thought?

“Firing!” Alec suddenly shouted in his ear.

Danny shifted his body sideways, not because he remembered he was supposed to, but because the sudden shouting had frightened him into reacting that way.  The gun exploded behind him, sounding a lot louder than it had behind the house.  Of course, that was because he was much closer to it than he was before.  He almost didn’t hear the body hit and scrape along the pavement due to the minor ringing in his ears.  It had been very close.

“Keep trying to get us up to speed,” Alec commanded.

Danny shifted back over and started working the wheels again.  This seemed less awkward now that he had an idea about how close it had been.  They were gaining precious speed and the hill was getting steeper.  It got to the point where it was safer for Danny’s hands if he stopped trying to touch the wheels.

“Firing!”

This time he shifted over because he remembered to.  Even though he was now expecting it, the gunshot was still frightfully loud.  Another body scraped the pavement behind them.

“I can’t control us anymore,” Danny told Alec after the ringing faded.  He meant that he couldn’t do anything to help their speed, but after saying it, he realized that steering was also an issue.

“Doesn’t matter, I got us now.”  Alec tapped one wheel with his partially gloved hand and spun them around.  Danny was nearly thrown from the chair.  “Just tell me if they get too close.”

While Danny watched their rear, Alec controlled their speedy descent with a few taps to either wheel now and then.  There were even more people running after them now.  Danny counted five on the street behind them and at least three on either sidewalk.  Where were they all coming from?  Alec’s theory about the sound of the gunshots was probably true.  Although it took them down, it also brought more.  Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Danny turned his head.  A man ran out of a house, coming toward them.  Danny almost warned Alec, but then realized this man was different.  He was scared, terrified.  He wasn’t one of the attackers.

The man ran out into the street behind their speeding wheelchair, not paying any attention to his surroundings.  Danny watched as the mob that had been chasing them now converged upon this frightened man.  They knocked him to the ground where he started screaming.  Danny glimpsed blood before the mob completely surrounded him.

“They stopped chasing us,” Danny told Alec with a dry mouth.

“You sure?”  Alec tried looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah.  A guy ran out of his house behind us.  They swarmed him.”

“Well just keep holding on tight, we’re nearly at the bottom,” Alec sighed.  He was silent for a moment before speaking again.  “You okay?”

“Sure.  Why wouldn’t I be?”  Danny thought that was a stupid question.  If he had been hurt, Alec probably would have been as well.

“I meant in your head,” Alec clarified.

“Oh.”  Right, adults often seemed to worry about the younger kids’ mental status.

“I’ve seen real combat, so I won’t always remember that seeing certain things is going to be new to you.”

“I’m fine,” Danny told him honestly.  At least he was pretty sure it was honest.

“You say that now, but you might not be later.  If you aren’t, just remember to talk to me.”

“You make it sound like I’ll be around you for awhile,” Danny noticed.  He still hadn’t taken his eyes off the diminishing mob, but they were far enough away that he couldn’t make out details.

“Well if we’re up shit creek as far as it seems we are, then it might be better for both of us to stick together.”

“With Emma,” Danny nodded,  “she’ll need your help too.”

“She’ll need yours as well.  Hold on, we’re breaking.”  Alec gently but quickly slowed the wheelchair.  He directed them to one side, bumped up a driveway and then onto a lawn.  They stopped much faster on the grass.

As soon as they stopped, Danny hopped off.  His legs felt all rubbery, but he didn’t think it was so much from the bumpy ride as it was from the rush of adrenaline.  His whole body trembled.

“We need you more than you need us.”  Danny knew that was completely true.  Although he wasn’t fond about needing protection, he did like having it.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Alec grinned, nearly laughing.  “I don’t have any legs right now in case you forgot.  Hell yeah, I need your help as much as you need mine.  In fact, help me now get off this damn grass.  I seem to be in a rut.”

Danny didn’t believe Alec.  He was sure the man could get along just fine on his own, based on what he had seen him do so far.  He thought Alec was just humouring him.

Danny grabbed the little handles that were too low for fully grown people.  Having yet to hit that growth spurt that Mathias kept promising him would happen, Danny was on the short side, and the handles were actually at a perfect height for him.  Turned out that Alec was indeed in some sort of rut, but working together, they managed to get him out of it.  When a loud crash sounded in the house they were in front of, they hurried as quickly as they could off lawn and down the street.  Danny spotted Alec’s house ahead because of the teenager still trapped by the garage.

“Can we kill him now?” Danny asked as they headed up the driveway.

“If we use the gun it’ll draw more of them here.”  Alec stopped next to the teenager, just out of reach.  And he reached all right.  The guy looked furious.

“Maybe we can just beat him to death,” Danny shrugged.

Alec gave him a strange look.  “Go inside.”

“Why?” Danny frowned.

“Just do it.”

“It’s locked,” Danny reminded him.

“Here.”  Alec tossed him the keys.

Danny went to the door, unlocked it and stepped inside, then turned and glanced around the corner at Alec.  Alec had taken out a large combat knife.  Deciding that maybe he didn’t want to see, Danny stepped fully into the house.  He tried to act tough, and sometimes he felt like he was, but not always.  Now was one of the times he felt not so tough.  On some level, he was still dealing with what happened in the street and now, added to that, was what Alec looked like he was going to do.  It was all starting to freak him out a little.

He looked around Alec’s front hall for a bit and then wandered over to the living room.  Something seemed wrong about the space, but he didn’t know what it was because he had never been in here before, except for passing through when they left.  It was as if something was out of place, or missing.  He wandered around some more and found a half bath.  He realized he badly needed to pee and used the facility, still wondering what was wrong.

* * *

After flushing the toilet, Danny pulled his shorts back up and looked at himself in the mirror.  Something fundamental had changed in Danny, but he didn’t know what.  As he looked in the mirror, he was surprised to see the same face he saw this morning.  He was short, somewhat scrawny, his plain brown hair was a disaster, and his plain brown eyes were, well, plain.  He was also getting his first rash of pimples on his left cheek.  How was he supposed to survive this?  No, that was not the appropriate attitude.  He would survive this, no matter what.  Although looking back at his family’s history made this seem unlikely.  Danny held the gun out in front of him and looked it over.  He then looked at himself in the mirror holding it.  It looked big in his hands.

“Danny?” Alec called from the front of the house.

“I’m in the bathroom.”  Danny quickly put the gun back.  He briefly rinsed his hands, wiped them on the front of his T-shirt, and grabbed the pilfered backpack up off the floor.  He left the bathroom and found Alec in the entrance hall.  There was dark blood staining the bottoms of his pants.

“Where’s Rifle?” Alec asked him.

“Rifle?  The dog?  I don’t know.  Still in the garage I guess,” Danny shrugged.  Why would he know where the dog was?

“He always checks out the door when it’s opened,” Alec frowned.  “Come on.”  He led them back to the garage door.  It was partly ajar.  “Wait here.”  Alec pulled out his gun once more.

Danny waited.  As he waited, he realized he had walked around the house but not gone to the garage.  Why didn’t he go straight to the garage when he had the supplies for Emma?  He watched as Alec rolled over to the door and gently prodded it open.  He crossed the threshold slowly.  After a few tense and silent moments, he came back out.

“There’s no one here,” Alec told him.

“What you mean?”  Danny didn’t wait for an answer and ran into the garage himself.  There was a lot of blood in the corner where Emma had been in.  A lot of blood.  And it was on the walls too, which made no sense because it was just a leg wound.  Alec was right though; there was no one there.  Just the pinned arm of the teenager, which no longer moved.

A bubble of panic rose up in Danny and he was surprised to find it was for his own safety rather than for Emma’s.  “Where did they go?”

“I don’t know,” Alec shook his head.  “I need you to check upstairs.”

“Sure.”  Danny swallowed the bubble and headed for the stairs.

“Be careful kid.”  Alec followed him to their base.  “Run back here if…”

“- If I run into trouble, I know,” Danny nodded.

“Leave your bag here.”  Alec held out his hand.

Danny slid out of the straps and handed Alec the slightly battered and faded backpack full of medical supplies.  He then turned toward the stairs.  As he headed up them slowly, he gripped tightly to the railing as if the floor might suddenly mutate into a slick ramp.  Like in cartoons.  On one side of the steps there was a mechanical device.  Danny figured it was something that got Alec up and down the stairs.  He guessed the thing made noise, and that was why Alec wasn’t using it now.  Things like that always made noise.  And were slow.  If something were up there, he’d be trapped on the machine.  Of course, Danny was just guessing at all of this.  For all he knew the thing was broken, or it might not have been for Alec at all.  He reached the top of the stairs and looked around.  There was a door to his immediate right, and three doors down a short hall to his left.  The door on the right was closed and the outside of it was covered in scratches and small amounts of blood.  A lump formed in his throat replacing the earlier bubble.  He decided to check out the doors to the left first.

Halfway down the hall he came to the first door, which was partly open.  He prodded it open a bit further with his foot and hid out of sight.  No sounds came from inside.  He glanced quickly through the door, revealing only his head for a second to anything that might be inside.  That quick peek showed him it was a bathroom, and it looked empty.  Danny stepped into the doorway and took a more thorough look.  Everything was just like a normal bathroom except that the medicine cabinet was standing open, there were rails attached near the toilet, and a sort of seat was in the middle of the bathtub.  Danny figured it must be the bathroom Alec used, which backed up his theory about the mechanical device being for him.

Danny closed the door and continued down the hall.  The next door he came to was closed, but there were no scratches on this door.  He grabbed the handle and turned.  First, he tried to push the door in, like the bathroom door, but it wouldn’t budge.  Realizing it was an outward swinging door, and therefore probably just a closet, he pulled it open to make sure.  He was right.  It was a closet filled with shelving holding an assortment of linens, some wrapping paper and old gift bags, and some small things like batteries and string.  Danny closed that door as well.

The last door, the one at the end of the hall, stood wide open.  Danny could see most of a bedroom through it, but he could also see a bloody hand print on the doorframe.  It was a smallish print, more the size of Emma’s than of that girl, Michelle.  Danny approached the room very slowly.  The closer he got, the more of the room he could see, but the more frightened he became.  He stopped completely when he reached the doorway and looked around.  The room was simply decorated, with a dresser, a queen size bed, and a pair of night stands.  One of the windows across the room was wide open, letting in a nice summer breeze.  Although the room looked clear, that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone hiding behind the bed, or beyond one of the two slightly opened doors on either side of the dresser.  Danny took a deep steadying breath and touched the pistol in his waistband.  Still not loaded, but still there for comfort.  He walked into the room.

First, he checked the other side of the bed, which was just as empty as the rest of the room.  He used his foot to lift part of the bedspread up and noticed the wooden frame went straight to the floor.  Good, he wouldn’t have to look under the bed for anything. Next, he checked out one of the doors.  It was a walk-in closet that seemed oddly empty.  There were only a few hanging clothes and a pile of folded T-shirts on a shelf.  Danny closed that door and went to the last one.  It turned out to be another bathroom, and it was also empty of life.  It was empty of dead bodies too, which was a relief.  This bathroom didn’t have the same safety rails and seat in the bathtub like the other.  It dawned on Danny that Alec must not live alone.  He said Michelle was not his girlfriend, though, so it couldn’t be her.  And the bathroom indicated that this was the master bedroom, and it didn’t look like Alec’s room, so it was actually someone else’s house.  Danny wondered who Alec lived with.  He would ask after he checked out the last room, the room with the scratches.

He was about to leave the bedroom when he noticed the bloody handprint again.  The thumb of the print was on the inside of the jam, so it seemed logical that the person who left it must have been coming into that room.  There was no other sign of the print’s owner though.  Danny crossed the room to the window and looked out.  It led out onto a porch roof facing the backyard.  There was another handprint, more faded this time, on the outside window frame.  Whoever came through here went straight out the window.  The fact that there were no prints on the window itself, led Danny to believe that it had been left open.  What if someone had come through that window first?  Maybe that’s why Emma, Michelle, and Rifle weren’t there anymore.  They had to run away.

Danny walked away from the window and went back into the hall.  There was just one last door to open.  Logically, it would be Alec’s room.  How strange when he thought about this being Alec’s house.  He wondered what the military man was thinking while he searched around.  He wondered if it was an odd feeling, or perhaps a feeling of inadequacy from a failure to defend his own home.  Danny didn’t defend his home, and now Emma was missing.  Perhaps that was the source of the bad feeling he had earlier.

As he passed the head of the stairs, he looked down them.  Alec was still there, looking up at him.  He gave Danny a thumbs up.  Danny returned it, but his face maintained whatever expression it had on.  Most likely a frightened one.  He faced the door again.

He placed his hand on the wood, feeling the scratches.  He ran his hands along them as if he were the one that had made them.  They were probably made by someone roughly the same height as him, maybe a little taller.  Emma was taller than he was.  He shoved that thought aside.  He didn’t want to think about Emma right now, especially like that.  Unlike the other rooms, he tried to open this door quickly.  Unfortunately, the door was locked, so that idea failed instantly.  He knocked on the door instead.

“Hello?”  He didn’t mean to whisper, but that was the way it came out.  “Hello, is someone in there?”

Something slammed into the door.  Danny stumbled backwards with fright, tripped over his own feet and fell hard onto his back.

“Danny?” Alec called from the bottom of the stairs, where he could see Danny’s head and shoulders when he fell.

Alec’s voice was the last thing Danny heard as the door was wrenched open and Michelle, with a new, paler look and a bloody hole in her neck, came flying out of the room with hands reaching for Danny.

15:

The Little Girl

Shoes was a very good dog.  He didn’t pull on his leash or anything and walked right by Alice’s side.  She reached down to pet him every now and again.  This was a very long and slow walk they were on, and Alice decided he needed encouragement every now and then.  He was, after all, a very old dog.

Alice wondered where the lady and the man were taking her.  She knew she shouldn’t go places with strangers, but they seemed like really nice people, and she didn’t want to be alone after what had happened with Judy’s daddy.  Something was going on, something bad.  She just didn’t know what it was.

Well, the man was really nice, but Alice hadn’t quite decided about the lady.  She seemed kind of like a witch, but she hadn’t really done anything bad so far.  It was funny the way they were walking.  They didn’t walk on the sidewalks unless they had to, and they hid behind trees and bushes a lot.  Something was wrong with the people on the street because whenever they saw one, Mister Walter would stand in front of Alice and Shoes and hurry them over to a hiding place.  It reminded her of a game she liked to play that was sort of like tag and sort of like hide-and-seek.  So far, they had been good at the hiding part and no one chased them yet.

Alice knew this wasn’t a game though.  She understood those people would hurt her if they caught her.  It was the only reason grown-ups would be acting this way.  She wished her Daddy were here.  He was a police officer and could protect her.  He wasn’t, though.  She had Shoes, which was good.  Shoes used to be a police doggy before he got too old.  He worked with her Daddy when they needed to find cadavers.  Alice didn’t quite know what cadavers were, but she suspected they were dead bodies.  Her Daddy switched departments once Shoes was too old, because he said it made him too sad.  Shoes’s job was to protect her now.  He was her guardian angel or rather guardian doggy.

“Mister Walter?” Alice whispered, tugging on the hem of his shirt.

“What is it?” Mister Walter whispered down to her.

“I have to pee.”  She didn’t know they would be walking so far and that she should have gone before they left her house.

Mister Walter looked at the lady, Kara.  She was kind of pretty for an old lady.  She was also black.  There were all kinds of kids that went to day-care and to school with her, some of which were black, but Alice had never met an old person that was.  It made her white hair seem very white.

“Can you go in the bushes?” Kara asked her.

“I’m not a boy,” Alice frowned.  She had long hair and was wearing her jean dress.  How could anyone confuse her with a boy?

“Girls can go in the bushes too,” Kara told her.

“They can?”  Alice was surprised to learn of this.  “Where do they sit?”

Kara and Mister Walter shared another look.  Grownups did that a lot.  She often wondered what they were saying with their eyes.

“Well, why don’t you come with me, and I’ll show you how?” Kara told her.

“Can Shoes come even though he’s a boy dog?”  Alice didn’t want to leave Shoes.

“Of course he can.  Come on, we’ll go behind these bushes over here.”  Kara took her hand and led her over to some bushes.  They were right in front of someone’s house, but the windows were too high up for Alice to look into them.  That was good, because that meant no one in the house could see her.  She peered through the bushes to make sure Mister Walter couldn’t see her.  He was hiding behind a tree, watching the street with his back to her.

Kara taught Alice a way in which she could pee outdoors.  It was awkward and she almost peed on her own shoe, but she managed.  Afterwards, Kara handed her some Kleenex from her purse to wipe herself with.  This was then thrown into the bushes because Kara said it was okay.

“Feel better now?” Kara asked as they left the bushes.

“Yes.”  Alice nodded, and then patted Shoes again.  He had sat patiently with her.  “How much further are we going?”

“It’s hard to say.  I’ve never been in this neighbourhood, so I don’t know how close we are,” Kara told her.

“Where are we going?”

“To my house.”

“Why?”

“It has a big fence around it that can keep the bad people out.”

“Where’s Paul?”  Alice hadn’t seen him since the car.

“Who’s Paul?”  The two of them met up with Mister Walter and continued sneaking down the street.

“He goes to school with me, and to day-care.  He’s a booger head.”  He is.  “He was driving the car when we hit the man in the street.”

Kara and Mister Walter stopped walking and looked at each other again.  This look was different from the other one, but Alice didn’t know what it meant either.  It seemed bad though.

“We didn’t see Paul,” Mister Walter told her.

“Oh.  What about Judy?”  Alice wanted her to meet Shoes.  She thought he could make her less scared.

“Was Judy in the car with you as well?” Kara asked.

“Yes.  She was scared.  Her Daddy was chasing her, and he jumped on the car.  That’s when Paul started driving,” Alice told them.

“We didn’t see her either,” Mister Walter said.

“Oh, okay.  I guess they walked home and forgot I was asleeping in the back seat.”  Her Daddy sometimes took her on long trips in the car, and she would often fall asleep.  She assumed that had just happened again.

They snuck down the street for another block, still sticking to cars, bushes, trees, and fences.  They were in an area Alice didn’t know because she had never come this way before.  Everything she knew lay on the other side of her house.  All the houses kept getting bigger and the lawns larger the farther they walked.  Eventually all the lawns were fenced in and they didn’t have anything to hide behind.  They sat down behind a car while the adults thought about what to do.

“My feet hurt,” Alice said to no one in particular.  She was getting used to whispering all the time, but it made her think about when her class went to the school library.  She didn’t like the library.  It had an old smell, and Mrs. Hershey read books out loud in a boring way.  She didn’t give the characters voices like her Daddy and Ms. Lou did.

“We’re almost there,” Mister Walter told her.

Alice sighed.  She was tired of walking.  So was Shoes.  Shoes was lying at her feet, and he sighed as well.  Alice played with his leash while they took their break.

“What about going towards Newel Ave and going down that alley behind the shops?” Alice heard Mister Walter say to Kara.  “There’s a bunch of dumpsters and things to hide behind if someone shows up.”

“No,”  Kara didn’t even – what was the word? – negotiate.  “We should try going through people’s yards.”

“Some of those fences are pretty high.”

“We can get over them by working together.”

“What about Shoes?”

“The dog?”  Alice saw Kara give Shoes an unpleasant look.  “We can toss it over if we really have to.”

“Some of the houses have perimeter alarms.”

“So?  Bring the cops, we could use them.”

Mister Walter looked down at Alice.  Alice looked back up at him.  His eyes were brown, which was boring.  Lots of people had brown eyes.  Kara’s eyes were brown too.

Mister Walter turned back to Kara and nodded.  He rose up from behind the car they were using as a shield and looked up and down the street.  He gave them a thumbs up, and they all ran over to the nearest fence.  Alice liked running, but not when her feet hurt, and Shoes grunted when he had to get up.  The fence was made of metal and had fancy designs between the posts, but it wasn’t very tall, at least not compared to Mister Walter.  It only reached his chin.

“I’m going to lift you over the fence, okay, Alice?” Mister Walter asked.

“Can you hold onto Shoes?”  Alice held his leash out to Kara.  Kara rolled her eyes around and huffed, but she took the leash.  Alice didn’t know why, but it seemed like Kara didn’t like Shoes.  But Shoes was so loveable!

“Okay, here we go.”  Mister Walter grabbed Alice under her armpits and heaved her up in the air.  Her Daddy sometimes picked her up like that and would swing her around.  It was fun, but sometimes he did it too much and then she felt sick.

Alice tucked her legs up as she went over the fence; the pointy bits looked like they might hurt.

“I’m going to let go now,” Mister Walter told her.  Alice nodded.  “Three, two, one.”

He let go and Alice dropped to the ground.  It wasn’t a very long drop, no further than when she jumped off the swings in the playground.  Her teacher, Mr. Maluchi, got mad at her when she did it.  She only did it though because Paul had dared her to.  In fact, he double dared her, but he wouldn’t do it because of Mr. Maluchi.

After she landed, she turned around and watched as Mister Walter picked up Shoes and held him over the fence.

“No,” Alice whispered.  “It’s too high for him.”  Shoes had little legs and didn’t do well with falls.

Mister Walter pulled him back over to his side and put him on the ground.  He had what looked like a quiet argument with Kara, and then climbed over the fence himself.  He wasn’t very good at climbing, but that was probably because he was an adult.

Kara picked up Shoes with an unpleasant expression and handed him over the fence to Mister Walter.  Mister Walter put him down on the ground and handed his leash back to Alice.  Alice patted Shoes on the head and called him a good doggy.  And he was a good doggy.

Kara climbed over the fence next.  She was better at it than Mister Walter was, even though she was an old person, and when Mister Walter offered to help her, she told him she didn’t need it.  Alice looked at the house whose lawn they were on.  It was fancy, like a castle.

Mister Walter took Alice’s hand and led her over to a tall hedge on the other side of the house.  There was no fence in the hedge, so they were all able to push their way through it.  It was easy for Alice since she was little, but Mister Walter had a hard time.  It smelled nice in the bushes.

The next yard had a big maple tree in it.  Alice would have liked to climb it, but she knew better than to ask if she could.  This house was less like a castle but still bigger than her house.

“They’re missing a window.”  Alice noticed the curtains were blowing outside.

“Hmm?”  Mister Walter looked over at the house.  “We should hurry along.”  He placed his hand on Alice’s back and made her walk faster.

The next set of bushes had a short chain link fence in the middle of them.  Kara climbed over first and then helped Alice over.  Mister Walter then handed Shoes over the fence.  It was hard for him to get over because all the bush branches kept getting caught on him.

“Walter, look out!” Kara suddenly screamed, scaring the beejesus out of Alice.

* * *

A man dressed in overalls had come through the bushes behind Mister Walter and proceeded to grab him.  Mister Walter fought with the man.  Another man in similar clothing started running at them.  He was looking at Alice, Kara, and Shoes.

“Run!” Mister Walter yelled.

Kara grabbed Alice’s hand and pulled her out the other side of the bushes.  Shoes grumped from suddenly being tugged.  Alice ran with Kara into the next yard.  The other side had a brick wall that was taller than Mister Walter.  Alice didn’t think she could climb it, not without Mister Walter’s help.

“This way.”  Kara pulled Alice toward the big fancy house.  She ran up to a window and smashed her purse through it, which caused a whooping alarm to go off.  Alice was scared.  She didn’t understand what was going on.

She looked back at the bushes but couldn’t see Mister Walter.  The second man in overalls had made it over the fence though, and was fighting to get free of the branches.

“Come on, dear!”  Kara grabbed Alice, drawing her attention back to the whooping house.  She had broken out the window and was urging Alice through it.

“Shoes!” Alice cried as she dropped his leash while Kara pretty much shoved her through the window.

Kara huffed but grabbed the puppy up and shoved him through the window next.  She then came through the window herself.  It was a tight squeeze for her, making her gasp.  Alice thought that maybe she got hurt by some broken glass.  She had never been hurt by broken glass because her Daddy wouldn’t let her get anywhere near any.  That’s how she knew it was dangerous and could really hurt.

Shortly after Kara got through the window, the man from the bushes hit into it.  He reached through the window for them, but it was a much tighter fit for him.  He was fatter than Kara was.  Still, he started to squeeze himself through, and Shoes started barking at him.

Kara grabbed Alice again, who grabbed Shoes’s leash, and led her out of the room.  She found a set of stairs and was about to go up them when Shoes lay down and started woofing at them.

“Stop!” Alice cried over the sound of the alarm.

“What is it now?”  Kara was very annoyed.

“That’s his special command when he finds a cadaver.”  She said the word very carefully so as to get it right.

“He’s a cadaver dog?”  Kara stepped back off the stairs, her expression changing completely.

“He was before he got too old.”  Alice patted her dog on the head.

Kara looked up the stairs then back at the dog.  He continued to woof, looking up toward the top.

“Come on.”  Kara led Alice and Shoes over to a door.  It opened up to a set of stairs leading down.  Kara looked at Shoes, who looked back her, and then stepped down them.

Alice brought Shoes onto the stairs and just as a loud thump sounded from where the broken window was, Kara closed the door.  They hurried down the steps.  Alice noticed the whooping was a lot quieter here, which was nice, but it was still very annoying.  Something started banging on the door at the top of the stairs.

“This way.”  Kara led them through the nice basement to another door.  They went through it into a room that Alice thought was strange.  There was a cage within the room that had many bottles on shelves in it.  Alice didn’t understand why you would put bottles in a cage.  Kara closed the wooden door behind them, then opened the metal cage’s door.  She ushered Alice inside.  Once they were all in, Kara shut the cage door behind them and locked it with a key that had been sticking out of the lock.  Kara took the key.

Something started banging on the wooden door that led to the rest of the basement.  Kara hurried over to a pair of steps that led to these great big storm doors.  She pushed and pushed on the doors, but they wouldn’t open.  They were locked from the outside.

The wooden door smashed in, and the man from the bushes came through.  He ran into the metal cage and reached through the bars at them.  Alice was very scared.  If she hadn’t gone in the bushes, she might have peed her pants.

Kara pulled Alice as far away from the man as they could get and sat with Alice in her lap.  Alice picked up Shoes, placed him on her lap, and started to cry.

16:

The Mercenary

Mathias leaned forward between the front seats of the ambulance, looking at the house.  The door was hanging wide open.  It was a terrible sign.

“I’ll check out the place by myself,” Mathias told LeBlanc and Dr. Bishop.

“No way, man,” LeBlanc shook his head.

“She shouldn’t come in,” Mathias pointed to Bishop,  “and I don’t trust her not to take off without us, so you’re going to stay here and watch her.”

Bishop made a show of rolling her eyes.  “Just bring me with you.  I can handle myself, especially if you hand me one of your guns.”

“You not only have to be able to identify a zombie the moment you see one, but you have to hit them in the head.  A simple body shot isn’t going to work,” Mathias told her, trying to convince her that staying put was for her own safety.

“So they are zombies,” Bishop nodded to herself.  “That’s what I was thinking, but it’s good to get verification.”

“Wow,” LeBlanc grinned.  “You’re just totally cool with that?  No, ‘zombies don’t exist,’ comebacks or arguments?”

“No,” Bishop shook her head.  “Now give me a gun and let’s go in.”  She opened the ambulance door and hopped out.  Closing the door behind her, she looked back at the boys through the glass.

“She’s feisty,” LeBlanc grinned at Mathias.  “I like her.”

LeBlanc opened the driver side door and climbed out, while Mathias headed out the back.  They both left their packsacks in the back of the ambulance with Bishop’s box of goodies.  Mathias checked his assault rifle again as he climbed out.  Despite looking it over thoroughly in the back of the ambulance, he worried about the gun.  He had been afraid that the firing pin might have been removed or swapped with one that didn’t work.  The thing could be rigged to explode in his hands for all he knew.  It looked to be in proper working condition, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he used it.  LeBlanc’s gun clearly worked, so at least there was that.

Mathias headed around to the front of the ambulance.  He took his pistol out of its holster and held it out to the doctor.  “You only get one mag.”

“More than enough for one house.”  Bishop took the gun from him.  She released the magazine to check the bullets, then slammed it back in and cocked a round into the chamber.

“A doctor who knows her weaponry.  I like,” LeBlanc commented.

With LeBlanc in the lead, Bishop following after him, and Mathias guarding the rear, they made for the house.  LeBlanc held his rifle forward and entered the house first.  Mathias grabbed the back of Bishop’s white coat with one hand to make sure she didn’t follow in right away.

“Clear,” LeBlanc whispered from inside.

Mathias let go of Bishop and allowed her to enter.  With guns drawn, they carefully crossed the threshold.  Mathias noted that the doctor not only held the pistol correctly, but also was very careful with her line of fire.  She made sure that LeBlanc was never in it, and if it was unavoidable, she lowered the muzzle to point at the floor.  She knew gun safety.

“I’ll take the ground floor.  You two check upstairs,” LeBlanc whispered.  He spoke for the sake of Bishop; the gestures he made with his hand were all Mathias needed.

Mathias stepped around Bishop and scanned the top of the stairs.  Seeing nothing, he started up, taking one step at a time and listening closely for any signs of life.  Or unlife actually.  Bishop followed after him.  He would have preferred that LeBlanc have his back, but he also wanted to find Danny quickly.  Splitting up was never a good idea, but fuck it.

He reached the top of the stairs and took a quick look down the hall.  It was clear, so he continued down it.

“Wait here on the stairs,” Mathias whispered to Bishop.  “The hallway is too tight for both of us to move in it safely.”

Bishop sighed, irritated, but stayed put on the steps.

Mathias went to the first room, Emma’s.  He opened the door and scanned the room fast for anything standing or lying in the open.  “Danny?” he whispered into the room.  There was no response, just a tail flick from a goldfish.  He did a more thorough sweep of the room, checking under the bed and in the closet, in case Danny was too scared, or worse, too hurt to respond.  Emma’s room was clear.

He returned to the hall and went to the next room.  He cleared two more rooms in a similar manner before reaching Danny’s room.  He didn’t know why he expected to find Danny sitting in there waiting, but he wasn’t.  Mathias sighed as he looked around his little brother’s room.  There were video game posters all over the walls and model helicopters and aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling.  He spotted a small, stuffed elephant poking out from under Danny’s pillow.  Scooping up the raggedy bean-filled thing, he stuck it in his thigh pocket.  When he found him, he knew Danny would appreciate that he had grabbed it for him.  Mr. Ears was a family heirloom after all.  He couldn’t be left behind with the fish.

After fully checking Danny’s room, Mathias went back to searching the rest of the upstairs.  He reached the last door and placed his hand on the handle.  That’s when a burst of rifle fire crackled from downstairs.  Mathias turned his head away from the door, toward the steps, and took his hand off the knob.  The door opened behind him anyway.  A woman lurched out at Mathias.  He spun and fired off a shot, but he wasn’t fast enough; he only hit her in the upper chest.  The woman crashed into him, snapping her teeth, but both of them managed to keep their feet.  He grabbed her throat in an attempt to hold her back.  Her nails dug into his shirt as she tried to pull him toward her.

“Get out of the way!” Mathias heard Bishop shout from down the hall.

Easier said than done.  He swung the zombie woman sideways and slammed her into the wall.  He still needed both hands to hold her though, and couldn’t bring his rifle to bear.

The sound of a pistol shot rang out from down the hall, and the woman’s head blew out sideways.  Mathias let her go as she slid down the wall to the floor.  When he looked down the hall, he expected to see LeBlanc, but only Bishop stood there.

“You’re a hell of a shot,” Mathias commented as he went back down the hall.  He had checked a bathroom earlier and went into it now.  Turning on the sink with his elbow, he stripped off his fingerless leather gloves and checked his hands for cuts under the running water.

“My grandfather was an expert sniper in World War II and taught my parents, me, and my siblings how to shoot.”  Bishop stood in the doorway.

“Thank God for that.  Just keep an eye on that room.”  Mathias didn’t want any more zombies rushing out at them.  Although telling this to Bishop was unnecessary, as she was already alternating between watching him and the room.

“What are you doing?”  Bishop gestured at the sink.

“Well, when you blew her brains out, some blood got on my hands,” Mathias explained.  “I may have broken skin on my hands from when I fell in front of your ambulance.  I forgot to check.  If I did, I may have just become infected.”  He turned off the tap and towel dried his hands.  After a close inspection that determined there were no wounds, he put his gloves back on.  “I’m good though.”

Mathias started heading down the hall toward the room, rifle raised.  Bishop followed behind him, but kept a safe distance.

“So this virus is blood born,” Bishop noted.

“Blood and saliva.  Also, it’s apparently a prion, whatever the hell that is,” Mathias corrected.

“Prions are terrible infections,” Bishop frowned.  She seemed to know what they were.  “All known prion infections attack the brain and have no known cure.  They’re what cause mad cow disease.”

“You know, that makes a lot of sense.”  No one had told Mathias about the mad cow connection before.

“Still, this strain must be very different to do what it does.”  Bishop was clearly trying to get information out of him.

“They mentioned viruses a lot.  I think somehow they combined the two or something, I don’t really know that part.  But yeah, nearly any bodily fluid can infect you.  Thankfully, you can’t be infected through your pores, but if you get their sweat on an open wound, you’re probably dead.”  He entered the final room and started his sweep, while Bishop stood guard at the door.  “Their sweat is the least likely thing to infect you though.  Blood to blood contact is like a 95% chance of infection.  It depends on how fast you can irrigate the wound.  Same if saliva drips into a wound.  A bite that breaks the skin is pretty much a guaranteed infection, so is saliva to saliva contact.  You haven’t kissed anyone lately, have you?  Or had sex?  That’ll infect you too.”

“No,” Bishop shook her head.  She wasn’t embarrassed by the question at all.

“I assume you took all the normal precautions at the hospital.  I figure you work at a hospital because of the ambulance.”  Mathias finished clearing the room.  No one else was in here.  Where the hell was Danny?

“Chief resident of the ER,” Bishop told him,  “and yeah, we take a lot of precautions in case of HIV.  I haven’t been bitten either, although I know some people who were.”

“Consider them dead.”  It was harsh, but Mathias wasn’t in the mood to pretty things up.  Not until he found Danny.  He headed out the door, passing Bishop, and she followed him down the stairs.  LeBlanc joined up with them at the bottom.

“I heard the gunshots,” LeBlanc commented.  “You found one too, huh?”

Mathias looked behind LeBlanc, but Danny wasn’t with him.  “Yeah, Bishop is a hell of a shot.  No sign of Danny?”

“I guess it’s a good thing we ran into you then.”  LeBlanc gave Bishop a wink.  She just frowned.  LeBlanc turned back to Mathias.  “Sorry man, no luck.  The door in the kitchen is all smashed out.  Something went through it on its way in.  I figure it was the chap I found in the basement.  He had a lot of glass sticking out of him.”

Mathias only half listened to this last part; he was looking at the ground near the front door.

“What is it?” Bishop asked.

“The shoes.”  Mathias pointed to a populated shoe rack.  “Danny’s shoes aren’t here.”

“So he was probably out somewhere when these visitors popped in,” LeBlanc shrugged.  “I’m sorry man, but we can’t go looking for him.  He could be anywhere.”

“But he might be headed here.”  Mathias figured Danny would head home seeing it as a safe place.

“What?  You want to just hang around here and wait?”  LeBlanc raised an eyebrow at him.  “From what you’ve told me, your bother is smart, but he doesn’t leave the house very often.  It’s likely that he ran from this place when the back door got smashed in.  Why else would the front door be open?”

Mathias sighed.  LeBlanc was being logical, when Mathias couldn’t be.  He had hoped so badly that Danny would be here and that he would be okay.  He could have just grabbed him then, and they would have headed out.  Looking for him though…  Mathias looked out the doorway at the streets.  Somewhere in the distance, a fire had broken out, and smoke rose above the rooftops.  Looking for him was a crazy idea.  Leaving without him though, without even knowing if he was alive, was a crazier idea.

“How about this,” Bishop cut into his thoughts,  “we’ll go to my place where I have some supplies.  I also know of a place to go that should be safe.  We can collect the supplies and start heading there, but before we go, we’ll swing by here again and wait awhile to see if your brother shows up.  Does that sound like a good idea to you?”

Mathias thought about it.  He weighed the pros and cons and logically came up with only pros.  Illogically though, he thought up cons.  This woman had a place to go, and supplies, two things Mathias knew he would need to survive.  She also knew emergency medicine, which was vital knowledge during a time like this.  Running into her was probably the best thing they could have done.  She even had a running vehicle so he wouldn’t have to hot wire one.

“All right,” Mathias finally nodded,  “but we’re going to wait for as long as I say so.”

“Sure thing,” Bishop smiled, but it was cold.

Mathias could see in her eyes that she was just humouring him.  She would come back here and check again, but she wasn’t going to wait very long.  Maybe Mathias could squeeze out a few hours at best.  Still, it was better than no plan at all.  And if Danny didn’t show up, maybe he could convince them to let him wait on his own with some supplies and a map to wherever it was Bishop was going.

* * *

The trio left the house and headed back to the ambulance.  Bishop climbed into the driver’s seat this time, with Mathias getting the passenger side.  LeBlanc climbed into the back.  As Bishop backed out of the driveway, Mathias checked his rifle again.  It fired fine but he still didn’t trust it.  At least that’s what he told himself.  Really, he just needed something to keep him occupied.  LeBlanc leaned between the seats, looking out the front windshield.

“If Danny does come back here, I hope he’s smart enough to wait outside,” LeBlanc commented.

Mathias frowned at him, “What do you mean?”

“Our gunshots seem to have woken up the neighbours.”  LeBlanc pointed out a few zombies headed toward the house.

Mathias flipped the switch that turned on the sirens and left it on as they headed down the street.  “And now they’ll all come further this way.”

After about a block, he turned it off.

“So you were going to tell me about what’s going on,” Bishop reminded Mathias and LeBlanc.

“Right,” Mathias nodded.  “Well, as I mentioned in the house, it’s a highly contagious virus, or prion, whatever.  There’s no known cure, like you said about those other prion things.”

“How does it work?”

“I’m not totally sure about how it works,” Mathias admitted.  “The prion/virus spreads quickly, infecting every blood and organ cell from my understanding.  It only needs a little bit of the body’s protein and the electrical output from the brain to keep it going, and it, in turn, keeps the brain going.  Sort of.  It’s self-sustaining.  The organs all get shut down because it doesn’t need them.  In fact, they’re more likely to hinder the prions, if anything.  Once they’ve spread throughout the system, the prions can somehow pass energy from one… cell?  Are they called cells?  Prions?  From one prion/virus thinger to another to another in a stagnant system.  I’m not a scientist so I don’t actually know how all this crap works.  I just know that it does and the hybrid infection - I’m going to call it that from now on, it’s easier – But yeah, the hybrid infection causes people to be dead, but part of the brain still lives, hence the walking around.  The hybrid infection’s sole purpose is to spread itself.  Bites are the most effective way of doing this.  Zombies also bite to kill, because a dead body more actively infects other people than a live one.  The hybrid infection is what’s in control.  It wants to spread and spread.  If you see a zombie actually eat, like swallow part of something they’ve bitten, that’s likely just some part of the brain’s old self, remembering that is what you do after biting something.  You eat it.  Although the hybrid infection probably uses the protein it gets.  Sometimes pieces of the brain survive.  Depending on the person and how they were infected seems to determine that.  Some infected can’t even function enough to stand and walk, while others have the reasoning skills to run, open doors, climb ladders and stairs, and other more complex tasks required to get at whoever they are chasing.  That’s why they came toward the gunshots, and now the siren.  Sometimes, senses get shut down, like the eyes, but not always.  The brain remembers partly how these work and what, say the sound of a gunshot, means.  The hybrid infection is like its own brain, or reads the brain, or something, and it processes that gunshot equals noninfected person, equals go there and infect them.  The brain is the only thing left running; that’s why you have to take it out.  Pain is not something registered by it anymore, and it doesn’t think anything of the person that is left.  Personality is destroyed.  It’s a fever that kills those who escaped without mortal wounds.  Picture it like someone going brain dead.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” LeBlanc teased Mathias for his awkward explanation.  “You know more than I do.  I guess ’cause you hung around that Roy.”

“Roy hung out with me, not the other way around,” Mathias corrected him.  He didn’t want to be associated with that son-of-a-bitch in any way.

“Roy?” Bishop frowned.

“One of the scientists who made the fucking thing.”  Mathias ground his teeth at the thought.  Not only did he help create the hybrid infection, but he was also part of the plan that nearly got him shot and barbecued.  “Try not to think of us as bad guys.  We didn’t make the hybrid infection, but we did work for the people who did.”

“Who made it?  And how did it get out?”  Bishop was a curious one, so full of questions.  They didn’t sound judgmental though; she wanted facts.

“Keystone.  There’s an underground facility just outside these suburbs.”  Mathias pointed off in the general direction.

“We didn’t want to be there anymore, so they cut us loose.  Actually, they tried to kill us, but we escaped.  Well, two of us escaped.  East didn’t make it,” LeBlanc looked depressed for a brief moment as he said that.  It was eerie; LeBlanc never got depressed.  He was the happiest bastard you could ever meet.

“The hybrid infection got out because some lab rats of theirs that were infected, got into a ventilation shaft or something and escaped,” Mathias told Bishop.

“That’s what they say happened,” LeBlanc corrected him.  “For all we know they released the buggers on purpose.”

“True,” Mathias nodded. He had suspected that himself, but there was no evidence to support it.

“Rats can be infected also?” Bishop frowned.

“They’re carriers,” Mathias remembered the word Roy used.  “Apparently, they only get a little more aggressive.”

“So it can be carried by other species,” Bishop sighed.  “Which ones can carry it and which get infected?”

“Well, I don’t know all of them,” Mathias shrugged,  “but primates become infected, so do pigs.”

“Zombie pigs,” LeBlanc chuckled.

“Rats are carriers, some bats, umm, I think sheep were.”

“Zombie sheep.  Sheep get infected,” LeBlanc corrected him again,  “I remember the zombie sheep.”

“Right,” Mathias nodded.  He could remember the zombie sheep now, too.  Weirdest eyes you ever saw.  “Goats were the carriers.  It’s hard to say because it depends on how they’re infected.”

“Some are carriers through a direct injection of the hybrid infection, but will become fully infected if another infected thing bites them,” LeBlanc explained.  “Some things can only become infected through an injection of the pure hybrid infection though.  Each animal it ends up in mutates it somewhat, so it depends on what the hell is giving it to you.  Just our luck though, that it seems humans always become infected while those shifty rats are always carriers.”

“I see you listened sometimes,” Mathias grinned at LeBlanc this time.

“The word mutate was mentioned, so of course, I paid attention to that part,” LeBlanc laughed.

“Sorry, we’re not the best at explaining all this.”  Mathias looked at Bishop again.  “We’re just the hired goons.”

Bishop was frowning, probably trying to process all the information they had just given her.  “Better than nothing.  What are the symptoms?”

“There are none.  A fever burns you out at the end of it, while all your organs shut down, but before that, you wouldn’t know you were infected unless you knew all this stuff and knew you came into contact with an infected or carrier,” Mathias shrugged.

The line between Bishop’s eyebrows deepened.  “Is there any way to tell if someone is infected?”  If that line got any deeper, Mathias thought it might never smooth out again.

Mathias shrugged.  “If you had a microscope, it would probably show up in the blood.  I also heard that one of the scientists trained a dog to smell it, but that could have just been a rumour.”

“I think it’s true,” LeBlanc voiced his opinion,  “dogs are smart.”

Bishop sat in silence.  She seemed to have finally run out of questions.  Mathias turned his attention out the window and noted all the zombie evidence they passed.  It made him think of Danny being out there though, so he stopped.  Next, he turned to the CB radio and started scanning stations.  Some came in clearly, others were very fuzzy.  Many of them were filled with panicked people, asking for help, not knowing what to do.  Policemen, firemen, paramedics, and average people.  None of them really knew what was going on.  Voices talked over each other constantly.  Except one channel.  It came through clear as a bell with a single voice.  It was a man giving a sermon.  It was a good sermon too.  It didn’t seem to settle on one religion but dabbled in several, and didn’t talk about hell fires and the end of the world.  It talked about forgiving one another and pulling together in these times, as opposed to apart.  Mathias thought the man probably wasn’t even a priest, but that he should be.  Eventually though, he decided to shut the radio off again.  He didn’t bother scanning through the AM and FM radio channels; they would be mostly dead air, crazed reporters, or maybe even music, which would just be too odd right then, perhaps even creepy.

“I’ve turned that radio on a few times myself,” Bishop commented.  “Sometimes everything comes in well, sometimes you get nothing.”

“That’s also Keystone’s fault,” Mathias told her.  He suddenly felt very weary.  “They own a lot of the buildings in this city and as things get out of control, they’ll be locking them down.  Part of the lockdown includes systems that don’t allow signals in or out of the building.  This tends to fuck up everything around them as well.”

“Why would they do all this?”  Bishop finally brought up the million dollar question.

“Who the fuck knows,” LeBlanc’s voice sounded farther away.  Mathias looked back to see him rooting through some of the supplies.

“You would need to kidnap a CEO to find that out,” Mathias agreed,  “and even then, they might not know.  They just… do stuff.”

The three in the ambulance were quiet after that, each closed off in their own thoughts.  Mathias thought about Danny.  He was so worried, it practically made him sick.  Danny was smart, but unarmed and alone, and he wouldn’t know what was going on.  In hindsight, he should have told Danny about the hybrid infection.  He just thought at the time that he didn’t need to know, that the hybrid infection would never get out.  He should have learned from those stupid movies and books.  Shit like this always got out.  Always.

* * *

“We’re here,” Bishop announced unnecessarily as they pulled into a driveway.

Mathias looked at the corner bungalow.  The massive bay window was broken, indicating that something had gotten inside.  He checked his rifle once again.

Bishop turned off the engine, and everybody climbed out of the vehicle.  While they grouped in front of the hood, LeBlanc and Mathias covered the scene with sweeps of their rifles.  Once everything looked clear, Bishop led them to the door.  As they got closer, Mathias covered the window with its tattered curtains, while LeBlanc watched their rear.  Going in through the window was an option, but they silently decided not to risk the broken glass.  Bishop fished out her keys, but stopped before sliding one into the lock.

“What’s the hold-up?” Mathias whispered over his shoulder.  He didn’t like being in the open and wanted to put some walls around them.

“Someone either picked the lock, or tried to,” Bishop whispered back.  “Look at the scratch marks.”

Mathias looked over his shoulder.  Tiny scratches adorning the lock plate indicated someone without a key had indeed tried to get in.  He quickly reached past Bishop and tried the handle, but it didn’t open.  “Either they gave up, or once they got in, they locked the door behind them.”

Bishop slid the key home and snapped the lock open.  Mathias quickly stepped between her and the door and opened it himself.  Bishop made an indignant noise, but he ignored her.  Despite what she seemed to think, he was trying to protect her.  He entered the house first, rifle raised and ready to fire.  Bishop followed after him, followed by LeBlanc who closed the door.  As Mathias headed into the living room, Bishop took the opportunity to get ahead of him and cross the room.

“Hey,” Mathias whispered angrily at her,  “you might want to wait till we’ve cleared this place.”

“This is my home,” the doctor didn’t bother whispering,  “I know it inside and out.  I know everywhere someone could hide in here and am keeping an eye on those places.  You saw how well I can shoot, and I have you covering me.  Believe me, I’m pretty safe here.”  She picked up a big board that was propped up against the wall.  “Now, do you care to help me cover this window so that nothing else comes through it?”

Mathias looked around the room again, and then lowered his rifle.  LeBlanc had his back so they should be fine.  He wondered about the strange décor mixed in with the normal stuff as he crossed the room.  Grabbing one end of the board, Mathias helped Bishop place it over the broken window by sliding a pair of attached two by fours into brackets bolted to the frame.  Bishop returned Mathias’s pistol to him, and then grabbed another one off a nearby table.

“You’re just prepared for anything, aren’t you?” LeBlanc commented as he nudged a gas mask with his foot.

“I try to be,” Bishop shrugged.  “It’s something my dad drilled into me.  I’m actually not as bad as the rest of my family.  I usually forget I have stuff like that lying around until someone visits.”

“I take it you don’t have a lot of visitors.”  Mathias raised his rifle again and thoroughly swept the room.  It was clear.  He was surprised to find that he and Bishop had something in common; they both seemed to have had dads who were determined that their kids share their ideals.  No matter the cost.

“No,” Bishop sighed.  A moment of pain crossed her face but it passed by so quickly that Mathias couldn’t be sure he saw it.

“We’ll clear the house first, then gather the supplies.”  Mathias headed toward a hallway, letting LeBlanc and Bishop do other parts of the house.  The hallway led to closed doors again.  Perfect.  Mathias did his sweeps as fast as possible.  He wanted to get back to Danny’s house as quickly as he could.  The bedrooms were clear and were as ‘normal’ as the living room, minus the broken bay window, of course.  The bathroom medicine cabinet had clearly been rummaged through, and some sort of paper that had been tacked to the bedroom wall had been torn down and was now missing.  The only thing to indicate it had been there were some tacks in the wall still holding torn scraps, and holes where other tacks had been.  As he turned to head back to the living room, Mathias noticed the dirty footprints he left behind.  He also spotted several lines that tracked along the floor, which he couldn’t possibly have made.  Perhaps the lock picker did get in.

Mathias met up with LeBlanc in the kitchen.  He stood at a closed sliding glass door at the back.

“Where’s Bishop?” Mathias asked, walking over to him.

“We cleared the basement.  She’s down there deciding what stuff would be best to bring.  She’s got a lot of supplies down there, even a goddamn panic room,” LeBlanc laughed.  “I think this fella out here was the bay window intruder.”  He pointed through the glass.  “The door was open when we first checked.”

Mathias looked out on the porch to find the form of a man laying across it.  One of his arms was twisted at an awful angle.

“I checked the body quickly,” LeBlanc told Mathias.  “One solid shot to the head.  The shooter was either lucky, or good.”

“Probably lucky.”  Mathias looked out at the little backyard.  There were a number of broken boards in the wooden fence.  He sighed and turned away from the window, looking at the kitchen tile.  He noticed some footprints that couldn’t have been his, LeBlanc’s, or Bishop’s.  They were too small, almost child-sized.  As he knelt down next to them for a closer look, his heart seemed to split in two, one half leaping into his throat, the other dropping into the pit of his stomach.  He must have gotten a look on his face because LeBlanc knelt down next to him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“These are Danny’s footprints.”  As strange as that was, they were.  He knew they were.

“How can you know?”

“I bought Danny some shoes, and one of the first things he did was to carve some weird design into the tread.  He was going through a rough time so I didn’t stop him.”  Mathias pointed to a certain part of the print.  “It’s faded because the rubber’s been worn down, but it’s still there.”

LeBlanc hmm-ed in such a way that Mathias couldn’t tell if he was just humouring him.  LeBlanc got up and headed toward the front door where he looked at the floor again.

“What are you doing?”  Mathias followed him.

“The prints are more distinguished over here.  Well, the ones we didn’t step on anyway.”  LeBlanc straightened up.  “You’re right though.  There is a pattern on the bottom of those shoes that I don’t think belongs on them.  They’re mismatched.  It looks like he was pushing around a shopping cart or something from these lines.”

“No, I saw those down the hall with no footprints other than my own,” Mathias tried not to sound too overly happy.  Danny had gotten out okay.  He didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but he got out.

“A wheelchair.”  Mathias and LeBlanc looked toward the kitchen where Bishop had just come up from the basement.  “A wheelchair would make marks like those.”

“So my brother is with someone in a wheelchair?”  Danny didn’t know anyone handicapped.  He must be with someone he just met.

“Someone armed.”  Bishop thumbed over at the dead man.  “One of my pistols and two magazines of ammo are missing.  They also took a bunch of medical supplies.”

“I would think more would be missing,” LeBlanc frowned.  “You have an armoury down there.”

“Danny must have taken them.  The person in the wheelchair wouldn’t have made it down the stairs,” Mathias pointed out.  “He knows how dangerous guns are and how much I disagreed with him having one, even a BB gun.  He probably took it because he’s scared.”  He knew his brother.  If the person in the wheelchair had wanted a gun, they would have taken one from up here.  The gun was for Danny, which meant he really felt he needed one to protect himself.  “I don’t think he’s going to go back to the house.”  Mathias finally accepted the fact.  It felt like a crushing weight had just been shifted onto him, one he might not be able to bear.

“Where do you think he’ll go?” Bishop asked the question that Mathias was already trying to figure out.

“I don’t know,” he shook his head.  “He’ll probably stick with the person in the wheelchair and go wherever they go.”

Mathias went into the living room and sat on the couch.  Placing his face in his hands, he let out a low sound like that of a wounded animal.  He failed to protect his little brother and now he would never see Danny again.

ii:

Source of Infection

Nick had become infected at a party.  There was a girl there that he really liked, adored even, and he finally got to kiss her for the first time.  He didn’t care that she had swapped spit with several other guys at that party, and even a few of the girls.  He thought to himself that he could now die happy.

Jelly, nicknamed for her dance moves, didn’t have a lot of money.  When she went out to celebrate her friend’s new job, they split one meal and one drink between them.  During all their gossiping, her friend somehow forgot to tell her the story about how a rat in her apartment had bitten her.

Another homeless man named Patrick attacked the man referred to as Dirty Dan.  Patrick wasn’t even a zombie when he attacked Dan; they had just gotten into a scuffle over some turf and Patrick had bitten him in defence.  Patrick won that fight and Dan shuffled off to the tunnel he lived in.  Dirty Dan’s real name was Bernard, but nobody had ever bothered to ask him his real name.

Kelly Louise hated her dentist.  He never put on his mask soon enough and she always got a misting of spit in her eyes.  It was disgusting.  She swore she would find a new dentist that week.

Brittany had been jumped and raped on her way home from work one night.  It was the most terrifying and shameful thing ever to have happened to her.  They caught the guy, but she was still scared.  She worried about her HIV test results and the possibility of being pregnant.  She wouldn’t have to worry too long.

Jacob Jones spent his last days on a cloud.  The most recent batch of drugs he got was good.  Really good.  He knew he shouldn’t have shared his needle, but he didn’t want to go on his trip alone.  It was beautiful.

Little Henry had fallen and cut his knee open on a piece of glass.  When his camp counsellor tried to remove it, she cut her hand.  He got to leave camp early, which made him happy.

Markus, Justin, Gus, and Freddy got into an argument with a guy at a bar.  When he left, they jumped him outside and beat him senseless.  All of them wound up with cut and bloody knuckles.

Newt and Hudson were best friends.  Newt had been bitten by a bat they found outside while playing in the backyard.  Hudson thought it was funny that Newt needed a Band-Aid.  Later that day, they came up with the idea of becoming blood brothers.  Hudson snuck into the house and stole his dad’s pocketknife for the job.  He grabbed the box of Band-Aids too, just in case.

Section 3:

Intentions

17:

The Business Woman

When the lights went out, Jessica gasped and clutched her shovel to her breast.  The darkness was complete and unpenetrable.  The sound of the subway train’s glass breaking sent a cold shiver racing up her spine.  The trapped were now free, and she couldn’t see a thing.

It was only a moment later that the battery-powered security lights popped on, bathing the tracks in a dim glow.  It was only a moment, but it seemed like such a long time that Jessica was sure she had aged.  Abby glowed like a pale ghost.  All the blood had drained from her face.

Without a word, the two women hurried much faster toward the second station.  They didn’t want to be on the tracks when those… things from the subway car got to them.  Jessica had found crushing the rat easy: disgusting, but easy.  She couldn’t imagine having to swing the shovel into someone’s face.  That would be a lot harder and just so awful.

They reached the next station and scrambled to get up onto the platform.  Up until the blackout, Jessica had been thinking of suggesting they follow the subway lines all the way to the hospital.  The next station was a transfer station, and the other line had a stop right across the street from Leighton General.  Now, she just wanted to get out of the underground as fast as she could.

As she pulled herself up onto the platform, she heard a tearing.  Instinctively she groaned, knowing it was her skirt, which drew a brief and worried glance from Abby.  Why had she worn her nice stuff today?  It wasn’t as if she was doing anything special.  She was just going to the office and picking up some files.  The fact that she had run into someone she knew had been a total fluke.  Poor Jack.  In hindsight, she should’ve worn a pair of track pants and an old T-shirt that she wore around the house during her time off.  An old T-shirt that had once belonged to Cillian.  She had thought about giving it back, but just couldn’t get up the muster to call him, so she had decided on keeping it.  He probably didn’t even realize it was missing.

Once on the platform, Jessica looked down at her skirt.  There was a big tear up the left side.  Not only that, but both the skirt and the blouse were covered in smudges and dusty streaks from the climb up.  She looked over at Abby who was no cleaner.  Her white T-shirt was now grey and her grey pants were nearly black.  Her short hairdo looked roughly the same though.  Jessica wondered how her own hair was faring.

The girls made a beeline for the stairs and hurried up, followed by the sounds of groaning and screeching coming from the tunnel behind.  They stopped at the top of the stairs to look for any other potential attackers, but they didn’t stop long.  Once they assessed the way was clear, the women hurried through the turn styles and past the newsstand.  Jessica happened to notice the headline as she went past.  It was about a big drug bust.  She wondered if the drugs had anything to do with what was happening today and what the headlines would say tomorrow.  Would there be any headlines tomorrow?

That was not a good thought, but it popped into her head anyway.  What if there were no reporters left?  No one to run the printing presses, no one to deliver the paper, and no one to sell it?  The end of the world.  It seemed likely after looking at all those people in the subway train.

Abby led the way up the next set of stairs toward the surface.  She stopped and crouched near the top, looking out cautiously.

“See anything?” Jessica whispered.  She kept looking behind them, back down into the subway.  She didn’t want anyone sneaking up on them.

“No.”  Abby moved up further.

Jessica followed closely behind, avoiding a spilled, blue Slushie.  They stood at the top of the steps, looking up the street.  A groan sounded behind them.  Jessica wheeled around, looking down the steps first, but then realized it came from higher up.  On the other side of the concrete barrier that surrounded three sides of the subway entrance, was a pale and white-eyed individual.  The barrier reached up to his waist and he leaned forward over it, arms outstretched.  He was trying to walk forward, toward them, despite the concrete.

“What’s wrong with him?” Abby wondered aloud.

“My guess is the same thing that’s wrong with everyone else.”  Although what that was, Jessica hadn’t a clue.

“Well, this one doesn’t seem too dangerous right now, but let’s hurry up in case that changes.”  Abby turned away from the steps and began heading up the street.

Jessica lingered a little longer, drawn in by those blank eyes, but then hurried after her.  All this sneaking up and down the streets was getting exhausting.  And the boots Abby had given her didn’t quite fit.  They were about half a size too small, so her toes were rubbing against the ends.  She wasn’t wearing socks either, just some thin panty hose that had likely torn.  She just wanted to sit down and take a break.  She wished she were at home, curled up under her big blanket with Cillian’s strong arms wrapped around her.

Where did that come from?  She didn’t need Cillian.  She didn’t need any man.  Although having someone there to protect her would be nice.  Not like this harsh journey through hell.  It seemed like the whole city had been flipped upside-down.  Everything looked mostly the same, but had taken on this hostile, sinister quality.  The tall buildings that used to make her feel important, now felt like hollow monoliths.  Not places of work and productivity anymore, but barricades and hindrances forming a terrible maze of fear.  And the noise.  Everywhere you went, you could hear sirens, screams, car alarms, and gunfire.  It was overwhelming.  Most of it Jessica could block out, but not so much the screaming and certainly not the gunfire.

Jessica knew fear.  She was far better acquainted with it than she would have liked.  This was different though.  This was more continuous.  It was lasting longer with no end in sight.  She didn’t know how much longer her adrenaline would hold out, how much more her body and even her mind could take.

* * *

“I can see it,” Abby shocked Jessica out of her own head,  “it’s just ahead.”  She pointed up the street.

Just peeking out over a shorter building was a large brick smoke stack.  Jessica realized she had no idea what the chimney was for or what it connected to, but knew that it had always been there and was a defining feature of the hospital.  She had never been more relieved to see it.

The hospital took up a large area.  It was short, but wide, and dominated a whole block.  Abby and Jessica were currently approaching it from what was considered the backside.  The front, for general admissions like planned surgeries and visitors, was on the other end of the building, a block over, across from the subway.  The closest entrance to them was down a small alley-like street that was used for deliveries.  They avoided this entrance because it was kept locked and a key was needed to get in.  On the opposite end of the delivery doors, was the ER’s walk-in.  Between that and where they were, was the ambulance bay.  They silently agreed that these were the best doors to enter by and headed for them.

Jessica had only been to this hospital once, when Cillian had to have his tonsils removed.  That was a planned surgery though.  She had never been to the emergency side of the building.  The ambulance bay was in a nook off the street.  Two lanes led in and out of the nook, which was between two sections of the hospital.  Where they connected was a circle large enough for the ambulances to turn around.  In the centre of this circle, stood a large and rather majestic tree, which surprised Jessica.  Most people probably never noticed it.  She was curious about the plaque sitting at the base of the tree, but Abby headed straight for the doors, and Jessica didn’t want to be left behind.  Other than the tree and a few dropped medical supplies, the bay was empty.

The ambulance entrance doors slid open automatically as they approached them; the place still had power.  Inside was a little antechamber-like room, which held extra gurneys.

Finding blood on both the automated doors and the inner swing doors, prompted Jessica to admit, “I don’t like this.”  The fact that they hadn’t seen anyone yet was also troublesome.

“Claire’s here somewhere.”  Abby pressed forward.  She went up to the swing doors and pushed one open with her field hockey stick.

While Abby stuck her head through the opening, Jessica walked up to the other door and looked through the blood smears on the glass.  She didn’t see anyone on the other side.  The lighting was dim.  Some of the lights must have been broken, or maybe they were running on emergency power.  Some of the lights flickered.

“More darkness,” Jessica sighed.  It was like being in a horror movie, or a terrible nightmare she couldn’t wake up from.

Abby stepped through the doors, so Jessica followed her.  They walked down the short hall to some sort of nurse’s desk at the end.  Here, blood was smeared on everything, even the ceiling.

“It doesn’t look like anyone is here,” Jessica stated the obvious.

“Claire will be here somewhere,” Abby sounded so sure.

Jessica snapped, “Where?  Over in that bloody corner perhaps?  Or maybe behind one of those torn curtains?  Or could she possibly be in that room over there that has no lights on in it?”

“I get your point,” Abby sighed, shrinking back from Jessica.

“Do you?” Jessica scoffed.  “You convinced me it would be safe here.  That there would be cops.  I don’t see any cops!”

Abby looked like she was about to snap back when a groan issued from behind a curtain.  Both girls went pale, wide eyed, and totally silent, not even breathing.  The curtain rustled momentarily but wasn’t pulled back.  Maybe it was just their imagination.  Similar hallucinations were all; that whole mass hysteria thing.  Another groan sounded, but this time closer.  How could it be closer?  Nothing had come around the curtain.

Jessica had a thought and took another step toward the desk, looking down behind it.  On the floor between the desk and the curtain, a man was dragging himself along with one arm.  His other arm and both his legs were gone, his torso a ragged mess with the guts hanging out.  Jessica gasped, which was an understatement.

“We should go,” Abby swallowed hard.

“Go where?” Jessica’s anger came back in a flash.  “Go where, Abby?  Back to your place?  No thanks.  One trip through the subway was good enough for me.”  She walked around the desk and over to the man.  The man reached up at her groaning, his eyes bloodshot.  “What is wrong with you?” she screamed at him.  At it.  “What do you want?”

The man just continued to groan and reach.

Jessica’s anger, frustration, and fear all came out at once in a tidal wave.  With a blind fury, she raised the shovel high above her head and brought it down with a heavy thwack.  Then she raised it again and swung.  And swung.  And swung.  With every lift and fall of the shovel, she mentally screamed, Why?  Why?  Why?  It wasn’t until Abby grabbed her arms and made her stop that she realized what she had done.  The man’s head at her feet was a disgusting, pulpy mess that matched the rest of him.  She had gone beyond killing him.  He reminded her of the rat she had killed in the subway.

Jessica suddenly dropped the shovel and turned away.  She ran three steps before having to double over and puke her guts out.  This was all some terrible nightmare from hell.  How could this be happening?  Abby’s sneakers appeared in her line of vision, and she felt a hand on her shoulder.  Jessica looked up and met Abby’s eyes.  They weren’t judging or disgusted like she imagined they’d be.  They were frightened, and not of her.  Abby was probably feeling all the same things Jessica was; only she had channelled them into finding Claire.

“Let’s search the building.  Maybe she’s upstairs somewhere,” Jessica offered Abby a weak smile.  Maybe she could channel them as well.

“Okay,” Abby nodded.  “Do you still want your shovel?”  Jessica had dropped it when she had turned away, and Abby had picked it up.

The moment was broken by a loud banging coming from behind one of the doors.  The door had the shade drawn, but it looked like something was trying to push through.

“Yes,” Jessica quickly nodded and Abby handed her the shovel.  The blade was covered in blood and bits of hair but Jessica didn’t really notice.  They didn’t know exactly where they were going, except that it was away from that door.

* * *

They passed by several odd and terrifying sights.  A window to one room had two people standing up against it, one a doctor, the other a patient.  Both of them were soaked in blood.  The patient had a bunch of IVs, electrodes, and bandages hanging off of him while the doctor had a scalpel sticking out of her neck.  A bed they went by had a pregnant woman strapped to it.  She thrashed and raged against the restraints, a large slash across her pelvis indicating her baby was elsewhere.  Another bed had a body in it, but this one was unmoving.  It had been pulverised and torn to pieces.  It was barely identifiable, just mush and bits of bone.  A third bed had a very peaceful unmoving body.  It would have looked like a normal person that had just gone to sleep if it weren’t for the handle of a knife sticking out of the eye socket.  They passed by the triage area, which was its own horror show.  Thankfully, the glass was heavy and practically unbreakable, and the doors into the rest of the hospital were sealed unless someone from this side opened them, or someone inside had a code.  The area was full of horrifically damaged and frightening people.  Almost all of them rushed the glass when Abby and Jessica came into view.  Men, women, and children, it didn’t matter.  Something had happened to all of them.  Those that didn’t rush the glass lay prone on the floor or sat up in chairs, very dead.  Jessica was glad they had decided to go through the ambulance bay doors instead of walking around to the doors that led into that area.  That would have been worse than stepping into piranha-infested waters.

Abby approached the glass cautiously, looking at each person’s face.

“What are you doing?”  Jessica kept her distance, appalled by every one of them.

“Checking if Claire is in there,” Abby’s voice came out as a cracked and hoarse whisper.  She went right up to the glass, trying to see past the swarm.  All of them gathered right up against the glass around her, reaching over each other to get at her.  Those closest to Abby were smushed right up against the flat surface, their faces distorting as they tried to bite at her.

“Do you see her?” Jessica asked from her position of distance.

“No,” Abby shook her head.  “You?”

Jessica didn’t really want to look at the faces.  She didn’t know how Abby could stand it.  “No.”  She didn’t exactly lie, she just wasn’t looking.

Abby continued to stand there, almost studying them.  She had acted like this in the subway station too; it was kind of creepy.  Jessica was terrified just being as close as she was now.

“Come on, let’s search the other floors,” Jessica tried to draw her away.  Abby didn’t seem to hear.  “Abby!”

Abby startled and took a step back.  “Yeah, let’s keep looking.”

They came across a set of elevators but decided to take the stairs instead.  Being stuck in a small box when there may not be a complete power system seemed like an awful idea.  They headed up to the second floor where signs directed them to a cafeteria.  The cafeteria doors were barricaded with big file cabinets and something was pressing to get out.

“Please don’t tell me you want to search in there.”  Jessica looked at Abby.  Abby shook her head no.

They hurried away from the cafeteria.  Next, they came across a doctor’s lounge and went inside.  Other than a small pile of bandages sitting in a corner, the place looked undisturbed.  Jessica spotted a fridge and her stomach growled with hunger.  She hadn’t even realized she was hungry, but the sight of the fridge made her starved.  She walked over and opened it up.  The fridge was occupied by some plastic containers with the doctors’ lunches in them.  She took them out and looked at what was inside.  Jessica was a vegetarian, so she settled for a couple of salads that looked like they had no meat in them.  Even if she weren’t a vegetarian, she wouldn’t be able to eat meat today.  She also took out a milk carton and an apple juice.

As soon as she turned away from the fridge with her food, Abby took her place, rummaging.  Jessica put her pilfered feast down on a table and went looking for a fork.  She found a drawer of them and handed one to Abby, who placed a container of something in the microwave.  The microwave still worked despite the power system glitches.  It seemed only some of the power grids were haywire.

Jessica sat at the table and dug into the garden salad first.  Food had never tasted so good.  Even the first few mouthfuls tasted amazing despite the lingering aftertaste of her own vomit.  She plowed her way through it and was done by the time Abby sat down across from her.  She had penne noodles covered in meat sauce with fried chicken bits and mushrooms.  She devoured her food nearly as fast as Jessica did.  Jessica downed the apple juice and then ate her second salad, a Caesar, but slower than the first.  When Abby finished, she found some glasses and poured milk out of the carton into two of them.  The girls split the milk until the carton was empty.

* * *

Jessica leaned back in her chair with a sigh.  Being full never felt so good.  “What floor do you want to check next?”

Abby shrugged, “Do you know what floor they would do CT scans on?  Claire might have ended up there.”

“I have no idea.”  Jessica leaned forward again and shoved the containers out of her way.  One clattered to the floor accidentally.  On instinct, she wanted to pick it up, but then realized there was no point.  She rested her head on the table.  Sleeping seemed like a fantastic idea.

“We need a directory or something.”  Abby got up and started looking at stuff around the room.  She appeared tireless.

Jessica enjoyed sitting where she was.  Not being on her feet felt wonderful.  She felt herself drifting off, the world going out of focus, when a loud clatter came from out in the hall.  Jessica snapped upright in a flash, completely alert.  The clatter was right outside the only door in, or out, of the doctor’s lounge.  Abby stood rigid over by some lockers, like a rabbit who had spotted a fox.

The doorknob began turning slowly.  Jessica rose from her seat in an instant and hurried over to Abby.  Abby opened an unused locker and began squeezing herself inside.

“There’s another one over there,” she hurriedly whispered to Jessica, pointing down the row of lockers.

Jessica moved fast, tugging at each locker until she found the one that was open.  She could fit into it, but not in any way that would be considered comfortable.  Bending her knees as much as the space would allow, she still had to crane her neck sideways to fit.  Her shoulders were bunched up and a coat hanger was digging into one of them.  She grabbed the back of the locking mechanism and pulled the door closed just as the doctors’ lounge door crashed open.

There were slats at the top of the locker, but because of the shelf, Jessica couldn’t see out of them.  There were also slats down near her feet where she could just barely see some light coming through.  In the small, metal container, her breath sounded like a wind turbine to her own ears.  She tried to breathe as little as possible, taking slow and shallow breaths through her nose.

Something smashed into a locker down the row.  Jessica hoped Abby was okay but didn’t dare to move.  Another crash, closer this time.  A shadow appeared in front of the lower slats.  Heavy breathing sounded from the other side of the thin metal.  Something slammed the front of Jessica’s locker.  She bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from screaming.  She squeezed her eyes shut as tears began running down the side of her face.  A strange, barely human squealing rose in volume on the other side of the door.  Then, just like that, it ran away.  The squealing made its movements easy to track as it fled out of the doctors’ lounge.

Jessica continued to stay quiet, fearing it would come back.  She shook slightly, causing a slight vibration in the metal surrounding her.  A small squeak of hinges sounded from down the row.  It was probably Abby leaving her own locker.

“Jessica?” Abby hissed.

Jessica sighed with relief and pushed on her locker’s door.  It didn’t budge.  She pushed again, but still it wouldn’t open.  The door must have gotten jammed when the thing hit it.  She was stuck.  Trapped in a tiny metal box, smaller than a coffin.

She freaked out and began thrashing against her tiny enclosure, banging against the sides, the back, and mostly the door.

“Jessica!  Calm down!” Abby hissed urgently from outside the door.  “You’ll make too much noise and bring it back!”

Jessica immediately stopped moving, but her hammering heart was far from calm as she looked at Abby’s shadow through the slots.  “I’m stuck,” she whimpered.

“I’ll get you out.  Just hold on.”  Abby’s shadow disappeared.

Jessica had no idea what she was doing out there.  Abby could leave her for all she knew.  Left to die in this somewhat smelly metal container.  She wondered how long it would take.  Probably days, since she had just eaten.  Even if Abby came back, what if she couldn’t get her out?  Would Abby stay around anyway, finding her scraps of food to slide through the slots until someone with better tools came?

Abby’s shadow appeared again.  “Which side are you on?” she asked.

That was a silly question.  Jessica filled the whole damn space.

“The side with the hinges or the side with the lock?” Abby clarified her question, although it was still silly.

“The side with the hinges.”  Jessica decided to base her answer on what side her back was pressed against.

“Good.  Try to keep yourself away from the door as best you can.”  Like there was room for that.

Jessica tucked her arms away from the door and crumpled as best she could against the rear of the locker.  Abby grunted and with a clang, something was shoved between the door and the side of the locker.  Jessica looked and saw it was her shovel.  Her gore-covered shovel she had left near the fridge.  Her freshly eaten food tried to rise back up at the sight of the shovel’s blade, but she managed to fight it back down.

Abby began prying with the shovel, using it as a lever.  She wiggled it up and down trying to loosen the whole door, coming millimetres away from slicing into Jessica a few times.  Eventually, it popped open.  Jessica gasped as if she had been underwater for a long time.  She spilled out of the locker and rubbed the shoulder that the coat hanger had been jabbed into.

“You okay?” Abby asked her.

Jessica nodded.  “You?”

“I just about pissed myself when it crashed into the locker next to mine.”  Abby handed Jessica the shovel and went to grab her field hockey stick.

“How do you think I felt when it did crash into mine?”  Jessica followed her.

“Let’s get out of here.”  Abby went to the door.

Jessica grabbed her arm before she could open it.  “What if it’s still out there?”

Abby stood with her hand on the door, unsure of what to do.  Eventually, she decided that going out was better then staying in and left the doctors’ lounge.  Jessica followed with her shovel held high.

* * *

The hallway outside the lounge was empty.

“So which way do you think the CT scanner is?” Abby whispered to Jessica.

Jessica shrugged, “Further up?”

Abby led them over to the stairs and they climbed to the third floor.  This one seemed to be the surgical floor.

“If she needed surgery, she’d be here.”  Jessica remembered when Cillian had his tonsils taken out.  Mostly she remembered the waiting room.  She had waited there during the surgery, and a while after.  She got to walk with him to the recovery ward but she wasn’t allowed to stay there with him.  He had apparently tried to eat as much free ice cream as he could before they discharged him.

“It’s unlikely she would have needed any, but we should look around here anyway.  Just in case.”  Abby stepped out of the stairwell and into the hallway.

The first thing Jessica noticed when she followed her was the smell.  It was an awful combination of sterilisation chemicals and rot.  Although the place didn’t look as bad as the ER did, it was looking pretty bad.  She guessed that some patients from the ER had been moved up here for surgery and that’s when things went wrong.

The women wandered around the surgery floor, not really knowing where they were going.  Although Jessica had been here before, she had been pretty much confined to one area.  They ended up next to a door labelled as the surgical observation deck.

“Maybe we should take a look?” Jessica suggested.  “It’ll allow us to see into at least one room without having to go into it.”

Abby shrugged and opened the door.  They climbed a short flight of narrow stairs, which led into a long, wide hall.  Both sides were lined with heavily meshed glass, which had benches in front of them.  A few chairs were also stacked in corners.

Jessica walked up to the first window on the right and looked through.  The surgery room was bright white, with an ominous black leather, cross-shaped operating table in the centre.  IV stands and monitoring systems had been knocked all over the place, and some blue cloth pieces lay scattered all over the floor.  There were a few drops of blood on the pristine white floor, but not a lot.  Jessica turned to Abby, who was looking through the window behind her.

“Anything over there?” Jessica asked.

“One of those crazy people is restrained on a table,” Abby told her.  “It looks like he’s trying to chew his hand off.”

Jessica decided against looking for herself.  She moved down the hall to the next surgical room.  This one was not pristine; it was a gore fest.  A body in hospital scrubs lay face down on the floor in the middle of the mess.  Jessica moved on again.  She came to the last surgical room on her side of the hall.  Other than the lack of doctors and nurses, everything looked normal.  A patient lay on the table, sound asleep.  Jessica could tell he wasn’t dead by the monitors stationed near his head.  It was a man, possibly in his 30s.  He wore only a hospital gown and had those blue cloths draped around his leg.  He looked perfectly fine, other than the large set of stitches running up his shin.  Apparently, the surgeons finished with him and then left.

“Hey, Abby.”  Jessica waved her over.

“What?”  Abby looked through the window.  “Who’s he?”

“I don’t know, but he doesn’t look like the others.”

“He could just be sedated,” Abby pointed out.

“True.  But no one else that’s been nuts has been sedated, right?  What if sedation doesn’t work on them?”

“You can’t know that.”

“I know that sedation would be the first thing I’d want to try if I worked here.”

“What do you want to do?” Abby asked her.

Jessica wasn’t sure, so she said so.  Abby sat on the bench, and Jessica let her think.  She looked around and spotted a box with a speaker sticking out of the glass off to one side.  She walked up to it and noticed a button on the box.  She pressed the button and spoke into it.

“Hello?” her voice sounded on the other side of the glass.  “Hello, Sir?  Can you hear me?”

The patient had no response.

“He’s probably too heavily sedated,” Abby said.

“We should go down there,” Jessica finally decided.  “Maybe we can wake him up.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.  He could be like those crazy people.”

“I don’t think sedation works on them.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.  Gut instinct, I guess,” Jessica shrugged a shoulder.

“He may not want to be woken up,” Abby said.  “To wake up to this?  It might be better to leave him until things calm down.”

“Things may never calm down.”  Jessica hadn’t been planning on voicing that thought aloud, but there it was.  The end of the world may have come, and this hospital would never be running again.

Abby didn’t reply to her statement.  She did, however, stand up and walk right up to the glass.  She stood there, looking quite solemn, for some time.

“Are we going?” Jessica eventually asked.

“Yeah, I’m just trying to work out how the hospital is likely laid out between here and there,” Abby nodded her head toward the end of the hall.  “I noticed there’s another set of stairs over there.  I don’t know if they lead into a hall like the other ones do or not.  If they do, it’s probably just a short walk to get to that OR but if it’s not…”

“It probably is.”  Jessica headed for the stairs.  After the locker, everything hurt about as much as her feet, but she didn’t want to stay in one place for too long.  Something else might show up, and the observation deck offered nowhere to hide.

It was Jessica’s turn to lead this time.  She went down the stairs with Abby following closely behind her.  So close in fact, she was practically pushing Jessica over, but she didn’t mind.  The doorknob at the bottom turned easily, but when she pushed on the solid wooden surface, it stopped opening part way.

“Something’s on the other side,” Jessica whispered to Abby.

She then tried pushing harder on the door, and the blockage shifted slightly.  She kept pushing until the door was open enough for her to squeeze through.  It was a good thing she hadn’t rammed the door, because the blockade was a large wire rack holding a lot of supplies.  If she had knocked it over, it would have made an exceptionally loud crash.  Abby squeezed out behind her.  Jessica led them down the hall toward the OR’s entrance.  She held on to Abby’s hand to draw strength, and because she kept thinking the other woman would be suddenly replaced by a horrible monster.

When Abby had called the room they were heading to an OR, Jessica had no idea how she knew it was called that.  Now though, she noticed it was written on most of the signs at each hallway junction.  The first time Jessica had looked at the signs, after they got on the floor, she thought of all the letters and numbers as gibberish.  Now she realized that you just needed to know what you were looking for and they were simple.

They got to a swing door labelled OR 3 on the glass.  It was possible the room they were looking for was the third OR, so Jessica pushed her way through the doors.  That led into a room lined with sinks, with boxes of gloves, gowns, paper booties, and hair covers piled around.  Jessica and Abby bypassed all of this and walked up to the next set of swing doors.  Jessica peered through the glass, hoping they hadn’t gotten turned around and ended up at the OR with the hand chewer in it.  They had gotten the right one though; the man continued to lie there, sleeping peacefully.  Jessica pushed through the doors, shovel first and quickly checked out all the areas of the room she couldn’t see from the viewing area.  There was no one else in the room.  She looked up at the viewing area where she had stood moments before, then walked over to the patient.

He looked younger down here and Jessica re-estimated that he could actually be in his twenties.  The surgical lights were harsh and cast his skin into an almost transparent snow white.

Jessica leaned her shovel against the bed and started looking at the machines hooked up to him.  She had no idea what any of them did.

“What do you think?” Jessica found herself speaking in a quieter voice than she had intended, as if she were afraid of waking up the man; although that was her intention.

“I don’t know,” Abby shrugged, looking over the machines as well.  “Maybe we should just take out his IVs?”

“I guess.”  Jessica looked at the man’s arms.  He had one IV per arm, so Jessica stood by one while Abby did the other.  Abby had no fear and just took the IV out as if it was nothing.  Jessica hesitated a moment.  She could picture it being in her own skin and felt squeamish.  Needles weren’t something she was afraid of, but they were something she greatly detested.  Finally, she sucked it up and pulled out the line.  A small spurt of blood came out, but other than that, nothing happened.  Abby had found a surgical tray and handed a cotton ball from it to Jessica.  They both stood there, holding a cotton ball to each arm.

“How long do you think it will take?” Jessica wondered aloud.

Abby just shrugged.

* * *

Jessica didn’t know how long they were standing there, several minutes at least.  She found herself staring at the man’s eyelids.  She willed them to open, to allow her to see their colour.  They could be the murky eyes like the killers, or perhaps a pale blue.  She imagined they would be pale and porcelain-like.  Of course, it could just be the way the lighting was making his skin look that was causing her to think this.  Having this man’s life essentially resting in her hands was such a change from the rest of the day.  She wasn’t running for her life.

Then she remembered the doctors’ lounge and its sudden intruder.  The spell of the sleeping man was over, and her paranoia returned.  She snapped her head up to look at the observation deck first, but it was clear.  She then looked toward the doors and saw that no one had intruded through there either.  The room beyond, with the sinks, also looked like it was clear.  Jessica turned her head back to the sleeping man finding a pair of unimpressive brown eyes looking sleepily back at her.  The man had woken while Jessica wasn’t looking.  He then rolled his head to the side and looked at Abby.

“You’re not nurses,” his voice was scratchy.  Ugly even, compared to what Jessica had been expecting.

Abby grinned, “Not even close.”

The man closed his eyes again with a sigh.  Jessica worried he was going back to sleep.  “Hey.”  She grabbed his shoulder with one hand and shook him.  “No sleeping.”

The man opened his eyes again.  “I wasn’t.  It’s just hard to keep them open because the anaesthetic is still wearing off.  Also, that light is killing me.”

Abby reached up and tilted the big, blaring light away from his face.  It was no longer transparent porcelain but actually somewhat tanned.

“Thank you.  Can you girls help me sit up?” the man asked.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Abby wondered.

“I’m a doctor, it’s fine.”  The man tried to sit up on his own, so both the girls quickly reached out to help him.  He didn’t sit upright, but leaned forward onto his hands.  “Either of you have a drink?”

“There’s some sinks just out there if you know where a cup is.”  Abby pointed a thumb back at the door.

“There’s probably an emesis basin around here somewhere.  A plastic or metal dish-like thing.  Shaped like a kidney.”  The man waved a hand over at a cupboard.

Abby walked over to it and starting looking through it.  The man shook his head and looked at his leg.

“What happened?” Jessica decided to ask.

“I was clipped by an ambulance on my way in.  It broke my leg and an artery was nicked.  They had to cut my leg open to fix it,” he explained briefly.  “So where are the surgeons?”

“I guess they took off.”  Jessica didn’t know how to tell this guy what had happened to the world outside.

“Good, although I wish they’d put a cast on me first.  I’m Cender, by the way.”  The man held out a hand.

Jessica shook it.  “I’m Jessica.  That’s Abby.  And what do you mean ‘good’?”

“I told them to leave when they were done.  You must have seen what was happening out there.”  Abby finally returned with the kidney-shaped bowl filled with water, which Cender took and downed in one go.  “I’m going to need you girls to help cast me up.  The supplies for it should be on that tray over there.”  Cender pointed to a corner.

Jessica went over and got it.

“Do you know what happened here?  In the hospital?” Jessica heard Abby ask.

“It was overrun.”  Cender seemed overly calm about all of this.  “A friend of mine jumped ship early and took me along.  I got her to stop and let me out so I could come back here and tell people what she thought was happening.”

“What did she think was happening?”  Jessica wheeled the tray of stuff over to the operating table.

“Zombies,” Cender said this like it was no big deal.

Jessica laughed.  “Zombies?  You’re kidding me, right?  Zombies don’t exist.”

“What would you call them then?” Cender challenged.

Jessica opened her mouth, but found she didn’t have an appropriate name for them.  She hadn’t spent too much time thinking about what actually could be happening, only that it was happening.

“Do you have a guess?”  Cender turned to Abby.  She shook her head, no.  “Zombies it is then.  Either way, I got here, got clipped by the ambo, and was rushed through the ER since they all know me.  I tried telling people.  Most of them thought I was delirious with pain, but some listened.  I guess the surgical team did.”

“Are you sure you’re not delirious with pain?” Jessica raised an eyebrow.

“If I’m anything, I’m high,” Cender laughed.  It was a somewhat grating sound to Jessica.  “Now come on, help me cast up this leg before it wears off.”

Under Cender’s directions, Jessica and Abby learned how to apply a cast.

“So what are you ladies doing here?” Cender asked while they worked.

“We’re looking for a little girl,” Abby told him.  “She was brought here earlier with a head wound.”

“If she’s not infected, she’s not here,” Cender told them.  “A bunch of cops swarmed the place and took out everyone who could walk.  She’s probably with them if it was a simple head wound.  You related to her?”

“No, I just told her I’d meet her here,” Abby sighed.  “I hope she’s all right.”

“She’s probably better off than you.  What about you, blondy?  You related to the girl?”  Cender turned to Jessica.

“No.  I convinced Abby to let me come with her.”  She looked past Cender at Abby.  “I guess we missed the police Mark figured would be here.”

“Yeah,” Abby nodded, looking almost as disappointed as Jessica felt.  Of course, she figured they weren’t there, due to the mess, but having confirmation was worse.

“What are you going to do now?” Cender asked them both.

They both shrugged.  Jessica thought curling up in a hole somewhere sounded like a good idea.

“Why don’t you come with me then?  I could certainly use the help,” Cender offered.

“What?  You have a plan?”  Jessica couldn’t believe a man who just woke up from sedation could have a plan.

“Yeah, my friend apparently knows a lot and has supplies and things.  She gave me a map to her place.  I’m supposed to meet her there,” Cender shrugged a shoulder.  “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it on my own, though, with this leg.”

Jessica and Abby locked eyes above Cender.

“It couldn’t hurt,” Abby shrugged a shoulder herself.

“I guess it’s better than having no plan at all,” Jessica sighed.

“Great!” Cender grinned.  “We’re all buddies then!”

18:

The Firefighter

Cillian sat with his back against a wall, looking at the makeshift barricade and wishing like hell that he had a cigarette.  He wondered how long he and Tobias had before the zombies managed to break through.  Tobias sat next to him, lost in his own thoughts.  At least the AC was still working.  Outside, Cillian had been sweating bullets in his firefighter gear, but he had refused to remove the protective clothing until they had secure walls around them.

“So what do you think it’ll be like as a zombie, Toby?” Cillian asked.

“Please, never call me Toby,” Tobias sighed.  “I do not want to die being called Toby.  It’s Tobias.”

“All right, my bad, Tobias.  Still doesn’t change my question.”

“I guess it’ll be simpler,” he shrugged.  “Eat brains, stand in place, eat brains, stand in place.”

Cillian laughed.  “I wish I had known you sooner, man.  You’re all right.”

“Thanks, I guess.”  They sat silently for a moment.  “You know, that’s a really good barricade.  I think we’re more likely to die of thirst or hunger in here.”

“Well, I have the crowbar so I’ll last longer than you.”  Cillian patted the pile next to him, which contained the crowbar and his firefighter’s jacket, helmet, and gloves.

Tobias gave Cillian a confused look, his mind not getting what Cillian meant.  When he figured it out, a smile replaced the confused expression.  “Ah, so you’ll do some zombie training first.”

“I think you’re all right, but if it comes down to you or me, I’ll pick me every time.”

“Oh?  I can’t appeal to your better nature?” Tobias asked with heavy sarcasm.  “Maybe I’ll start begging you, telling you about my children and my sick mother.”

“Do you actually have kids and a sick mother?” Cillian wondered.  He knew virtually nothing about the man he was going to die with.  If he died with anyone, he always figured it would be with one of the guys from the firehouse, who he knew almost as well as he knew himself.

“Nah, I can’t hold onto a girlfriend for more than a month or two.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t have kids,” Cillian pointed out.

“True,” Tobias nodded.  “But no, I have none.  And when I checked in last week, my mom was still extremely healthy.  What about you?”

“No kids, although I wanted some.  Me and my girl were going to get married but we broke up a bunch of weeks ago.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.  As for my mother, she died in a car crash when I was only four.  Hit by a drunk driver.”

“Doesn’t seem like a bad way to go if it was instant.”

“I was told it was.”  That wasn’t the kind of response Cillian expected, but considering the circumstances, he thought it was actually appropriate.  He sighed and leaned his head back, looking up at the ceiling.  He saw something of interest up there.  “Hey, Toby?”

“I told you I don’t want to die with that name,” Tobias grumbled.

“What if I said you may not be dying soon?”

Tobias looked at him, then looked up at the ceiling.  “What?  The air ducts?”

“They’re probably big enough to fit into.”  Cillian stood up for a slightly closer look at the ducts.  They were a fairly large industrial size, and Cillian thought he might be able to fit inside them.

“Even if you can get through there, there’s no guarantee they can hold your weight.”  Tobias got onto his own feet.  His added height allowed a slightly better look.

“Either way, they lead to other parts of the mall.”  Cillian looked around for the best thing to help him reach the ducts.  “Either we crawl through them, or we tear them down and make a hole into another part of the mall.”

“That’s going to be loud as hell,” Tobias said more to himself than to Cillian.  He walked around under the ducts, following where they led.

“Not like that’s going to matter.”  Cillian found an A-frame ladder.  “They’re all gathered outside anyway.  Some of the smarter ones might be able to run around to whatever store we get to next, but I seriously doubt there’ll be many.”

“What do you think makes some of them smarter than others?  By the way, here would be the place to try.”  Tobias pointed above himself.

Cillian set the ladder up underneath a vent that was near to where the duct passed through the wall.  “I don’t know.  Maybe they were just smarter to begin with.  I’m sure some of those guys out there had their IQ raise a notch from what happened.”

Tobias laughed.  “I don’t doubt that.”  He then shuddered as if he thought of someone in particular.  Maybe that newscaster guy he had told Cillian he’d been following.

Cillian climbed up the ladder while Tobias held it steady.  Cillian brought the crowbar up with him and used it to pry at the grate.  The screws held though, and it took a lot of prying to get them out.  When they pulled out a little way, he tried turning them with his fingers, but they still wouldn’t twist out the way they were supposed to.  Cillian made a mental note to start carrying a screwdriver around with him.  When the grate popped off, it nearly knocked Cillian off the ladder.  There was no time to warn Tobias, but Tobias managed to get out of the way anyhow.  When the ladder was steady again, Cillian climbed higher up and poked his head through the opening.  It was large enough for his shoulders to fit through.  Not with a great amount of space, but enough to allow him some arm movement.  He put his arms into the ducts and started shaking them and putting his weight on them.  They held.

“Looks like we’re crawling through.”  Cillian pulled his head out and called down to Tobias.  “Can you pass the rest of my stuff up?”

“You’re going first, right?”  Tobias hesitated about handing the things up.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, you go first with the crowbar, cause odds are there will be another grate we’ll have to go through.  I’ll bring along your other stuff so it doesn’t get in your way.”

“All right.  You sure your shoulder can handle it?”

“Yeah.”

“All right.”  Cillian reached back into the ducts.  He stepped up to the very top of the ladder and slid in to about his waist.  After tossing the crowbar in before him, he pressed his arms against the sides and pulled the rest of himself in.  It was a really tight fit, but he was able to move his arms and legs enough to propel himself forward.  It felt even more claustrophobic than when he did something similar for his firefighter’s training.

He wiggled his way along until he thought Tobias would have enough room to fit behind him, then he waited.  A short while later, the ducts shifted as Tobias pulled himself in as well.  Cillian could hear him grunting as he heaved himself up.

“I hope you’re not claustrophobic.”  Cillian couldn’t even see past his own body to see how Tobias was doing.

“Nope,” Tobias grunted.  “Your boots smell though.”

Cillian grinned, trying not to think about the tight space himself.  Although he wouldn’t admit to being afraid of anything, some things made him very uncomfortable.  He waited a moment longer until he felt a tapping on his boots.

“Let’s move.”  Tobias was hitting his feet to let him know he was right behind him.  “Just don’t kick me in the face.”

“You might want to keep a bit of distance then,” Cillian suggested.

He began scooting his way down the duct again.  It was nearly impossible to tell how far he was moving; the duct looked endless and monotonous.  It was dark too, the only light being a very diffuse glow that shone off the walls, likely from vent slats.  It was just enough to see by, but not very far.  When Cillian reached the crowbar, he held onto it with one hand and brought it along.  It was frustrating trying to move through the ducts.  Cillian constantly banged his knees and elbows into the sides.  He also kept hitting his head.  All he wanted to do was stand up right then, just stand.  This was not one of his better ideas.  He wished he could be in Tobias’s shoes.  He had a much smaller build than Cillian and could probably move more easily.  Although he did have that shoulder injury which was probably screaming.  And he was taller which meant his limbs were longer.

Finally, he came upon a shaft leading straight up, and straight down.  Cillian was actually relieved for a moment due to the added space.  He looked down and saw that it dropped a long way.  Long enough that there wasn’t enough light to see very far, but the void gave off this feeling of being a great drop.

“How do you feel about heights?” Cillian asked back.  His voice echoed up and down the shaft, back to his own ears.

“Not too great since we first met,” Tobias called up.

“Well then, you’re going to love this.”  Cillian looked across the gap where the duct kept going.  He tossed the crowbar over first.  Grabbing the lip of the drop, Cillian pulled himself forward over the void.  It wasn’t too wide, and he was able to get his shoulders across before his hips reached the edge.  Still, having that drop under his belly was nerve-racking, even for Cillian.  It felt like the gravity was twice as strong in that one spot and was trying to suck him down.  He continued to pull himself along until he felt his knees drop into the gap.  He wiggled, squirmed, and pushed off the edge with his feet until he managed to cross the gap completely.  He kept moving, making sure Tobias would have plenty of room for his own crossing.

“What the fuck?” Tobias cried out from behind him.

“Don’t worry, it’s easy to cross,” Cillian reassured him.  He didn’t mention how frightening it was.

He tried to look back again but couldn’t get nearly enough space to do so.  He moved a little farther down, making extra sure Tobias had room, then stopped again.  The skin on his arms hurt like hell from all the friction with the sides of the duct, so the break was nice.  As long as he didn’t dwell on the close quarters, that was.  Listening carefully over the sounds of Tobias’s banging around and the curses under his breath, he could just make out the zombies still trying to break in.  That sound came from behind though, and he couldn’t hear anything from up ahead.  He took that as a good sign.

Then a louder banging coming from near Tobias drew his attention.  The sound was heading downwards.

“Tobias!” Cillian quickly called back, fearing he had somehow fallen.

“I’m all right,” Tobias answered.

Cillian breathed a sigh of relief.  Having to deal with all this shit was hard enough, but having to do it alone would be harder.  Cillian had to admit he had become attached to the little fucker.

“I lost your helmet though,” Tobias explained the banging.

Scratch that, he could go to hell.  “Goddamn it.  Whatever, just don’t lose anything else.”  Cillian started moving again.

His arms hurt, his legs hurt, his head, back, and neck all hurt.  He just wanted to be able to stand, or even kneel for that matter.  He was tired of moving like a seal.  It didn’t help that his shoulders were also starting to hurt, and not just from muscle strain.  His pants kept trying to drag down and only the pull on his suspenders was keeping them up.  They kept digging in and he would have to wiggle his hips around to loosen the pull.  Often though, the wiggling resulted in smacking his hips even harder against the sides than need be, and they were bruising.  Cillian began to think he had an idea of what it would be like to be buried alive.  Except he had air.  He wondered how people could go spelunking.  Especially the kind of cave exploring without knowledge of what was ahead.  At least in this place Cillian could safely assume the ducts weren’t going to shrink on him suddenly.  Although it felt like they were.

At long last, he came upon another grate.

“Hold up, I’m busting us out,” Cillian warned Tobias, probably louder and more joyously than he needed to.

He didn’t care what might be in the room waiting for them; he just wanted out of there.  He brought the crowbar forward and started attacking the grate with it.  It took even longer to open this time because of his limited range of motion.  When it did start to give way, Cillian put all his efforts into it and it finally burst open with a loud clang.  Cillian dropped the crowbar through the hole and pulled himself up to take a look through.

“Fuck me,” he muttered.

“What is it?” Tobias called from his ass end.

“Well, you remember how we climbed that ladder to get in here?  Well, the floor in this next room is just as far down.  Like, two stories down.”  Cillian wondered why in the hell this room and the last one were so bloody tall.  What could they possibly need all the storage space for?  He wondered what the stores above did for storage.  Not that the rest of the building layout made a difference at the moment.

“Fantastic.”  Cillian could picture Tobias rolling his eyes with that sarcasm.  “And I take it that noise I heard was you dropping the crowbar so that we can’t find another grate.”

“Yup.”

“Awesome.”

* * *

Cillian clung to the edge of the opening, hanging his head down through it.  As he looked around, he saw that a shelving unit wasn’t too far away.  “I might be able to get down,” he told Tobias,  “just stay put.”

Tobias grumbled something that he couldn’t make out.

Cillian pulled back up into the duct and pulled himself across the opening.  Once his feet were over the void, he slid them through the opening and slowly backed down, allowing more and more of himself to dangle outside of the ductwork.

“You’re insane,” Tobias told him.  He had shifted so that he was much closer to the opening.

“Yeah, well, my insanity saved you the first time, didn’t it?”  Cillian was now hanging by his armpits.  He continued to lower himself until he was just holding onto the lip of the duct by his hands.  Even at his full length, the floor was quite a distance away.  Falling could break his legs.  He swung his legs with a grunt, trying to reach the shelving unit with them.  He couldn’t reach it though, and his strength to hold himself up was waning fast.  Frantically he swung again, but missed again.  Then his fingers slipped.

“Fuck!” was Cillian’s only reaction.  It took him a moment to realize he hadn’t plummeted to the floor.  Tobias had grabbed his wrists just as he slipped.

“Looks like we’re even,” Tobias grunted.  He must have been using everything he had to keep from being pulled out of the duct.  He let go with one hand and used it to help brace himself over the opening.

Cillian used his free hand to grab a second hold on Tobias’s arm.  “Not if you drop me.  Swing me that way.”  Cillian gestured with his head.

“Swing you?”  Tobias’s face was red with the strain.  A large bead of sweat trailed down his face.

Cillian started swinging his legs, reaching for the shelves on his own.

“Cocksucker,” Tobias swore loudly but tried to help.  Cillian glanced up and saw that Tobias was gritting his teeth so hard he wondered if they’d snap.

The first two swings failed but the third brought him close enough for his feet to hit it.  He let go of Tobias’s arm, and Tobias let go of his immediately.  Cillian nearly fell right off the other side of the shelving unit but managed to grab hold of the top before spilling off.  Once he was in a stable position, he looked back up at Tobias.  He saw he was wearing his firefighter’s coat, but not the gloves.  He still had his damnable camera too.

“You all right?”

“I may not be able to move my arms for the next several weeks, but other than that, I’m peachy.”  Tobias drew his arm back up inside the duct and shifted back into the vent to lay on his side.  Cillian could only see the top of his head and his eyes peering out.

“Well, you just relax for a while; I’ll find something to help you down.”  Cillian started climbing down the shelves.

“Yeah, I’ll just take a little nap while I’m in the most uncomfortable space in the world and waiting for zombies to bite my ass.”

Cillian made it to the floor and started looking.  He found the door that led out into whatever mall shop they were in the back of and peeked out.  It looked like a shop for ladies shoes, to complement the apparel store next door, of course, but no zombies were in sight.

Zombies, esh.  Who would have thought Cillian would be living through an outbreak of zombies?  He certainly didn’t.  He always thought something catastrophic would happen one day, but not while he was alive, and certainly not zombies.  Life had a way of throwing you curve balls at times.

He closed the shop door again and looked around the back room some more.  Luckily for Tobias, this room was as well equipped as the last one and had a tall A-frame ladder.  He manoeuvred it over to the open grate and set it up beneath Tobias.

“All right, Toby, come on down,” Cillian grinned.

“Enough with the ‘Toby’ shit.”  Tobias crawled over the opening and backed his way out like Cillian had.  Only he had something to put his feet on.

“I like calling you Toby.  If I think we’re going to die I’ll call you Tobias, but for now, you’re Toby.”  Cillian held the ladder steady while Tobias climbed down it.

“Screw you,” was all Tobias said when he reached the bottom.

“Meh,” Cillian shrugged.  “Now give me my coat back.”

Tobias took it off, wincing.  His shoulder was clearly agonizing him.  Cillian took the coat and put it on.  He checked the pockets and discovered his gloves and the empty pistol were still in them.  As he put the gloves on, he noted how disgusting they looked with all the dried blood caked to them.  They matched the jacket though, which was equally caked in gore.  Cillian then walked over and picked up the crowbar.

“I assume your arms hurt too much to carry this?”  Cillian held out the crowbar to Tobias.  He just nodded as an answer.  He was cradling both his arms to his chest by crossing them and gripping the camera strap around his neck.  The scarf wrapped around his upper arm was beginning to turn red.

Cillian led the way to the exit.  He poked his head out again to make sure no new visitors had shown up while he had been helping Tobias.  The shop was still clear.

“They’re going to be right next door when we go out,” Tobias whispered.

Cillian nodded.  They crept toward the storefront, Cillian in front, Tobias sticking to his back.  As they walked around the shoe displays, Cillian noticed a pair Jessi would have liked.  Size 8 ½.  He really hoped she was in Aussie Town and didn’t have to deal with all of this.

Cillian made it to the front of the store and crouched behind a prominent display, creeping forward.  He peered around it at the shop next door.  Several dim-witted zombies hadn’t figured out how to get under the fencing and continued to stand there shaking it.  Cillian hoped they were as unobservant as they were stupid.  He stepped out into the mall, keeping low.  None of them had noticed so far.  He shot a quick glance behind him to make sure the way was clear and then started to back up, keeping a close eye on the idiots.

Tobias followed him, also keeping low.  He passed Cillian who kept going backwards until he bumped into something.  Cillian turned around and saw that it was just Tobias, who had stopped not long after getting ahead of him.  Tobias was standing next to a door with a metal push bar.  He pointed at the door, a question in his eyes.  Cillian looked at it and frowned.  It said on the door that it was an emergency stairwell, only to be used in case of a fire.  If the door were opened, an alarm would sound.

Cillian glared at Tobias and slowly shook his head.  Tobias frowned back and lifted his hands in a ‘why not?’ gesture.  Cillian thought it was obvious and pointed back at the zombies, then at the word ‘alarm.’  Tobias rolled his eyes.  He pointed at the alarm word next, then waved a pointed finger around the ceiling.  Apparently, he thought the alarm would sound throughout the whole mall.  Which it might.  Cillian looked back at the zombies, considering the options.  He turned back to Tobias just in time to see him press the bar.

* * *

After their attempts to be dead silent, the alarm blaring to life was deafening.  Cillian quickly followed Tobias into the stairwell.  He had no idea if the zombies spotted them or not.  Both of them hurried down the multiple flights of stairs as fast as they could, taking some corners so sharply they bumped into the walls.  There was no way to tell if they were being followed, the alarm was so loud.  At least it seemed to be blaring all over the mall and not just in their vicinity.

They made it to the bottom of the stairs without running into any problems.  Thankfully, there was an emergency door that led directly outside.  They burst through it, out into a sunny alley.  Tobias kept running, leading Cillian through the alley.  There was a chain link fence ahead and Tobias climbed up on a big dumpster next to it, and then hopped over the fence.  Cillian had to hand it to him; he could really move, even though he was in a lot of pain.  He followed him up and over the fence.  Tobias stood panting on the other side, a huge grin across his face.

“You’re an idiot,” Cillian told him.

“I’m an idiot, you’re insane, but together we make a great team.”  Tobias actually laughed giddily.

“Did you know the alarms were going to go off all over the mall?” Cillian wondered.

“Not at all.”  Tobias crossed his arms again and rubbed his shoulders.  He winced slightly.

“You stupid shit.”  Cillian pushed him lightly, trying to keep a smile off his own face.  It was hard not to be happy now that they were outside again, in the somewhat fresh air.  “Come on, we’re almost there.”

Cillian walked to the open end of the alley with Tobias dogging his steps.  At the end, he stopped and looked around, getting his bearings.

“Well, at least we’re across Jalice.”  Tobias pointed up the street.  It connected with Jalice Ave, where the man on the bus had been.

Cillian suddenly remembered Tobias’s habit of filming everything.  “Hey, you didn’t film my ass in the air ducts did you?”

Tobias shook his head.  “Not deliberately.  I did a bit of filming at that shaft from hell, but I didn’t focus on your butt.”

“Good.”  Cillian thought about it for a moment.  “Wait, is that why you lost my helmet?  You were filming?”

Tobias shrugged and took a step back.  “Maybe.”

“You bitch,” Cillian sighed.

“It’s not like I did it on purpose.”  Tobias took another step back.  “Besides, you’re the one who lost the axe, remember?”

Cillian mumbled to himself, counting to ten.  He had a point; he had lost the axe, which had more value than the helmet.  Tobias had given him a lot of reasons to leave him behind though; the boldness with the door, the loss of his helmet because of his filming, the injury, but Cillian wasn’t going to do that.  He had also saved his ass.  And gotten him through the mall.  He was useful despite sometimes being a moron.

“Come on.”  Cillian headed onward.

He noticed Tobias let out a held breath before following.

Being out on the street at first felt nice, especially after being trapped in the ductwork.  It didn’t take long though for Cillian to start feeling too exposed.  Apparently, there was no amount of space he would feel comfortable in.  There were a lot of zombies in the mall clumped together, but that didn’t mean there weren’t hoards out here.  He just had to think of the bus incident; there were a lot of zombies there.  Although there was running space out here, there wasn’t really anywhere to hide effectively.  On the other hand, a zombie could be hanging around just out of sight.  Thank God they weren’t very far from the hospital.  Cillian could see its chimney in the distance.  Maybe it would have the right amount of space.

As they approached the front, a side of the building Cillian had seen only once before, they spotted a small collection of people.  Suspicious, the pair crouched down behind a car.

“What do we do?” Tobias whispered.

“I don’t know,” Cillian shook his head,  “observe first, I guess.”

They stayed in their hiding spot, watching the little group of six.  Cillian noticed they were standing in a circle, looking at each other.  One was gesticulating wildly.

“They’re not zombies,” Cillian told Tobias,  “it’s a group of people, and I think they’re arguing about something.”

“Should we go over there?”

“I don’t want to get into the middle of an argument.  Do you?”  Cillian turned to face Tobias.

“No, but they should just let us pass by them, right?”

“Maybe.”

Tobias got up and headed toward the hospital.  Cillian reluctantly followed.  He figured either Tobias was going to get him killed, or he was going to get Tobias killed.  At some point, their collective luck would run out.  He just hoped it wasn’t now.  They were almost to the hospital door when one of the six acknowledged them

“Hey you!” one of them shouted.

Cillian turned with an inward groan.  A huge, white guy covered in tattoos and waving a gun at them was walking toward them.  He and Tobias stood very still.

“Where are you going?” the tattooed man asked.

“Into the hospital,” Cillian answered calmly.  “My friend is hurt.”  He gestured to Tobias.

Taking his cue, Tobias showed the tattooed man his shoulder with its scarf bandage.  It was an even darker red than when Cillian last looked at it, but not so much that it was worrisome.

“You’re going to loot the hospital?”  The man pointed his gun at Cillian’s chest.

“No, I am not.”  Cillian slowly raised his hands and shook his head.  “We’re just trying to get my friend fixed up.”

“Where did all that blood come from?”  The tattooed man was twitchy.  Cillian was afraid he might fire the gun purely by accident.  “What’s the crowbar for?”

“B!”  Another man from the group walked up to the tattooed man.  “It’s okay, I know that guy.  He’s the fireman I told you about.”

Cillian looked away from ‘B’ toward the new guy.  “Sam?” Cillian frowned.  Guess he hadn’t gotten to his kid yet.  “What the hell happened?  Where did you go?”

“Look, ah, just forget about it.”  Sam looked as his feet and shuffled them.  He was ashamed of what he had done.  “Come on, B, leave them alone.  Let’s just get out of here before more of those things come.”

“I still think we should pick up some meds,” B argued.

So that’s why he didn’t want Cillian raiding the hospital.  The guy wanted to do it himself.

“No, come on, we all want to go.”  Sam gestured to the other four.  They huddled together like lost sheep.  One of them couldn’t have been more than sixteen.

“Fuck you!”  B pointed the gun at Sam.

Sam threw his hands up like Cillian and took a step back.

“Look, buddy, we’re not involved in this.  Just let me and my friend go into the hospital now.”  The gun came back to bear on Cillian.  He regretted saying anything.

Sam then did something both very brave, and very stupid.  He rushed at mister tattoo, but B was faster.  He swung the gun around to point at Sam and pulled the trigger.  Sam’s head was blown away.  A little girl somewhere had just lost her father.  B seemed just as stunned as everyone else at what he had done.  Cillian took the opportunity.  He turned, grabbed Tobias, and charged through the hospital doors.

“Hey!  Get back here, you fuckers!” B shouted.

A bullet passed through the doors behind Cillian and Tobias, nearly clipping their asses.  Cillian didn’t stop.  He kept running into the hospital nearly dragging Tobias behind him.  He heard the doors open behind them and another shot fired.  Great, why the hell did the guy have to chase after them, Cillian thought.  At least the four scared sheep were safe from the lunatic.

After a quick turn, Cillian headed up a flight of stairs.  Tobias finally seemed to catch on to the fact that they were fleeing again and ran up them under his own power.  They didn’t get very high before B reached the bottom of the stairs and fired upwards.  He probably wouldn’t be able to hit them directly, but the ricochet was dangerous.  The next floor they reached they decided to get off.  It was the third floor.  Cillian briefly wondered why they always ended up on the third floor.

He led the way, not really knowing where they were going.  He just kept trying to keep walls and doors between them and B.  Rounding a corner, he spotted a door almost hidden by a wire rack of supplies.  He squeezed around it, moving the shelf a little bit and ducked through the door.  After Tobias followed him in, Cillian closed the door, then pressed his ear to it, listening carefully.  He heard B run past them, shouting obscenities, and sighed with relief.  He turned away from the door and urged Tobias up the steps there. They were lucky they didn’t run into any zombies on the way in but that didn’t mean that there weren’t any lurking behind them.

At the top of the stairs was a hallway lined with windows.  The hallway was zombie free, so Cillian approached the first window and looked through it.  Maybe he could figure out where they were within the hospital.

He was terribly confused.  “Jessi?”

* * *

“What?”  Tobias joined Cillian at the window.

It looked down on a room with an operating table.  A man with a cast sat on the table, but on a stool next to him sat Jessica, and on the other side another woman.

“Jessi!” Cillian shouted, totally caught off guard.  She was uncharacteristically dirty and dishevelled, but it was clearly her.  No one in the room reacted to his cry; they must not be able to hear him.

Suddenly, Jessi and the other girl rose to their feet, looking toward the door.  It had to be B they were reacting to.  Cillian didn’t know how to warn them, but it looked like he didn’t need to.  Jessi picked up a blood-covered shovel and stood to one side of the door while the other girl went to the other side with a weird stick.  It made Cillian think of a baseball bat that was partly flattened with a curl at the end.

Cillian could just see through the glass in the doors.  B was walking towards them, gun pointed forward.  The man in the bed was visible to him and raised his arms.  B looked like he was shouting something but Cillian couldn’t hear what.  He could only stand there and watch.  As B kicked the doors open and stepped through, the unknown girl reacted lightning quick with the stick thing, knocking his gun upwards.  A shot was fired, and it blew out the large surgical light hanging from the ceiling.  Jessica immediately swung as well.  Her shovel connected with B’s face, and it took him off his feet.  She didn’t stop with one swing either, she just kept hitting him while he was down.  Cillian knew how she felt about men with guns.

The other girl tried to stop Jessi, but she just pushed her away and kept going.  It was unlikely that B was alive after so many hits.

Tobias stepped forward.  He was filming, but lowered the camera from his eye.  He slapped a hand on the glass.  Those inside turned as one to look, startled.  They had heard that.  Jessica and Cillian locked eyes for a moment.  Cillian saw raw fear there first, then confusion, then they softened into something Cillian hadn’t seen for some time.  She stepped toward them, mouthing something and pointing to the side.

“What?” Cillian frowned.

“The box.”  Tobias pointed to a box attached to the glass.

Cillian hurried over to it and pressed the button.  “Jessi?”

“Cillian!”  Her smile lit up Cillian’s world.

“How do I get down there?” Cillian asked, half frantic, all their fights forgotten in an instant.  All this time he kept hoping that she was safe in Australia, but hearing her voice made him realize he needed her here.  As selfish as it was, he felt a hundred times better upon hearing his name come from her lips.  It was a weight off his shoulders knowing exactly where she was.

“Just run around.”  Jessi gestured.  “It should be the first set of doors on the left.”

Cillian let go of the button on the box and ran for the stairs.  He didn’t even care if Tobias was following him or not.

He found the doors and burst through them into a room lined with sinks.  Jessi stood at the other end.  She was grimy, her long blonde hair was a disaster, her skirt was torn, her boots were unusual and ugly for her tastes, and she was covered in a misting of blood.  She was still the most beautiful thing Cillian had ever seen.  They both paused for a moment, as if unbelieving, and then with three steps each, they reached each other.  Cillian gathered her into his arms, holding her tight.  She was still holding her shovel, he his crowbar.  How could he ever let her go to Australia without him?  How could he have let them fall apart like they had?

“Umm, excuse me?”

Cillian looked up and saw the other girl standing in the doorway near where B was laying.

“What are we going to do about him?”  She pointed to B.

“Nothing.” Cillian shook his head.  The bastard deserved it.

Jessi finally started to pull herself away from Cillian.  At first, he didn’t want it to happen.  He wanted to hold her forever, but he relinquished.

“Hey, Cillian?” Tobias spoke up from behind him.  “Can we do something about my shoulder now?”

“You hurt?” the man called from the other room.

“Come in.”  Jessi laced her fingers through Cillian’s and pulled him into the surgical room.  Tobias followed after them, stepping carefully around B.

“Were you bitten?” the guy asked.

“No, I fell on an escalator.”  Tobias walked over to him.

“Good, bites will apparently turn you.  Abby, could you try wheeling that cabinet over?  Maybe the big guy can help you.”  The man gestured to a corner.

“What?  You mean they are zombies?”  Tobias raised an eyebrow and had a half grin.  Apparently, deep down, he still didn’t believe they were actual zombies.

“As far as I know.” the man shrugged.  “The name’s Cender by the way.  That’s Abby, we just met.  And I see one of you already knows Jessica.”

Tobias shook his offered hand.  “I’m Tobias.  That’s Cillian.  You a doctor?”

“A doctor and a patient in one absurd day,” he grinned.  “Now, let’s get you fixed up before that gunshot draws the creepies.”

19:

The Soldier

Alec didn’t hesitate.  He saw Danny’s shoulders and head as he fell over.  He then saw the woman’s as she pounced upon him.  He fired a single shot.  Although he didn’t quite hit what he meant to, he was aiming for her eye, he still hit her in the head.

“Danny, are you okay?” Alec called up from the bottom of the stairs.  He watched the top of the stairs and kept his pistol pointed up there, but also started using one hand to set up his stair lift.  He never should have let the kid go up there alone.

“I’m…  I’m okay.”  Danny appeared over the side of the top step.  He was sliding on his belly out from under the body.  When he was free, he hurried down the stairs, nearly tripping and tumbling down.

Alec had just killed another person; this time in his own house.  Yet it felt no different.  He put his pistol down and quickly finished setting up his lift.  He hooked his chair to it and turned it on.  The lift groaned loudly and moved slowly.  He probably should have bought one instead of making his own, but he believed a bought one would break down more often.  Danny huddled behind him, following his chair back up the stairs.

“Did you get any blood in your mouth, or eyes?” Alec asked.

“No,” Danny shook his head.

Alec looked at him closely.  The blood spray seemed to be mostly on Danny’s shirt and neck.  His mouth looked clear and there wasn’t even a drop near his eyes.  Lucky.  “What did you find up here, besides her?”

“One of the windows in the big room is open,” Danny reported, his voice wavering.  “There’s a bloody hand print on the door frame.  Alec?  The woman is Michelle.”

Alec frowned.  He waited impatiently until the lift had moved him high enough for him to see the body.  The face was turned away from him but he could tell by her body type and clothing that it was indeed Michelle.  He knew he should feel something, he had just killed his physical therapist… but he didn’t.  Even if he had called her a friend, he wasn’t sure he’d feel anything.  The last time he had felt truly emotional about anything was when his sister had passed.  That emotionless quality had probably been brought on from his sniper days and explained why he drank and womanized so much.  But when you didn’t care, well, you didn’t care about not caring.  He looked at Michelle’s body crumpled on his floor, her blood and brain matter on the wall.  Most people would think she deserved a better death, but Alec didn’t.  A quick and painless death was the way to go, even if it was too soon.

“No sign of Emma or Rifle?” Alec’s voice was as calm as it ever was.

“No, sir.”

“You can wait downstairs if you would rather not see this.”  Under any other circumstances, he would have made the kid stay downstairs.  As it was, Danny had already seen the death up close and Alec decided that maybe the kid should get used to it.  It seemed death wasn’t going to be something they could avoid.

“I’m okay,” Danny managed to say this without shaking and even with a little conviction.

When the lift reached the top of the stairs, it placed Alec right next to the body.  He was glad it wasn’t in the way of the lift or else he’d have to get Danny to move it.  The boy might be able to handle seeing the body but it was unlikely he could handle having to touch it again.  Alec unhooked himself and rolled toward his room.  It was the only room in the house that hadn’t been inspected.  Danny dogged after him, holding the short handles of his chair again.  His room had a large bloodstain in one corner, but was otherwise untouched.

“Danny, we’re going to go on a trip,” Alec said as he picked up a photo off his bedside table.  It was a picture of his sister holding Rifle as a puppy.  The two things in this world he had loved.  One he had very recently lost, the other several years ago.

“Where are we going to go?”  Danny sat on the bed.

Alec put his packsack down next to him and opened it.  Danny looked inside, his eyes widening when he saw Alec’s sniper rifle in there.  Alec dug through his ammunitions, past his tools and uniforms, and under his helmet and goggles.  He pulled out a rumpled, rolled, and folded paper.  Opening it carefully, he laid it out across the bed.  The paper was huge and made out of a cloth-like material meant to tear less.  On it was a highly detailed map of Leighton.  Alec didn’t open up the whole thing because it wouldn’t fit on the bed, but he uncovered the section of Leighton they were currently in.  There were several colourful lines leading off in various directions.  Alec pointed to a section on the map where almost all the lines converged into a clump.

“Here’s where we are,” Alec told Danny,  “or at least roughly.  We’re slightly up the street at the moment but close enough for horse shoes.”

“Did you take this from that house we were at?”  Danny wondered, following some of the lines with his eyes.

“Yeah, it and a few others,” Alec nodded.  “This one though has the legend.”  Alec shifted and unfolded the map some more till he reached an edge that had a colour code.

“Work, sister, brother, home,” Danny started reading the colour code aloud.  “Nuclear, war, earthquake?  Flood?  Disease?  What are all these?”

“Read the last one,” Alec encouraged.

Danny looked down the list.  “Zombies?”

In a putrid orange-ish colour and written in quotes, was the word Alec had noted on the map.  It seemed so absurd when he first saw it, but since then, he came to accept it more and more.  It was so unlikely, so unbelievable, but so suited to the situation.  He had yet to see evidence that didn’t support it.

“Where does it go?”  Danny had followed the odd coloured line as far as he could on the map.

“North.”  Alec started folding and rolling the map back up.  “To a provincial park.  I found another map of the area it leads to, and it looks like there’s some sort of dwelling there.  Probably not a legally placed one, but it’s there.  A lot of the weird lines, like war, lead to it.”

“Why?”

“Judging by the look of that house we were in, the owner is some sort of survivalist.  These maps are probably their planed routes if… well anything were to happen.”  Alec put the map back in his bag.  “Apparently, even unrealistic stuff.  They must have set up a place there, probably full of supplies and a method to survive for years.  A place to go in case of world ending emergencies.  If we can get there, we’d most likely be safe.”  At least that’s what Alec hoped.  If the problem really was zombies or something similar to zombies at least, then they wanted to be where there were no people.  A provincial park, far to the north, that had harsh terrain was probably damn near empty.

“How will we get there?”

“I haven’t thought that part through yet,” Alec sighed.  “My car got stolen and in my current condition, I can’t really drive anything else.  You can’t drive, can you?”

Danny shook his head.

“Then we have only a handful of options.  We walk for a painfully long time, or we try to find someone who can drive.”  Alec picked up his pack and slung it over his back again.  He had to admit one thing about the chair; it helped take a lot of his pack’s weight, so it didn’t feel as heavy as it was.

“I vote for finding someone who can drive.”  Danny hopped off the bed.

“I agree.  It’s going to be dangerous, both looking for a driver and getting there, but it’s probably better than hanging around here.”  Alec picked up the picture of his sister and Rifle again.  He took the picture out of its simple frame and put it in a pocket.  “Is there anything really important to you at your house?  ’Cause if you really want something, now is the only opportunity we’re going to have to risk getting it.”

Danny thought.  He appeared to be thinking hard.  Alec guessed he was doing an inventory of all his things and deciding if any of them were important enough.  The fact that he didn’t name something right away made Alec think maybe there wasn’t anything.  He waited though.  It was a hard thing to think about, especially for a young kid.  Everything had changed in a series of moments.  Not only were their lives set down on a new path, but also it was looking like a path that had never been followed before.  Who knew what the future held for them?  For humanity?

“No,” Danny finally said shaking his head.  “There’s nothing worth the risk of going back there.”

“Are you sure?”  Alec didn’t want him changing his mind down the road.  Literally.

“I’m sure.  Let’s just go find someone who can drive.”  Danny headed toward the door.  He stopped before exiting though and waited for Alec.

“One last thing.”  Alec stopped at the doorway.  “If you’re going to carry around a pistol, you should know how to use it.”

“What?” Danny looked confused.

“I’m trained to spot things,” Alec grinned at him.  “Those shorts don’t do a very good job of hiding the shape of ammo mags.  I’m also pretty sure I saw the pistol tucked into your rear waistband.”

Danny reached behind his back and pulled out the pistol.  He looked very sheepish.  The pistol wasn’t even loaded.

“Do you know how to load that?” Alec asked him.

“Yes,” Danny’s voice was lower than usual.

Alec didn’t blame him.  He was probably raised being constantly told how guns and stealing were very bad things.  And this was a stolen gun.  “Let’s see you do it.”

Danny pulled out one of the magazines and slid it into the base of the grip.  He was slow and deliberate about it, but he did put it in the right way.  He then cocked the gun, putting a round into the chamber.

“I’m not turning the safety off,” Danny said as he pointed to it to show he knew what he was talking about.

“I didn’t say you should.  I just hope that if a time comes when you have to use it, you remember to turn it off.”  Alec was dead serious about that.

Danny nodded.  He went to tuck the gun into the front of his waistband, but Alec stopped him.

“Try seeing if it’ll fit into your pocket first.  It might be harder to get out, but you’re less likely to lose the thing.  Or shoot your nuts off, for that matter.”

With a little bit of stretching, Danny was able to fit the pistol into his pocket.  It looked kind of absurd with the grip sticking out, but looks weren’t very important in their current situation.

“Are you ready?” Alec asked Danny.

Danny took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then nodded.  Alec nodded back and opened the bedroom door.  Danny stuck close to the wall as he hurried to the steps.  He tried not to look at Michelle.  Alec, on the other hand, gave her a long stare.  He had no good-byes to say, but committed her to memory.  He remembered the faces of everyone he killed.  Even that man at the doctor’s house, and those chasing them down the street.  He also gave one last look toward his brother-in-law’s bedroom down the hall.  He gave Nathan a silent good-bye and a good luck if he was still kicking.  He also hoped Rifle hadn’t hurt himself jumping off the porch roof, which Alec was sure the dog had done as soon as Danny had told him about the open window.  Maybe he’d find a pack of other stray dogs out there.

After hooking his chair back up to the lift, he began the slow and noisy descent back downstairs.  Danny showed up when he got there, fresh from washing up in the bathroom, and helped to unhook him.

“What should we do with the medical supplies?”  Danny held up the backpack he had pilfered.

“We bring them and pray we don’t need them.”  Alec took the bag from Danny and headed toward the garage.  “I’m going to grab a few more things from here as well.  Go to the kitchen.  There should be some water bottles in the cupboard over the sink.  Fill them to the top.  Also, in the tall cupboard next to the fridge, there should be some canned stuff.  Grab as much as you can and meet me in the garage.”

“Yes, sir,” Danny snapped off another salute and headed for the kitchen.

“Oh!  And the stuff that doesn’t need cooking takes priority!” Alec quickly called after him.

* * *

Alec waited a moment until he heard Danny rummaging in the kitchen, then he wheeled into the garage.  He kept his back to the bloodstain in the corner and dumped out the contents of both the backpack and his duffel bag.  He needed to go through everything and decide what to bring and what to leave.  Although his M110 SASS, his sniper rifle, was about fourteen lbs. and likely more powerful than anything they would need, he put it and its ammo in a keep pile immediately.  His dress uniform, which was kept pristine and folded within a box, he tossed aside.  He never liked the thing anyway.  The same went for his medals.  He shot somebody and was rewarded; he got shot and was rewarded.  Just didn’t seem right to him.  Next, he put aside his pistol and its ammo.  The revolver he had been given by his dad, he tossed.  Although there was sentimental value attached to it and it was reliable, it just wasn’t as practical as the semi-automatic.  Not to mention he didn’t have extra rounds for the thing.  His helmet he put into a third pile he mentally labelled as maybe, same with his flak jacket, kneepads, and boots.  His field pants, he tossed, because they weren’t much better than the pair he was already wearing.

He was sifting through the medical supplies when Danny came into the garage.  The boy was using his shirt like a basket to carry the cans and bottles.

“Do you have any allergies or asthma?  Any health conditions I should know of?”  Alec himself had none.  Other than the chair.

“None that I know of,” Danny shrugged.

“All right.  I’ll pack a pair of epipens just in case, but I’m going to leave the inhaler and other specialized medical stuff here.”  He sorted out the things that were likely to be useless.  He had to read a lot of labels carefully to learn what some of them were.  If he didn’t know, he put it in the abandon pile.  No use in carrying around something if you didn’t know what it did.

Danny looked at the stuff on the floor.  He eyed the sniper rifle for a moment, then bent down and picked out some dog tags.

“You can keep those if you want,” Alec told him.

“No, I couldn’t.”  Danny held them out to him.

“Seriously, take them.  They’re lucky.  Maybe they’ll bring some to you.”

Danny eyed the chair.

Alec chuckled a bit; he knew he didn’t look lucky.  “It could’ve been a lot worse.  I could be dead.”

“What happened?”  Alec wondered how long Danny had wanted to ask that question.  People always wondered, even if they didn’t say so.

“The short version is an enemy helicopter. My spotter and I were sent somewhere we’re not supposed to talk about, illegal infiltration and all that.  Not that I think that matters anymore.  We had just managed to take out our target,” Alec retold his story with no emotion in his voice.  He was rather detached from it.  The therapists hadn’t yet decided if that was a good thing or not.  “Someone must have ratted us out because, next thing we knew, there was an enemy attack chopper bearing down on us.  Even if someone had spotted the muzzle flash, they couldn’t have gotten that bird there that fast.  We were extremely well camouflaged though, in a fairly large field, and the pilot didn’t seem to know our exact location.  He opted to look for us with bullets.  He passed over us several times, streams of bullets raining down around us.  One of the passes shredded into my legs, but I managed not to move.  If either of us moved, we would both be torn to pieces.  Eventually, the chopper ran out of bullets, decided we weren’t there, or assumed we were dead.  Whatever the reason, he left.  My buddy must have had a horseshoe shoved up his ass that day because somehow, he didn’t get hit.  At least not badly, just a handful of grazes that we both got.”  Alec held up his arm and showed Danny a mark across the back of his bicep.  “So anyway, after we were sure the chopper was gone, my buddy picks me up and hauls me all the way back to the drop point.  I should have died out there but he wouldn’t let me.  Now I’m in this chair, and apparently could make a full recovery.  Minus the scarring of course.”  He rubbed his thigh unconsciously.

Danny looked at the dog tags.  “These say Nicolas Kessington.”

“I never said they were mine,” Alec laughed.  “They were my spotter’s.  I told you they were lucky.”

“Where are yours?”

“With him.”

“Shouldn’t he have his?” Danny frowned.

“It makes no difference to him.  He got to come home a few months after I did.  Apparently, smoking every second from the day you could stand gives you lung cancer.  He died about two weeks ago.”

Danny’s face fell and he held the tags out to Alec again.

“When I said keep them, kid, I meant it.”  Alec gently pushed his hand back toward him.  “Besides, you’re my spotter now, right?”

Danny looked at the tags.  He ran his fingers over them a few times, as if revering them, and then slid them on over his head.

“Let’s see what food you got.”  Alec gestured to the cans Danny had put on the ground.

Danny read off the labels to Alec and then put them in the keep pile.  Except for one can.  It had no label and had been in the house longer than Alec.  It wasn’t trustworthy.  Danny then added the water to the pile.

“Just a few more things to grab and I think we can head out.”  Alec didn’t like the size of the pile, but when travelling for an unknown period of time over hostile ground, you needed to be prepared.  “Do you mind grabbing a pair of tarps from over there?”

Danny went to get the tarps that Alec pointed out under a workbench.

Alec rolled over to another workbench that sat next to the bloodstain.  He grabbed a pair of wrenches, a pair of screwdrivers, and a plastic jar filled with various nuts and bolts.  If his chair or braces decided to crap out on him, he wanted to be able to try to fix them.  He also grabbed some rope, several rolls of duct tape, and a hammer, just in case.  He brought his stuff over to the pile where Danny had put down the tarps.  He had apparently found Alec’s hunting knife and was looking at it.  It still had blood on the blade.

“You used this to kill that man out there, didn’t you?”  Danny gestured to the garage door but didn’t look at it.  The arm with its ghostly white flesh could still be seen.

“I did.”  Alec took the knife from him and put it back into its sheaf.  He then hooked it and the pistol’s holster to his belt.

“Was it quick?”  Danny handed things to Alec as he asked for them, which Alec packed into the two bags.

“No, it wasn’t.”  Alec wasn’t going to lie.  “Because of him, zombies don’t seem unlikely to me anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I stabbed him in the heart first but it didn’t do a thing.  He just kept fighting me.  I thought maybe he could be one of those extremely rare people with their organs mirrored, but he wasn’t.  He didn’t stop until I took out the brain stem.”  Alec pointed to the back of his own head.

“So it’s possible he was already dead?”

“I guess.  Hand me that map there, would you?”  Alec suddenly remembered a piece of equipment from his army days that he didn’t keep with the rest.  “Hold on.”

He went over to his brother’s car and opened the passenger door.  He reached for the centre console, but couldn’t quite make it.  He sighed and backed away from the car.  “Could you help me?”

“What is it you’re trying to get?”  Danny climbed into the car with ease.  Alec had to admit it made him a little jealous.  He really did wish he had his legs back, but he knew there was no magic cure-all and he’d just have to suck it up.  Despite how much he hated them, the help groups did get him to understand that fact.

“That black, boxy thing with the screen.”  Alec pointed.

“This?”  Danny found it and held it up.

“That’s the one.”  Alec took it from Danny as he climbed back out of the car.

“What is it?”  Danny hovered over his shoulder while Alec turned it on.

“A GPS.”  He grabbed up the maps and flipped through them, finding the information he needed.  “We won’t need to carry these around if we program the locations we need into this.”

“Cool.”

Alec programmed the device then turned it off and put it in a pocket.  He thought about maybe grabbing some spare batteries but decided against it.  The thing had a solar cell so if the batteries did die, they would just be limited to using it in daylight.  “I’ll finish packing, but I want you to run to the kitchen quickly and find a handful of power bars.  You’re going to put some in your pockets but not eat them.  They’re in case we somehow lose these cans, got it?”

Danny nodded, then ran out of the garage.

Alec packed up the rest of the gear, and then headed up the ramp into the house.  He mentally ticked through everything they had, and every situation he could think of that might occur.  Alec didn’t think they were going to make it through this, but he would try for the kid.  He should’ve died once already, but the kid still had a lot of years left in him.  Maybe that’s why Nick saved him that day, so that one day he could repay the favour to this boy.

That was a lot of sentimental bullshit.

As Alec reached the front door, Danny ran up to him and handed him a bunch of power bars.  He was eating a banana he had found as well.  Alec put the power bars into his remaining pockets.

“Think you can carry this?”  He held out the backpack to Danny.

Danny picked it up and tested its weight, then shrugged his shoulders into it.  “Sure, it’s no heavier than when I have to bring all my books home from school.”

“Take these as well.”  Alec plunked his army helmet onto Danny’s head, the goggles strapped to it.  It was a little big, but when he pushed it back a bit, he could see while it stayed balanced.  He also hung his flak jacket off the backpack.  Danny didn’t argue about either of these things.  “You ready?”

Danny nodded, the helmet bobbling slightly.

Alec opened the front door and looked out into the street.  Nothing really looked the same.  Things were broken on houses, lawns, and cars and it was all so very still.  Alec thought of it as the calm before the storm although he wasn’t sure how things could get worse.  Then again, how they were going to find someone to drive them was going to be a challenge.  He rolled out of the house with Danny following closely behind.

“Should I close the door?” Danny had dropped his voice to a whisper.

Alec thought about it a moment.  “Yes.”  He finally decided.  His brother-in-law may be alive, and although an open door may warn him of the bad things that had occurred inside, it was better to try to keep more things out.  Of course, they might just break through the windows but, hopefully, his brother would notice something like that.

“Which way do you think we should look first?” Alec whispered to Danny.

Danny looked both up and down the street.  He shrugged, “I have no idea.  Which way will we be heading anyway?”

Alec pointed.

“Then we’ll go that way.”

Without another word, they headed off.  It wasn’t long before Alec could tell that Danny was holding onto his handles again.  He felt like a living security blanket.

20:

The Older Woman

Kara stroked Alice’s soft and curly blonde hair.  The girl had somehow managed to fall asleep.  Probably from fear and exhaustion.  The dog on the other hand was restless.  It roamed the wine cellar, sniffing at this and that.  It kept stopping in front of the man who looked like either a plumber or an electrician.  It would lie down and woof at the man several times, then whine and start its wandering again.  Alice had said that the dog was a cadaver dog, and that was his signal for when he found a dead body.  This man looked alive though.  Deranged, but alive.

She looked at her hand.  She still hadn’t pulled the sliver of glass out, so she started to do so now.  It stung fiercely but she managed to get it out and tossed it into the corner.  The dog might prick its nose or paw on it, but that wasn’t really Kara’s concern.  She had never really been too fond of animals.  Most of them had an odour that was unpleasant.  The only animals she would tolerate the smell of were horses, but that was only because she greatly loved to ride them.

“He’s still here,” Alice mumbled.  Kara hadn’t even noticed that she had awoken.  “Why won’t he go away?”

“I don’t know,” Kara told her as she began to stoke her hair again.

“Go away!” Alice yelled at the man.  This elicited no response from him.  He continued to press himself up against the cage door, reaching in at them.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Kara finally decided.  She lifted Alice off of her lap and placed her on the cellar steps.  She rose to her feet and walked over to the man, but kept just out of arm’s reach.  “You will cease this instant,” she commanded.  Of course, this also did nothing.  “If you do not, I will be forced to use violence.”

Kara had adequately warned the man.  She went over to one of the shelves holding wine and picked out the cheapest bottle there.  There was no point in wasting good wine.  She then walked back over to the man and showed him the bottle.

“I’m going to bash you over the head with this if you don’t stop this instant.”  Kara had always been able to project a great amount of command into her voice, which was why her squabbling cousins always listened to her.  It was lost on this mindless fool.  She sighed and with a speed uncommon for her age group, she stepped into the man’s reach and conked him over the head with the wine bottle.  The bottle didn’t break, but the base was heavy and knocked the man down.  He didn’t stay down though, and rose back onto his feet quickly.  As he did, Kara conked him again, but again he got back up.  She stepped back this time.  The man now had a big dent in his head that would cause most people to writhe in pain.  He seemed completely oblivious.

“What’s wrong with him?”  Alice had walked over and stood next to Kara.  She reached up and grabbed a tiny fist full of Kara’s shirt.

“I don’t know that either,” Kara sighed.  She also didn’t know how to get out of this predicament.  Not without killing the man anyway.  “Alice, do you know what death is?”

“It’s when something’s soul goes to heaven and they don’t come back to their body,” Alice explained.

“That’s right.”  Kara didn’t correct her about there being a hell too.  “Do you know what a cadaver is?”

“Shoes finds them.”  Alice looked at the dog with a happy smile.

“Yes, but do you know what they are?” Kara pressed.

“I think they’re people that got lost and then died,” Alice said very solemnly.  “Shoes would find them so that people would know what happened.”

“Well Shoes seems to think that this man is a cadaver.”  Kara still found that odd, but she was going to use it to make herself not look like a villain for what she was about to do.

“He doesn’t look dead,” Alice frowned.

“Maybe his soul tried to leave but got stuck.  Maybe only the bad part stayed behind.”

Alice scrutinized the man.  “Could be,” she nodded as if this was very logical.  “What do we do?  We can’t get his soul back.  Daddy told me when my mommy died that you can’t get souls back.”

Kara’s heart squeezed ever so slightly.  She herself had lost her mother when she was a young girl.  Not as young as Alice though.  “And he was right, you can’t bring them back.  I think what we need to do is get the rest of the soul out of him.”

“You mean kill him?”  Alice’s eyes went very wide.  Her voice then dropped to a mere whisper.  “But that’s bad.  That’s the very worst.”

“I know, it’s a sin,” Kara nodded.  “But this man’s soul has been split in two, and that also seems like a very bad thing to me.”

Alice’s face scrunched up in thought.

“And he’s trying to hurt us,” Kara reminded her.  “I was taught that the only time you can do something bad, is if you’re trying to protect yourself from someone hurting you.”

“Like why Daddy carries a gun to work.”

“Just like that.”

“Okay.”  Alice turned to the man in coveralls.  “I’m sorry we have to do this,” she said sincerely.  “But it is for the best.  You’ll like heaven.  I was told it’s a very nice place.  I hope you’re happy again when your soul is put back together.”

When Alice smiled up at Kara, Kara smiled back.  “Very nicely said.  Now I don’t think you should see this.  Go into the corner over there and cover your ears, all right?  Maybe you could sing a song.”

“Okay.”  Alice headed for the corner.  “Come on Shoes.”  The dog trotted after her and sat at her side.

Once Alice had covered her ears and starting singing the alphabet, Kara turned back to the man at the cage.  She flexed her injured hand a few times.  She was going to have to do this with just her right hand.  The next few moments were a blur of red blood and green glass.

* * *

Kara stood over the man, looking down at his body.  It had finally stopped moving when his forehead had become a crater filled with blood.  The end of the bottle had a large patch of blood and hair sticking to it, but it somehow managed not to break during the ordeal.  The wine may be cheap, but the bottle was good quality.  She placed it on the ground next to the corpse.  A low woof behind her startled Kara.  Shoes appeared next to her, looking at her and wagging his tail.  Did he know what Kara had done and approved?  Of course not, he was just a dumb dog.  She stood back up.

Alice was still sitting in the corner with her hands over her ears.  She was humming something but Kara couldn’t tell what over the sound of the alarm still blaring upstairs.

“Alice?”  Kara took a few steps toward her.  “It’s over.”

Alice turned her head and looked up at her.  Her large blue eyes were glassy with tears but they didn’t spill over.  She carefully got to her feet and walked over to Kara.  She placed her small hand in hers, then placed the other over her eyes.

“I don’t want to see him,” she explained.

“You don’t have to.”  Kara scooped Alice up and carried her over to the cage door.  Even though she hadn’t been thinking at the time and was acting on pure instinct, Kara was damned glad she had remembered to bring the key to the door with her.  The door swung outward though and to open it Kara had to shove it into the body and push hard.  Shoes woofed when she did this.

“Quiet, Shoes,” Alice scolded the dog from her perch, still covering her eyes.  “We know he’s there.  He’s not lost anymore.”

Kara headed through the broken doorway and back toward the stairs.  The dog followed along after her, its leash dragging behind it.  Once they reached the stairs, out of sight of the body, Kara sat Alice down upon them.  She noticed the dog’s leash had dragged through the blood so she distastefully unclipped it and tossed it across the room.  There was nothing she could do about his bloody paws though.

“Will he follow us without his leash?”  Kara turned to Alice and saw that she was still covering her eyes.  “You can look now.”

Alice removed her hands.  “Shoes is a good dog.  We only put the leash on him because it’s the law.”

“Well, just like the dog poop thing, he doesn’t need a leash today either.”  Kara found no harm in lying some more.  This was the most she had ever lied to a child.  “It’s like a doggy freedom day.”

“Shoes is free,” Alice frowned, confused.

Kara just smiled and started up the stairs.  “Come along now.”

Alice followed her.

Upstairs, the alarm continued to call out.  It was headache inducing.  No cops or security showed up though.  Kara went to the front door first.  The other man in the overalls, the one who had attacked Walter, was standing right outside it, pounding his fists against it.  She looked through a window and saw another person in torn clothing climbing over the front wall.  Kara took Alice’s hand and led her to the back of the house.  She was very glad to exit that building.  The alarm was going to drive her mad if she had to spend a minute more listening to it.  She hurried over to the wall to the next house and boosted Alice up to the top of it.  The girl was small enough to sit straddling the top.

“Can you hold him?”  Kara started to lift Shoes up whether Alice said she could or not.  Kara didn’t really like the dog, but she thought his nose would come in handy.  Alice reached down and grabbed the dog by his collar.  She pulled him up, nearly causing herself to topple over, and placed him across her lap.  The dog stayed very still, perhaps sensing its precarious perch.  Or perhaps it was just lazy and liked being draped across the girl’s lap.

Kara hopped and grabbed the top of the wall.  Once again, she was glad she wore her sensible walking shoes today as opposed to her heels.  She pulled herself up onto the wall and swung her legs over it.  As she began to drop down, she noted some movement out of the corner of her eye.  Further along the wall was one of her neighbours trying to climb it the other way.  Kara briefly thought about calling to her, but then she noticed how fervently she was clawing at the wall.  She was one of them, the ones with the broken souls.  She didn’t seem to notice Kara though; she was solely focused on the wall in front of her.

Kara turned back to face Alice and held out her arms.  Alice shoved the dog with his loose skin into them.  Kara quickly plunked him down on the ground and held out her arms again for Alice.  She put Alice on the ground more carefully than Shoes.  The two of them, plus the dog, hurried across the back lawn.  The next wall was just like the last.  Kara turned to pick up Alice again when the little girl suddenly pointed past her.

“Mister Walter!” she cried with delight.

Kara turned to find Walter coming toward them.  He was mussed up and his shoulder was bleeding, but otherwise, he looked all right.

“Walter?”  Kara took a step towards him but was still being cautious.

“I’m all right.”  Walter held up a hand.  “That guy bit into my shoulder but when that house alarm went off, he ran toward it.  I’m glad to see you’re both all right.  Here.”  Walter held out Kara’s cane.  “I found this on the front lawn.  I guess you dropped it.”

“Thank you, Walter,” Kara allowed a little bit of emotion into her voice.  She was glad to see Walter and to hear he was all right.  “Do you need anything for your shoulder?”

“I’ll probably need to use some rubbing alcohol or something on it, but it’s not that deep.”  Walter showed her the wound.  He was right, it wasn’t very deep.  The perfect teeth impressions though were disturbing.

“Mister Walter, we had to help a man whose soul was torn in two!” Alice crowed.

Walter gave Kara a quizzical look.

“I’ll tell you later,” she sighed.  “Let’s just keep going to the house.”

“Shoes was a very good dog,” Alice told Walter as Kara helped her up onto the wall.

“Was he now?” Walter humoured her.  Despite his wounded shoulder, he got up the wall easily.  He was probably running on adrenaline and not really feeling the pain, just like Kara was doing with her hand.  The feeling was most likely new to him though.  With Kara, adrenaline kicks were almost an old friend, the kind where you were unsure if you’d enjoy their visit.

Kara scooped up the pooch and tossed it over the wall.  It let out a yelp when she first tossed it, but didn’t make a sound on the other side.  Walter must have caught it successfully despite having no warning.  Alice frowned at her though.  She did not approve of scaring her ‘puppy.’  As Kara climbed up, Alice hopped down the other side.

The next yard had a pool and Shoes wandered over to it.  He stood on the shallowest step and drank the water around him.  Kara sighed because he would now probably have a wet dog odour.  On the plus side though, his feet were being cleaned.  Walter knelt next to the pool and splashed a bit of water onto his shoulder, washing the wound.  Kara thought about cleaning her hand, but something inside her told her to wait.  She trusted her instincts; they were her gift from a God that wasn’t watching.  When Alice knelt beside the pool and bent down as if to take a drink, Kara hurried over and stopped her.

“You shouldn’t drink that,” Kara told her.

“Why not?  Shoes is,” Alice objected.

“Well there are things that are okay for dogs, but not for people.”  Kara didn’t think that pool water applied but still, she’d rather not have the girl drink it.

“She’s right,” Walter backed her up.  “Pool water has a chemical in it that can be bad for you if you drink it.  Shoes will be all right though.”

Alice looked from Walter to Kara and back to Walter.  She sighed and got back onto her feet accepting their combined knowledge.  “Come, Shoes!”

The dog hopped out of the pool and trotted over, his saggy skin wobbling from side to side.  Alice looked down at her dog while it looked back up at her.  There was definitely some sort of connection between the two that Kara couldn’t grasp.  She thought that might have been because she had never had a real pet growing up.

They continued through several more backyards, the fences getting higher and harder to scale each time.  Eventually, they came to one that was much too high to reach and had small metal points at the top.

“This wall seemed like such a good idea at the time,” Kara sighed.  On the other side of the wall was her own home.

“It still is good,” Walter commented.  “It should keep others out.  The problem is that we need to be on the other side for it to be useful.”

“I’m tired,” Alice huffed.

“We’re almost there,” Walter offered her a smile.

She didn’t smile back.  “My feet hurt.”

“Maybe it’s safe enough to go around the front.”  Kara started leading the way toward the front yard.  There was nothing separating the front and back yards along the side of the house making it an easy walk to get there.  They stopped before completely entering the front yard and searched the expanse of grass for any threats.  There was no one in sight, so they pressed on toward the gates.

“Maybe we should just stay here,” Walter offered.

“No,” Kara shook her head.  She pointed to the open front gate.  “Anyone could have gotten in.  Besides, I saw Mrs. Walsh when we were separated.  She seems to be one of them.”

Walter said nothing else on the subject as they neared the open gates.  Kara took one last glance toward the house.  She noted the beautifully arranged flowerbeds in front of them that were Mrs. Walsh’s pride and joy.  Kara often walked by to see her tending to them and would stop for a chat.  Now she was probably still trying to dig through that wall, her most ambitious project yet.  Kara also noticed a curtain upstairs flutter and a shadow move behind it.

* * *

Walter poked his head out from the gate first and checked that the streets were clear.  When he saw that they were, he waved the others forward.  They hurried quickly out of Mrs. Walsh’s yard and down the sidewalk to Kara’s.  Kara looked back again and saw someone running like a lunatic toward the house with the alarm going off.  The alarm could still faintly be heard from as far as they were.

They reached the Taggart house gates and Kara punched in the code to unlock the person-sized door within them.  She hurried through first and made sure the coast was clear, brandishing her cane like a sword.  Alice and the dog followed her, then Walter closed the gate behind them and locked it.  Kara had never been so relieved to be home.  A weight felt like it had been lifted off her shoulders the moment the gate closed.  She strode across her lawn, next to the doublewide driveway with confidence.

“This is your house?” Alice gasped.

Kara looked back to see the girl craning her head up to look at the top.  The house was three stories with a high peaked attic.  The walls were made of grey stone and the windows and doors were framed with a dark wood that matched the colour of the shingles.

“It’s like a castle!” Alice’s face lit up with delight.  That smile made Kara feel surprisingly warm after what had happened, but she blamed it on the sun.  That fireball in the sky had been relentless all day.

“How about we go inside and get you something to drink?”  Walter placed his hand on the girl’s shoulder and directed her to the front door.  Their feet crunched on the driveway’s gravel surface.

Kara stayed outside a moment longer.  She looked at her own modest garden which she hired someone to tend, her two cars, a silver BMW M3 Sedan and a tan Jeep Wrangler, parked side by side, her small fountain that the driveway circled, depicting dolphins at play, and her security system of several cameras placed around the grounds, as well as motion detectors at the doors, and sensors in the window glass.  For as rich as she was, she considered it rather modest.  She actually owned her own island as a vacation spot but she liked living here just outside the city her father helped to build.  The grounds weren’t that expansive and the reason her home was tall was to save space in other directions.

She went inside, took off her shoes, and placed them on a rack.  She had several different pairs of shoes, but never more than one pair of any kind.  Alice’s small shoes were sitting next to the rack.  It had been a long time since a pair that size had been in her house.  The last had probably been from one of her cousin’s children, now grown, who had been dragged to a party Kara held once a year.  After a brief moment of reminiscing, she placed her cane in an umbrella stand and put her purse on a small table.  Kara headed across the hardwood floors to her kitchen.  This was the one room in the house she didn’t personally design; she had left it up to her part-time chef.  Most of her food she made herself.  Walter would cook sometimes, but whenever she had company over, Francois was called in.  Just about everything was stainless steel with marble counter tops.  Alice and Walter sat at the one little wooden table off in a corner.  Alice was drinking a large glass of water while Walter made sandwiches.  Shoes sat at Alice’s feet looking up at her.

“Do we have anything to feed the dog?” Kara asked her servant.

“He doesn’t eat until night time,” Alice informed her.

“I’ll just get him some water then.”  She took out a large mixing bowl and filled it with water, then placed it near the dog.  He looked up at Kara, his eyes peering out at her from the flesh that sagged around them, then drank a few laps and lay down.

“What kind of sandwich would you like?” Walter asked Kara.

“I’ll make my own.”  Kara first went over to a first aid kit kept in the kitchen.  She rinsed the cut on her hand and then coated it with a clear, liquid Band-Aid.  She would tell Walter to tend to his wound after he’d eaten.  The fridge was her next stop where she found some leftover chicken.

“I’m having peanut butter and jelly,” Alice informed her.

Kara reheated a few slices of chicken and put them on some rye bread with Mayo.  She sat down with the others.

“I had a milkshake at day-care,” Alice told them.  “Mrs. Lou let us put whatever we wanted in it.  It was really yummy.”

“Maybe later tonight we can make some more,” Walter suggested.

“And then my Daddy can try some!”  Alice seemed to like this idea.

Kara had no idea how she was going to get in touch with Alice’s dad.  “So your dad is a police officer?”

“Yup, he protects people,” Alice nodded and took a big bite out of her sandwich.  She got grape jelly all over her face but didn’t seem to notice.

“What’s his name?”  Kara took a more modest bite from her own sandwich and was careful not to slop.

“Sam Carter,” Alice told her.

“Well, when we’re done eating, I’ll try to contact him.  Here.”  Kara handed her a napkin.  “You got jelly all over your face.”

Alice took the napkin and wiped her face haphazardly.  She only wiped off some of it and the next chomp she took brought it all back.

Mrs. McGraw, Kara’s live-in maid, hurried into the kitchen then.  “Ms. Taggart, I’m so glad you’re home.  Something is wrong with Phillip.”  Phillip was Mr. McGraw, her husband and Kara’s groundskeeper.

Kara rose from her seat and shoved the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth.  Walter half rose as if to follow, but Kara held out a hand and stopped him.

“Stay with our guest,” Kara ordered after she swallowed.

The panicked Mrs. McGraw gave Alice and Shoes only the briefest of glances before hurrying out of the room.  Kara followed her through the house to the stairs.  They went up to the third floor where the McGraws and Walter lived.  They both had their own suite of rooms on either side of the house.  Mrs. McGraw led Kara to her bedroom where Phillip was lying on their bed.  The man was only a few years older than Kara but he currently looked like he could pass for 90.  His face was pale and sunken.  He and the sheets were soaked through with sweat.

“His temperature is much too high.”  Mrs. McGraw hurried to his side.  When she took his hand, he feebly tried to hold onto it.  “I tried to call an ambulance but there was only a busy signal.”

Kara picked up the digital thermometer and put it in Phillip’s ear.  When she checked his temperature, it read 109.  “This thing must be broken.”  Kara put it aside with a frown.  Sometimes she hated technology; it always seemed to break.

“I thought so too,” Mrs. McGraw explained. “So I found an old mercury thermometer we had and tried that.  It gave the same results.”

Kara frowned.  He should be dead with a temperature like that.

Mrs. McGraw leaned over and kissed her husband’s forehead.  “You’ll be all right, dear,” she whispered in his ear.  “You can fight through this.  You’ve survived worse.”

Kara wasn’t sure what Mrs. McGraw was talking about, but stood silently over them.  After a moment, she went over to the window and looked out upon the world.  In the house across the street, a red stain ruined a nice pair of thin white curtains.  A block over, a car sat abandoned in the middle of the street.  Somewhere in the distance, something large was on fire and sending up a massive black cloud.  She turned away from the window and went back to standing over the McGraws.

Phillip looked at his wife through fever-stricken eyes.  Kara could see the love in them.  She had never known love like that, but still she knew it when she saw it.  His breathing was ragged and every breath sounded like a struggle.  Kara picked up the bedside phone and tried calling 911 again but it was the same as before.  All she could do was stand over the McGraws and watch.  Phillip took several more wheezing breaths, looking into his wife’s eyes.  Suddenly, he took one deep breath that sounded clear and healthy.  He turned his head to look at the ceiling and let it out in a long sigh.  His chest didn’t rise again.

“Phillip?”  Mrs. McGraw stroked her husband’s head.  “Phillip?  Dear?”  She shook him lightly.  “Phillip, no.  No, now is not the time.  It’s too soon dear. I’m not ready.  I’m not strong enough for this.  Phillip?  You can’t leave me here alone.”

Kara stepped forward and placed a hand on Mrs. McGraw’s shoulder.  It was the only thing she could think to do.

Mrs. McGraw ran her hand over her husband’s hair again, paying no attention to Kara.  She kissed him on his forehead, then on the cheek.  “Oh, Phillip.”  With tears spilling out of her eyes, she closed his and lay her head down on his chest.

It shocked them both when Phillip began to shake and convulse.

“Phillip!” Mrs. McGraw cried out.  “Phillip!  Are you still with me, dear?  Phillip?”

Phillip stopped shaking and lay there.  His eyes had popped open again, and his face was slack-jawed.

“Phillip?”  Mrs. McGraw leaned over her husband’s face, looking into his eyes.

From where Kara stood, she saw the sudden quickness in Phillip’s eyes as they locked onto his wife.  His arms rose with a startling speed and wrapped around Mrs. McGraw.  He pulled her to him, but not in a loving embrace.  An eerie sound escaped his mouth just before his teeth sank into his wife’s flesh.

Mrs. McGraw screamed, “Phillip!  Phillip stop!  You’re hurting me, Phillip!”

Kara stepped forward and tried to pull Mrs. McGraw away from her husband.  He had latched on tight though.  Mrs. McGraw, a rather robust woman, managed to pull upright; Phillip, thin as a twig, clung to her, rising as well.  Her screams no longer had words.

Kara grabbed the homey bedside lamp.  She raised it over her head, ripping the cord out of the wall, and smashed it on Phillip’s skull.  His jaws unlocked and he turned toward Kara, releasing his wife of nearly fifty years.  He reached for her, but Kara raised her leg and kicked him hard in the forehead.  Those Tai Kwon Do classes paid off.  She grabbed Mrs. McGraw and dragged her toward the door.  Phillip tried to pursue, but he got tangled up in the bed sheets and fell to the floor.  He managed to get up and run at them, but Kara slammed the door in his face.  He turned the knob though and Kara had to grip the outer handle with both hands to keep him in.

“Phillip,” Mrs. McGraw gargled.  Blood flowed freely from a wound at the base of her neck and up out of her mouth.  “I need you Phillip.”  She got to her knees and pawed at the door.  This made it harder for Kara to hold it closed against him.

“Mrs. McGraw!” Kara shouted at her.  “Beatrice!  You must stop this!  Phillip is out of his mind, he’s trying to hurt us!”

“Phillip!”  Mrs. McGraw let out a gargled cry and pressed on the door harder.

Kara couldn’t fight both of them.  She let go and got back as fast as she could.  The door flew open and Phillip leapt upon his wife.  She screamed again but this one was cut short.  Kara ran for the stairs and flew down them.

* * *

Kara ran into Alice and Walter at the bottom of the staircase.

“What’s going on?  We heard screams.”  Walter was worried.

“It’s Mr. McGraw.  He’s attacking Mrs. McGraw,” was all Kara would offer as an explanation.

“What?”  Walter had to hurry to keep up with Kara as she ran back to the kitchen.

She knew exactly what she wanted when she got there.  A knife block, with the sharpest knives in the house, sat on a counter.  She picked out the largest chef’s knife from the block.  She then ran back out into the main hall, a confused Alice and Walter tailing behind her.  The table she had put her purse on had a small drawer, which she ripped open.  Inside was a miscellaneous collection of useful things like pens, notepads, string, batteries, and tape.  She grabbed a large roll of duct tape, not bothering to close the drawer again.  A loud banging sounded from higher up in the house and all three stopped to look up.  Shoes suddenly appeared; Kara hadn’t noticed he was absent.  He lay down next to Alice and woofed at the stairs.  This confirmed Kara’s suspicion that whatever had happened to Phillip was what happened to the other people.

“Go hide under the stairs,” Kara urgently whispered.

Alice quickly obeyed, bringing Shoes with her.

Walter stood his ground.  “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking him out.”  Kara pulled her cane out of the umbrella stand.  She held the chef’s knife tightly to the end of it and started using a hefty amount of duct tape to attach the two.

“You’re going to kill him?” Walter frowned.  “This is Phillip we’re talking about.  He’s been in your service longer than I have.”

“He’s already gone.”  Kara shoved him toward the stairs.  “And you’re right; he has worked for me for a very long time, just as his father worked for mine.  He will understand what I have to do.”

Walter continued to frown at Kara.

“Don’t make me use this on you,” Kara mocked a threat.

“Let me do it.”  Walter held out his hand.

“No.  It has to be me.”  Kara didn’t think Walter would be able to do it.  “Besides, the girl likes you more.  She’ll want you with her.”

Walter looked behind him and saw Alice peering out at them from around the stairs.  He turned and frowned at Kara one last time before running off to hide with Alice.

Kara looked up at the ceiling once more.  The banging of running feet descended the stairs.  She placed herself in the doorway to the living room.  She could navigate the room in the dark so if she was forced to back up, she’d know where she could and couldn’t step.  She braced herself, with her makeshift spear pointed forward.  It would have been better if it was longer but she didn’t have time to rip down a curtain rod.

As the frantic feet neared the final landing where Kara would be able to see him, she was reminded of her time in Africa.  She had found a band of natives that lived off the land who were willing to teach her their ways.  She had spear hunted with them several times.  This though, was more like the night when the lions came and they had to protect the small village.

Phillip appeared on the landing.  He stopped and stared down at Kara.  Maybe he saw the weapon and was hesitating.  As suddenly as he appeared, he charged down the stairs.  Kara was ready.  She sidestepped quickly, swinging her cane out and catching Phillip in the side of the face.  He stumbled past her, a large gash tearing across his cheek.  He turned quickly, unaffected by the pain, and came at her again.  This time, she stuck the knife into his chest.  Holding the end of the cane kept her just out of his reach, but the fact that he was still trying scared her.  She knew she had just punctured his lung, but he was completely unaffected.  During their struggle, the knife would shift locations, slicing his insides, but that didn’t seem to stop him at all.  Kara didn’t know what to do.  She managed to push him back until his legs tangled up over a footrest.  He fell over backwards, the knife sliding out.  With a tribal yell, Kara leaped upon him and drove the knife into his face.  It slid across his skull but managed to find his soft eye to pierce through.  Once it punctured through the back of the socket, Phillip stopped moving.

Kara backed away, panting and fearful.  She was afraid he would suddenly get back up.  The cane and knife stuck straight up from his face, unmoving.  There was a surprising lack of blood.  Just as Kara decided she should step forward and take her weapon back, a low gargle came from the entranceway.  Kara spun on her heel, hands up, ready to defend herself.  Mrs. McGraw stood there, her formerly crisp clean shirt soaked with blood.

* * *

“Mrs. McGraw.”  Kara got out of her defensive position.  She suddenly felt badly for what she had done to Phillip, not that she wouldn’t do it again if necessary.  “I’m glad to see you’re all right.”  Although she didn’t know how that was possible.  “I’m so sorry.”

Kara took a step toward Mrs. McGraw.  Mrs. McGraw, on the other hand, charged at her with the same look in her eyes that Phillip had.  Kara hurried backwards but Mrs. McGraw caught up to her.  Kara’s back was slammed into the glass covering the gas fireplace.  The woman’s teeth snapped at her face but Kara managed to hold her off by grabbing her forehead with both hands.  Mrs. McGraw was clawing at Kara’s shoulders, hard enough to tear her blouse.  Kara was thinking this might be the end for her when something cracked off the back of Mrs. McGraw’s head, releasing a pungent but familiar odour.  As she turned, Kara had an opportunity to duck away and she took it.

Walter stood at the entrance to the living room holding a decorative oil lamp.  Kara looked and saw that he had already thrown its twin at Mrs. McGraw and that that was what had cracked over her head.  The smell was the oil now covering her and the throw rug.

Mrs. McGraw screeched through her torn throat, preparing to charge.  Walter wound up like a baseball player and hurled the other lamp.  Although his aim would have been perfect, Mrs. McGraw ducked out of the way.  The lamp struck the glass in front of the fireplace.  It must have been weakened from when Kara had been slammed into it because it shattered.  There was an audible whoosh as the oil from the lamp met the pilot light inside the fireplace.  Mrs. McGraw was instantly on fire.  She charged at Walter anyway.

Kara, who had managed to cross the room once more, grabbed Walter out of the way.  The flaming Mrs. McGraw ran past, blinded by flames.  She crossed the hall into the dining room and slammed into the table.  Fire was spreading everywhere.

“Where’s Alice?” Kara had to shout over the roar as the flames licked their way up the drapes.

“She should be just outside with Shoes!”  Walter grabbed Kara’s hand and led her toward the front door.  The place was already filling with smoke and heat.

Kara glanced into the dining room just before it was out of sight.  Inside, Mrs. McGraw was still running around, bumping into things and spreading the fire even faster.

The air outside was refreshing.  Although Kara had registered the heat of the fire, she didn’t realize just how hot it was.  The sun now seemed cool in comparison.  Alice had moved away from the house, and Kara spotted her round little face peeking up over the hood of the BMW.  Walter hurried over to her.  Kara went slower, the gravel driveway hurting her feet through her socks; not to mention she was tired from her struggles.  Walter didn’t have shoes on either, but he seemed fine with it.  When Alice came out from behind the car, Kara saw that her little shoes were back on her feet.  Walter took her hand and they headed for the gate again, the dog at their heels.  Walter had made a makeshift leash by tying the string from the drawer to his collar.  With the rest of the string still wound around the roll in Alice’s hand, Shoes came across as a too-heavy-to-fly kite.  Walter must have taken it right before he went to hide with Alice.

Kara decided to walk on the grass; it was easier on her feet.  She turned and looked at her home.  The whole first floor was already aglow with firelight, but the upper floors were still untouched.  Alarms were sounding but no one would answer them.  She could picture the fireproof shutters, around her more expensive artifacts, closing, trying to protect them.  They were supposed to last long enough for the fire department to put out the blaze, but without them, the artifacts might not survive.  So much more than her home was being lost to her right now.  Treasures that would be dear to the world, as well as treasures dear only to her, like her father’s glasses and microscope, her mother’s quilts and wedding dress, photos of her sister and her.

“Ms. Taggart.”  Walter had come back and placed a hand on her shoulder.  “We should be going.  The alarm may draw more of them like they did at that other house.”

Kara nodded once and turned on her heel.  It must have also been hard on Walter, because everything he owned was in that house as well.  At least now, she understood how the fire in the distance was started.

Walter walked up to the gate and punched in the code.  He stepped through but immediately stopped.  Kara spotted the gun pointed at his head.  It was coming from an oddly low angle as if held by a child.  Walter put his hands up in the universal sign of surrender.

“Is there anyone else?” Kara heard a man’s voice ask.

“Yes,” Walter answered without moving,  “a woman and a child.”

“Can you all come out here, please?” the man called loudly, but the gun was removed.  Walter put his hands down.  He turned to face the man, then looked at Kara and Alice.  He nodded.  Alice took Kara’s hand and walked through the gate with her.

Kara was surprised to find a gruff-looking man in a wheelchair and a young boy wearing a military helmet.  It explained the low angle of the gun.

“Can one of you drive?” the boy asked with eyes full of hope.

“Of course we can,” Kara frowned.

“Then we have a proposition for you.”  The man in the wheelchair offered his hand to shake.  “My name is Alec McGregor, this is Danny Cole.”

“Kara Taggart.”  Kara shook the offered hand.  “This is Walter Dodds, and Alice Carter.”

“And this is Shoes,” Alice piped up, gesturing to her floppy dog.

“I’m going to make this quick,” McGregor spoke fast.  “We think it’s best to get out of the city.  We have a place to go to, but we need a ride.  It’s far away, and you don’t have to come the whole way if you don’t want to, but we’d greatly appreciate any distance you could take us.”

“What’s in it for us?”  Kara never gave anything free.

“Well, I assume that’s your house.”  McGregor gestured with his head.  “Which means you don’t have anywhere to go, and no supplies.”

“He’s right,” Walter admitted.

Kara scowled at him.  He had no skill for negotiations.

“I’m also a former military sniper with weapons,” McGregor added.

“He’s got a hell of a shot,” the boy chimed in.

“Make your decision quick because that fire is going to bring them in a flock.”  McGregor quickly checked the area around them.

“We don’t have a car,” Kara pointed out.  “The keys to mine were left in the house.”

“That’s fine, I can hotwire one.  Just point me to it.”  McGregor rolled himself to the gate and looked through.  “The Jeep would be perfect.”

“Please, Ms. Kara?”  Alice swung her arm and looked at her with doe eyes.

Kara took a quick look around the group.  Another child and now a cripple.  All of them looked like they wanted to agree though, and she could be left behind if Walter said he’d drive.  “Fine.”  She stepped back through the gate.

They all hurried back up the drive to the vehicles.  Danny helped push the wheelchaired man over the gravel.

“What happened to your shoulder?” McGregor asked Walter.

“We got attacked trying to get here,” Walter explained.  “Some guy bit my shoulder.”

McGregor got an unreadable look on his face, but Danny suddenly looked worried.  The boy whispered something in the man’s ear, but McGregor shook his head no.  Kara wondered what it was about.

“Do you know what’s happening?” she asked.

“No,” was all McGregor answered, his face as unreadable as granite.

They reached the Jeep, which was locked.  McGregor used the butt of his pistol to break open the driver’s window and unlock all the doors.  Thankfully Kara never turned on the alarm in her own driveway.  She had enough of alarms for one day.

“Put the stuff in the trunk,” McGregor told the boy.

Danny nodded and went to the trunk of the Jeep and opened it.  Kara went around the front and got into the passenger seat.  She’d let Walter drive.  She tried to watch the man hot wire her car, but it was too hard for her to see exactly what he was doing.  It was too bad, because that would’ve been a skill she’d like to know.

The boy came back and took McGregor’s sack.  It was clearly heavy by the way the kid dragged it.  Alice offered to help, although Kara couldn’t see her help being very useful.  Somehow, they managed to get it up into the trunk.The engine roared to life and McGregor backed away.

“Think you can help me?” he asked Walter.

“Sure, what can I do?”  Walter was always so helpful.

“I can get in the car on my own, but I’ll need you to put my chair in the trunk.”  McGregor opened the back door.

Walter held his chair steady while the man pulled himself up onto the back seat like a seal onto ice.  He pushed himself into an upright position and manipulated his legs until he was seated properly.

“See those levers on the sides there?”  McGregor pointed to something on his chair for Walter that Kara couldn’t see.  “Flip them both, then those two there, and the chair should fold together…  There you go.”

Walter carried the folded chair to the trunk while Danny and Alice climbed in next to McGregor.  Alice put on her seat belt right away.

“Put on your seat belt,” she dutifully told Danny.  “Bad things can happen if you don’t.”

Danny didn’t argue and buckled up.

“You too, mister,” she said to McGregor.

“Yes, ma’am.”  McGregor gave her a grin as he put on his own belt.

“You have to put yours on too, Kara, and tell Mister Walter when he gets in.”  Alice was being thorough.  “Come on, Shoes.”

The dog huffed and scrabbled up into the back underneath Alice’s feet.  The girl bent down and heaved the pooch up onto her lap just as Walter climbed into the driver’s seat.  He put on his belt right away so Alice didn’t have to tell him.  All the doors were closed.

“Anything I should know about the car before I start driving?” Walter asked McGregor.

“Well, if you want to turn off the engine, you have to separate a few wires, but I don’t think you need to worry about that.  Just head north for now.”  McGregor patted Walter’s uninjured shoulder.

Walter put the car in drive, and they started rolling forward.  Kara looked toward the car-sized gates and noticed several people had gathered there, reaching through the bars.

“What do we do?” Walter asked at large.

“Can you open the gates from inside the car?”  McGregor peered around the driver’s seat.

“Yes.”  Kara pointed out a small black object that looked like a garage door opener attached to her visor.

“Good.  Then open the gates, and drive right through them.”  McGregor leaned back in his seat.

With that, Kara gained respect for the man.  He was cold, but he knew what needed to be done and had no remorse about it.  She watched as Walter took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  She reached over and placed a hand on one of his.  When he looked at her, she gave him a reassuring nod.  It had to be done.

“All right.  Hold on back there.”  Walter reached over and pressed the button, and then gunned the accelerator.

The moment the gates swung open, the handful of people rushed in.  Kara squeezed her eyes shut as the Jeep and humans met.  There were a few bumps to either side of the vehicle but it didn’t feel like they had actually run over anything.  When Kara opened her eyes, they were on the street and racing north.

She looked at Walter first, who was shaken and pale but seemed to be taking it well.  Then she checked out the back seat.  Alice looked completely content petting the dog on her lap.  The boy, Danny, looked relieved.  The man though, McGregor, was clearly troubled by something.  She would have to find out what.

21:

The Doctor

Dr. Riley Bishop looked at the blank wall in her bedroom.  Ever since she had moved to her bungalow in Leighton, it had been dominated by a massive map of the city.  Not only was it gone, but so were all her zombie route maps.  Whoever was here either knew they were zombies, or had made a good guess.  She hoped it wasn’t anyone affiliated with LeBlanc or Cole.  Whoever it was though, was travelling with Cole’s younger brother and this may prove advantageous for Riley.

She left her bedroom and went back out into the living room where Cole was sitting on her couch looking somewhat morose.  Riley didn’t like seeing him that way for a handful of reasons; the strongest being that he didn’t have his head in the game, and the game was survival.  LeBlanc was checking out a painting on the wall that she had bought when she moved in.  It was a simplistic black and white abstract piece.

“I have good news,” Riley said to both of them, but more so to Cole.

“What is it?”  LeBlanc turned to her, but Cole only gave her half his attention.  It was very obvious he cared deeply for his brother, but understood he wasn’t likely to see him again.  He was essentially beginning to mourn.  Riley needed him not to.

“I think I know where your brother and his current keeper are heading,” she announced.

Cole suddenly gave her his full attention, snapping into an upright position.  “Where?  How do you know?”

“I kept a bunch of maps in my room about where to go during an event,” she told him.

“An event?”  LeBlanc raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve seen my house; you know I’ve tried to prepare for anything and everything.  I refer to such things as events,” Riley informed him.  “Once I saw that my master city map was gone, I looked through the others.  It seems the wheelchaired individual stole all my maps labelled for a zombie outbreak.”

“You had a zombie plan,” LeBlanc grinned.

“I never believed it would happen,” Riley quickly told them.  “My father just happened to drill these kinds of things into me and my siblings.  No matter how much I thought it couldn’t happen, I drew up plans anyway.  Think of it as a hobby, except this hobby turned out to be useful.”

“So he took your zombie maps.”  Cole brought the conversation back on track.  “He knew they were zombies?”

“Maybe,” Riley shrugged,  “or they made an educated guess.  Either way, if they took my maps, they’re likely to follow them.”

“And you remember where they go,” Cole didn’t make this a question; he was smart enough to figure out where the conversation was going.  He smiled broadly.

“I do.”  Riley couldn’t help but give him a half smirk at his enthusiasm.  “Now I can’t say for sure they’ll even make it there, but if we head out there, there’s a possibility of finding your brother.”

“Let’s do it.”  Cole jumped to his feet, ready to head out the door immediately.

“Hold your horses.”  Riley held up a hand.  “We need supplies first.  It’s extremely rough terrain where we’re going, and there are no shops or other houses nearby.  There are supplies there, but we need to prepare for anything.”

“I thought we were.”  LeBlanc shifted his rifle.

“Do you know what happens when the power goes out?” Riley challenged him.

The random change of topic clearly threw LeBlanc off balance.  “The meat goes bad?”

“Six hours after the power goes out, and it will soon because people are probably already abandoning their posts, chemical plants can’t keep cool anymore.  Their generators will run dry,” Riley informed him.  “The chemicals will turn from a liquid to a gas.  The gas causes a pressure build and safety valves will release the excess pressure.  The pressure will be immense though, as all the liquid warms up and changes states.  Lots and lots of chemicals will be released into the air, causing poison gas clouds.  The gas clouds may also reach open flames or cars with the engines still running.  Now we have poison clouds and explosions to deal with.”

LeBlanc clearly didn’t know what to say to that.

Riley turned to Cole.  “Do you know what could happen ten days after the power goes out?”

Cole shook his head.  “What?”

“The generators at nuclear waste storage facilities will run out of gas if no one refills them.  The chilled water around the used fuel rods will no longer be kept chilled.  Roughly three days after that, the rods will have burned off all the water.  They’ll cause an explosion and a massive nuclear disaster.  Do either of you know how much food you need to eat during a day of say, -20 degrees Celsius?” Riley grilled them.  Neither answered.  “Do you know how to grow food in a green house?…  How about how to deal with a polar bear?  Hunt caribou?”

“Point and shoot,” LeBlanc offered an answer to the last question.

“Let me expand that; hunt with a bow,” Riley corrected herself.

LeBlanc didn’t have an answer to that one.

“All these things I’m going to need to teach you,” Riley informed them.  “Where we’re going, temperatures get real low.  There’s almost always ice except for four months out of the year.  We’re lucky that time is now.  It’s called Polar Bear Provincial Park for a reason.  There’s a lot of polar bears, they’re big, and they can be nasty.  You have to understand that this isn’t just something that’s likely to go away overnight.  You told me yourselves the hybrid infection is pretty much completely self-sustaining.  We could be there for quite awhile.  Bullets eventually run out.  Hunting with bows is the best option because you can retrieve your arrows and I can teach you to make more.  Due to the cold, we have to grow things in a green house.  Even that is really hard because, without much sun, we need sun lights and they run on generators and eventually gas runs out.  We need to go prepared.  Got it?”

“All right,” Cole sighed,  “you’re the boss.  If Danny is heading there, he’s going to have the same problems, so if you know what we need, I’ll listen.”

“Look at you, taking orders,” LeBlanc ribbed him.

“LeBlanc, go outside and turn the ambulance around.  Back it up to the garage,” Riley turned her orders on him.

“Yes, ma’am,” LeBlanc mocked, going as far as saluting her as he left the house.

“Cole, come with me.”  Riley led Cole downstairs and into her storage room.  “I was actually supposed to meet someone here, but I doubt you’re willing to wait.”

“Not if I don’t have to,” Cole admitted.  “If Danny is headed north now, there is a chance of finding him along the way.  Not to mention that we could pass him and get the place ready before he gets there.”

“I’m willing to accept that.  The earlier we leave, the better.  A lot of people are likely to think that north is the way to go.”  Riley slid some flattened cardboard boxes out from behind a shelf.  “Start putting a few of these boxes together and load them up.”

“What should I load first?”  Cole readily accepted his role.  Riley did expect more resistance but apparently, he loved his brother just that much.  Part of her understood that; she loved her siblings more than anyone.  Difference was, she knew they could take care of themselves.

“Start with the canned goods, and ammo for the hunting rifles.”  Riley pointed out which ones she meant.  “I’m going to pack a few bags for my friend and anyone he may have with him.”  She wasn’t going to abandon Cender completely.

Cole went to work on his task with military efficiency.  Riley was glad she had nearly run him over.  He was useful, and would probably continue to be.  LeBlanc was useful too, but he had a mouth on him.  He wasn’t very respectful so it was hard for Riley to respect him.

She picked out seven large hiker’s backpacks to fill with supplies to leave behind.  She didn’t think that Cender would be able to convince that many people to go with him, but due to the limited space of the ambulance, she’d have more than enough supplies to fill the seven large packs.  The medical supplies she knew that Cender would find useful were picked out first and set aside.  She would put those on top and label that bag just for him.  She also picked out the biggest tent and set it aside as well.  Since she didn’t know how many people would be showing up, she’d have to be careful how she packed the bags and she’d have to label them.  She didn’t want Cender getting stuck without something simply because it was in a bag he didn’t bring.  As she picked out what would go into the bags, she also separated a bunch of stuff she knew she and her companions had to bring, or at least, really should bring.  When LeBlanc came back inside, Riley gave him the job of taking the boxes Cole had packed out into the garage.

“Why do I have to do all the lifting?” he both grinned and complained.

Riley was beginning to hate that grin already.  “Because you talk too much.”

“I’m hurt,” LeBlanc made a show of pouting.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as sarcastic as you.”  Riley turned to Cole.  “Does he ever stop?”

“Nope,” Cole shook his head.  “He even talks in his sleep.”

Riley sighed.  “Just take the damn boxes upstairs.”

LeBlanc winked at her and took the first box.

“Would you mind if we left him by the side of the road?”  Riley was only half kidding.

“No matter how annoying he gets, it doesn’t change the fact that he saved my life.”  Cole put another packed box by the door.

“And yet you got shot in the chest,” Riley reminded him.

“Well, that part was Chant saving me.  She gave me the vest.”  Cole patted it through his black T-shirt with its Marble Keystone patches on the shoulders.  “To be literal, it was LeBlanc’s bladder that saved us.  He was behind the truck taking a piss when they opened fire.  Despite his yapping, he’s a good shot, better than me.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Riley rolled her eyes.

“So how did you get into all of this?”  Cole gestured around the room, changing the subject.

“My dad.”  Riley tossed a tent for them toward the door.  It wouldn’t need to be put into a box.  “Apparently it’s something that’s been passed on from generation to generation.  It started with my great grandpa during World War I and from there it only grew.  If my family hears something bad might happen, they prepare for it.  It was what I grew up with, and it became hard-wired.”

“Y2K must have been a really big deal for you then.”  Cole sounded serious, but Riley could tell he was joking with her.  She found him easy to read, which was pleasant and nicely, stress free.  Riley could normally only read her family; her people skills were underdeveloped.  Growing up, she had never had any friends outside of her siblings.  Her sister was her best friend and the only one she understood completely.

“Biggest and most isolated New Year ever,” she replied.

“I guess in the end though, it turned out for the best.  I’m curious, where the hell did you get the licenses to own most of this stuff?”  Cole picked up one of the military class assault rifles.  That particular model came with a grenade launcher attachment.

“I’ll be honest, most of it isn’t registered.”  Riley saw no point in lying now.  “My family made a lot of contacts and collected everything they could whenever they could.  That’s how we got the cabin too.  Although my parents never told me outright, it’s pretty obvious that it’s illegally placed.”  She remembered that one time when she was a teenager, her dad had taken her to buy some illegal weaponry.  The cops had shown up and the two of them ended up running for their lives.  Talk about a daddy-daughter day.

“And no one’s found it?”  Cole placed another box by the door.

“It is literally in the middle of nowhere.  There are no roads going to it.  We’re going to need to fly in, or else do a lot of hiking.  It’s also hidden by some trees and a lovely giant mat of grass my mother wove,” Riley said this seriously, as it was true.  Her life was like no one else’s.  At least, no one else’s outside her family.

Cole couldn’t hold back his laughter.  Riley’s first reaction was to be pissed off, but once she started thinking about it, really thinking about it, it was rather amusing.  She started to giggle and then laugh too.  Their laughter played off one another until they were almost crying.  It was a lot harder than the situation and the discussion warranted but it was difficult to stop.

“What’s with the giggle fest?”  LeBlanc had come back for the next box.

“It’s nothing.”  Cole coughed and got his laughter under control, but he was still smiling.

Riley liked his smile a lot more than LeBlanc’s grin.

* * *

The three of them continued packing things until Riley thought they had enough, and they brought everything up into the garage.  Riley took the seven hiker’s packs and placed them near the door, where Cender would be sure to see them.  With a black permanent marker, she numbered each bag.  She then wrote out instructions about which bags to take and a rough list about what was in them.  The last thing she had to do was to draw up a map.  She grabbed one of her other maps to use as a reference, but drew up a much smaller and simpler one for Cender with only the directions he should need.  They were actually the directions to her brother’s place, because he had the plane they would be taking, but wrote a note about what to do if they got there and she wasn’t there.

Cole happened to be looking over her shoulder as she wrote.

“Your brother’s place?” he gave her a somewhat concerned look.

“Don’t worry,” Riley assured him,  “the maps that were stolen from me lead there first as well.”

“What will your brother do if they show up with your maps but without you?” Cole frowned.

“He would ask them how they got them, and if they’re smart, they’ll answer truthfully.  He may send them on their way, or he may offer to fly them out.  I really can’t say.”  Riley had no idea what her brother would do with this kind of situation.  She herself was doing things she didn’t think she would, so how could she say what he would?  It was likely he would shoot them if he did as he was trained, but Riley wasn’t going to tell Cole that.  The guy already had enough to worry about.

They went to the garage and lined up everything the way it was going to be packed into the ambulance.  They tried to spread everything out so that if they had to lose half their stuff for whatever reason, it wouldn’t be all of one thing.  Although Riley had a car parked in her garage, they agreed the ambulance had more space and medical gear already inside and was, therefore, the better choice.  Cole grabbed the bottom of the garage door while LeBlanc grabbed the inner handle.  He counted down from three on one hand, and the two men heaved the door open.  Riley dashed out as soon as the opening was wide enough and opened the ambulance doors.  They were quick and efficient getting everything inside, and then slammed the rear doors closed.

“I just want to change my clothes, and then we can go.”  Riley ducked under the garage door again just as the ‘mercenaries’ were closing it.  They didn’t have a chance to follow.

Riley moved quickly through her house.  She didn’t think twice about the fact that it was very likely to be the last time she ever saw the place.  Riley never got attached to places.  She had been moved all over Canada throughout her life, as well as a few stops in other countries.  If anything, the backwoods cabin she and her family spent a few weeks in every year, the one they were headed to now, was the closest thing she ever had to a stable home.  She never had a chance to get attached to anything personal.  Objects meant nothing to her and relationships with people outside the Bishop clan were still something she was new to.  She preferred online entities when she wanted contact and spent almost all her social hours in chat rooms and in online forums.

Riley walked into her room and hurried over to her closet.  She stripped out of her scrubs and white coat and threw on a tight black T-shirt and a pair of black pants.  The pants had zippers around the knees so she could turn them into shorts.  Because of the hot weather, she opted to do this, although she looped the detached halves on her arms to bring them.  It would get cold up north, and although she had packed lots of winter gear, it would be easier just to reattach the pants until it got really cold.  She then threw on a clean pair of socks and a good pair of shoes for walking, running, climbing, or whatever other physical activity she might get into.

It was while she sat on her bedroom floor, tying up the second shoe that the little infected girl burst into her room.  The snarling menace ran through the door and leaped upon her bed.  She stopped suddenly, staring out the window.  Frozen.

Riley stayed equally frozen.  She should have been more careful, but once she had given them the title of zombie, it was easy to forget they could open doors.  LeBlanc must not have bothered to lock the front door when he came in from moving the ambulance.  Riley was like a marble statue, not daring to twitch even an eye.  The girl stood on her bed, out of reach, just in front of Riley.  She hadn’t seemed to notice Riley sitting to her left yet; she was transfixed by something else.

There was a slight movement near the door, and Riley slowly moved only her eyes to look.  Cole stood in the doorway, rifle raised.  He moved as silently as a wraith.  When he locked eyes with Riley for a moment, she couldn’t read them.  That bothered her greatly, especially considering how easily she read him earlier.  Then, he ever so slowly side stepped away from the room.  Riley had no idea where he was going.  She wondered why he didn’t help her.  Was he just going to ditch her?  It wouldn’t surprise her.  She might have done the same.  They had access to the map she made and all the supplies were packed and ready to go.

Every move was carefully done to make no sound and to draw no attention.  Just when Riley thought she might have to fend for herself, she saw LeBlanc slowly take Cole’s place.  LeBlanc looked at her while his rifle pointed at the girl.  His eyes held the question.  Riley gave the slightest nod.  The moment she did, the little girl’s torn and bloody face snapped around, her sunken eyes boring into Riley.  She was fast, but LeBlanc was faster.  Before the girl could even completely turn her body to follow her dead eyes, her head was blown apart by not one, but two shots.  She collapsed into a heap on the bedspread.

Riley quickly jumped to her feet, forgetting all about her half-tied shoelace.  Although she knew it was going to happen, it was still unexpected.  She grew up surrounded by the threat of imminent death, but she hadn’t realized just how much her time spent being a doctor had affected her.  That was a job about saving life, not taking it away.  Although she could tell the girl was already dead, had to be dead, it still jarred her.  She had been standing and moving only moments ago and now her body lay prone and blown apart on her bed.  Riley walked over to her and looked at the girl.  She didn’t know her name, or how she became this way.  It was like the woman Riley shot in Cole’s brother’s house.  Even though she didn’t kill this one herself, it was so much worse because it was just a little girl.

Riley picked up a corner of the bed’s comforter, one that didn’t get blood on it, and pulled it up and over the girl.  She couldn’t have a proper burial or even a death shroud, but she could at least be covered.

“We should go,” Cole said from the doorway.  “Now, before more come.”

Riley looked at the small lump and nodded.  She turned and headed out the doorway, brushing past LeBlanc and Cole.  There was a sudden flame of anger at both of them burning in the pit of her stomach.  They hadn’t been the ones who created the monstrous virus/prion hybrid, but they did work for such people.  They knew of its existence and told no one.  Still, they had probably just saved her life and had valuable information.  She swallowed the fire, keeping it in her belly instead of lashing out.  She forgot that not long ago she had been laughing with one of them.  Perhaps, after they were further north, she would try to deal with it.  Hell, maybe even on the ride it would subside on its own.

When Riley walked out the door, she spotted five more zombies making their way toward the house.  Four of them were the slower, dim-witted kind.  They shuffled and stumbled, and one even fell over.  He had tripped over his own feet.  The fifth was smarter, faster.  He spotted Riley quickly and started running head long at her.

This time Cole stepped forward to blow him away.  He had to take several shots before hitting him in the head.

“LeBlanc’s a better shot than you,” Riley stated without really thinking.

“I know.”  Cole shouldered his rifle and led the rest of the way to the ambulance.  “That’s why I stepped aside to let him take the shot in the bedroom.  I didn’t think that girl deserved a fuck up.”

Cole gained a little bit more respect, dulling Riley’s anger flare somewhat.  “Where’s LeBlanc now?”  As she climbed into the ambulance’s driver seat, she realized he wasn’t even outside yet.

“He’ll be out in a minute.”  Cole went around to the passenger side and got in.  “He’s just taking a moment to pull himself together.  He didn’t plan on shooting any little girls when he woke up this morning.”

Riley’s anger all but left.  Just a handful of sentences were all it took.  That had to be a record.  She knew now that the seed was there, and the anger could come back at any moment.  She’d have to watch that and make sure she could control it if it decided to rise up at an inappropriate time.  She had never been an emotional person, but the last few hours had been bringing out all sorts of things in her.  Maybe it was because the thing she had been putting her life on hold for, was finally occurring.  It scared her.

They waited for LeBlanc.  He came out presently and ran over to the ambulance, pulling open the back door and jumping in amongst all the gear.

“Let’s roll!”  He didn’t sound like anything was wrong.

Riley briefly wondered if Cole was lying to her, but she couldn’t think of any other reason for LeBlanc to have taken so long to follow them outside.  She started up the engine and pulled quickly out of the driveway.  Although she could have easily run over at least one of the zombies, possibly sparing someone else, she avoided hitting them.  She also avoided running over the dead bodies in the street as they went downhill.

* * *

As they headed through suburbia, it was very obvious things had gone badly here.  Riley originally thought it would take longer to spread out from the city, but she hadn’t counted on the several day gestation period.  Things were broken all over and people wandered the streets.  Some clearly zombies, some not.  Some impossible to tell.  They didn’t stop to pick up anyone.  They had no way to tell if they had been infected or not.  Besides, it seemed like most of them ran away at the sight of a moving vehicle anyway.  The zombies tended to run at the vehicle.

Several more cars were on the roads now too.  People were starting to flee in all directions.  It wouldn’t be long before all the roads out of town were clogged, not to mention all the accidents that were bound to happen.  They had already come across one that looked like two people had decided to ignore the stop signs and had smashed into each other in their haste.

Riley thought it was rather like sleeping.  She had had dreams of such things when she was a child.  Living it now, breathing it, was so surreal.  Although she had been trained her whole life for just such an event to occur, to actually have it happen was so odd.  So very unreal.

She wondered if her dad would say, I told you so.

22:

The College Student

Misha lay completely still in the bushes, breathing slowly and evenly.  His lips were
right against the soft dirt, and he was practically breathing it in.  Several branches pressed uncomfortably into his back and sides.  The dog, Rifle, lay pressed up against his legs, overheating them.  Rifle knew of the need for silence and didn’t even pant, despite the heat.  No matter how uncomfortable Misha was, he wouldn’t dare move.

He hadn’t moved for the past ten minutes and his muscles were starting to cramp, but the woman on the lawn was too much of a threat.  She ran back and forth, snarling and snapping at the air.  Misha was lucky he was taking things slowly or else she would have spotted him for sure.

A gunshot or a vehicle backfiring sounded in the distance, perhaps a few blocks over.  The woman’s head snapped around in that direction.  She paused, as if debating the sound, then took off running full tilt.

Misha still didn’t dare to move.  He couldn’t be sure she wasn’t going to come back.  Rifle seemed surer than him though and began shuffling out of the brush.  Misha thought the dog was going to leave without him, but he returned a moment later.  He snuffled around the brush in front of Misha’s face, then gave a low whine thinking something was wrong.  Misha finally moved.  His muscles both screamed and sighed in relief.  He scrabbled out of the brush and stretched his arms and legs on the lawn.  Even Rifle did some stretching.

“How much farther do you think it is?” Misha whispered to the German shepherd.  Since leaving his home, with Dean dead in the basement, he had only managed to travel a few blocks.

The shepherd cocked his head to the side, not comprehending the question.  Or perhaps he was thinking about it, trying to do the math of distance versus travel time, and adding in the possibility of threats they would have to stop for.  Both these possibilities seemed likely to Misha.

When his muscles felt like they would co-operate well enough, Misha set off in the direction of Rifle’s house.  He had gotten it into his head that someone with a dog named Rifle must surely own a rifle, and that, because the dog was running loose, his owner wasn’t home and wouldn’t miss the gun if Misha were to “borrow” it.  Although Misha had never fired a gun before, his dad used to take him hunting, so he knew the basic operation.  That and he had watched a lot of movies.  He knew the most important thing was never to point the business end at himself, or someone he didn’t want to hurt.  Or some dog, as the case currently was.

The process was slow.  Misha stuck to the sides of buildings and fences, crawling through bushes when he could.  His pale skin was becoming covered in angry red scratches and dirt.  A few wounds were deep enough to draw a bit of blood, but none was bad enough that he had to worry about them.

He crawled through some flowerbeds lining the side of a house and headed toward the fence at the rear end of the backyard.  A loud shattering sound from inside the house caused him to pause.  Carefully turning his head around, Misha peered through a pair of brightly coloured flowers he didn’t know the name of.  He stared at the house for several minutes but saw no movement beyond the glass and curtains.  Misha decided to continue on his way, but kept his ears open for any more sounds from the house.

What a strange saying that was, keeping your ears open.  As far as Misha could tell, the holes in the sides of his head were always open.  When he had been learning English, he realized there were many sayings that were odd, in all languages.  He often wondered where they came from, and sometimes, during his free time, he would look them up on the internet.  This one, he supposed, was just the auditory equivalent of keeping one’s eyes open.  Keeping your eyes peeled was another one.  That just sounded painful.

The large wooden slats of the fence loomed before him.  Misha crouched in the shrubbery and looked toward the top, and to the left and the right.  There was no gate in this fence to get to the other side.  Perhaps he could climb it.  He peered out from the shrubs at the house.  Movement at one of the upper windows caught his eye.  So there was someone in there.  He looked back at the fence, now hesitant to climb.  He would be exposed.  Some scratching turned his attention further along the fence.  At first, he thought it was someone on the other side scratching at the boards.  It turned out to be Rifle, on this side, digging furiously.

Misha scooted through the dirt over to the dog.  There was already a fair-sized hole under the fence from some other animal and Rifle was only making it bigger.  Once it was large enough, the big dog squeezed his way through, kicking his back legs in a way that nearly made Misha laugh out loud.  Once the dog was through he turned around and stuck his nose back under the fence, snuffling.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Misha assured him with whispered breath.

As he squirmed under the fence, the boards scraped painfully across his back.  He didn’t like the yard on the other side.  There were no bushes, flowerbeds, or trees.  There was no cover of any kind.  The only things on this back lawn were a back porch with a barbecue on it, and a clothesline with no clothes.  The sliding door that led out onto the porch was wide open.

Misha stuck close to the fence and crouched low as he made his way around the yard.  He tried to stick to the shadows cast by the wooden fence, but the sun was so high in the sky that there weren’t many.  There weren’t any clouds up there either; it was a perfect blue sky day.

“Excuse me, boy?”

Misha startled, wheeling around to face the back of the house, skinny arms up to defend himself.  On the porch stood an old black woman with a walker.  She peered at him though a pair of small spectacles perched upon her nose.

“Could you help me hang out my laundry?” she asked.

Misha had never been more confused.  He looked down at Rifle, but the dog hadn’t taken an attack stance.

“Who’s that with you?”  The woman looked at Rifle.  “Is it Harly?  Did you finally bring my grandson to visit?  Come here, Harly, and let me take a look at you.”

Misha had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but he took a step closer anyway.  Rifle trotted a few more steps, sniffing at the air.  He swished his tail a few times, and then went up to the woman.  Trusting the dog, Misha decided it was safe to follow.

“So good of you to come and see your mother, Clark.”  The woman gave Misha a winning smile when he came near.  “Come help me in the kitchen, I’m making soup.”

“I thought you were doing the laundry.”  Misha slowly followed the woman into her house, checking all the corners.

“Nonsense!”  The woman waved a hand about.  “I don’t do laundry on Tuesdays, you should know that.  Your memory must be going bad.”

With that, it dawned on Misha what was going on.  The woman probably had Alzheimer’s.  It was the only reason Misha could think of that would explain why he could be mistaken for her son.  She was completely addled.

“Where did my soup go?” the woman frowned at the empty stove.  “Oscar must have run off with it again.  He never waits until things are done cooking.  I keep telling him, ‘it’ll taste better when it’s cooked properly,’ but he just keeps on eating it too soon anyway.  No patience in that boy.”

As the woman prattled on about people Misha knew nothing about and filled up a pot presumably to make more soup, Misha looked around the whole kitchen.  Things seemed to be where they should be which led Misha to believe that the woman didn’t live in the house alone.

“Who else is here?”  Misha listened carefully for the sounds of other people but couldn’t hear any.

“That annoying buzzard Rachael is probably around somewhere.  Rachael!” The woman’s yell scared Misha into flinching and half ducking.  He instinctively stepped nearer the still open rear door.  The woman and Misha listened for a moment but there was no sound.  “She must have gone to the mart again.  I don’t know why you boys hired that woman.  I don’t need to be taken care of, and she spends half the time shopping anyway.”

Misha sat at the table, grateful to get a rest.  He knew he was taking advantage of this woman, but right now, morals weren’t too high on his list of behaviours.  He wasn’t even sure his list existed anymore.  It had become an instinctive free-for-all in his head.

The woman continued going on about this and that.  It was hard for Misha to follow along.  Sometimes she seemed to know what year it was, other times she was far back in the past.  When she knew the year, she seemed stuck in thinking that it was Tuesday instead of Saturday.  Thankfully, Misha didn’t seem to be expected to reply to anything and could just sit there in silence.  Rifle lay down at his side, head up and following the woman’s path around the kitchen.  When the water boiled, she threw in pasta instead of soup.  Eventually the food finished cooking, and the woman piled pasta onto four big plates.  She set the table for four, not seeming to realize that Misha was still sitting there.  When she sat down across from him, she stared at him long and hard.

“Who are you?” she finally said.

Misha decided lying wouldn’t do her any harm.  “I’m a writer.  I came by to ask you your life story, remember?”  He couldn’t write anything good if his life depended on it, but it was the first thing to pop into Misha’s head.

The woman scrutinized him some more.  “I see.”  She then took a big bite out of her pasta.  “I forgot the sauce.”  She went to the fridge and took out a jar of pasta sauce. She dumped a heap of it onto each plate, cold.  “Eat up,” she told Misha.

Misha ate.  He had never been fond of pasta.  He had always preferred slabs of meat, but he dug into his plate with gusto.  Realizing he didn’t know when his next meal was going to be, he decided to make the most of this one.  When the woman wasn’t paying attention, Misha picked up one of the extra plates and put it on the floor for Rifle.  The dog’s tail wagged ferociously back and forth as he began gobbling it up.

“So, how have you been, Clark?” the woman asked.

“Umm.”  Misha didn’t really know what to say.  “I’ve been good.”

“Still seeing that whore?”

Misha nearly choked.  When he started coughing, the woman got up and got him a glass of milk.  She sat down and continued to scrutinize him.

“So, are you?” the woman asked again when Misha managed to stop coughing.

“Uh, no, I’m not,” he decided to answer.

“Good,” the woman gave a curt nod.  “You’re too good for her.”

There was silence at the table once more.  Misha cleaned off his plate and took half the pasta off the remaining plate.  He scraped the other half onto Rifle’s.

“Why are you putting food on the floor, you naughty boy?” the woman frowned.

“I’m feeding my dog,” Misha explained.

“A dog?”  The woman leaned over and looked down at Rifle.  The woman and the dog stared at each other, practically nose to nose.  “You are a dog,” the woman finally decided.  “Why is there a dog in my house?”

“I’m sorry, but I had to bring him,” Misha told her.

“When did you get a dog, Clark?  Why couldn’t you have gotten yourself a good woman, like that Rachael.”

Misha shrugged and continued to tuck into the food.  He polished off the plate and downed the glass of milk.

“Who are you?” the woman asked again.

“I told you-” Misha started to tell his lie again, but was interrupted when the woman suddenly shot up from her chair.

“What are you doing in my house?” she shouted.  “Oscar!  Oscar, there’s a strange man in the house!”

Misha got up out of the chair.  Rifle whined slightly and backed towards the open door, tail tucked between his legs.

“Get out!” she shrieked as she grabbed hold of her walker.  She kept trying to pick it up and threaten Misha with it.  “Out!  Get out!  Oscar!”

Misha quickly dashed out of the kitchen and into the backyard, Rifle at his heels.  The woman hurriedly closed the back door and glared out at him.  She wasn’t yelling anymore, but she was clearly still saying something, her lips moving near the glass.

“Thank you for the food,” Misha spoke in an indoor voice.  He knew the woman couldn’t hear him, but he was afraid to speak any louder.  “I hope you keep all your doors locked and that nothing comes through your windows.”

With that, he hurried around to the side of the house and made his way carefully to the front lawn.  The woman’s neighbours had a line of short pine-tree-looking bushes growing along the edge of their yard to separate it from the woman’s driveway.  Misha hurried over to them and lay on his stomach up against their stubby trunks.  He couldn’t quite lay under them, but there was a bit of overhang that made him feel somewhat safer.  Safer than being totally exposed, at least.  The massive amount of food he had consumed weighed heavily in his stomach.  He probably should have taken it easy, but he had been hungry.  It seemed like ages ago that he had eaten his waffles.  Of course, that was a time he’d rather not think about; he needed to focus on the now.  Next to him, Rifle burped.  He probably ate too much too.  Misha never owned a dog so he had no idea how to take care of one.  He figured splitting his food shouldn’t be too bad.

He rested for a while next to the brush.  Not only was he letting the food settle, but he was deciding on the best way to cross the street ahead.  This street, and possibly only one more, was all he had to cross, although he was guessing at where the numbers were placed and could be totally wrong.  After his break, he inched toward the end of the scrub until he was at the bottom of the driveway and looked up and down the street.  He saw nothing that appeared to be a threat.  He then watched all the nearby houses, studying them carefully.  Some shadows moved in a few of them, but for the most part, things were still.

Misha thought about the woman with Alzheimer’s.  He wondered if the fact that she tried to attack him was related to what was going on out here or not.  He had no idea what was happening to his neighbourhood.  People just seemed to have gone nuts.  He had seen a few attacks occur during his journey.  They were excessively violent and were completely unprovoked.  Misha figured that he had kind of provoked the woman and, therefore, her attack wasn’t related to the rest.  Why the others were flipping out, he had no idea.  He decided then to avoid everyone, even people that at first seemed normal.  After all, Dean had been normal.  Although, Dean also seemed to have died.

That thought was quickly pushed out.  Misha studied the street again and decided that the best course of action was to make a mad dash across.  He pushed himself up onto his hands and the balls of his feet.  Both were cut and dirtied worse than the rest of him.  Rifle seemed to sense what was going on and got up into a half crouch.  After one last look around the area, Misha ran for it.  Rifle bolted ahead, intuitively knowing where to go.  Misha’s target destination was the porch of the house across the street.  Most of the porches in this area were made out of slabs of concrete on top of brick, but this one was wooden and had a space large enough for Misha to crawl under.  He squirmed his way inside and held his breath, listening.  The only sound he heard was Rifle panting at his side.  No shrieks, screams, or groans, no pounding of feet.  Misha shifted around and peered out from under the porch.  Nothing moved out there.

He crawled to the back of the porch and lay on his back against the house.  His stomach didn’t appreciate the run and was making some upset motions.  It was cool under the porch compared to out in the sunlight.  It also smelled of dirt, dust, and cobwebs.  There were bound to be bugs crawling around under there, but Misha didn’t think about them.  Rifle lay up against his side and huffed.  Misha put his hand on the dog’s head and scratched his ears a few times.  The dog’s tail thumped lightly in the dirt.  It was surprisingly comfy under the porch.  The dirt was more mushy than hard, and the heat off the dog combined nicely with the cold house wall.  He closed his eyes and sighed.

* * *

The next thing Misha knew, Rifle was licking his face.  Misha spluttered and pushed his snout away.  Rifle was standing as tall as he could under the porch, looking down at his face.  He couldn’t remember feeling the dog get up.  He must have actually fallen asleep.  Misha tried to ask Rifle what was up, but his throat was so full of mucus that no sound came out.

This turned out to be a good thing because a creak sounded from the wood above.  Someone was walking around up there.  Misha couldn’t tell what they were doing or whether they were dangerous.  The footsteps wandered from one end of the porch to the other and back.  Misha slowly pushed himself up on his elbows and peered through a crack in the boards.  He couldn’t see much more than part of the house’s outer wall and the eaves high overhead.  He heard the footsteps coming closer, starting near his feet and coming toward his head.  A bit of dirt fell between the boards and landed lightly on his bare stomach.  Whoever was up there stopped right above Misha’s head.  He couldn’t see what he or she looked like due to his very narrow field of view and some shadows being cast, but he could see that whoever it was, was a lot bigger than him.

Misha was guessing that the person on the porch was male.  Probably a big muscular guy who worked in construction or something.  Most of the guys in Misha’s college class looked like that, so he knew the type.  His boots were big and heavy and clomped around.  Eventually he stopped pacing.  Misha didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.  He could, all too well, picture the individual suddenly moving silently, sneaking up on him while he thought he was standing still.  Misha turned his head to the gap in the boards and listened as intently as he could.  He could hear the person breathing, but it sounded odd, as if he was wearing a mask of some kind.  He then heard the screen door of the house open, and the person tried to turn the knob.  It must have been locked because a loud crack came next.  Misha assumed he had kicked the door down with his heavy boots.  It sounded like he entered the house.

Rifle scooted away from Misha toward the front of the porch.  He didn’t crawl out from under it though.  Misha rolled slowly and made his way next to the dog.  He peered out from under the wooden beams.  Judging by the amount of sunlight and shadow, he hadn’t been asleep for very long.  However, it was long enough for some visitors to have arrived.  On the street were three odd, big, white trucks flanked by a pair of covered military-type trucks.  A few men and women in gear similar to the military’s stood around the vehicles with large rifles at the ready.  Misha didn’t think they actually were military though.  Everything they wore was completely black and there were insignia on the shoulders.  The insignia looked familiar, even at a distance, but were too far to make out any real detail.  They certainly didn’t bear the flag, which Misha thought all military uniforms were supposed to have.  Of course, even if the gear was military, it was their stance that really made Misha think otherwise.  They weren’t as crisp as real soldiers should have been; they had an almost relaxed stance.  Every one of them wore full face gas masks.

Above, the porch visitor returned with several loud clomps of his boots.  He went down the front porch steps and headed to the street.  Misha saw that he was indeed a big man.  He walked over to the vehicles and exchanged some words with the people there.  He was clearly one of them.  More people like them came out of other nearby houses and gathered with the rest in the street.  Misha noticed someone come out of the house that the old woman lived in.  Some soldiers, Misha didn’t know what else to call them, banged fists on the sides of the strange trucks.  The trucks responded by having their back doors opened from the inside.  Unidentifiable personnel in sterile, white suits hopped out of them and headed for the houses.  The suited people were all accompanied by at least one soldier.

As they came to the house whose porch Misha was hiding under, he shrank away, deeper into the shadows.  The big man returned and clomped up the stairs first, across the porch, and into the house.  Following after him was someone in a clean suit.  The shapelessness of the body and the shiny visor made it impossible for Misha to tell anything about the person.  He couldn’t even identify gender.  Gas masks Misha was more used to seeing, his father had even owned one, but the sterile suits were so strange and foreign to him.  It reminded him of spacemen in their spacesuits.

Once the two of them were inside, Misha looked across the street again.  Those that had gone into the old woman’s house came out, dragging her with them.  Even from under the porch across the street, he could hear her confused and angry rantings.  She clearly objected to what was going on, but no one seemed to listen to her.  Misha watched as she was shoved into the back of one of the white trucks.  A handful of people from other houses were also brought out.  Some of them objected and some of them went along quietly.  All of them were clearly scared, and all of them were put into the backs of the white trucks.

One man suddenly broke free of the arm that held his and made a run for it.  A single rifle was raised, and a single shot was fired.  The man’s head practically exploded off his shoulders.  Misha’s eyes just about bugged out of his own head at the sight of it.  The shooter was then lightly punched by one of the other soldiers and it looked like he was being scolded.  Only scolded for shooting an innocent man in the head, when he should have been arrested or even beaten.

Misha figured the rifle shot would bring more attackers.  He remembered the woman on the lawn.  She had only left when she heard the gunshot in the distance.  That shot was likely to bring more now.  Perhaps that’s why the gunman was being told off?  Either way, Misha didn’t like the idea of staying there any longer and crawled over to the side of the porch.  He watched the people on the street and waited until no one was looking in his general direction.  He then squeezed his way out and headed down the side of the house.

This house had a tall gate between the front yard and the back.  Pulling on a string unlocked the latch allowing Misha to push open the gate.  Rifle hurried past him.  As Misha was about to step through himself, another shot sounded out on the street.  He risked taking a few steps back to see.  This time it looked like somebody had shot someone running at the group.  Misha had been right about the noise bringing more.

As he turned to face the gate once more, Misha realized he was standing right next to a window.  He also realized that the large military-like man was standing on the other side of it and, beyond him, was the suited individual.  As Misha turned, so did the massive soldier and the suited person.  Through the glass, Misha’s eyes met that of the soldier’s, who looked back through the pair of plastic windows in his gas mask.

“Stay where you are!” the soldier shouted through the window.

Misha had no intention of doing such a thing.  He took off like a shot into the backyard.  The soldier started shouting something else, but Misha couldn’t make out what.

When he got into the backyard, he saw that Rifle was pacing back and forth in front of the rear fence, whining.  There was no hole to crawl through this time, and the fence was very tall.  There was, however, a very large yet somewhat squat tree.  Misha ran to the tree and called Rifle over.  He hid behind the tree as the back door burst open, the solider shouting for him.  Misha still didn’t listen.  He heaved Rifle up off the ground and shoved the dog up onto the wide lower branches.  The dog seemed very uncomfortable up there, but he started to creep along the branch that almost went over the fence.

“What the hell?  A dog?” Misha heard the big man say, even through the muffling of the mask.

Misha climbed up into the tree himself and started following Rifle.

“Hey you!  Stop!” the man shouted.  “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

This just made Misha climb faster.  Rifle reached the furthest point he could before it got too steep for him.  Thankfully, it was far enough, and he was able to leap off the branch and over the fence.  Misha scrambled like a monkey to the same spot and didn’t hesitate at all before leaping.  It was a good thing he didn’t because something impacted the branch right after he jumped off it.  Something like a bullet.  Misha’s leg clipped the top of the fence, and he ended up tumbling over.  He managed to get his arms out in front of him to catch his fall.  Now would be the worst time to break something.

Without bothering to check the house for movement or sticking to the safety of bushes, Rifle and Misha ran around the side of this next house.  He could hear the soldier cursing loudly as he gave chase over the fence.  Misha needed to find somewhere he and Rifle could hide, but where?  The front yard of the house offered no solutions, so he kept running.  He didn’t think he would need to cross this street so he made a ninety degree turn and headed across the front lawns of the next houses.  The loud crack of a gunshot sounded behind him and a bullet thumped into the dirt near his heels.  The front yards were too open.  Misha quickly cut to the side of the next house, going toward the backyard.  Rifle suddenly stopped short though, ears laid flat, head down.  His lips kept rising in a silent snarl as he sniffed toward the yard.  Someone unpleasant was in that backyard.

* * *

The soldier was getting closer.  Misha was trapped between him, and one of the weirdoes.  He looked around the tight space frantically.  He saw only one option.  He patted Rifle to get the dog’s attention, and then went up to the side of the house.  There were windows into the basement on this side that were down in window wells.  Misha hopped inside one and curled up as tightly as he could.  Rifle squeezed in next to him.  With the two of them in there, the space was really tight, but it was deep enough for them to be below the surface.  It only took a moment for the sound of the soldier’s heavy boots slapping the ground to fill the window well.  Misha held his breath again and stayed as still as a statue.  He didn’t need to though.  The soldier had no idea that he had stopped and charged straight into the backyard.  The next thing Misha heard was his startled cry, followed by a scream.  A few gunshots went off, but a sickening crunch ended both them and the screams.

Misha turned his head and looked into the house.  There were bars across the windows so he wouldn’t be able to get in, but he looked in anyway.  It was dark inside and hard to make things out, but something was moving.  Suddenly, a face slapped up against the window right next to Misha’s.  It was a teenage boy probably not much younger than Misha himself.  He grabbed hold of the bars and was raging against them, trying to get out.  Rifle whined.

The dog needed a small boost to get out of the window well, but Misha was able to climb out easily on his own.  He looked toward the backyard and saw the soldier laying there, his head turned toward him with what looked like a small camera attached to the side of his mask.  If that’s what it was, they now had a perfect image of Misha.  A girl that looked to be the same age as the boy in the basement was perched upon him, eating his chest and belly.  Misha immediately bent over and threw up all the pasta he had eaten.  The girl looked at him, her eyes considering him from out of her red stained face.  She then turned back to the soldier.  Misha didn’t even consider trying to get the soldier’s gun.  He made his way back toward the front of the house on shaky legs, his stomach still rolling, and his head still reeling.  Once he reached the front of the house, he leaned against its brick wall and took several large gulps of air.  Rifle looked up at him, his ears flat with concern.

“I’m all right, buddy.”  Misha patted the shepherd’s head.  “This day just isn’t going how I expected it to is all.”

He took another steadying breath and looked around.  They were only about a block away from the street they were trying to get to.  They would have to move fast too.  Not only would the soldier’s gunshots bring more weirdoes, but also he, or the suited person, had probably called for backup, which would be on its way.  Misha hurried along, being a little bolder about being visible because of the girl.  He wanted to get far away from her before she decided he was worth chasing down.  Or before more of those phoney military men showed up.  The suited individual had probably told them what he looked like.  Misha wondered what would happen to the old woman.

As Misha approached the house on the corner of an intersection, he became extremely cautious.  Something didn’t feel right.  Even Rifle was sniffing at the air, ears flipping between flattened and alert.  He didn’t whine or growl though.  Misha checked up and down the street but he didn’t see anything hostile.  All was very still.  He crouched low and ran toward a car parked on the street.  Once he reached it and hid next to it, he searched the area again.  There was nothing to indicate any danger, but the hairs on the back of Misha’s neck stood on end.

He sat next to the car for a long time, but without anything to tell him what he was afraid of, he finally decided it was all in his head and dashed across the street.  Rifle trotted quickly behind him, sticking close to his heels.  His ears were kept flat and his head was kept low.

Halfway up the lawn of the next house, a woman’s shriek ripped through the neighbourhood.  Misha wheeled around and saw a middle-aged woman drop out of a tree from a nearby yard.  Misha had never thought to be wary of the trees.  At the same moment, the front window of the house they were heading to exploded outward as a great big fat man in a pair of too small shorts and a too small undershirt charged through it.  Both he and the middle-aged woman spotted Misha and Rifle and started running at them, the woman shrieking and howling while the man was totally silent.

Misha and Rifle both took off running at top speeds, but in different directions.  It was just Misha’s luck that the fat man ran after the dog while he got the howler.  He thought he could outrun the fat man, but the woman looked quick.  He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder to see just how quick.  His feet didn’t appreciate the extra abuse that running inflicted on them, but they would have to suck it up.  A house up ahead separated its lawn from the one next door using a tall, thick line of bushes.  Misha didn’t like the idea of running around it when he couldn’t see anything on the other side, so he cut down toward the backyards again.  Although the last backyard hadn’t held anything pleasant.

As he passed the back corner of the house, he dared a quick look over his shoulder.  The woman was right on his heels.  Misha faced forward again and only had time for a quick gasp before he was launched into space.

He was in the air for at least a second before the pool water rushed up to meet him with a great splash.  As his head went under, he heard the second splash through the vibrations in the water.  A hand brushed over his leg but didn’t manage to grab hold.  Misha’s head broke the surface and he splashed his way toward the pool’s edge.  He looked behind him as he swam and saw that the woman had sunk to the bottom of the pool like a stone.  She thrashed around down there at the deepest part, trying to reach up to Misha, but she had zero co-ordination and went nowhere.

As he reached the side of the pool, a groan drew his attention across it.  A man in a barbecue apron had wandered out of the house’s shattered sliding glass door.  As Misha hastily climbed out of the pool, the man’s shuffling gait brought him to the other edge.  Not stopping, the man took a final step and tipped over into the pool.  He also sank like a rock.

Misha looked down at the pair from the safety of the pool’s edge.  The howler that had chased him kept struggling to get to the surface.  A few times, she even started to get close but then she would do something counter-productive and end up back at the bottom.  The barbecue man looked like he was just doing the same shuffle down there as he did up here.  Misha decided it was time to leave.

He went to the fence and climbed over it into the next backyard, dropping to all fours from exhaustion.  This yard had plenty of trees and a very wide, covered back porch.  After crawling his way over to one of the trees, Misha collapsed with his back up against it.  He had lost Rifle.  He didn’t realize just how much he had bonded with the dog until right then.  Now he was completely alone.

As he thought about whether to bother continuing on with his plan or not, he heard a soft chuff come from near the house.  He looked up to find Rifle standing next to it with his head cocked.

“Rifle!” Misha was so shocked and elated to see him that he spoke much louder than he intended.

Rifle trotted over to him with his tongue hanging out and his tail wagging.

Misha scratched him behind the ears and rubbed his side.  He swore the dog was smiling.  “I thought I lost you, buddy.  How did you find me so fast?”

Rifle ran off behind a tree then came back quickly with a small blue and yellow football.  He clenched his jaws and the ball squeaked.

“What is that?”  Misha reached for the ball but Rifle hopped away.  He lowered his head to the ground and stuck his butt up in the air, tail wagging furiously.  He made the ball squeak two more times.  He wanted to play.

“Is that your toy?” Misha said this in a playful, doggy speak manner, but then he thought about what he had said.  What if the toy actually was Rifle’s?  This very well could be his house and that’s why he had come here.  The dog was heading home and just happened to find Misha in his backyard.

Misha stood up and walked over to the back door.  Rifle quickly followed him and dropped the football on the porch.  He starting pawing at the door and whined lowly.  Misha tried to open the door but it was locked.  Rifle then walked over to a large stuffed mat on the porch.  He circled it a few times and lay down on it with a huff.  There was a mangy stuffed toy skunk on it that Rifle started chewing.  This was definitely his house.

Misha went back out onto the grass and looked up at the two story house.  He felt safe in the backyard with its abundance of old growth trees and didn’t particularly want to test if the front door was open.  It was likely locked like the back door.  As he looked up at the second floor, he noticed a window up there was open.  If he could reach the porch roof, he could get inside the house.  After studying the trees and discovering that one of them might do the trick, he scrambled up the trunk of the tree.  For the first time since leaving home, being shoeless came in handy as he could grip the bark better.  Still hurt a lot though.  He took his time scooting up the tree and across its branches, not wanting to risk a broken limb by falling.  He finally reached a branch where he could easily jump from the tree to the porch roof, and once up there he took a short break.  In just one day, Misha’s appreciation for climbable, old growth trees had increased about a hundred fold.

He looked down into the backyard and saw Rifle staring up at him, ratty skunk toy in his mouth.  Noticing that Misha was looking, he swished his tail back and forth a few times.  Misha then looked back at the sky wondering what time it was.  He had absolutely no idea.  He looked over into the next yard with the pool.  He could still see the woman thrashing beneath the surface, which was impossible because she should have drowned by now.  He thought that maybe she had managed to break the surface and get another gasp of air, but then he saw the shuffler was still shuffling.  Besides, if they had air in them, they would be more buoyant.  These guys sank and should have been dead in a minute.  Misha’s skin was probably already burning to a crisp and sitting on the roof wasn’t helping, so he headed to the window.

Peering inside, he saw that the only thing out of place was a small bloody handprint on the doorframe.  It probably belonged to the same individual who had left a print on Rifle’s side.  There was a similar print on the windowsill.  Misha stuck his head through the window frame and took a better look at things around the room.

“Hello?” he didn’t speak loudly, but it was loud enough to cause anything in there to react.  Nothing did.  Taking that as a cue that the room was safe, he climbed in.  It was nice to feel carpet under his feet again, especially after the sun-heated shingles.  Misha checked out the bathroom and closet and then went to the doorway.  He took a quick glance around the corner, then quickly pulled his head back.  Someone was lying in the hall.  He peered around the corner with one eye.  She was lying face down with her head turned to the wall.

“Hello?” Misha’s voice had become even dryer, but he managed to speak louder than a whisper.  The woman didn’t move.  He stepped out into the hall, fully exposing himself.  There was a lot of red gunk matted into the woman’s hair.  A lot more red spread halfway up the wall.  Misha concluded that this woman must have been shot in the head.  Remembering the pool party still going on next door, he approached her carefully.  People hadn’t been dying when they should have for most of the day now.  Death was on vacation.  He hurried past the body and headed downstairs.  The rest of the house looked normal and it didn’t take long for him to find the back door and unlock it.  He opened it up and let Rifle in.

Rifle knew exactly where he wanted to go.  Misha followed him through the house and out into the garage.  Once there, Rifle dropped his stuffed animal and whined.  He trotted over to a pile of stuff and rooted his nose through it.  Misha walked over and looked at everything.  He then saw the large blood stain in the corner.  Rifle whined and poked his nose at a box.  Misha opened the box and was surprised to see a military dress uniform in it.  If the owner was military, then there must be a gun somewhere in the house.

Misha searched almost the whole first floor for a gun, but he didn’t find one.  He decided against going back up the stairs.  Eventually he gave up the search and went back to the garage where Rifle still sat.  Misha poked through the pile of stuff on the ground some more.  He lifted up a pair of pants to see if they would fit him when something glinted on the ground.  The pants had been sitting on a revolver.  A gun at last.  Misha picked it up and looked it over.  He didn’t see anything that looked like a safety, so he assumed it was a point and fire type of gun.  He looked around for a holster of some kind, or perhaps extra ammo, but he didn’t see any.  Putting the gun on the trunk of the car, he picked up the pants again.  They were far too big for him, so he dropped them.  There was also a pair of kneepads that looked promising, but even with the adjustable Velcro straps, they didn’t fit him in a way that he was comfortable with.  They were likely just to end up around his ankles and tripping him.

Just as Misha was about to decide that the house had nothing else useful for him, he saw a bunch of crumpled and rolled papers.  Out of curiosity, he opened one up.  It was a map with a line marking out a route.  He looked over the map and noticed it was labelled in the corner.  It was simply labelled ‘zombies.’  Misha laughed at this.  The map seemed silly, but Misha didn’t have any other plans.  He knew he didn’t feel safe here in the city so what was the harm in following this map?  And he had gotten this far by following a dog tag, so why not follow the map that the tag had led him to?  It was like a treasure hunt.  A horrible, terrifying, nightmarish treasure hunt.

The map itself was too big for Misha to consider taking with him, so he went to the kitchen and found a note pad and a pen.  Back in the garage, he went over the map and wrote down the directions.  Rifle watched him with interest.  When Misha was done, he tore his page of directions off the pad, folded up the slip of paper, and put it in his pocket.  The pockets were still somewhat damp from his trip into the pool, but he had nowhere else to stash the paper.

“What do you say to going on a trip?” Misha asked the dog.

Rifle stood up on his feet and gave a slow wag of his tail.

“We’re going to need some wheels though.”  Misha walked around the car toward the garage door.  That’s when he found the arm pinned under it.  He decided he did not want to open the garage door and that ruled out taking the car.  “How about we look elsewhere?”

Misha picked up the revolver again and led the way back out of the house.  Rifle padded after him, his skunk back in his mouth.  Misha was glad that Rifle decided to drag the skunk around instead of the squeaky football.  Maybe Rifle knew the danger of noise, and that was why he chose the one toy over the other.

“Know any houses around here with a good set of wheels?” Misha asked his companion.

Rifle squeezed his silent skunk in response.

Misha picked a random direction.  They went to the back fence and Misha climbed over.  With a great amount of effort and the butt of the revolver, he managed to break some crappy boards out of the fence so that Rifle could squeeze through.  Apparently, Misha’s luck continued to hold out in a big way.  In the backyard he had randomly chosen, there was a tarp draped over something.  When Misha pulled back the tarp, he found an old, rebuilt motorcycle.  With a sidecar no less.  Misha couldn’t help but laugh out loud.  Going with the flow was working for him.  He had ridden motorcycles before and figured one with a sidecar couldn’t be too much different, but still, he would need the keys to start it.

He went up to the back door and tried to open it.  It was locked as well, and this house didn’t have a conveniently open window for him to climb through.

“Fuck it.”  Misha used the butt of the revolver to break out the glass.  So far, the gun was turning out to be a useful hammer.

“Stay,” Misha said to Rifle.  He didn’t want the dog hurting his paws on the glass.  The dog sat.  Misha reached his arm carefully through the broken glass and unlocked the door.  It swung inward and he very carefully stepped over the glass.  He didn’t want to hurt his own feet either.  Once inside, he looked up to find himself confronted by a man with a baseball bat held high.

“What do you want?” the man shouted.

Misha raised the gun on instinct and pointed it at the man.  The man wavered and took a step back.

“I just want the keys to your bike.”  Misha’s hands shook.  He should have been paying more attention when he came over here.  His luck and the gun had given him a false sense of security.

“That’s it?” the man sounded like he didn’t believe Misha.

“That’s it,” Misha nodded.

The man looked behind him, through a doorway into what looked like a pantry closet.

“Give them to him,” a woman’s voice said.

Misha looked past the man and saw a woman huddled on the floor of the pantry with two small children.

“Will you go away if I give them to you?”  The man stepped forward to block off Misha’s view of his family.

Misha could only nod in response.  His voice had failed him again.  He was robbing a family.

“They’re on a peg board in the cupboard behind you.”  The man gestured with his head.

Misha made his way slowly back, keeping his eyes on the bat.  When he had to let go of the gun with one hand to open the cupboard, the other shook even worse.

“It’s the last one,” the man said.

Misha found the key, which had a little silver motorcycle fob, and took it.

“Now go.”

Misha nodded and continued his slow way back to the door, being careful of the glass again.  “Do you have another vehicle?”  He managed to get out.

“Leave!”  The man took a hesitant step forward, trying to be threatening but being fearful of the gun as well.

“I’m just saying that if you do, you should think about leaving town,” Misha told him, then quickly ducked outside.

Rifle was still sitting where Misha had left him.  He cocked his head to one side.  Misha ran over to the bike.  “Come on, buddy.”  He patted his side.  Rifle trotted over, and with some coaxing Misha got him to jump up into the sidecar.  He started the bike and gave it a once over to make sure it was ready to go.  Looking up at the back door, he saw the man with the bat watching him through the broken window.  Misha walked the bike around the side of the house and down an extended driveway the man had probably paved just for the bike.  He straddled it and tossed the revolver into the sidecar.  Rifle put his skunk toy down between his feet and then looked at Misha.

“You ready to go?” Misha asked him, revving the engine once.

Rifle chuffed.

iii:

The Other Dead

Harriet had gotten separated from her friends at the concert.  She didn’t know what all the commotion was about, just that everybody was fleeing for the exits, and she was being swept along with the crowd.  She tripped over something, either a shoelace or someone’s foot, a dropped bag or maybe even her own two feet.  Whatever it was, she went down, and the flood of people around her never noticed.  Feet stomped all around her, on her.  Someone else tripped over her and fell down as well.  Harriet did what she could to protect her head, crying and calling out, praying someone would notice her and help her.  In the end, none of it did anything.  A heavy boot to the side of her head sent her into a blackness she never came out of.

Connor saw what was happening on the TV.  He followed the news with a near unhealthy obsession.  He guessed what they were, what was going on.  He couldn’t handle it; it was too much.  He took one of his guns and sat down on his bed, looking out the window.  He wrote a letter to his family should they come by, then put the muzzle in his mouth and pulled the trigger.  Maybe if he had found someone like his sister had, he would have been able to handle the pressure.

Anita Reynolds lay in her hospital bed, her deathbed.  She had been sick for a very long time, but had recently taken a turn for the worse.  Months ago, she had signed a ‘do not resuscitate’ order.  She was ready for the end.  Her room was on the first floor and had a lovely view of the grounds.  All her grown children had gathered around along with some of the grandchildren and great grandchildren.  Breathing was getting harder.  She knew it would happen soon.  Something must have happened as Anita began to slip away because everyone in the room suddenly got up and crowded over to the windows.  There were gasps of shock in reaction to whatever was going on.  Only Anita’s youngest descendent, a small boy of three, was actually watching over her when she passed.

Charlie was shaking all over as she walked down the street.  She had seen so many bad things.  She was scared and had no idea what was going on.  Her best friend had attacked her own mother.  She didn’t feel safe at home, but she didn’t know where to go.  She wandered the streets, somehow avoiding attackers.  Charlie completely forgot about road safety and didn’t think about looking both ways before dashing across the street.  The driver of the bus that hit her didn’t slow down, even when she went under the tires.

Nicolas Faraday was doing a good job of surviving, all things considered.  He had been kicked off the subway long before his stop when the transit went down.  He managed to escape attack several times, sometimes by very narrow misses.  He was nearing his girlfriend’s house where he planned to take refuge for a while.  He walked through the door without ringing the bell, knocking, or even announcing himself.  In the past, he never needed to.  He found his girlfriend sitting in her bedroom.  Before he could say anything she said, “Oh, Nicolas, not you too,” and then blew him away with a shotgun he never knew she had.

Donnie had no idea what was going on outside.  He was completely engrossed in his latest book, The Shadow Demon Game.  His main character, the daring Elizabeth Fredricks, was in a jam that not even he was sure how she would get out of.  At least, not yet, anyway.  Apparently, his writing was too suspenseful and the grease-ball burgers he ate every day finally caught up to him.  Donnie realized what the heart attack was when it struck him and he managed to get to the phone, but 911 was busy.  No one would ever learn what happened to the daring Elizabeth.

Muffy was a small dog living in a tiny apartment with her owner.  She could smell something wrong out in the hall but didn’t know what it was.  Her owner had gone out that day to do the things that people do.  She was left a small bowl of food that was to be her breakfast.  She had no idea it would be her last meal, and that her owner wasn’t going to return.

Section 4:

Exodus

23:

Toby

At first, Tobias wasn’t sure of Cender.  He was pretty sure the young doctor was being influenced by one drug or another.  Cender did have some sort of a plan though, which was better than what he had.  After Abby and Cender shared their stories with each other and with him, Tobias showed them parts of what he filmed.  While doing that, he noticed the batteries were getting low.  He was either going to have to find new batteries, a new camera, or stop recording things altogether.  He really hoped it wasn’t the third option.

“So you think they’re zombies too,” Cender nodded.

“Well, I don’t think they’re zombies,” Tobias corrected, “but it’s the best word I could come up with.”

“I had no idea what to call them,” Abby admitted.

“Well, the consensus seems to be zombies,” Cender told her.  “We’ll go with that.  Now how about we get out of here?”

“I think you might need some pants first.”  Tobias pointed out that Cender was wearing only a hospital gown.

“Right, pants are usually preferred.  There should be a storage locker with some scrubs in it out in the scrub room.”  Cender pointed to the room with all the sinks.  “Could you get me some?”

“I got it.”  Abby hurried off.

Tobias watched her go.  As she disappeared through the swing doors, he caught a glimpse of Cillian and Jessica.  A while ago, they had gone into the scrub room on their own to talk about something.  They kept their voices down so that Tobias couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but he figured it had to do with the current situation and their relationship.  When Abby walked in, they paused their conversation and waited for her to leave.  Another thing they might be talking about was B.  Jessica had flat out killed him, smashed his skull in.  Although he was threatening them, waving his gun around, the fact remained that he wasn’t one of them.  He wasn’t a zombie, and even killing zombies took a lot to come to terms with.  Tobias knew; he still hadn’t really dealt with it.  The old woman was the one he saw in his mind’s eye the most often.

“Could you look around for something I can use as a crutch?”  Cender brought Tobias out of his thoughts.

“Something like crutches?” Tobias joked.

“Well, as lovely as those would be, I don’t think there are any in this room.” Cender laughed.

Tobias searched around the operating room for anything that might be useful.  His shoulder itched but he tried very hard not to scratch it.  Cender told him the wound wasn’t bad.  It didn’t need stitches unless Tobias was worried about scarring, and he wasn’t.  After it had been cleaned and something was smeared on it, Cender wrapped it in a bandage.  Tobias thought maybe it was whatever the smeared stuff was that made it itch.  He hoped he wasn’t allergic or something.  Then again, wounds usually itched while they healed.

“I give up.”  Tobias walked back over to the bed.  “There is nothing in here you can use as a crutch.”

“Well then, I guess I’ll just have to use you.”  Cender slapped him on his uninjured shoulder.  “I would use Cillian, he looks sturdier, but he seems preoccupied supporting Jessica at the moment.”

Tobias almost asked him what he meant by that but then it clicked.  He meant Cillian was being an emotional crutch right then.

Abby came back into the OR carrying a large pile of pale blue clothes.  She carefully sidestepped B’s dead body.  Earlier, Cillian had dragged it out of the direct path of the doors, but a pool of blood and his feet still had to be avoided.  Nobody would look directly at it.

“I didn’t know what size you were so I tried to grab one of everything.”  Abby put all the clothes down on a tray and wheeled it over to Cender.

“Thanks, Abby.”  Cender sorted through the pile for the sizes he wanted.  “You may want to turn around as I’m going commando.”

Abby turned on her heel in an instant.  Tobias also turned around.  He had no interest in seeing Cender naked.

“Can you get the pants on over the cast?” Tobias wondered aloud while he stared up into the viewing walkway.

“I have to wear a size larger than I’d like,” Cender answered, “but the drawstring should keep them up.”

“Should?”  Knowing he didn’t have any underwear on was already too much information.  Knowing his pants could fall down at any moment was beyond that.

“There are no guarantees in life.  Take today for example.”  The spunk that Cender normally spoke with faded as he said this last part.  “I gotta say I didn’t expect any of this to happen.  It’s okay to turn around now, I’m clothed.”

Tobias and Abby turned back around.  Even with the bigger size, the pants were tight around the cast.  Cender picked up a scalpel and remedied this by cutting a slice up the side of the pant leg.

“Fashionable,” a smirk fluttered across Abby’s lips for a moment.

It was then that Cillian walked in through the swing doors and stood in front of them.  “Jessi’s changing out of her skirt,” he explained when Tobias gave him a questioning look.

“So what’s the best way out of here?”  Tobias turned back to Cender.

“Well, I personally would like to swing by the recovery ward; they’ll have crutches there that I can pilfer.  After that, it depends on which exit you want to use,” Cender shrugged.

“Whichever one is the closest,” Abby said.

Cender thought for a moment.  The way he moved his fingers suggested that he was planning a route.  “All right, I know which way we should go, provided we don’t run into any trouble, that is.”  Cender swung his legs off the table and got up on his good leg.  Reaching under the operating table, he lifted up a plastic bag from beneath it.  From that, he pulled out a watch and put it on, the contents of the bag clearly belonging to him.  He also took out a stethoscope, which he draped around his neck, and then a white lab coat.  The bottom of the coat was covered in a large bloodstain.  Cender ignored this and looked through the pockets.  The cell phone he pulled out of one fell into two pieces, broken, so he tossed it into a corner.  He then pulled out a slip of paper.  This he glanced over quickly, then folded it up and tucked it into the top of his cast since he had no pockets.  The lab coat was then dumped into a corner like the phone.

Cillian glanced over his shoulder through the door’s window.  “I believe we’re good to go,” he told the people and opened the door.

Jessi, or Jessica, Tobias didn’t know which to call her, stood there in a pair of scrub pants like Cender’s.  She had clearly washed up in one of the sinks.  Wet patches on her blouse showed where she had tried futilely to scrub off the blood, but then given up.  Her attire was quite odd now.  Hiking boots, scrub pants, and a fairly fancy white blouse.  Tobias could see why Cillian had fallen for her in the first place; even at the worst of moments she managed to look attractive.

A loud thump drew everyone’s attention up to the viewing window.  A zombie had made its way up there and was now pressed up against the glass like some grotesquely bloody suckerfish.  Its teeth were gnashing, trying in vain to chew through the thick glass.  Another one rushed out of the darkness and smacked into the glass next to it, its palms splayed out on the glass like starfish.

Without speaking a word, everyone decided it was a great time to leave.  Cender threw his arm over Tobias’s good shoulder and Tobias helped him toward the door.  Cillian handed him the crowbar, knowing that if he were helping Cender walk, he would have to lead.  When Tobias took hold of the metal object, he thought maybe Cender could use it as a cane, but then realized it was unfortunately too short.  Tobias gave Cillian a quick nod of thanks for it.

The idea of leading left a bad taste in Tobias’s mouth.  He would much rather have had Cillian help Cender to walk while he stuck to the middle of the group.  A quick look over his shoulder though, dashed all hopes of this happening.  Cillian had a protective arm around Jessi’s waist, who clutched tightly to him with one arm and her shovel with the other.  Abby was guarding the rear all alone with her stick.  That also made Tobias feel uncomfortable.

They left the room with the sinks and Cender directed him with a tug on the shoulder.  At least they were heading away from the entrance to the viewing room.  The group was clearly torn between hurrying to their destination, and taking their time to be safe.  They bumped into each other a lot, but no one said a word.

As they came to a corner where they had planned to turn, a loud crash came from around it.  Everybody stopped in their tracks and looked to Tobias for some reason.

It took Tobias a moment to figure out why.  They wanted him to look around the corner and find out what had caused the crash.  Tobias frowned at them, but their returned scowls were more intimidating.  He was clearly out-voted, so he turned back to the corner.

* * *

Leaving Cender propped up against the wall, Tobias inched his way over to the rounded safety padding that covered the sharp edge of the corner.  He wished he had a mirror to peer around it, even a little dental mirror would do.  He mentally smacked his forehead when he remembered the camera hanging around his neck.  It would work just as well, if not better, than a mirror.

As Tobias was taking the strap off his neck, he nearly dropped the camera when a somewhat quieter crash sounded.  His muscles froze as his mind raced, afraid that whatever was over there would come after him.  When nothing happened, he opened the camera’s digital display screen.  Tobias crouched down near the ground.  The camera would make a chime sound when it turned on, so he smothered the speaker as best he could when he hit the power button.  Still, he heard the chime, and judging by the faces of the others, they heard it too.  Whatever was around the corner however didn’t seem to notice.

Slowly the lens of the camera inched its way around the corner.  Tobias stuck it out only as far as he needed to see around it.  He expected to see a single zombie thrashing around the hallway.  What he expected was not what he found.

There was a single zombie thrashing around, yes.  Hurriedly scuffling back and forth, occasionally bumping into stands of medical stuff, and sometimes kicking things that had already been knocked over.  What Tobias didn’t expect were the several other zombies who were just standing around, not doing anything, totally silent.  There were over a dozen at least, mostly dressed in hospital gowns or scrubs.

Tobias didn’t bother trying to count them all.  He quickly withdrew the camera, turned it off, slung the strap back over his neck, and stood up.  When he looked back at the others, his wide eyes probably told them everything, but he shook his head anyway and gestured back toward where they had come from.  After grabbing Cender off the wall, they started making their way back toward the OR.

The next time they stopped was due to a shrieking up ahead, followed by the sound of a door being slammed several times.  Their retreat was cut off.

Cender directed them down what looked like a short, blind alley of a hallway.  It actually led to a bank of elevators.  Cender started pushing the call button rapidly, as if that would make the elevator come faster.  The shrieking got closer, as did the sound of a different door getting slammed open and closed repeatedly.

Tobias was tempted to shove Cender aside and begin pushing the button himself, but he couldn’t stop remembering the mall with its zombie-filled glass elevator.  If an elevator like that was to open up before them, they would all be killed, devoured by the masses.  Or at least infected enough to become part of the masses.

The larger hoard near the staircase must have heard the door slammer; a metal tin came skittering down the hall from that direction.  Everyone huddled closer together, eyes darting from each of the four elevator doors to the hallway.  Tobias kept glancing at the space above the doors, where a little window usually told you what floor the elevator was on.  Not here though.  There was nothing to look at, nothing to indicate whether an elevator was even on its way.  Weren’t hospital elevators supposed to be faster than normal elevators?  Tobias thought they were.

A soft ding caused them all to jump like a single frightened animal as opposed to a group.  A pair of doors slid open and they all rushed in without bothering to check the contents.  They got lucky.  There was only a dried bloodstain on the floor in one corner.  Cender hit the button for the fifth floor and then repeatedly jammed the ‘close door’ button.  This one he pressed even more fervently than the call button, the strain from his repetitious application of force evident in his face.  A single bead of sweat trailed down the side of his face and neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his scrub shirt.

Tobias was at an angle, which allowed him to see the end of the nook they were in.  The shrieker rounded the corner.  Her piercing screams were so loud and high pitched they were probably tearing her throat to pieces.  A silent runner from the group on the other side rounded the corner just after her, surely followed by more.  Tobias unconsciously pressed himself back into the elevator’s wall.  If just one of them got in there, they were screwed.  The doors began to close and everything seemed to slow down for Tobias.  He could see the shrieker reaching forward, hand extended toward him with its ragged nails.  The elevator doors slowly came together, narrowing his field of view.  They weren’t going to make it; the shrieker’s arm was going to reach them before the doors would finish closing.  Her arm would reach through the doors and the safety feature would cause them to spring open again, letting her and her friends inside.  If only he could reach forward himself and close the elevator doors faster somehow, but Tobias couldn’t even move.  His veins had become like ice, his muscles like stone.  As the elevator doors limited his field of view, so did a creeping blackness at the edges of his vision.  All he could see was the shrieker and the doors.

At the final moment, Abby’s stick lunged through the gap and hit the shrieker square in the forehead.  The shrieker’s head was flung back, dragging her arm up with it.  The stick pulled back into the elevator lightning quick, making it inside before the doors finished closing.  There was a slight thump as they came together and an even louder thump as the shrieker slammed into the outside of them.  Then the elevator jerked and they began their ascent.

Somebody sighed loudly with relief, possibly all of them.  Everyone turned their faces toward Abby, giving her big, bright smiles.  The woman was as quick as a damn scorpion.  No one knew quite how to word their thanks, but she probably got the idea.  She smiled back and made Tobias’s world feel almost right again.  Everyone was panting as if they had just been running a marathon.  Tobias thought that maybe it was because they had been holding their collective breath.  He knew he had been.

* * *

Tobias started worrying again as the elevator neared its destination.  Something similar to what they had left behind could just as easily be waiting up ahead.  The elevator slowed and came to a stop.  The doors dinged and slid open with a slight whooshing sound.  The space beyond was empty.  Tobias stuck his head out and looked around.  There were no zombies in sight.

“Someone should stay here and keep the elevator from leaving,” Cender suggested in a whisper.

“No,” Abby shook her head, also whispering,  “we should stick together.  Here.”  She laid the stick that saved them all down on the elevator’s door tracks.

“You think that will hold?” Cillian asked her.

Abby shrugged.

“We’ll chance it.”  Tobias didn’t like the idea of someone staying behind either.  He stepped over the stick and out of the elevator, leaving the crowbar with those still inside.  This elevator had opened up into a nook like the last one.  He went to the end of it and carefully spied around the corners.  These halls appeared zombie-free as well.  Looking back toward the elevator, he saw everyone but Jessi huddled at the entrance watching him.  Tobias gave them a thumbs up and waved them forward.

Cillian supported Cender this time, but Jessi still stuck right to his other side.  Abby was once again in the rear, but now she was armed with Cillian’s crowbar.  Tobias took point but he had to keep looking back at Cender to make sure he was leading them the right way.  He could interpret only about a quarter of the directional signs.  One sign he saw mentioned a maternity ward, which caused Tobias to shudder.  That was something he never wanted to think about.

Finally, they reached their destination and ducked inside.  It was a small and badly lit room full of cabinets stacked with various medical hardware.  If Home Depot had a medical section, it would probably be stocked with the same things as this room.  Cillian and Jessi stuck by the door while Tobias helped Cender over to a stack of crutches in the corner, and Abby looked around the room.  While Cender picked out crutches the right size for him, Tobias decided to take a look around too.  He had no idea what most of the stuff was for, and some it looked almost scary.  He figured it was all rehabilitation gear or something, but there were a lot of wires and metal struts making them look akin to torture devices, especially in the low lighting.  Eventually he came across something that didn’t look scary, but it was still odd.  He picked up what looked like a cross between a big clunky snowboarder’s boot and a sandal.

“Oh, hey, I totally forgot those would be in here too.”  Cender noticed what Tobias had found.  He made his way over on his new crutches.

“What are they?”  Tobias handed him the boot thing when he held out a hand for it.

“You ever hear of a walking cast?”  Cender compared the boot to his casted leg.  He must have decided it wasn’t the right size and started looking through the others.  “I’ll still need the crutches, but this’ll help me be more mobile.  Which, let’s face it, is probably the most important thing to be right now.”  He found a size he liked the look of and compared it to his foot again.  This one seemed to be the right size and so he started strapping it on over the cast.

“Do you have a plan on how to get to this friend’s house of yours?” Tobias wondered what the next step was.

Cender shrugged, “Head to the parking lot and find a car I guess.  Actually, did you happen to see any ambulances parked outside?  They sometimes leave the keys in them.”

“Cillian and I came in through the front entrance,” Tobias told him.

“There aren’t any out there.”  Abby had overheard them.  “Jessica and I came in that way and there were no ambulances.”

“Then the parking lot it is.  Here, take this.”  Cender handed Tobias a metal cane.  “You might as well be somewhat armed if you’re going to be the one in front.  Come on now, let’s get a move on.”

Tobias held the cane and tested its weight.  It seemed fairly sturdy although the lightness of it worried him somewhat.  If he was going to have to bash a zombie’s brains in, he didn’t want the thing breaking on him.

As Cender crutched his way toward the door, Tobias noticed how much sound he made.  Every step clacked as he went.  They weren’t going to be able to sneak around nearly so well now.

As the group headed out, the way still appeared clear.  Although a new, large streak of blood down one hall reminded them it may not stay that way for very long.  A sharp and terrified scream came from the opposite direction they were headed, and it was cut off brutally short.  Tobias wondered if the victim was a recovering patient or a hiding nurse.

Clack, clack, clack, was the only other sound as they went.  Like the ticking of a clock in the middle of the night, or the beating of the telltale heart under the floorboards, it was slowly driving Tobias insane.  By the time they got back to the elevator, he was ready to kick the crutches out from under Cender.

Abby’s stick in the elevator had held.  As the group approached, the doors tried to slide close again but once they bumped into either end of the stick, they retreated into the walls.  The elevator was still unoccupied so they all crammed in, and Abby picked her stick back up, handing the crowbar off to Cillian.  If you counted Cender’s crutches, they were now all somewhat armed.  The elevator doors finally closed, and Cender hit the button for the ground floor.  Tobias was so relieved that they were finally leaving the hospital; he might have done a little dance if he wasn’t so tired.  Despite the fact that it had seemed like a great plan at the time, coming to the hospital had turned out to be just the opposite.  He was hoping that Cender’s plan wouldn’t end up being equally bad when they reached the ground floor and the doors opened.

The best words Tobias could think of to describe the sight were feeding frenzy.  Somebody, or somebodies, must have come into the hospital and gotten swarmed.  A large mass of people, of zombies, were clumped together around something.  They were reaching over each other, shoving each other, trying to get to the middle of the mass.  There was a tearing sound, and a squishy sound, and lots of shrieking and groans.  Off to one side, the doors that led into the ER waiting room had been broken in.  If Tobias had noticed them, he would have realized that that was where they had come from.  But as it was, he couldn’t take his eyes off the writhing mass.  They were so busy and consumed with… consuming, that they didn’t even notice the elevator doors had opened.  Someone pushed another button, but Tobias didn’t know who, or for what floor.  He didn’t even realize the button had been pressed until the doors closed again, and the elevator began moving upward.

No one said anything.  They all stood there silently and stared at the elevator doors.

* * *

When the doors opened again, Tobias got a shock of a different kind.  A cool gust of wind blew in through the opened doors and filled his lungs.  He didn’t realize just how badly the hospital smelled until then.  Suddenly, he needed more.  More air, more space.  Rushing out of the elevator and onto a cement pathway, he went straight to a railing and grabbed hold of it, using it to steady himself.  He closed his eyes and took large gulps of air.

A hand fell on his shoulder, and he spun quickly, cane half raised.  It was just Cillian.  He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask if he was okay.  He understood that Tobias wasn’t really and that asking was pointless.  None of them was okay.  None of them may ever be okay ever again.

Tobias finally looked around to take in their surroundings.  They were on the roof of the hospital.  The cement walkway led from the elevators to a rooftop helipad.  He briefly wondered if Cender knew how to fly a helicopter, but then noticed that there was no helicopter to fly.  He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“I hate roofs,” Tobias muttered loudly.

“Don’t worry, I won’t pull you off of this one,” Cillian grinned.

The others gave them a strange look because Tobias hadn’t filled them in on the particulars of how he and Cillian had first met.

“Why do we always end up in high places together, Cillian?” Tobias wondered aloud.  First, the roof of the pizza place, then the air ducts in the mall and now here.  Cillian just shrugged in response.

“There should be a ladder over this way.”  Cender led them off the path that headed to the helipad.  They made their way across the roof, avoiding air ducts, air conditioning units, and other things cluttering the rooftop.  After making their way around the distinctive chimney, they came to a side of the hospital, which had a long ladder leading down to ground level.

“You just happened to know this was here?” Tobias questioned Cender.

“Some of us used to come up here sometimes to escape for a bit.  We aren’t actually supposed to hang out up here and have had to hide from security a few times,” Cender shrugged.  “So who’s going first?”

“Can you even climb down that with your leg?” Abby pointed out.

“Sure, but I’ll need someone else to carry the crutches.”  Cender held his crutches out to the other four.

Tobias took one and Cillian took the other.

“See you at the bottom.”  Cender grabbed the railings at the top of the ladder and backed over the edge.  The others watched carefully as he went down the first few rungs.  He was putting nearly all of his weight on his good leg, but he was managing all right.  It probably would have been nearly impossible for him to go up the ladder, but going down he could manage.  Gravity was his friend for the moment.  After the first few rungs, the rest of the ladder had a circular metal cage around it that Cender could lean his back against if he needed a quick rest.

Abby went down the ladder next.  After tugging on the collar of her shirt so that her bra strap showed, she hooked the curled end of her stick through it so that both her hands would be free for climbing.

Jessi followed her.  The shovel she constantly clung to had a handle at the end of it, which was large enough to hang it on her arm.

Cillian went next, one arm with the crutch hanging off of it, the other with the crowbar.

Tobias was last to go.  He looked at the crutch in one hand and the cane in the other.  He decided the way in which Cillian was carrying the crutch was the easiest way to carry his, so he looped it over his arm.  The cane he ended up shoving through the back of the harness he was still wearing.  It reminded him that he still had the battery strapped to the small of his back.  He would be a lot lighter without it, but if he could find some wiring, there was a chance he could hook it up to the little camera around his neck and keep filming.  For now, he would hold onto the battery pack.

When he grabbed the metal ladder, the first thing he noticed was how hot it was.  It didn’t burn his hands, but it was certainly uncomfortably warm.  There was yellow paint to protect the metal of the ladder from rain and the heat of the sun, but most of it had worn off.  Tobias headed down the ladder, hoping that Cillian didn’t stop for some reason below him.  He could look down beneath his feet if he wanted to, but this high up, looking down was the last thing Tobias thought he should do.  If he had a fear of heights by the end of all this, he wouldn’t be surprised.  Once Tobias had gotten down a few rungs, into the caged-in area, he learned just how annoying the stuff he was carrying was.  Both the ends of the cane and the crutch kept getting caught on the metal bars around him.  He kept on having to step back up slightly and pull them free, then continue downwards only to have them get caught again two or three rungs lower.  This made it very slow going and frustrated Tobias.

As he climbed, he couldn’t help but remember the creepy crawler from the last time he was on a ladder.  Unwillingly both his heartbeat and descent quickened.  He could perfectly picture the same thing happening now; something chasing him down from the roof.  Wouldn’t there be a stairwell leading out onto the roof somewhere?  And who’s to say a zombie wouldn’t remember how an elevator worked, or even hit the button by accident?  He quickly looked up, fully expecting something to be crawling down after him.  The way was clear though.  Nothing but blue sky.

Tobias stepped down another rung and felt a slight pop at his lower back.  He was confused at first by what this was and remembered too late.  The cane had gotten caught again while Tobias was distracted, and wound up getting tugged right out of his belt.  He reached back for it, but it was too late.  It fell.

“Look out below!” he managed to call out as soon as he realized what had happened.

All Tobias could do was look down to watch if anyone got hurt.  Only reason he would look down.  Cillian had pulled himself tighter to the ladder, not even glancing up.  Probably his firefighter training.  The cane bounced harmlessly by him.  Beyond Cillian, Tobias couldn’t really see anyone, but he heard Abby squeak.  He worried most about Cender with his broken leg.

“Way to go,” Cender laughed putting Tobias at ease.

Cender’s voice didn’t seem to come from beneath him.  Tobias looked around, out through the protective and confining circle of metal.  He was actually quite close to the ground now.  Cender already had his feet on the pavement and was leaning up against the hospital off to one side awaiting his crutches.

It wasn’t much longer until Tobias himself had his feet on firm ground again.  Other than his accident with the cane, they had made it down uneventfully.  Nobody had gotten hurt.  The side of the building they were on was in a narrow alley between the hospital and a small two story parking garage.  After being given his crutches, Cender led them over to an entrance into the parking garage.  There were a lot of parked cars sitting around.

“Anyone know how to hot wire?” Cillian wondered aloud.

Nobody spoke up because nobody could.

“Maybe one of them still has the keys in it,” Abby suggested.

“All right, let’s split up and start looking for an unlocked car with keys in it.”  Cillian took charge.  “We’ll each take a row so that we’re not too far apart from each other and can call out if we find something.  Hopefully we’ll find a car and not trouble.”

Tobias took one end of the search line and Cillian flanked the other.  Abby was in the row next to Tobias and Cender the next over from her, in the middle, leaving Jessi next to Cillian.

* * *

Car after car they searched, but nearly all of them were locked and none of them had keys in them.  They took their time to search thoroughly too, looking for magnetic key boxes around the bumpers and in the wheel wells, and looking under seats and digging through glove boxes in the cars that happened to have an open door.  Tobias found a lot of old fries, some cigarette butts, and even a small drug stash, but no keys.  He stood up from looking in the wheel well of one car and stretched his back.  He happened to look at the next row over, the one no one was searching, and noticed a vehicle parked in an odd manner.  Looking over at Abby and seeing that she was still searching a car one back from him, he decided he could take a small risk to go check this one out.

Tobias walked over and tried the driver’s door.  Expecting the resistance of a lock, he was very surprised when the door popped open.  He poked his head in and looked around the empty front seats.  Wouldn’t you know it, there were keys dangling out of the ignition.  Tobias couldn’t keep the grin off his face.  He hit the unlock button and checked that the back was as clear as the front.  It was.  He ran over toward the others.

“Guys!  Guys, I got us a ride!” He probably should’ve kept his voice down more but he couldn’t really control his enthusiasm.  This felt like the first good thing that had happened all day.

Abby was startled into bumping her head on the door jam of the car she was searching.  Tobias felt a little bad about that, but she looked fine.  Everyone headed over to him, faces full of hope.  Tobias led them over to their ride.  He watched the bemused grins spread on their faces as they looked at the vehicle.  It was a shiny, black, stretch limousine.

“Nice.”  Cender clacked his way over to it.  “I bet it’s got booze in the back too.”  He opened a rear door and slid in sideways, dragging his crutches after him.

“I’m driving.”  Cillian headed for the driver’s door.

“I found it, I should get to drive.”  Tobias followed him.

“Have you ever driven a car this length before?” Cillian raised an eyebrow at him.

“Have you?” Tobias retorted.

“I drive fire-trucks, remember?” Cillian reminded him.

Tobias felt some blood rush to his cheeks.  The man was still in his firefighter’s getup.  How could he forget?  He had even saved Tobias the first time using a fire-truck.  “Fine, but if we need to switch drivers at some point, I’m taking over.”

“Deal.”  Cillian slid in behind the wheel.

Jessi opened the front passenger door and leaned in.  Tobias was walking back toward the rear door so he couldn’t hear what was said, but Jessi ended up walking toward the back as well.  She looked a little annoyed, but thankfully not pissed.  Tobias had seen what she could do with that shovel.

He opened the door and climbed in.  Cender and Abby had both already taken their seats.  Abby sat at the back and she had buckled herself in, while Cender had taken up residence on the sideways seats, right across from the bar.  Jessi climbed in and headed for the backwards facing seats at the front of the vehicle.  Tobias thought he’d be most comfortable sitting with Abby in the back.  He opted not to put on his seat belt though.  He could just imagine them being attacked on the road and getting caught in the thing.

The engine roared to life, and Jessi found the button that opened the partition between the back and the front so that they could see and speak to Cillian.

“Who wants a drink?”  Cender pulled out a bottle of whisky.

24:

Dr. Bishop

Riley Bishop sighed and slumped over the steering wheel.  They hadn’t left early enough.  The highway was already clogged with cars.  Traffic was awful; worse than anyone had ever seen it.  Not only were hundreds, even thousands, of cars on the road, but they all seemed to have forgotten the rules.  Everyone was in such a rush fleeing for their lives, that they had forgotten how deadly a car could be.  There were fender benders everywhere, but they went mostly unnoticed as no one cared about the condition of their car anymore.  Well, those with their priorities straight didn’t care.  The bad accidents, though, just sat there blocking lanes, as no one moved the wrecks out of the way.  Riley watched a tow truck inch its way around a stalled car without showing any sign of stopping.  Of course, she wouldn’t have stopped either.

The traffic was bad, but at least it was still inching forward.  She knew that in about an hour it would be at a dead standstill.  Not only were there wrecks, but a handful of cars had overheated, run out of gas, or broken down in some way and were pulled over onto the shoulder.  Past the shoulder were the owners of those cars.  Some of them were trudging along next to the highway, watching carefully for runaway vehicles or a crazy driver thinking his car could make it across the large, grassy ditch that lined the highway.  Others were trying to thumb rides from strangers; some even getting lucky, although not many.  Another batch didn’t know what to do and essentially just stood there with their thumbs up their asses.

Their ambulance crept along at a steady pace.  Riley could tell it was a steady pace because one of the pedestrian’s four lanes over had been keeping up with them.  It was almost tempting to get out and walk herself, but Riley knew their supplies were too important.  Many people fleeing the city weren’t going to make it.  Even if they found some place safe from infection, they weren’t likely to last very long.  Especially when winter hit.  Even Riley worried about winter.  Where they were going it was especially harsh.  Her family got together out there for one week every year during one of the winter months, and every year Riley feared they weren’t going to make it.  This time it wasn’t just going to be a week; it was going to be the whole damn season.  And the season lasted about eight months.

“Look at this chump.”  Mathias Cole pointed past her, to a car on the other side of the divider.  Both lanes of traffic were headed the same direction now: north, away from the city.  On the south end of the city, everybody was probably heading south.

Riley looked over at the guy Cole was pointing to.  The man was mostly bald, the sun gleaming off his shiny head as he sat in his bright red convertible.  He kept gesticulating as if showing his frustration would make the traffic move faster.

“He looks like he’s late for work,” Riley stated this as a fact.  It was probably her serious, somewhat monotone way of saying it that got Cole laughing his ass off.

“He does!” Cole had a huge smile.  “Probably doesn’t even realize what’s going on.  Just wants to get to the golf course to make his tee time.”

Riley had to smile a little at this, even though it was absurd.  Obviously, the man knew what was going on if he was driving on the wrong side of the highway.

“Man, I wish there were some side windows back here,” LeBlanc complained from the back of the rig.  “I can only see out the back and the whole time it’s been the same old woman glaring at me.”

Cole turned in his seat and looked out through the back of the rig.  “I think she’s got a thing for you, man.”

“Lucky me.  Oh, did you hear the one about-”

“Please!” Riley cut him off.  “No more jokes, I can’t take anymore of them.”

“What’s wrong with my jokes?”  LeBlanc pushed Cole back into his seat and leaned up front between them.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with his jokes?” Cole double-teamed her.  They were like children.

“They’re awful,” Riley gave them both a sour look,  “and usually they’re terribly rude.”

“Only if you’re female,” LeBlanc grinned.

Riley showed him her middle finger.  LeBlanc managed to infuriate her every time he opened his mouth.

“I don’t think your girl likes me, mate.”  LeBlanc turned back to Cole.

“I don’t know why.  I find you very loveable.”  Cole patted him on the head.

Riley sighed louder and rolled her eyes.  “Please, get a room.”

“We got one back here!”  LeBlanc slid away into the back again.  He stood up and, bracing his arms and legs against the sides of the ambulance, started rocking the rig back and forth.  “If this rig’s a rocking, don’t come a knocking!”

Riley groaned and put her hands on her forehead, doing what minimum steering had to be done with her elbows.  This was going to be the longest drive of her life.  If her guns were up front with her rather than in back with the supplies, she would have been sorely tempted to shoot LeBlanc.  Right in the foot too.

“Do you think we’ll be driving at great speeds anytime soon?”  Cole turned to her and asked once LeBlanc had stopped shaking their ride.

“Does it look like we’ll be?”  Riley gestured out the windshield, turning her frustration on Cole.  She knew it was misplaced the moment it came out of her mouth, but she couldn’t help it.

“No, but I thought I’d ask.  I have to take a piss, and I figured you wouldn’t want me going in here.  I’m going to jump out, do my business, then run and catch up.”  Cole grabbed the door handle, taking Riley’s dark moods in stride.

“Fine.”  Riley shrugged, trying to ease off a little.  “Just take your rifle with you in case something happens.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  Cole opened his door and hopped out into traffic.  He dodged around the slow moving vehicles as he made his way to the side of the road.

“So,” LeBlanc climbed into the front seat,  “it’s just you and me now.”  He raised his eyebrows in a suggestive way.

Riley turned her head and looked at the bald man in the convertible.  She was trying so hard to keep her anger in check, and it seemed like all LeBlanc wanted to do was bring it out.  It was easier to look at the pompous man next to them with his slowly sunburning head than it was to see LeBlanc’s smug grin.

“Seriously though,” LeBlanc’s tone took a sudden change,  “do you really think Cole’s brother will end up in the same place we’re going?”

“I have no idea.”  Riley turned slightly so she could see LeBlanc’s reflection in the glass.  His face actually held a serious expression to match the serious tone of voice, so she turned all the way around.

“His little bro means the world to him.  They’re the only family each other have.”  LeBlanc looked out the window quickly, probably checking on where Cole was.

“Why is that?  What happened to their parents?”  Riley knew she probably shouldn’t pry, but at least it seemed like a decent topic of conversation; something she didn’t expect to get a lot of with this man.

“It’s not my place to say, but I can tell you he’s had it rough.  It’s probably left some irreparable damage along the way too.  He may seem happy and light-hearted, but I know better.  The fact that we still might run into Danny is probably all the guy is holding onto.  If he asks if you believe that Danny will show up, you tell him you think there’s a good chance.”

“But I think there’s a poor chance of that.”  Riley had always preferred honesty.  It was, after all, considered the best policy.

“It doesn’t matter what you actually think,” LeBlanc gave her a hard look and a cold voice.  It actually made her somewhat uncomfortable to be next to him just then.  “You tell him there’s a good chance or else there’s a good chance we’ll lose him.  If we lose him, I’ll make sure you get lost as well.  Get it?”

Riley got it.  “You care a lot about him, don’t you?” she decided to divert the topic somewhat.

“Of course I do,” LeBlanc’s voice became chipper again.  His expression could change like the flip of a light switch could change the look of a room.  “He’s my best mate.  He’s saved my ass a few times, I’ve saved his ass more…”  He glanced out the window.  “Speaking of his ass, here it comes.  Oh!  Almost got hit by a pissed off driver.  And now I bet that pissed off driver just pissed his pants ’cause Cole pointed his rifle at him,” he chuckled.

Cole suddenly popped up next to the passenger window.  He was standing on the ambulance’s side runner.  LeBlanc rolled down the window.

“LeBlanc, get back in the back.”  Cole made a shooing gesture.

“I refuse to ride in the back of the bus!” LeBlanc put on an indignant voice with a southern accent.

Riley had to hand it to him; he would’ve made an excellent voice actor.  She wondered if his normal Irish accent was real or put on.  Some of the voices he put on completely lacked an accent.

“Well, if we were in a bus, I’d let you sit in the front, but as it stands, we’re riding around in an ambulance, so git!”  Cole opened the door and starting pushing LeBlanc.

“You make an excellent point.”  LeBlanc scrambled back between the seats.

“He didn’t harass you too much, did he?” Cole asked Riley as he settled into the passenger seat and shut the door.

“No more than usual.”  Riley justified to herself that that was the truth, since he had bothered her when he first climbed up there.

“Are you sure?  ’Cause I can always go back there and wallop him,” Cole offered holding up a solid looking fist.

Riley didn’t know if he was serious or not.

“You?  Wallop me?  I’d like to see that,” LeBlanc laughed.

Riley sighed and checked on the pedestrian who had been keeping pace.  He seemed to be fatiguing and had dropped back a few paces, unless they were going faster, but that seemed extremely unlikely.  As she turned her attention back out the front windshield, she had to apply the brakes.  They came to a complete standstill.  Although this wasn’t the first time it happened, every time it did worried Riley more.  She understood that one of these times they wouldn’t start forward again.  End of the line, as it were.  Even though the ambulance rode higher than most of the vehicles around it, they had been approaching the top of a ridge and couldn’t see anything beyond it.  A small puff of smoke caused more concern, and then the ensuing pillar of black smoke caused a lot of concern.

“I’m going to check it out,” Cole told her as he slid out of his open window.  Using the window opening as a foothold, he climbed up on top of the ambulance.

When he didn’t say anything right away, and they hadn’t moved, Riley opened her own window, put the rig in park, and scrambled out of it.  Cole saw her climbing up and gave her a hand.  He easily lifted her up beside him.  They stood on the roof of the rig and looked over the traffic.  Up ahead, a large semi had somehow managed to cross all lanes and then tip over.  Not only was it blocking every car from moving forward, it was also on fire, creating an even bigger threat.  A few cars had tried to go around but just got stuck in the ditch.  Riley looked all around, hoping to spot somewhere they could get the ambulance over to the other side of the highway.  As luck would have it, there were no breaks at all in the cement dividers.  Not only that, but the off-ramp ahead of them was on the other side of the turned-over truck, and the on ramp behind them was a long way back.

“Fuck,” was the only word that came to Riley’s mind and subsequently out of her mouth.

Cole’s response was to point at something in the distance behind them.  It took a moment for Riley to figure out what he was pointing at, but then she saw it.  Already, the herd of people was on the move.  She knew they would come eventually, but not this soon.  Far in the distance, but close enough just to make out, was a mass of people threading their way through the stopped traffic.  Even the cars that weren’t stopped on the other side of the highway had a bunch of people walking amongst them.  This was eventually going to cause them to stop as well so even if Riley found a way over there, they might be overtaken by the mob.

One car was still making its way along, though.  A Jeep had driven off the road and had managed not to get trapped in the over-sized drainage ditch.  It now bounced along the uneven ground next to the tree line, causing people around it to scatter like roaches.

“Get back in the ambulance,” Riley told Cole and started to climb down to her window again.

“Why?”  Cole offered a hand to help her down.

She didn’t take it this time and got down on her own.  “Because we need to make a new plan.”

Riley sat behind the wheel for a moment, thinking.  This was a situation she hadn’t spent enough time thinking about.  She always assumed she would know the signs and be able to leave before the masses caught on.  Who was she kidding though?  She never even thought she would see any signs, especially not ones for this.  She should have seen them though.  She was right there in the hospital not only seeing, but sometimes even treating all the bites that came in.  She thought about how many there were, how many people over the last few weeks had come in bitten.  All of them were now biological zombie time bombs just waiting to go off.  Some already had.

Cole slid in through his window and sat sideways, looking at both Riley and LeBlanc.

“What’s going on?”  LeBlanc hadn’t been filled in on the overturned and road-blocking truck.  “Doc Bishop’s got a wickedly intense look going on.  Should I be worried?”

“The highway up ahead is blocked and there seems to be a flood of people coming from the city,” Cole gave him the quick version.

“It’ll only get bigger too,” Riley sighed.  “Everyone in these cars is going to join them.  Some will be infected, and during the walk, they’ll infect others, and then they’ll change and infect a lot more.  Panic will ensue, people will be trampled, and as everyone flees the city, the zombies are sure to follow them.”

“That looked like more people than I’d expect right now though,” Cole voiced Riley’s own thought.

“Word must have gotten out through some sort of media channel about getting out of the city.  Maybe even Keystone told people to go, seeing as they’re the only ones with proper communications right now,” Riley’s voice had gone completely neutral as she got lost in her own head.  She needed to plan.  Stay calm and plan, figure out what to do.

“Could be.  But that’s still a fuck ton.  Shouldn’t more be going south?  To warmer climates?”

“It’s one of the hottest days of summer.  No one is thinking about what the weather will be like a few months from now,” Riley pointed out.  “I’m betting it was Keystone that released the news based on the crowd size.  First of all, because no other broadcast would be able to convince that many people that leaving their homes would be the best thing right now.  Secondly, if word got out that other cities were infected, no one would go south.  The only thing south is Toronto and they’re probably not doing much better than us right now.”

“But why would Keystone warn people now and not earlier?  They’ve known for days, weeks even, that this thing was spreading,” the anger in Cole’s voice pulled Riley out of her reverie.  She hadn’t even been paying attention to what she was saying.

“Try the radio,” LeBlanc pitched in, “if they are broadcasting, the radio would be picking it up, right?”

Riley pushed the button to turn the radio back on.  They hadn’t tried it since leaving her house.  Almost instantly, a female voice came over the airwaves.

“… Take only what you can carry, and only what you need to survive.  Do not share your food or drink with anyone, as it is impossible to tell if they are infected until the fever kicks in.  If someone you know has a fever, especially if it is a sudden onset, do not approach them.  Keep them separated and even isolated from everyone else.  If you refuse to leave them, keep them contained in a locked room with enough food and water to last three days.  If they haven’t changed by then, then they aren’t infected and it’s safe to have contact with them again.  I repeat, the Marble Keystone Corporation has caused the release of a deadly virus.  Those infected become highly dangerous and infectious to those around them.  Leave the city at once.”

“Who is that?”  Riley looked to Cole and LeBlanc.  She didn’t really think they’d know but asked anyway.

“Chant,” both of them answered at the same time.

It took Riley a moment to realize that Chant was a name.  In fact, it was the name Cole had mentioned to her, the one who had given him the vest.  They sat in silence and continued to listen.  She wasn’t saying anything new that the boys hadn’t already told her, but in the background, you could hear banging and someone shouting.  Clearly, she wasn’t supposed to be on the radio.  Chant’s message picked up speed as she spoke faster, trying to get all her words, all her information out before whoever was shouting got in.  There was one thing she said that rocked everyone to their core.

“Keystone is responsible.  I know, because I’ve worked for them for years.  They released the virus deliberately, infecting the population at large.  Some sort of clean sweep,” her voice suddenly lost its haste and became sullen, more like she was speaking to herself.  It even broke a few times.  Riley thought she might be crying.  “I’ve known all along and I did nothing to stop it.  I sat by and let it happen.  I helped it happen.  What I’m telling you now could never make up for what I’ve done, but hopefully, at least a few lives can be saved.”

In the background, a large crash and the splintering of wood could be heard.  Someone yelled out Chant’s name.  She said one last thing as if they weren’t even there.

“I’m so sorry.  Good luck.”

There was a roar, a screech of metal, and possibly a scream.  Then there was dead air.

Riley had been watching the boys’ faces.  They had gone pale the moment they heard the roar.

“They burned her,” Cole muttered.

Riley frowned, “What?”

“She told the truth, and they burned her to death for it.  They used the goddamn flame-thrower,” Cole shook his head and looked down at his hands.  If it weren’t for his gloves, his nails would probably have drawn blood, he was clenching them so hard.  A vein stood out in the side of his neck, and he shook with a silent fury.

Riley didn’t know what to say.  Her first thought was that he must be wrong, because from her understanding, flame-throwers had been deemed illegal.  Then she realized that if Chant was right about them releasing the virus on purpose, they weren’t beyond using flame-throwers.  Both the boys had seemed to react solely to the sound, suggesting they had heard it before.  Riley didn’t want to think about in what capacity.

“I guess you didn’t know,” Riley spoke at last,  “about the deliberate release.”

Cole continued to stare at his fists, his face beginning to show the pure fury she saw in his shaking.  LeBlanc just shook his head.

“We would have done something if we knew,” he told her.  “We were told some rats had escaped the lab, and the moment that happened, a bunch of us wanted to inform the outside about what was going on.  I guess that’s how they weeded out whom to trust.  They even sent everybody on a facility-wide search to hunt down the rats.  They must have actually released some inside because we caught a few.  Three, I think.  They probably weren’t even infected.”

They sat in silence once again, each with his own thoughts.  It was broken by Cole suddenly slamming a fist into the dashboard.  It left a small dent, and Riley jumped slightly in her seat.  He slammed his other fist next to it, making a slightly larger dent.

He turned to Riley looking perfectly calm.  “So what do we do now?”

At first, Riley had no idea what he was talking about.  It seemed so strange after the sudden outburst.  “I’m not sure,” she admitted.  “I guess we grab all we can and walk.  Maybe there’ll be a car on the other side of the truck we can take.”

“Sounds like a shitty plan,” Cole grumped.

“Better than no plan.”  LeBlanc punched him in the arm.  “So Doc, what should we take?”

Riley climbed into the back with LeBlanc and started sorting out what they needed.  Cole stayed up front looking miserable.  Riley remembered that the first thing he had said was something about Chant not being the sniper.  When they had first run into each other, Cole had been shot with a fairly high calibre round.  If he hadn’t been wearing a protective vest, he would have been dead.  So a sniper shot him, but it wasn’t Chant.  This suggested that Chant was at least present when the shooting occurred.  And she knew about the shooting beforehand if she gave him a vest.  They probably knew each other rather well.  As well as worrying about his little brother, Cole was probably mourning the loss of a friend now.  Riley couldn’t imagine what that felt like.  She had never really had any ties to another person before.  She had never even had a pet.  Her whole life was spent waiting for something to happen, even if she didn’t believe it would.  Now it was happening and she was lost.  She had to hold together though.  LeBlanc and Cole needed her and she reluctantly needed them.

They packed up LeBlanc and Cole’s packs with new supplies.  Luckily, Riley had remembered to grab at least one bag and they packed that up for her as well.  Every time Riley had to put something in the abandon pile, it was almost painful.  She knew just how important everything was: how much longer each piece of food would allow them to last, each drop of gas to keep the generators going, each piece of clothing to keep their body temperatures up.  Riley’s dad had taught her three things that were supposed to keep her ahead of the game.  The first was to know what was coming and take action before everyone else; she failed that one.  The second was to have a plan and she at least still had that but there had to be a lot of improvisation along the way.  The third was always to have supplies, and now those were being severely limited.  There was no choice though.  There was no way they could take everything on their backs.  Just over four fifths had to be left behind.  She hoped her family was doing better than she was.

“What do we do about the rest?”  LeBlanc looked at the boxes after the bags were stuffed.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Riley told him.  “Maybe when we go, we should leave the doors open so others can take them if they want.”

“That might start fights over it,” Cole mumbled from the front seat.  It was the first thing he had said in nearly ten minutes.

“I’d rather start a fight than think someone who really needed it couldn’t find it.”  Riley went to the back of the ambulance and opened the doors.  If she couldn’t use her own supplies, then she didn’t want them to go to waste.

LeBlanc followed her out and handed her his packsack.  She gave him a confused expression with a glance to her own bag.

“My bag’s lighter than yours.”  LeBlanc threaded his arms through the straps of what had been Riley’s bag.  “So I’m carrying yours and you’re carrying mine.”  He then looked at the old woman in the car behind theirs and winked.

Riley didn’t bother to turn to see her reaction.  She just swung the pack onto her back and reached into the back of the ambulance one last time to pull out her rifle of choice.  It was a bolt action model 70 Winchester rifle with 30-06 Springfield rounds.  The reason for this choice was because of its accuracy and the bolt action would force her to make sure she aimed every shot.  What was the point of firing hundreds of bullets if only one to the head mattered?  Automatics were a waste of ammo when body shots were worthless.  It only held five rounds a magazine but she had been reloading guns about as long as she could walk so she was pretty quick at it.

“Do your guns have a single shot setting?” Riley asked LeBlanc.

“Yup.”  LeBlanc showed her.  “As soon as we knew we were coming out here, we flipped it to that setting and on that setting it will stay.”

Good, they knew single shots were best.  Riley couldn’t help but notice the gun.  She had never seen that kind before.  At first, she had mistaken it for an M4A1 carbine, but with a closer look, she saw that there were a lot of subtle differences.  The barrel was shorter and the magazine was wider, possibly to hold more rounds.  The end of the stock that you would butt up against your shoulder was padded which suggested to Riley it had more kick.  She could see smaller detail changes as well, but without a thorough study, she couldn’t say for sure what they were.  It must be one of the perks of working for Keystone: you get all the neat toys before they come out on the market.

Around them, the mass of people was starting to catch up.  Only the quickest of the groups so far, most of them in ones and twos, the largest group consisting of just four.  Cole hopped out of the front seat, slinging his own pack onto his back as he went.  The three grouped together at the back of the ambulance, looking inside to make sure there was nothing else they could take.  Riley grabbed one more loaded mag and a box of latex gloves and put them in the cargo pockets on the sides of her shorts.  Then she decided to grab her stethoscope and slung it around her neck.  She didn’t think she would be able to carry any more than that and so stepped back from the open doors.  It was painful for her to do it, worse than leaving her house.  Already she noticed some people looking at the ambulance with curiosity.

* * *

The trio climbed over the barrier and started weaving their way through traffic.  Although the moving cars on this side posed some threat, it would get them past the truck and out of its danger zone faster.  The truck was currently more worrisome than the creeping traffic.

Riley looked around.  It seemed the Jeep had made its way through the crowd and taken off because she couldn’t see it anywhere.  Further back there must have been a safe route to get off-road without ending up in a ditch, because more and more cars were making their rough way next to the tree line.  Riley guessed a fair number of people were going to be run down by those cars, especially as the drivers became more impatient.  Once the first zombie, or someone mistaken for a zombie, got close enough to one of those cars, it would start an automobile stampede that no one would be safe from.  It could happen on this side of the highway too, but because there were more cars than people, they were actually safer.  The bulk of the cars would offer some protection, but they would still have to be careful not to get their legs pinned between them.

When they made it to the top of the hill, they could see the truck billowing smoke at the bottom of it.  There was even more than before.

“I don’t like the look of that,” Cole frowned.

“I don’t either,” Riley agreed.

“What do you think?  Should we make our way to the tree line and pass over there?  That’d be further away than we could get on this side.”  Cole looked down at Riley.

She hadn’t realized until just that moment how much taller he was.  She only made it up to about his chin.  Riley was a little on the short side and Cole was a little on the tall side.  “Yeah.  Even further though.  We’re going to walk through the trees; if that thing goes, I want something solid between us and it.”

Cole nodded his agreement and crossed over the barrier once again.  It would have been nice to avoid the faster moving cars on the other side of the ditch, but they had no choice.  Their side of the road didn’t have trees. It still had housing developments along it and a large stone wall separating them from the highway.

Riley and LeBlanc followed Cole back over the barrier and wove their way through the stopped vehicles.  Nearly all of them had been abandoned by now.  In the few that were still occupied, the owners clearly didn’t know what to do; couldn’t decide on the best course of action.  The group climbed down the ditch and stopped once they had scrambled up the other side.  Checking first that no cars were going to come tearing along, they hurried over to the tree line.  This close to the turned-over truck, Riley could smell gas over the perpetual stink of exhaust.  She was surprised it hadn’t gone up in a great whoosh of flames already.  Everybody in the area had been lucky about that, so far.  The hoard that was coming up might not be though.  If this day continued to be as unlucky as it had been, the truck-turned-bomb was likely to go off just as the masses surrounded it.

They entered the trees and began putting some distance between them and the highway.  This side of the highway had never been developed because it was a national park.  Keystone probably could have found a way to buy it out and develop all they wanted but they had decided not to.  In fact, they donated a lot of money to keep it a park and had made sure that no trees in it were harmed when they widened the highway.  It was something about helping with the pollution, although Riley doubted it would do much good.  Then again, Leighton was a very clean city as far as cities go.

Marble Keystone had built it from the ground up.  Nearly forty years ago, they had decided to place their headquarters and main labs in the middle of nowhere off highway 533.  Then they had to build homes for their workers to live in because commuting would be ghastly.  After that, they needed shops so the workers could buy necessities, and other businesses so that their families could live and work there as well.  The place was pretty much always under construction, but everything had been planned out rather well.  Leighton could just as easily be called Keystone City.  The only reason it wasn’t was because the people had decided to vote for Leighton instead.  There were other locations around the world where Keystone was doing this kind of thing as well, but Leighton was the first and the oldest.  The others couldn’t be considered cities yet.

The trees and brush were thick next to the highway, but after pushing through the worst of it, it cleared out a bit.  There was enough brush though, that Riley wished she had attached the bottoms of her pants.  Other people were tromping their way through the woods as well.  Not a lot, but a few.  They looked very wary and scared.  Riley bet that each of them had had a zombie encounter.

They went far enough into the woods to make out some glittering off the lake on the other side of the trees.  Coming across a deer trail that ran parallel to the highway was a bit of luck.  It made the going easier but Riley’s bare shins were still brushed by bushes every so often.  It was a good thing she had grown up in the woods and was used to having various parts of herself scratched up.

They walked in silence, each in their own thoughts.  Riley’s were mostly about what to do next and trying to do an inventory from memory of the things they had in the cabin.  Occasionally, thoughts of her family invaded and she wondered how they were handling things.  She also wondered how Cender was doing.

It was while she was lost in these thoughts that the explosion happened.  The trees dampened the shock wave, but a great flock of birds exploded out of the bushes all around.

“The truck.”  Riley instinctively ran toward the highway.  Her training as an ER doctor kicked in and she felt a need to make sure people were okay.  Apparently, she could turn that part of her off when it came to zombie infection, but not to other sorts of accidents.

She leaped over brush and darted around rocks, ducked under branches and swerved around tree trunks.  Her childhood times spent running through the woods with her sister and brothers came back to her in a flood.  Her feet knew where to land with only minimum input from her eyes.

Behind her, she could hear the boys plowing after her, more like charging bulls to her graceful deer.  She squeezed out through the thick stuff and into the bright, clear sunlight.  It took her a moment to get oriented to the highway again but it didn’t take long to spot the truck.  A wall of black smoke rose up from the highway behind them obscuring everything past it.  Riley headed toward it.

“Wait.”  LeBlanc caught up and placed a restraining hand on her arm.

“There might be someone I can help.”  Riley didn’t try to pull away though.  Even if she had, LeBlanc’s grip was like steel.

“There could be, yes,” LeBlanc nodded.  “But some people will have died, and some of those dead may have been infected and are now rising again.  Or even if they aren’t dead, you run a high risk of getting contaminated blood on you and getting infected yourself.  Besides, how many do you really think you can save with the supplies you have on hand?  Not to mention we may need those supplies.”

“What if one of them is Danny?”  Cole stared at the pillar of black.

LeBlanc let go of Riley and sat silent for a moment.  “We’ll take a quick look,” he finally said.  “But we’re not to use our supplies on anyone.  If they have their own, then go for it using theirs, but only if you think you can do it without getting any blood on you.”

Riley nodded and headed toward the wreck.  Cole followed right beside her, but LeBlanc stayed a few steps behind them.  He kept his rifle up and at the ready; he was being the rational one.

* * *

The first victim Riley came across was very dead.  She couldn’t even tell if it was male or female, just a hunk of charred and burned flesh.  He or she must have been next to the tanker when it went up, the body thrown a good distance.  It was probably a quick and maybe even instant death.  Here and there were bits and pieces, some identifiable, some not.  Riley tried not to focus on them.

Cole started calling out his brother’s name.  The closer they got to the truck, the louder he had to call to be heard.  The roar of the flames was consuming all other sound.  A second, smaller explosion went off causing everyone conscious to duck.  It had been a car on the other side of the tanker exploding.  Several others were on fire and likely to go off as well.  Riley quickly saw there was little she could do.  Even with an unlimited amount of supplies, a sterile work environment, and no risk of infection, those that weren’t dead already soon would be.  Cole wasn’t the only one calling out a name.  Several people were looking for friends, loved ones.  Some had found them and just sat there, bawling.

A woman spotted Riley and her eyes went wide.  She must have noticed the stethoscope around her neck.  She stumbled toward Riley, arms stretched out.  She wasn’t badly hurt, only a few minor burns on her arms, but she kept pointing behind her, gesturing to someone else in the crowd.  The roar of the flames and Cole’s shouting drowned out her cries for help.  Riley didn’t know what to do.  The doctor in her wanted to step forward, the survivalist wanted to run away.

LeBlanc suddenly stepped forward, placing himself between Riley and the woman.  His gun was raised, muzzle pointed at the woman’s face.  He began shouting at her, telling her to back off.  She stopped, scared of the gun, but continued to cry out for help.  LeBlanc started backing up, pushing Riley along behind him.  Cole scanned the area frantically but he stopped calling out and followed backwards with them.  LeBlanc finally turned around.  He grabbed Riley’s shoulders and spun her around as well, marching her forward by grabbing the handle on the top of her bag and pushing.  He kept looking over his shoulder.

“I can walk on my own.”  Riley finally managed to shrug out of his grip.

“How about we agree not to stop for any more big disasters?” LeBlanc suggested.  He looked at Riley only briefly as he said this and focused most of this statement toward Cole.

Cole nodded, but continued to look around.

Out of the bushes next to them sprang a snarling man, causing Riley to gasp and trip over her own feet.  Despite seeming distracted, Cole raised his gun reflexively and fired.  The man went down, two shots to the torso and one saviour to the head.  A bit of ammo waste, but at least the zombie was down.

“They’ve gotten pretty far,” Cole frowned as he helped Riley get back to her feet.  Her heart was hammering in her throat.

“Like I said, that blast probably created a bunch in a hurry,” LeBlanc shrugged.  Both the men were eerily calm.

“No,” Riley shook her head as she looked down at the body.  “This man has no burns.  Other than the gunshots, it looks like his only injury is to his shoulder.”

Riley looked around and noticed a wide swath of brush had been flattened nearby.  She made her way to it, her own rifle now raised to her shoulder.  Down the cleared patch was the Jeep they saw earlier, now rammed up against a tree.  The three of them headed for it.

“What did I just say about accidents?” LeBlanc muttered.

“You actually said ‘big disasters’,” Cole pointed out.  “I don’t think a car crash counts as that.”

They slowly surrounded the Jeep and took a quick look inside.  There was nothing and no one, although there was a fair amount of blood on the dashboard, especially around the passenger seat.

“Looks like at least one person walked away.”  Cole stepped forward and took a closer look at the vehicle.  “It’s totalled, we can’t use it.”

“Gee, you think?  I thought the crushed hood kind of gave it away.”  LeBlanc tapped the end of his gun on the crumpled nose of the vehicle.

Riley was trying to get a look in the glove box, which had popped open, without having to open the door, when Cole dropped out of sight around the back.  She half hurried around the car to make sure he was all right.  He was just checking out something in the dirt.

“What is it?”  Riley crouched down beside him, slightly irritated that he had made her worry but more curious.  LeBlanc made his way over to them but stayed upright, keeping watch.

“What do these look like to you?”  Cole pointed to a pair of grooves in the dirt.

At first, Riley didn’t know and shrugged.  “Wait a minute.”  She remembered seeing something similar earlier that day.  “Wheelchair treads?”

Cole grinned up at her.

“Hey now,” Riley shook her head,  “it could easily be someone else in a chair.”  It could have even been a shopping cart for all they knew.

Cole paid no attention to her and started looking around in the dirt.  “Here!”  He cried out with joy.  Riley hurried over and looked.  Sure enough, it was a shoe print similar to the one in her house.

“I’ll be damned,” she shook her head, not quite believing.  She looked up at LeBlanc who seemed just as surprised.

Cole took off running back toward the road.  “Danny!  Danny!”

“Cole, wait!”  Riley wasn’t as quick to get to her feet.  First, it was she who went off running, and now it was Cole.  They weren’t doing a very good job of keeping their heads.

LeBlanc was already on his feet and was able to reach Cole faster.  Cole was damned lucky he was able to.  Just as LeBlanc grabbed his pack and pulled, a pickup truck roared past them, just barely missing Cole.

“Slow down some.”  LeBlanc hit him on the arm.  “Not to sound like a cliché but, you’re no good to anyone dead.”

Cole took a breath and closed his eyes.  He opened them and looked at Riley.  Riley had no idea what it meant but knew it meant something.  He then looked to the ground for tracks.  LeBlanc helped him while Riley kept watch for attackers.  She was a little jumpy.  A few survivors were already on the move again, even more cautious than before.  Riley wondered how much longer it would be before they had to worry about the uninfected trying to attack them.

They found the wheelchair tracks and started following them again.  Cole kept looking forward, expecting to see his little brother walking up ahead.  Hell, Riley herself thought that might happen.  The odds were insurmountable and yet, here was evidence.

Then they rounded a bend and the tracks disappeared.  Cole searched the area frantically but found nothing.  He yelled out a wordless curse of pure frustration.  The survivors nearby flinched, wondering if they should run and hide.  Riley understood the feeling, wondering that a little herself.

“Calm yourself, dude.”  LeBlanc put a hand on his shoulder.  “There are still cars moving on this side.  You nearly got run over by one yourself.  They probably managed to thumb a ride.”  He pointed out a bunch of tire tracks running through the dirt.  “Something we should start thinking about doing ourselves.”  He looked to Riley for support.

“He’s right,” she nodded.  “It takes sixteen hours to get to my brother’s place by car, maybe fifteen now subtracting what we’ve already covered, and I don’t really want to find out how long it takes on foot.  Whoever Danny’s with probably realized this and thought to get a new car quickly.  We need to find one ourselves.”

Cole nodded and ran a hand over his rugged face and across his buzzed hair.  Riley found it strange that LeBlanc was keeping his emotions in check better than the rest of them.  She always thought she could take on any challenge, pass any test, and overcome any obstacle.  Now, when the thing she had been training for most was finally here, she needed the support of these two men.  She realized she wouldn’t have gotten as far as she had without them.

They started walking, keeping an eye out for a vehicle they could use.  And potential attackers.  Whichever came first.

25:

Lady Taggart

Kara glanced up at the rear-view mirror again.  Again, she caught that Alec McGregor guy looking at her.  He clearly didn’t trust her.  She was perfectly fine with that, because she didn’t trust him either.  The only reason they were putting up with each other was for the sake of their own survival and, to an extent, the children’s.

Danny and Alice were getting along famously.  They were talking about kid stuff, like candy and toys and children’s TV shows that Kara had never heard of.  She would half listen to their conversation, as it was a nice escape from what was going on outside the Jeep.

Things had gotten much worse out there.  As they drove through the neighbourhoods, more and more cars were getting on the road.  More people were leaving their homes on foot as well.  This meant that more attacks were in plain sight instead of behind closed doors.  People on foot were running; people in cars were being reckless.

Walter was being very careful.  He was driving under the posted speed limit and constantly keeping an eye out for anything and everything.  Kara normally preferred speed when in her own car, but she wasn’t going to push for it.  She had witnessed enough accidents already to know that she definitely didn’t want to be in one.  The strangest had been a head on collision they had narrowly missed being part of.  The driver, or maybe it was a passenger, of one car hadn’t been wearing a seat belt.  The collision itself wasn’t that bad, considering, but it was bad enough to send a man flying out through the windshield and in through the windshield of the other car.  The driver of that other vehicle, a woman, freaked out, but looked unhurt.  The woman was clearly very frightened though.  Kara saw through the side windows as the woman turned and looked into her backseat, where the man had been thrown.  Maybe she wanted to see if he was all right, maybe she just wanted to see.  A pair of arms then reached up from the back and grabbed the woman.  The thrown man pulled himself upright and attacked the woman in such a vicious manner that Kara had to look away.  But not before blood had been sprayed all over the windows.

Kara noticed that the boy in the backseat, Danny, kept lifting his eyes up to the window and looking at what was going on out there.  He never said anything about it though; just occasionally went pale with a grim look on his face.  Mostly he was keeping Alice distracted from seeing the more heinous and mentally scarring things.  Apparently, he was looking out for the only one in the car younger than he was.  Kara thought there was something honourable and noble about that.  She normally had a very low opinion of children and saw them as whining brats who cared only about getting what they wanted with the least amount of effort.  In her experience, she was almost always right.

Other than looking out at humanity destroying itself, there really wasn’t much to do in the car.  Kara clicked on the radio and skimmed a few stations, but nothing was coming in except for someone speaking a foreign language, possibly a Middle Eastern one.  It happened to be a language that Kara didn’t know a word of, so she switched it off.

“So,” she finally said aloud, half turning in her seat to face those in the back.  “What do you do for a living Mr. McGregor?” her tone suggested that she really wasn’t interested, but was asking anyway.

“I’m a mechanic,” McGregor’s tone also suggested he had no interest in the conversation but was playing along.  “What do you do?”

“I’m a part owner of Marble Keystone.  Other than a few money delegations from time to time, I’ve actually never worked,” she informed him.

“Daddy’s money.”  McGregor didn’t say it as an insult but it still sounded like one.

“Yes.  My grandfather was a founder,” Kara tried not to sound too defensive.  “My family helped build this entire city from the ground up.”

“And in the end, helped tear it down.”

Kara had no idea what he meant by that.  Her facial expression must have given that fact away.

“What?  You don’t think Keystone had something to do with this?”  McGregor gestured to the car’s surroundings.

“Of course not,” Kara frowned.  In fact, she was pretty sure she had seen some of Keystone’s security down a side street but she hadn’t said anything.  Although the White Box, everyone’s nickname for the lab, would be well protected, not even Kara could get Walter and Alice admission to the place.  And she wasn’t about to separate from them now.  For whatever reason, this was the first time in Kara’s memory that she didn’t want to be alone.

“Well, Danny’s older brother here happens to work for Keystone.”  McGregor gestured to the boy next to him.  The boy in question gave a look that suggested he didn’t want to get dragged into the conversation.  “Apparently he works in some underground facility where all sorts of things happen.  If that’s not where this came from, then tell me where did it?”

“It did not come from Keystone,” Kara didn’t hide her defensive tone this time.  “It could have come from anywhere.  From some other company in China for all we know.”

“I’m pretty sure the news would have caught on to something sooner if it started in China,” McGregor raised an eyebrow.  “It started here.  In the city that, you reminded us, was built by Keystone.”

“I would have heard of something like this being done.”  Kara tried to remember if she had heard of something.  She couldn’t think of anything though.  She had been to the underground White Box a few times and couldn’t think of anything suspicious she might have seen there.

“You said yourself you only did some money delegating,” McGregor had taken on an accusatory tone.  “Tell me, did you ever look at what your money was being put into?  Did you even care?”

“Of course I cared,” Kara snapped at him.  She did not like being accused of something she had no part in.  “I’ll admit that Keystone has a weapons division but I never funded that section.  All my charity and fund raising work was for the health research department, where my father worked, and what he would have wanted.  We’ve looked into cancer research, limb replacement and assistance, a cure for AIDS, rare diseases no one else is looking into.  We even had that damned concert today for spinal cord injuries.”

She spat that last one in his face, remembering he used a wheelchair.  Figuring that would have won her the argument, or at least given her the upper hand, a small smile tried to tug up the corner of her mouth.  McGregor, though, had a completely different reaction than she expected.  He smiled back.  Rather broadly too.

“Maybe you should have stuck with the military funding,” he said.

Kara frowned.

“My spine is fine.  It’s my legs that were damaged,” he explained.  “I’ll admit I probably would have lost them if it weren’t for the wonderful care of your health organization, but I wouldn’t be injured in the first place if it wasn’t for them.  The money you put into military development doesn’t just go into weapons.  It also goes into protection.  Things to keep us from being shot, not just things that shoot.  It also goes into reconnaissance, like satellites and spy planes.  Things that could have seen the helicopter before they sent me and my partner in there.  Not to mention, I’m pretty sure we were there because of your health organization.  I remember reading later, after our mission was complete and I was recovering, that your company had recently signed a treaty to move into and explore that particular area for plants that could benefit health developments.  An area where I shot and killed the rebel leader.  As for your precious health research having nothing to do with this, you said yourself you looked into rare diseases.  This looks like it could be a disease to me.  A rare one at that.  Like a fast-acting rabies.  So tell me, how deeply into this research did you look?  Or did you just skim the words that sounded good?”

The inside of the car went utterly silent.  The only sounds came from outside and from the wind rushing in through Walter’s broken window.  Kara remembered the incident he was referring to, about the exploration team.  She had just thought it was good luck that the rebel leader had been killed and was replaced by someone who was willing to negotiate.  She knew that Keystone had influence over government officials, but never thought they would use it to do that.  And what he said about what was happening around them, it was true, it did look like a disease or virus of some sort.  She had immediately thought it was something weaponized, but it could very well have been some accidental exposure to something they were working with.  It did seem to bring the dead back to life, after all, and wasn’t that what health care was about?  Pushing back death?

“I’m sorry,” was all she could say in the end.

“For what?”  McGregor wasn’t going to let her get away with just that, apparently.

“For what happened to your legs,” she started with,  “and for possibly – possibly – funding something that could have caused this.”  It was still guesswork.  They couldn’t know for sure if Keystone had anything to do with it.  “I still don’t think it was Keystone.  They would have made a public announcement if an accident occurred, but I’ll admit that they may have been working with something I know nothing about.”

It was silent in the car again for another several blocks.

* * *

“So what was it like growing up rich?” Danny spoke up, breaking the heavy silence.

The question threw Kara off guard for a moment, and so it took that moment before she answered.  “Although there were a lot of down strokes in my life, it has still been a lot better than most peoples’ lives.”  Kara hated the other rich people who thought they were suffering, that their lives were hard.  They had no idea.

“Did you own a horsey?” Alice wondered.

“I did,” Kara smiled at the memory.  The horse she owned as a girl was the closest thing she had to a pet, even though she only went to the stables to ride it twice a month or so.  “His name was Gregory.  He was a great big, grey thing that was rather dim-witted as far as horses go.”

With no idea why, Kara found herself suddenly overcome by emotion at the thought of Gregory the horse.  She hadn’t thought of him in ages, but all of a sudden, she could remember everything about him.  The feel of his soft muzzle, the awful smells he usually had lingering about him, the discoloured spot on his left front hoof.  She even remembered the way he would always favour that leg on days it was going to rain, like an old man with a bad knee.  She remembered all these things, but couldn’t, for the life of her, remember what became of Gregory.

“I would like to own a horsey,” Alice said in a voice of declaration.  “My Daddy says they’re too expensive and couldn’t live at our house, but I want one anyway.  I think Shoes would like to have a horsey friend.”

“What would you name your horse?” McGregor asked the girl.  All the cold and vicious tones he had directed at Kara earlier had completely left his voice.  He was much kinder to the small girl.

“I would name her Butterscotch,” Alice answered without hesitation.  “She would have fur like gold, and I would feed her apples every day.”

“I always wanted a ferret,” Danny chimed in.  “I would probably call him Bandit but I would have to see him first to see if the name suited him.”

“What’s a furret?” Alice wondered.  “Isn’t that a Pokémon?”

“Yeah, but I said a ferret.  It’s kind of like a weasel, but much cooler,” Danny told her.

“Do you have a pet, Mister Walter?” Alice asked their driver.

“No, but I grew up right near a pond that was always full of frogs,” Walter shrugged.  “They were sort of like my pets.  I would try to catch them all the time, and whenever I did, my mom would shriek at me to put it back in the pond.  I don’t think she liked having them hopping around the kitchen.”

Danny and Alice laughed.  That was something Kara had never known about Walter.  In fact, now that she thought about it, she didn’t really know that much about him at all.  She only knew about the things he did while he worked for her.  They lived under the same roof, but there was still that boss-employee line that had never really gone away.  Kara would like to consider Walter her friend, but she realized she couldn’t really do that.  She wasn’t even sure she knew what a true friend was, not since she was seven years old anyway.  And seven-year-old friendships are vastly different from those of a grown woman.  Aren’t they?

“What about you, Mr. Eggor?”  Alice turned to McGregor.

“I have a dog,” he smiled at the girl, but Kara noted a hint of sadness in his voice.  It sounded like something about the dog bothered him more than what happened to his legs, which made no sense at all.  “He’s a German Shepherd named Rifle.”

“I bet Shoes would like him.  Where is he?”  Clearly, Alice didn’t notice the same thing Kara did.

“I don’t know.”

Danny also looked uncomfortable about this topic.  Something must have happened recently if Danny had met the dog.  Actually, Kara didn’t know that.  She didn’t know how the two had met.  She just assumed it was recently, the way she had met Alice.  But they could have been neighbours for all she knew.

“So, how did you two meet up?”  Kara decided that that would make a good change of conversation.

“I found Danny in my garage actually,” McGregor didn’t explain much more than that.

“What were you doing in his garage?” Kara asked Danny.  She didn’t want to butt heads with McGregor again, so perhaps the boy could carry on as good a conversation with her as he did with Alice.

“Hiding,” Danny said with a roll of his eyes as if it were obvious.

“How did you meet Alice?” McGregor asked.

“Walter and I found her in the back of a smashed car.”  Although that wasn’t technically true.  Walter had really found her on his own.

“And you and Walter…?”  McGregor didn’t need to finish the question.

“Walter’s worked for me for several years now,” Kara told him as she turned to Walter.  “We were together when things went south.”

Kara watched McGregor nod in a knowing manner in the rear-view mirror.  There was something he wasn’t saying, or maybe asking, but she didn’t know what.  Perhaps there was a reason for it and she shouldn’t ask.  For now, she would hold off on that one.  Things still seemed rather tense.

“Lord,” Walter muttered under his breath.

Kara glanced at him and then in the direction he was looking.  They had turned a corner that led onto a major street, which led to the highway they were trying to get to.  Being turned around while talking, Kara hadn’t noticed they had to cut through a parking lot to get to the street.  The road and all streets leading to it was packed full of cars.  In fact, several other cars were taking their example of crossing through the parking lots.  Everybody seemed to be heading to the highway.

“What is going on?”  Kara looked at all the cars and even more at all the people.  It was crazy how many people were walking around the flood of vehicles.  Foot, car, truck, bicycle, everything was heading to the same highway.

“I guess we weren’t the only ones who decided to get out of the city,” Walter grumped.

“This still seems like a lot though.”  Kara looked at the masses.  Considering her first idea had been to hole up at home, she figured many others would try that as well.  It wasn’t possible that so many people had the same kind of experience that Kara had had with the McGraws.

“Something isn’t right,” McGregor actually agreed with her.  “They must know something we don’t.”

Kara nodded.

McGregor rolled down his window a few inches.  “Hey!”  It took him a while, but he finally got the attention of a pedestrian who didn’t shy away from his calling.  “What’s going on?  I mean, why is everybody leaving?”

“Same reason you are,” the guy sounded like he thought McGregor was an idiot.

“What do you mean?” McGregor frowned.  “It seems unlikely to me that we all came up with the same idea at the same time.”

The guy frowned at him for a moment, then a light dawned in his eyes.  “Oh shit, you didn’t hear the broadcast.”

“What broadcast?”  Kara turned and leaned toward the open windows to hear better.

“Over the radio.”  The man pointed to where he assumed the radio would be in the Jeep.  “It’s been coming in and out, but it seems everybody’s tuned in at some point.”

Kara turned back to the front and flicked on the radio.  She scanned the frequencies until one partly came in.

“Flee…  City… Not a… Infection is sweep-…… -ble Keystone is responsible…  Inside…”

When Kara heard that line about Keystone being responsible, she froze for a moment, but then snapped the radio back off.  She stared forward out of the Jeep but could feel eyes boring into the back of her skull.  McGregor’s, Danny’s, even Walter’s.  Alice was probably the only one who didn’t get it.  If the dog, Shoes, could see her, he would probably be looking at her too.  Kara couldn’t face any of them at that moment.  What had she done?  She had funded the end of the world, that’s what.  While she pretended to be a humanitarian, she was actually helping to destroy life as they knew it.  Not knowing what they were up to was not an excuse.  She should have checked in on them more often and more thoroughly.  Sure, there were legal documents, but lawyers who also worked for Keystone wrote those, and maybe they didn’t know the truth either.  She had given her money to feed a monster.

“You don’t happen to have room in there to give me a ride do you?”  The man McGregor had been talking to saved Kara from having to say anything further.

“We’re packed in here fairly tight.”  McGregor didn’t outright refuse.  He sounded like he was mulling it over.

“Nah, it’s all right.”  The man suddenly waved off the idea.  “I just realized I’d rather not be packed into a can with a bunch of strangers.  I mean, I don’t know if any of you are infected.  You also have a dog in there I just noticed, and I’m allergic,” the man sounded nervous, like he had noticed something about the car or their group that he didn’t like, and it certainly wasn’t Shoes.  “I’m going to go east on foot through the woods anyway, so it would have only been a short ride.”

Kara finally turned and saw that no one was looking at her.  Or at least no one was looking at her anymore.  The stranger began to move through the crowd, away from the Jeep.

“Good luck to you!” McGregor called out to the man before closing his window again.  It was unfortunate they couldn’t also close Walter’s.

The man waved a brief gesture over his shoulder before being swallowed up by the throng.

“Look at them all.”  Danny had unbuckled his seat belt and was kneeling backwards on his seat, looking out at all the people and cars behind them.

“It’s like everyone in the city,” Walter commented.  Due to his broken window, he had shuffled in his seat as far right as he could.  It was obvious he was frightened of someone reaching through.  The exhaust smell was expected, as was the sound of rumbling engines, but the lack of voices coming from the crowd was unsettling.  Hardly any of them were having conversations with one another, opting to travel silently.

“No,” McGregor shook his head.  “This is just the suburbs.  The city wouldn’t have gotten this far yet.”

“Well it’s looking like we’re not going to get much farther.”  Walter pointed ahead.

They had begun to creep their way up onto the bridge that spanned the highway.  Although a lot of cars were getting on the southbound’s ramp the wrong way, Walter had headed across the bridge to the proper onramp.  They could see the highway and clogged congestion of cars upon it.

“Fuck.”  That was the first time Kara had used a swear word since she was in her twenties.  She had learned to use several other words in its place over the years, but at this present moment, she couldn’t think of any that would adequately cover the situation.  Just that one crude syllable and even it couldn’t properly convey her feelings.

“Can you get to the other side of the bridge at least?”  McGregor pulled himself forward with the back of Walter’s seat, trying to get a better look out the front windshield.

“Maybe.”  Walter started focusing entirely on driving again.

So many people were around them now that they had to keep pace with the pedestrians in front of them.  It was the only way to keep moving without running someone over.  Kara was afraid that Walter would touch the gas pedal a little too hard and they would ram into the people.  One of them was a pretty blonde carrying a swaddled baby up against her shoulder and nothing else.  Inch by inch they crossed the bridge.

“What now?” Walter sighed out the words when they finally reached the other end.

“Drive through that,” McGregor pointed ahead.

Kara looked and noticed he was pointing at a flimsy rail made of wooden posts with wire strung between them.  On the other side, it looked like the ground went down a fairly steep grade.

“What if I hit someone on the other side?” Walter frowned.

“There won’t be anyone over there,” McGregor assured him.  “Everybody getting on is going down the ramp, and those that are already on the highway are going under the bridge instead of climbing up and down the hill.”

“You’re sure?”  Walter turned and looked McGregor in the face.

“Positive.”  Kara had always been able to spot liars, and McGregor was a good liar.  It was something to keep in mind.

“All right.”  Walter turned to face forward again.

He inched the Jeep out of the cluster and started toward the barrier.  The area around it was clear, so Walter was able to give the Jeep some gas before they crashed into it.  At first, they just hit into the wire and were stopped.

“Keep giving it gas,” McGregor encouraged.

Walter continued to work the gas pedal, the four-wheel drive skidding and digging at the pavement.  They inched slightly forward, and then slightly more.  The front tires eventually pushed their way over the edge of the drop.  The car hung suspended at a level height for a moment due to the wires, but they gave a little more and the vehicle tipped forward.  Once the car tipped forward enough for the back end to start lifting, the posts couldn’t hold out any longer and popped out of the earth.  The Jeep tumbled down the hillside, bouncing and jolting everyone inside, but managing to stay upright.  Someone whooped from the backseat, but Kara couldn’t tell if it was McGregor or Danny.  It might even have been Alice.  Shoes barked in protest.

The ground levelled out again, and Walter had to pull hard on the wheel to keep from slamming into some trees.  They tilted up on two wheels and Kara squeezed her eyes shut, one hand gripping the armrest tightly and the other holding onto the handle above the door.  Then the wheels came down again and they shuddered to a stop.  She opened her eyes slowly as if expecting to see a chasm before them.  Instead, it was just a clear line between the trees and the hill back to the highway.  Walter started down it.

* * *

The ground was very uneven, and sitting in the Jeep was a jarring experience.  Kara wondered if her fillings might pop out as they rattled along.  Once they neared the highway again, things smoothed out a little, but not much.  It was probably because they had to slow down that it seemed smoother.  Crowds of people walked along the highway, and next to it.  The ditch beside it was filled with people who looked like they were marching through an old World War I trench.  Everybody looked tired and scared.  If one of them was sick, it was impossible to tell.  Walter wasn’t as careful and kind as he was up on the road.  He drove slightly faster than the people, who scurried out of the way.  Those who didn’t notice him got honked at.

“Take it easy, Walter,” Kara frowned at him.

“I just want to get out of here,” Walter sighed,  “away from all these people.”

Kara could understand the sentiment.  She glanced up at the rear-view mirror, then turned fully around to look behind them.

“Looks like we started a trend.”  She gestured with her head.

McGregor turned and looked behind them as well.  The path that Walter was clearing filled in quickly with people, but those same people had to move aside again as another car made its way through.  It looked to be in much rougher shape.  It probably hadn’t gotten down the hill as smoothly as their Jeep had.

Shoes began barking from Alice’s lap.

“Hush, Shoes.”  The girl tried to soothe the dog.  He wouldn’t stop though, he just kept woofing away.

Kara unbuckled and turned completely around to look at the dog.  Shoes was looking up in Walter’s direction.  Kara then turned to face him.  Walter wasn’t looking so good.

“Could somebody shut that damn dog up?” he groaned.  His eyes were looking a little sunken, and his skin had taken on a pale sheen.

“Walter?” Kara became concerned.  He had never used the words ‘damn’ or ‘shut up’ in Kara’s presence before.  “Are you all right?”

“I just want to get out of here.”  He sighed again.  His driving became more aggressive, and he revved the engine to scare people out of the way.  Some were even bumped by the side mirrors and edges of the bumper.  Kara feared one of them might be carrying a baby like that woman on the bridge.

“Walter, just calm down.  We’ll be out of here soon enough.”  She placed a comforting hand on his arm.  He was burning up.  “Maybe I should drive for a little while.”

“I’m fine!” he snapped at her.

Kara withdrew her hand in a hurry and scrunched herself up against the door.  She looked around the edge of her seat and met Alice’s frightened eyes.  She could just make out Danny grabbing hold of her hand.

“Finally!” Walter cried out.

Kara turned and saw that they had broken free of most of the swarm.  Walter gave the Jeep some gas.  The bouncing got a lot worse as they sped up and began swerving around the rest of the pedestrians, many just barely getting out of the way in time.  Kara tried to put her seat belt back on, but the bouncing was too much, constantly pulling it out of her hands.  She could only brace herself and hope for the best.

“Walter, slow down!” McGregor shouted from the backseat.

Alice started to cry.  Danny grabbed her by the shoulders, and the two children clung to each other.  Kara glanced over at Walter.  He was sick.  Very sick.  Whatever it was that was going around, that Mr. McGraw had had, Walter now had as well.  She remembered a crazy man had bitten him on the shoulder.  A sick man.

A pedestrian couldn’t get out of the way fast enough.  He was struck in the side by the Jeep and sent spinning.  Kara had no idea whether he survived or not and didn’t dare look backward again.  Her focus now lay solely on what was right in front of them so she didn’t notice when they roared past the overturned tanker.  She did notice when they went careening off into the woods however.  The branches of bushes and low trees snapped across the roof and windshield.  With a crack, a spider web of fractures spread across the windshield.  Kara didn’t notice when they struck the tree head on.

* * *

Kara woke up not long after, but couldn’t remember how on earth they had stopped.  McGregor had already pulled himself out of the car and was helping the kids and the dog get out.  She wondered how his busted legs were managing to hold him upright when he was just holding onto the top of the doorframe.

“You’re awake,” he said this in a tone that Kara couldn’t quite identify.  It might have been worry, or surprise.

Kara shook her head and tried to open her door.  It took a few shoves but it finally popped open and she stumbled out.  Her head swam and suddenly everything went off kilter and she fell over sideways.  When her hand hit the ground, she drew in a sharp breath of pain.  Looking down at her stinging hands, she remembered the wound she had received earlier from the broken window.  It appeared her paint-on bandage had worn off because her hands were covered in blood.  Kara managed to get back up on her feet, and when she became unsteady again, she grabbed hold of the door.  It swung closed, but she stumbled after it and kept upright, and leaned on the Jeep.

The feeling passed and she took a deep breath.  Her head also stung, and when she touched it gently, a sharp pain alerted her that she had some sort of gash.  She turned and looked in at Walter.

He wasn’t moving.  Blood was all over the inside of the car.  Kara thought it must be his, although she could only see his bloody shoulder wound.  Then she looked down at herself, and saw that she was covered in blood as well.  Was it his or hers?  Head wounds were known to bleed a lot.

She heard a loud popping noise and turned to the back of the Jeep.  The noise was just the trunk slamming shut.  McGregor stood oddly up against the car, not bending at all at the knees, only at the waist.  He and Danny opened up his wheelchair and he collapsed into it.  His legs stuck out straight in a comical manner until he did something with his knees through his pants.  It took Kara quite awhile to realize that he must have braces on underneath that allowed him to lock his knees.

“Kara?”  McGregor looked at her.

“Yes, McGregor?”  Her voice was slurred, and she was so tired.

“Are you all right?”  He didn’t make any moves toward her.

“No.”  She shook her head causing it to swim a little.  It was terribly difficult to focus.

“What’s wrong?”  Although that should have been fairly obvious.

“You mean besides the grievous wound on my head?” Kara smiled sarcastically.  “I think I might be infected.  I think I got Walter’s blood in my wounds.”

“You’re probably right,” McGregor didn’t argue.

“You should go.”  Kara waved her arm in the direction she thought the road was.

“We could find you some help.”  McGregor knew as well as she did there would be no such help, and he didn’t try to hide that in his voice.  He was just saying that out of courtesy.

“Just go,” Kara nodded, “I’ll only slow you down.”

McGregor just looked at her.

“The children need you,” she nodded again.  Everything was so swimmy, blurring together in unusual ways.  “I couldn’t take care of them, but you could.  You will.  Take them and go.”

This time McGregor was the one to nod.  “Goodbye, Kara,” and with that, he turned and left.

It wasn’t a long goodbye, nor was it sweet.  But that was just like Kara.  That was the kind she wanted; brittle and harsh as she had always been.  McGregor didn’t say he was sorry for something he didn’t do; he didn’t say nothing was her fault.  He just said goodbye and went.

Kara turned and looked into the car.  Walter was beginning to twitch.  She knew that soon he would come to and try to attack her.  No matter what else was going to happen, Kara did not want to be eaten by her hired help.  She turned to the woods and began stumbling forward.  She decided she wanted to be as far away as possible from McGregor, Danny, Alice, and even Shoes when she changed.  And she was sure she would change.

Everything was so vivid.  The greens were greener than Kara had ever imagined them to be.  The browns so much more diverse.  She became lost in the sea of colour.

Ever since her mother and twin sister had died in a car crash, Kara wondered when it would be her turn.  She had become consumed with death, even though she never showed it on the outside.  Her sister had been her best and only friend, and at seven, she lost her.  She never made another friend after that.  Always there was the question of why she had survived the crash when they had not.  Now she knew.  She was supposed to bring about the end of the world, only to die because of another car crash sixty-three years later.

She went through life wondering how she would die.  Would it be from a drug overdose during her ‘troubled times’?  Or malaria when she went to the jungles of Africa to try and help those in need?  Maybe it would be on one of her expeditions up a mountainside.  She would get lost, break a leg, and never be heard from again.  Being trampled or gunned down during a riot was also a possibility, as she never backed down from a fight.

Even now she didn’t.  She bent her head forward and pressed on through the trees.  She felt so very weak, but she did have a goal in mind.  Once last thing to do.  One last thing to see.

She came through a clearing in the trees and reached her goal, the lake.  It was beautiful and clear and so blue it hurt her eyes.  The sky was so bright, clean, and vast.  She kneeled and looked out upon it all.

It was then she remembered Gregory the horse again.  She remembered what had happened to him.  He favoured his leg in the wet weather because of a condition, arthritis or something of the sort.  The people that ran the stable had decided he had become lame and put him down.  They shot him.  Kara could have protected him.  She could have stood up for her horse.  She could have begged her daddy to pay for the extra care he needed.  They could certainly afford it.  But she hadn’t done anything.  She put up no fight.  Her exciting life, ultimately worthless in comparison to that horse.  Kara fell forward and landed on her stomach, her face turned to one side.

“I’m sorry, Gregory,” she whispered into the moss and undergrowth as her eyes slid closed.

26:

White Knight

Cillian was glued to the radio along with everyone else in the limo.  It was their third time through the message.  Although it was clearly being broadcast live, the speaker did eventually repeat her message.  She wanted everyone to hear it.  The second time through was when she gave the most information.  The third time was a little more hurried.

“I’ve known all along and I did nothing to stop it,” she spoke about how Keystone was responsible and how she had been involved.  “I sat by and let it happen.  I helped it happen.  What I’m telling you now could never make up for what I’ve done, but hopefully at least a few lives can be saved.”

It didn’t take long for those in the limo to find out why she had begun speaking in a rushed tone.  As they listened, the door was broken down.

“I’m so sorry.  Good luck,” were her last words.

Cillian was a firefighter, he knew all about fire.  When he heard the roar, he knew he was hearing the sound of flames.  He couldn’t comprehend it though.  The sound made no sense.  Unless the speaker had been doused in gasoline, there wouldn’t have been a whoosh like that.  Not without an explosion at least.  Perhaps she had committed suicide.  She clearly felt guilty, and maybe those who had broken in would do worse.  Although what could be worse than burning to death?

“What happened?” Tobias frowned.  “They cut her off.”

Obviously, he didn’t recognize the sound.  Cillian turned and looked at the others through the partition between the front seats and the back.  None of them looked like they knew what had just happened.  Cillian wasn’t going to tell them.

“Must have been Keystone guys,” Abby offered.  “She wasn’t saying anything nice about them.”

“Do you think what she said was true?”  Cender sat back in his seat with a glass of whiskey cupped in his hands.  As far as Cillian knew, he had yet to take a single sip.  He just swirled it around in the tumbler, clinking the melting ice.

“Sounded truthful to me,” Cillian shrugged a shoulder.  It also seemed too full of knowledge and logic to be a hoax.  If it wasn’t true, then the woman either knew this was going to happen beforehand and prepared, or had one hell of an imagination.  Before finding her, they had listened to some other people on the radio, but most of them were just ranting about the end of the world.  Some said they knew who caused it, but by their suggestions, you knew they were false.  One guy was convinced it was aliens.  This woman though had facts and dates that couldn’t have been pulled out of thin air unless she was a genius.  A few times, she almost slipped into the science of the whole damn thing, but that was too complex, and she apologized and went back to the need-to-knows.  Cillian would’ve liked to hear the science even if he didn’t understand it.  It would have made him trust her words completely.  Right now, he was about 85%.

“How much longer?” Jessi asked quietly.  She directed the question at Cillian, even though Cender was the one who knew where they were going.

“I don’t know.”  Cillian met her eyes.  He saw something there he didn’t recognize, and didn’t like.  It had been there since they reunited.  He wanted to protect Jessi from all the bad things, but he wasn’t sure he could do that.  He might have failed already.

Jessi wouldn’t really talk about what happened.  Cillian had heard a bit of Abby’s story, but it seemed that Abby didn’t want to talk about it while Jessi was around.  It was probably because of B.  Nobody knew how to approach that subject.  The man wasn’t infected, but Jessi had killed him.  It was pre-emptive self-defence and no one could blame her for it, but still…  The man was dead, and she had caused it.

Cillian thought of the people he had killed on the way to her.  That was different, especially after what they had just learned.  Apparently, they were already dead.  But even before learning that, you could tell these were not people you could reason with.  They weren’t going to listen to your pleas for life and mercy.  B was still thinking though, still talking.  Someone might have been able to talk him down given the chance.

“How much longer until we’re out of the city and into the suburbs?” Cender asked Cillian next.

“I can’t say.  The traffic is completely random.”  Cillian diverted all his attention back to driving.  Not that it needed much attention.  There was only one moving lane of cars.  Everybody was following the same line, the same path through the abandoned and wrecked vehicles.  Earlier they had been moving at a brisk pace, but now they were crawling again.

“Can you change the radio back to the one with music?”  Abby was the third person to ask a question.

“Sure thing.”  Cillian reached forward and changed the dial.  They had found one station that seemed to play all music all the time.  Nobody cared that it was all in French.  It sometimes faded in and out, or became a garbled fuzz, but it stayed clear for the most part.  There was actually a device in the roof in back that worked the radio, but no one had figured out how to make it work, and suspected it might be broken.  It was easiest for Cillian just to do it.

They came to their first full stop.

“That can’t be good,” Tobias frowned even more.

“I hope we’re not stuck because someone crashed.”  Cender tried to see forward through the tinted window next to his head.  “I can just see them now, getting out to exchange insurance.”

Abby let out a tiny giggle, which she quickly stifled.

“Then the zombie comes along and starts chewing on one of their heads,” Cillian added.

“I say good chap, that’s quite the chapeau you have,” Tobias put on a lofty accent, mocking the pretend crashers.

“Then another zombie comes along and clamps on that guy’s wrist.”  Cender put on his own accent, “Why thank you, but it is nothing compared to your beautiful bracelet.”

Abby giggled some more but still tried to hold it in.

“Oh, this old thing?  I just had it lying around,” Cillian did his best to put on the same accent that Tobias had.  “You must tell me where you got that hat.”

“It is a rather fine hat, isn’t it?”  Cender sat up and pretended he was showing off a hat on his head.  “Yes quite fine, although I must say, it does get rather hot and it’s murder on your hair.”

That was the last straw for Abby, and she went into fits.  Cillian couldn’t help but chuckle a few times as well; it was just so absurd.  He couldn’t believe laughter still existed in him after all that had happened that day, but it did.  It felt nice to laugh too, to just joke around and be stupid like his days spent at the firehouse.

The laughter stopped when Jessi suddenly got up, went to the sunroof, opened the panel, and stood with her torso sticking out of it.  Cillian immediately felt bad about joking and laughing.  This wasn’t exactly the right time for it.  They were still in danger, and they were joking about something awful.

Jessi suddenly ducked her head back inside with a confused expression on her face.

“There are trucks.”  She disappeared topside again.

“What do you mean, trucks?” Cillian leaned back and yelled toward the open
sunroof.

She didn’t reply.

Cillian sighed and put the limo into park.  He looked out the window, but, when he didn’t see any threats, he opened the door and climbed out.  He looked up at Jessi sticking out of the roof.

“There.”  She pointed ahead.

Cillian turned but couldn’t see anything.  They had been following behind a rather large Hummer most of the time, which meant that in their shorter limo, they couldn’t see much ahead.  Cillian climbed up onto the hood of the car and stood up.  As he looked up the street, he did indeed spot some trucks.  The line of cars in front of them went on for about seven vehicles before it came to a stop.  They halted, not because they were blocked by wreckage, but because a tight, fast moving convoy of military-looking vehicles was zooming down a street that crossed theirs.  Several people had climbed out of their cars to watch, and some even tried to flag down the military trucks in the vain hope that they would actually stop.

The screech startled Cillian into slipping and falling.  His shoulder left a good sized dent in the hood, but he didn’t feel the pain.  He didn’t even bother to look for the source of the sound, just scrambled quickly over to his door, yanked it open, jumped in, and slammed the thing closed behind him.  Jessi had dropped back into the limo the moment she heard the screech as well and was holding the button to close the sunroof, muttering something under her breath about it being slower than snail mail.

“There.”  Abby pointed back and to the left.

Everybody turned to watch as an infected leapt upon the car behind them and started smashing on the windshield with its bare hands.  Cillian put the limo into drive and scooted the long car as close to the Hummer as he could.  In fact, he rubbed bumpers with it.

“To the right!” Tobias yelled.

They all looked right as a middle-aged man in biker gear ran face first into the window.  Everyone on that side of the car instinctively moved to the other side.  The zombie must not have been able to see them through the darkly tinted glass however, because he quickly regained his balance and climbed up and over the car.  The sunroof had been closed by then, which was a small relief.  The man leaped off the car and took off down an alley, where at the other end a couple could be seen fleeing.

“There’s more coming up from behind us.  A lot more,” Cender groaned looking back.

Cillian turned around and looked out the back window as well.  It did look like quite a few were coming.  He shifted the limo into park again, snapped off the French radio, then scrambled and wedged himself into the little window that separated the back from the front.

“What are you doing?” Jessi asked as she shifted out of the way.

“The back windows are tinted really dark.  They probably won’t be able to see through them.  The front windows though are crystal clear.”  The window was barely big enough for his large frame.  It was even tighter than trying to squeeze through the air ducts, although he had more leverage.

Jessi grabbed his arm, but she wasn’t much help.  It wasn’t until Tobias got up and pulled on his other arm that he popped through.  Cillian decided right then that he should go on a diet.  Not that he was overweight at all, but right now, he’d prefer to be rail thin.  That brief thought of food reminded him that he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since the can of Pepsi at the concert.  That seemed like forever ago.  He never did figure out what happened to Jim and Doyle and was beginning to realize he never would.  There were a lot of people that he was likely never to hear from again

As soon as he had popped through, Jessi pressed the button to raise the tinted partition.  Without the sunlight coming through the front windshield, the back of the limo became quite dark.

“Try to stay still,” Tobias whispered.  He probably didn’t need to whisper, but nobody was going to test that.  Carefully, he set up his camera on the back of the rear seat and started recording.  Cillian noticed during the brief time Tobias had the LCD screen opened, that the camera was running out of batteries.  He wondered if he recorded any of the radio message and made a note to ask him later.  The more Cillian was around Tobias, the more he cared about what he was filming.  He was beginning to see the appeal of it.  Like recording what was going on was proof that it wasn’t just some sick and twisted nightmare.  Cillian preferred it to be reality over a dream, because in dreams, he never had control and anything could happen.  At least the real world had some sense to it.

Other than Tobias who stayed right behind his camera, the rest of the group huddled together in the middle of the limo.  Cillian wrapped his arms around Jessi, drawing her warm body as close to his as he could.  They all watched as the swarm came toward them.  It smashed into cars, breaking windows and prying open doors to get at the people inside.  A little Smart car was toppled over, the woman inside frantically screaming as a flood of zombies descended upon it.  Its excellent fuel mileage did nothing to save her.  Eventually, the hoard hit their limo.  The infected people crawled up over the back and across the roof.  They streamed around the sides, jostling each other as they madly ran.  The banging across the roof and along the sides was deafening.  It was like being in a hailstorm but the hail was the size of basketballs.  Some of the zombies stopped and looked at the limo but then kept running.  Except for one.  It stood there at the back window and stared.  No one could tell if it could see them or if it just decided to stop there for whatever reason.  Others ran past it hitting its shoulders.

Cillian realized he was thinking of it as an ‘it’ again.  It was a man.  Or at least it used to be.  He was a somewhat portly Asian man who may have been nicely dressed, but it was hard to tell under the caking of blood and dirt.  Cillian thought the man’s eyes were red, but the tinting of the glass made it hard to tell.  His whole lower face was bloody with a few drops on his forehead.  He cocked his head to one side and pressed his body up against the trunk of the car.  Cillian instinctively moved back.  Jessi grabbed hold of his hands at the end of his encircling arms, her ragged nails digging in.  He barely noticed.

The zombie man then climbed up on the trunk.  He kept his face low, staring at something near the base of the rear windshield.  It was like he was looking straight into the camera, like he could see it.  Then Cillian remembered that cameras usually had record lights on the front of them.  Lights that blinked when the batteries were low.

“Toby, turn off the camera,” Cillian said as quietly as he could.

He didn’t know if Tobias heard him over the racket on the roof or if he made the same realization, but he pressed a button, and the camera shut down.

The zombie man’s head cocked to the other side.  He slapped a fist down on the window causing everyone inside to jump.  His hand slowly slid down, creating a long squeak.  Nobody breathed.  Then he was gone, climbing over the car with the rest of the flood.

Cillian looked up and watched the man go over the sunroof.  He hadn’t realized but several cracks and fractures had begun to appear in it.  If the sunroof broke…

Eventually the stampede began to subside.  There were a few stragglers, some probably newly formed out of their convoy, who were still drifting by, but the main bulk had moved on.

“There are more coming.”  Tobias had pressed himself to one side, trying to look back as far as he could.  “The walkers, the slow ones.”

“I suggest we take this time to get out of here.”  Abby slowly stretched out from the incredibly tight ball she had managed to curl up into.  Her small form could probably have fit in the mini-fridge if she really tried.

“I second that motion.”  Cillian pressed the button to lower the partition so that he could take the wheel again.  In the front, the windshield had a couple of large cracks, although not nearly as many as the sunroof.  They shouldn’t be too much of a hindrance to drive with.

“Anyone else think the bit with the hand was kinda cliché?”  Cender pulled himself back up on his seat with one hand, the other still holding the drink.  He still hadn’t taken a sip.  In fact, his hand was trembling slightly, the half melted ice rattling against the glass.

Cillian climbed back through the divider again.  It was easier to go this way because he could grab the steering wheel and pull himself.  That and he was pretty sure he had sweated off a few pounds.  As he settled into the driver’s seat, he took off his jacket.  Despite the car’s air conditioning, he was feeling very warm.  Jessi followed him through the partition, eeling gracefully through it, and sat in the other seat without saying a word.

Whoever was in the Hummer in front of them was fortunate and had also managed to survive the swarm.  They were already moving forward again, using their big vehicle to shove smaller ones out of the way.  Cillian threw the limo into drive and began to follow it.  A car a few spaces behind them had also survived and was bullying its way toward them.  It seemed the convoy was going to start again.

The zombies that were still around headed toward the moving cars, but they were slow and shambling.  The only quick one ran at the Hummer.  It ran into the side of it and knocked itself on its ass.  The Hummer’s rear wheels ran over its legs, crushing them.  Still, the zombie continued to try to get up and attack the car again.  Cillian didn’t try to hit it, but he didn’t try to avoid it either.  He also ran over its legs.  Jessi squeezed her eyes shut while they did, placing her hands over her ears.  That made Cillian think that he should have avoided it.  Too late now though.

As they crossed the street the army trucks had used, Cillian looked up it to see that everything had been shoved to the sides, leaving a large clear swath.  They must have had some big ass vehicle with a plow or something on it ripping along ahead of them to do that.  Neither the Hummer nor Cillian opted to follow the path because the flood seemed to be chasing after the trucks, and the other direction led back into the city.  Since the flood didn’t attack the rest of the convoy, they caught up soon enough and rejoined the parade.

* * *

“Anybody got any wiring?” Tobias asked from the back seat.

“What do you need wiring for?” Cillian wondered.

“I might be able to hook up my old camera’s battery to this one,” Tobias answered.

“What are you?  An electrical engineer or something?” Cender scoffed.

“Not even.  I’ve just always been good at figuring out electronics and stuff.”  Tobias started searching around the limo for something he could take apart.  “I spent most of my childhood and teenage years ripping things apart and then putting them back together.”

“You ever blow anything up?” Abby asked.

Tobias let out one short laugh but didn’t answer.  Cillian saw in the rear-view mirror that Abby was disappointed he didn’t answer, even though that probably meant the answer was yes.

“What about the radio?” Cillian offered.

“That would probably work,” Tobias nodded.

“Try taking apart that roof controller back there.  It’s not like you guys figured out how to work it anyway.”  Cillian looked at his hands then and noticed the red marks Jessi’s nails had left in them.  He looked over at her.

Jessi was staring out the side window and chewing on her thumbnail.  It had always been a bad habit with her.

“Hey,” he spoke in a voice quiet enough that it shouldn’t have travelled to the three in the back.  “I thought your New Year’s resolution was to stop doing that?”

Jessi turned to face him.  That look was in her eyes again, the one that Cillian didn’t like.  It was almost as if she didn’t recognize him at first.  Then she smiled and tightly held her hands in her lap.

“You remembered.”  Although her outward appearance had become so much more haggard and stressed, her voice remained her own.

“Of course I did,” Cillian smiled back.  “I remember you bullied me into making some myself.”

“I don’t remember what yours were.”  Jessi’s face fell.

“That’s okay.  I don’t remember them myself.”  That was actually a lie, but he was trying to cheer her up.  His major resolution had been to quit smoking finally.  He had been doing well too, until they had broken up.  Although he wasn’t going to say anything, all day whenever there hadn’t been adrenaline pumping through his veins, he would have killed for a single puff.  The first thing he did when he got into the limo was to check the glove box for a pack, but he had no such luck.

“How have you been?” she asked in a sheepish voice.  The last time they spoke hadn’t been on good terms.  Well, not including at the hospital, but then they had just told each other what had happened that day and how scared they were.

“Okay I guess.  Better than today has been, but worse since I was with you.”  That time it was the truth.  “I’ve been living on Doyle’s couch the whole time.”

“I’m sure he’s loved that.”  Jessi had met Doyle several times.  They got along well enough but would probably never have spoken if it weren’t for Cillian.

It felt like years since Cillian had seen Doyle, when in fact, it had been just that morning.  He looked at the time and discovered that only about six hours had passed since his life had been normal, since he was annoyed by the crappy bands and complaining that he had gotten a Pepsi instead of a Coke.  He really regretted not lighting that cigarette.  He also wondered again what happened to Doyle and Jim.  What became of them in that mob?  Where had they gone while Cillian slept, and why hadn’t they woken him first?

“Hey, Cender?” Cillian spoke over his shoulder.  “Is there anything non-alcoholic in that fridge?”

“There’s some water, why?”  Cender leaned forward and took out a bottle.

“Because I’m thirsty, why the fuck else would I be asking?”  Cillian thought it was a very stupid question.

Cender passed the bottle up to him.  Cillian cracked it open and downed half of it in one go.  He then put the cap back on and stuck it in the cup holder.

“Any food back there?”  The water reminded his stomach that it was hungry.  It sent frustrated signals to his brain, telling it to eat something.  Anything.

“I’ll look.”  Cender started digging through the mini fridge and the cupboards.

Cillian took a look in the rear-view mirror to check on Tobias.  The whole little radio console had been ripped down and was hanging from the ceiling by its wires.  He was busily looking over everything and taking stuff apart while Abby watched.

“He’s weird,” Jessi said quietly next to him.

“Who is?”  Cillian gave her his attention again.

“That Tobias guy,” she was speaking quietly,   “he’s kind of weird.”

“I think he’s all right.”  Cillian glanced in the mirror again quickly.  “He seems normal to me.”

“He’s weird.”  Jessi sounded very sure of her statement.

Cillian shrugged.  He didn’t think Tobias was weird.  A little quirky sometimes, but who wasn’t when you first met?

“I found some power bars!”  Cender sat up, holding up the power bars triumphantly.  He passed them around the limo, handing two up to Cillian.

“Here.”  Cillian held one out to Jessi.  “The label says that no animals were harmed in the making of this food.”

She looked at it with a blank expression, then turned to look out the side window again.  “No thank you.”

“You should probably eat.”  Cillian put the power bar into the second, empty cup holder and started to open his own with his teeth.  “When was the last time you ate?”

“I don’t know.”  Jessi had withdrawn into her expressionless shell again.  “Back at the hospital I had something.”

“Well, I’ll leave this in the cup holder if you decide you want it.”  Cillian started devouring his own bar.

Jessi didn’t respond.

He would have loved to eat the second bar.  In fact, he would have loved to eat five of them, with a steak, and fries smothered in cheese, and an ice cold beer to wash it all down.  He saved the other one for her though.  She might get hungry and he wanted to make sure there was food for her when that happened.  He washed down the rest of his power bar with some more water.  There was only about a quarter of the bottle left now.

* * *

They drove for quite some time in silence after that.  No one even asked to have the French radio station put back on.  Everybody was off in their own thoughts.  Cillian couldn’t help but remember his time with Jessi.  How happy they had been.

They had first met because she reported a fire.  There was a small amount of smoke coming out from under her neighbour’s door and she was concerned.  Admittedly, she was more concerned about the fire spreading to her own apartment than whether or not her neighbour was all right inside, but as long as the call was made, the fire department wasn’t picky.  The fire had started because the old woman who lived there had fallen asleep with something on the stove.  The fire in the pan had spread first to a dirty dishtowel, and a piece of that burned off and landed in some newspapers piled up next to the door.  If Jessi hadn’t come home at that exact moment, noticed the smoke, and decided to call the fire department, the whole building might have burned to the ground.  The woman inside would have died.  She didn’t wake up until Doyle shook her and by then, the fire had spread to the kitchen cabinets.

Cillian had been the one who questioned Jessi, and so they met.  He thought she was hot, so he flirted with her a little.  He liked to think she flirted back, but he had never actually asked her if she had.  They didn’t make a date then; that came later, after two random encounters.  The first was in Marble Keystone Park, where they had a much longer and more personal conversation.  The second was at a bar where there was a lot of booze involved.  Although they had spent that night together, their first real date didn’t occur until two days later, when Cillian called her and set up a date.  He remembered she sounded surprised when he called her, as if she didn’t think he would.  She sounded even more surprised when he asked her out to dinner.  She didn’t hesitate to say yes, though.

“Hey, Jessi?”  Cillian turned to her.  She turned her head to look at him, but her eyes were blank so she wasn’t truly looking at him.  “Do you remember when we first met?”

“In the park?”  She seemed to come slightly more into focus.

“No, before that, at your apartment,” Cillian reminded her,  “when you called in the fire at your neighbour’s place.”

Jessi looked down and thought for a moment.  “Oh, yeah.  I remember.”  When she looked back, there was a little more light in her eyes.  She was more with him again.

“When we were talking, were you flirting with me?”  No time like the present to ask.

The corner of Jessi’s mouth tugged in an attempted smile.  It didn’t make it out though.  “No, I wasn’t.”

Cillian laughed.  “I always thought you were.”

Jessi shook her head.  “I thought you were kind of creepy.”

This made Cillian laugh harder.  He assumed those in the back were looking at him strangely, but he couldn’t help it.  The girl he had intended to marry had, at first, thought he was creepy.  Maybe if he had learned that sooner, their falling out wouldn’t have been as bad as it was.

“Cillian?” Jessi sounded concerned.

“Yeah?”  Cillian got his laughter under control, but it was hard to keep the smile from tugging at his face.

“Why didn’t you want to come with me to Australia?”  That got it to go completely.

Cillian sighed.  “I thought we had already talked that to death.”

“I know.”  Jessi sat back in her seat, turning toward the window again.

“I’m sorry.”  Cillian tried to get her to face him again. “In hindsight, it was a stupid mistake.  The stupidest, really.  Unfortunately, I can’t change the past.”

“Not like it would have mattered,” she said to the window.

Cillian went quiet again.  This time, he tried not to think about the past as he drove.  He tried to think about the future, but that was hard and, actually, rather frightening.  Cillian couldn’t even be sure what would happen in the next minute let alone the coming days, weeks, months.  Years.  Although life was unpredictable before, at least there was some semblance of guidelines.  You knew work sucked, nearly everybody thought work sucked.  You knew you were supposed to find a partner to go through life with, unless you were weird.  You knew you were supposed to, at least, think about having a family, something Cillian thought about quite often.  You worried about being hit by a drunk driver, mugged on the way to work, being passed over for a promotion, your neighbour burning the apartment down.  Cillian didn’t know what to focus his worry on.  Food?  Water?  Shelter?  Those were all things he was used to having at any given moment.  Now he had a quarter bottle of water and a limo.  There were people with guns who might want his limo.  There were insane and infected individuals who would tear you apart the moment they spotted you.  Every driver could be considered as dangerous as a drunk driver, if not more so, just from the panic alone.  Then there was that military convoy doing who knows what.

Cillian couldn’t keep his thoughts together.  He couldn’t keep his head on straight.  In the end, he resorted to thinking about the Hummer in front of him.  He memorized the license plate and all the dents, dings, and dirt patches on the bumper.  He started to make up a story about who the people inside were.  He decided that the driver was the only one in the car.  It was probably some big burly man, a biker.  He had a bandana on his head and a great big beard.  He was a loner who had left his wife and child years ago, but when everything started to go wrong, he feared for their safety.  He was driving to them now to pick them up.  They would pile into the big car, and he would drive them off to some back woods hunting cabin of his where he would hunt deer, and his wife would grow vegetables in window boxes.  Cillian realized that that was what he was hoping would happen with them.  Problem was, he had fuck-all knowledge about hunting deer.

“Hey, we’re in the suburbs.”  Cender drew everyone out of their personal thoughts.

Cillian looked to the sides and saw that they had indeed made it to the suburbs.  “What street are we looking for?”

“Uhh…”  Cender frowned while he thought, tugging the slip of paper out of his cast.  Cillian had seen him look at it a few times and assumed it was a rudimentary map.  “Well, where are we right now?”

Cillian looked for street signs.  “We’re passing Yeller and I think we’re on Possum.”

“Yeller?”  Cender clearly didn’t recognize the name.

“I don’t know.”  Cillian shrugged.  “Probably a small street.”

“There are lights up ahead,” Jessi muttered.

Cillian shifted to see around the big Hummer.  She was right.  There were lights, which meant a major street.  They were still driving as slowly as they had been downtown, so there was no need to slow down any more to read the sign.

“Ressen,” Cender read aloud.  He was also leaning against a window to see.  “Okay, I know where we are now.  We need to get to Hurly so that would be…  You’ll make a right on Gesture and that should take us across to Hurly, which you’ll make a left on.  The street we’re looking for is Davon and should be right off Hurly.”

“Got it.”  Cillian started paying a lot more attention to driving.

It took them only a few more blocks to reach Gesture.  As they turned to head down it, they left the convoy.  The Hummer continued going straight down Possum and Cillian couldn’t resist.  After following the big car for so long, he felt like he knew the people in it and gave them a friendly goodbye beep.  He was surprised when it beeped back.  Or maybe it was the people behind them that beeped.  It was hard to tell.

They headed down the new street on their own now.  Nobody was coming this way, as it didn’t lead directly to the highway.  It was somewhat unnerving to be on their own.  Cillian’s mind always believed in safety in numbers but now they were moving away from the pack.  Of course, he had never been in a situation like this before, and the opposite was most likely true.  People were dangerous.  That was something that no one in the group had brought up yet.  No one knew if anyone else was infected.  The way the woman on the radio described it, being bitten was only the most obvious form of infection.  Cillian didn’t know if Doyle had somehow become infected and through living together had passed it on to him in some way.  Not to mention all the blood he was wearing.  Both his jacket and gloves were covered in it.  He didn’t think any got into his mouth or eyes, and he was fairly certain he didn’t have any open wounds, but who could say for sure?  Even if he wasn’t infected, someone else in the car might be.  Anyone else could have picked it up from anywhere and could suddenly turn.  Even if somebody brought up this problem, it was highly unlikely that one of them would know, without a doubt, they were infected.  Even if they did, would they say something?  Not likely.

They reached Hurly next and in good time, since they weren’t pacing anybody.  The long vehicle just blew through the lights.  It was dangerous, but right now, Cillian wasn’t overly concerned about that sort of thing.  He made the left turn and slowed, not knowing where Davon was.

“How far is it from Hurly?” Cillian asked Cender over his shoulder.

“I don’t think it’s too far.”  Cender shifted himself to the seat next to the open divider.  “It doesn’t look very far on the map.”

“You’ve never actually been to this person’s house?” Cillian frowned.

“Nope,” Cender shook his head.

Cillian didn’t like the sound of that.  They had no idea what they were walking into.

“There it is!” Abby cried out from the back.  “You just passed it!”

Cillian stopped the car.  The street sign was covered by the branches of a large tree, but he could read the sign on the other side of the street using the rear-view mirrors.  He put the stretch limo into reverse and backed up.  He then swung the long car around and onto the street.

“What’s the number?”  Cillian read the numbers on the nearest houses to get a quick bearing.

“Uhh…”  Cender thought,  “57.”

“You sure about that?”  Cillian didn’t like his hesitation.

“Positive,” Cender nodded.  Why he didn’t just check his map again, Cillian didn’t know.  “I remember because it was the lowest mark I ever got in high school.”

“Doesn’t sound like it’s a very lucky number then,” Abby frowned.

“Are you kidding me?”  Cender smiled.  “It was in French class, and my mom got me a tutor.  She was this hot chick a few years older than me from another high school.  She was my first lay.”

“That was a little too much information,” Half of Tobias’s face agreed with his statement, the other half clearly thought it was funny.

Cillian just thought it was funny.

“I think it might be just over this rise,” Cillian told the group as he counted down the numbers.

Everyone but Jessi became alert, interested in where they were going.  This was going to be the place they would take shelter, or at least get some help.  Cillian wondered what kind of girl this person would be if she was friends with Cender.

They reached the top of the hill and found bungalow number 57.  It was on the corner of another street called Jackson.  It didn’t look like much of a shelter, although there were large boards over the front window, which was a good sign.  Cillian pulled up to the curb and turned off the engine.  Nobody moved; they all just sat still and looked at the home.

* * *

“I guess we should go knock?” Tobias finally offered.

Cender grabbed his crutches and started making his way toward the rear door.

“Wait.”  Cillian held up an arm.  “Why don’t I go first and make sure it’s clear?”

“You have no arguments from me.”  Cender sat back down on the nearest seat.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Tobias asked.

“Do you want to come?” Cillian asked back.

“Not really,” he answered honestly.

“Then don’t.  Stay here with the others.”  Cillian opened his door and slid out.  He grabbed his bloody jacket and put it back on.  He then donned the matching gloves he had stuffed in the pockets, and grabbed the crowbar.  Jessi met his eyes.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he told her, then closed the door.  At least that’s what he hoped.

As he headed across the lawn, he tried to be aware of all his surroundings at once.  His body had somehow managed to store up some more adrenaline while they had been leaving the city and it now promptly dumped that adrenaline into his system.  He used to kind of like the rush, which was probably why he became a firefighter in the first place.  Now though, it was all danger, all the time.  It was stressful and exhausting.

Cillian reached the front door and peered in through the glass.  He didn’t see anyone or any shadows moving about.  He saw that there was a doorbell, but he didn’t want to try it.  Instead, he knocked, very quietly at first.  There was still no movement from inside the house, so he knocked louder.  Again there was no movement.  He thought he heard glass breaking somewhere up the street, so he didn’t dare knock any louder.  When he finally tried the handle, he found that the door was unlocked.  That wasn’t a good sign.

Cillian inched the door open.  He stuck his head inside and scoped the place out.  It took him only a moment to notice the little sign on a table with Cender’s name on it.  This suggested that his friend had left without him.  What a great friend.  He entered the house completely and closed the front door behind him.  He didn’t want anything jumping his ass while he looked around.  He ignored the note to Cender and the bags piled beneath it.  He would check those out after he was sure the coast was clear.  Next, he took a look around the living room and then headed down the hall to the bedrooms.  So far, he hadn’t found anyone.

As he was checking out the bathtub, he heard the front door open.  He stood stock-still and listened.  Whoever it was didn’t announce themselves, which led Cillian to believe it wasn’t anyone from the car.  Some zombies were smart enough to open doors; the woman on the radio had said so.  She said their intelligence varied, and while most were as dumb as stumps, some had trace memories and reasoning skills.

Cillian raised his crowbar and headed back into the hall.  The hall was covered in a plush carpet that muffled his steps, so that even he could barely hear them.  He heard the creek of a board just around the corner.  He took a slow, deep breath and rounded it, fully planning to beat the head in of whatever was there.

He nearly beat in Jessi’s head and just managed to stop at the last second.  She didn’t though, and he got a good wallop to the shoulder, which was already bruised from his slip on the limo’s hood.  Thankfully, she was too close to the wall to get a full power swing going or else his arm might have broken.

“Jesus, Jessi!” Cillian whisper-hissed through his teeth and grabbed his arm as pain shot up through it.  “We could’ve killed each other!”

“Sorry,” she also whispered but didn’t have much emotion behind it.  She didn’t sound all that sorry.

“What are you doing in here?  Why didn’t you wait in the car?  And why didn’t you announce yourself when you came in?” Cillian was very annoyed.  And hurt.  Shovels to the shoulder really, really hurt.

“I didn’t know if there was anything in here, so I didn’t want to make noise,” she frowned.  “I came in because I was scared.”

“And you thought being in an unchecked house was safer?” he raised an eyebrow at her.  Then looked behind him because he hadn’t checked the whole house, and something could still sneak up on him.

“No,” she shook her head,  “but I feel safer with you.  You always protect me.  You’re my white knight, you always have been.”

Cillian felt an actual pain tug at his heart.  He thought maybe it was from his shoulder rather than from what she said.  It wasn’t the first time she had called him that.  It was her pet name for him.  This was the first time it was used in a more literal sense, though.  Probably the first time she felt physically safer around him.  Before it used to be just a comfort thing.  He had saved her from something inside herself, now he was trying to protect her from the outside world.

“Even if your armour isn’t shining.”  Jessi touched his bloodied jacket.  A corner of her mouth turned up in an attempt at smiling, then fell again.

Cillian sighed.  “All right.  You can help me check the house, but stay close behind me, got it?”

She nodded.

Cillian sighed again and headed for the kitchen.

27:

Little Princess

Alice didn’t understand why Kara and Mister Walter stayed with the Jeep.  Every time she asked, she didn’t get a proper answer.  Eventually she just got tired of asking.  Also her feet were starting to hurt again.  She didn’t like all this walking.

“Why can’t we ride in the Jeep?” she huffed.

“’Cause the Jeep got destroyed,” Danny told her,  “it doesn’t work anymore.”

“I’ll try to get us another ride,” Mr. Eggor said.

It looked like it was hard for him to move in his chair.  They were walking next to the highway, over hard-packed dirt.  They probably would have moved onto the highway but there was a barrier in the way that Mr. Eggor couldn’t cross.  At least, not easily.  Alice had never known anyone in a wheelchair and couldn’t quite understand why Mr. Eggor didn’t just walk like her and Danny.

Suddenly the earth shook and there was a loud noise from behind them.  They all turned and saw a great big puff of smoke rising over the trees from around the bend.

“What was that?” Danny asked.

“We passed a turned-over tanker before we crashed.  It must have exploded.  Come on, we have to keep moving.”  Mr. Eggor had only glanced over his shoulder to look and then kept moving.

Alice thought the smoke was pretty.  It swirled and danced in the air.

“Come on, Alice.”  Danny took her hand and pulled her forward.

She took a few stumbling steps, still wanting to watch the smoke, but then turned around and walked with them.  Alice liked Danny.  He was nice.  For an older boy, anyway.  Most of the older boys at Alice’s school were mean bullies, always pushing each other and picking on the smaller kids.  Danny actually talked to her.

Right now, he was wearing a big backpack that looked heavy.  Mr. Eggor was also carrying a big heavy-looking bag.  Alice wondered why she didn’t have anything to carry.  She had Shoes though.  She got to hold his leash made of string as he walked along beside her.  His little legs meant he took little steps and he had to walk fast to keep up.  He looked tired and thirsty.

“Shoes is tired,” Alice told Mr. Eggor.

“So am I, but we can’t stop yet,” he told her.

“Why not?”  Alice wanted to stop.  Her feet really hurt.

“Because it’s not safe.”  Mr. Eggor wouldn’t say more than that.

Alice didn’t know what to think of Mr. Eggor.  Sometimes he was nice, but sometimes he was mean.  Right now he was being mean.  He looked strong though, and that made Alice feel safe.  He could protect her from the people who were chasing them, from the people like Judy’s dad.  She wished her Daddy were there to protect her.  She didn’t know where her Daddy was though.

“Hey, there’s a truck coming.”  Danny was looking behind them again.

Mr. Eggor turned himself around to look at the truck.  It was a blue pickup and not driving on the road.  Alice moved closer to Danny in case the truck driver didn’t see her little form.  Cars scared her when they were on the road.  She never crossed the street on her own.  Cars not on the road were worse.  She pulled on Shoes’s leash to bring him closer.

“Hey!” Mr. Eggor yelled.  He put himself in front of Danny and Alice and started waving his arms in the air.  “Hey!”

As the truck got closer, Alice got scared that it wasn’t going to stop.  She noticed that it wasn’t going to hit them though; it was on the other side of the ditch.  That had been a hard ditch for Mr. Eggor to cross.  The truck didn’t look like it slowed as it went past, but the red lights in the back came on and it stopped.  A man jumped out of the driver’s seat carrying a gun that Alice didn’t know the name of.  It was big though, and she associated it with farmers for some reason.

“Wait here,” Mr. Eggor told Alice and Danny and then started heading towards the man.  The man came towards him as well and they met halfway.

“I assume you’re looking for a ride?” the man asked Mr. Eggor.

“We are,” Mr. Eggor nodded.  “I don’t know where you’re heading, but we’d very much appreciate a ride, at least part of the way.”

The stranger looked back at his truck and then at Alice and Danny.  Alice scrunched up even closer to Danny.

“We have no room in the cab,” the man said.

“That’s okay; we can ride in the truck bed.  In fact, I’m sure we’d both feel better with that arrangement.”  Alice didn’t know what Mr. Eggor meant by that, but she was thinking that he didn’t trust the driver of the pickup truck.  Judging by the driver’s face, he didn’t trust Mr. Eggor either.

“Give them a ride, Corey!”  A woman leaned out the window on the passenger side of the car.

Alice looked at the truck and saw a pair of kids looking at them through the back window.  From a distance, they looked like they might be Alice’s age.

The man sighed.  “All right.  Get in.  Do you need help with it?”

“I wouldn’t mind some help crossing the ditch.”  Mr. Eggor nodded toward it.  He then turned around and faced Danny and Alice again.  “Come on!”

Danny walked forward, tugging on Alice’s hand so that she had to come too.  She, in turn, tugged on Shoes’s leash.  Shoes was her responsibility.  Her Daddy told her that when she was having too much fun, playing with her dollies, to put food in his dish.

“I was told to never ride with strangers,” Alice whispered to Danny.

“You rode in the car with us, Kara, and Walter,” Danny pointed out.

“But I knew Mister Walter and Kara by then.”  They had fed her and were going to help her find her Daddy.  Now she had no idea how she was going to find him.  “I don’t know these other people.”

“But you know me and Alec.  It’s okay.  If Alec thinks it’s fine, then it is.”  Danny helped her walk down one side of the ditch and up the other.  The grass was long and tangled around their feet.

“If you say so.”  Alice decided to trust Danny.

They walked up to the back of the pickup.  The woman had climbed out of the car and opened this little door-like thing at the back of the pickup part of the pickup truck.  Mr. Eggor had called it the truck’s bed, but it didn’t look anything like a bed.  There were suitcases and two colourful children’s backpacks up there.  One was a Dora the Explorer bag and the other was Jurassic Park.  Alice liked the Dora bag better.  It was pink.

“Hello, I’m Kelly.”  The woman held out her hand.

Danny shook it.  “I’m Danny and this is Alice.”

Alice waved instead of shaking her hand.  “And this is Shoes.”  Everybody always forgot to introduce Shoes.

“Are you kids hungry?” Kelly asked.  “I have some sandwiches in the car.”

Danny looked to Mr. Eggor who was just being helped out of the ditch by the driver.  The driver hadn’t introduced himself yet, but Kelly had called him Corey.

“No offence, but do you have anything in a sealed package?  Something you didn’t touch?” Mr. Eggor asked Kelly.

“I have some granola bars and pudding packs,” Kelly answered him, then turned to Alice and Danny once more.  “Would either of you like some of those?”

“Yes, please,” Danny nodded a bunch,  “I’m starving.”

“I like pudding, but only if it’s chocolate.”  Alice liked the fact that she was getting so many treats today.  Although it had been scary sometimes, the day had been exciting.  Like an adventure, although more like a Jurassic Park adventure than a Dora The Explorer adventure.

“I believe we have some chocolate.”  Kelly went back to the front of the car.

“All right guys, up you get.”  Mr. Eggor pointed to the back of the truck.

“Do you need help getting up?” Corey asked Mr. Eggor.

“I should be fine.  Thank you.”  Mr. Eggor picked up Shoes and lifted him up onto the truck.

Corey the truck driver went back to the front of the truck as well.  Danny climbed up into the back next.  It was harder for Alice because she was so little, but when Mr. Eggor lifted her up, it became very easy.

“I’ve never ridden in the back of a truck before.”  Alice was kind of excited about the idea.  She imagined it would be like when her Daddy pulled her around in her wagon, only faster.

“Well, until we can get back on the road, it’s going to be very bumpy and we won’t have seat belts,” Mr. Eggor told her.  “When we get going, I want you two to hold onto me, okay?”

“Okay,” Alice agreed.

She watched as Mr. Eggor took off his pack and did that weird thing with his knees that made his legs stick out straight.  Alice poked at her own knees but they only moved when she told them to.  Mr. Eggor then leaned forward, put his feet on the ground, and pulled himself upright, using the back of the truck for support.  It looked very hard.  He then leaned sideways, not bending his knees at all, and lifted his bag with one hand.  He put it in the truck, and Danny dragged it out of the way.  It looked really, really heavy.  Mr. Eggor then leaned down, grabbed his chair with the wheels, and lifted that up into the truck as well.  As he pulled himself up, Kelly came back.

“Here you go.”  She handed some granola bars to Danny along with the pudding.  “I also found a package of Dunkaroos and a can of pop you can share if you’d like.”  She handed those to Danny as well.  She gave Mr. Eggor a concerned look, and then gave the same look to Danny and Alice.  Alice had been seeing that look a lot lately.

Kelly then went back to the front of the truck and climbed in.  While Danny and Mr. Eggor found places for the bags and collapsed the wheelchair again, Alice looked in through the back window.  There were two little girls in the truck that looked the same as each other.  Alice was delighted that they were twins.  She had met twins before, but they were smelly boys.  She waved at the girls and they waved back.  The backpacks must have been theirs, but it was impossible to tell whose was whose.  The girls were even dressed alike in matching flower-print sundresses.  Alice’s own dress was made out of blue jean material and she liked it better than the twins’ dresses.

Kelly, who Alice decided must be their mommy, made them turn around and face the front again.  Mr. Eggor pulled himself up next to Alice and sat with his back against the front section of the truck.

“Sit here, Alice.”  He motioned to the spot next to him.

Alice sat down next to him and also faced backwards.  She was between Mr. Eggor and the side of the truck.

“Danny.”  Mr. Eggor nodded to his other side.

Danny sat down as well.  Mr. Eggor then tugged on Shoes’s leash and brought the floppy dog over to them.  He placed the dog on his own lap.

“You guys ready?” Mr. Eggor asked.

Danny nodded.

“Yes, but I’m not a guy,” Alice corrected him,  “I’m a girl.”

Mr. Eggor grinned at her.  He then raised an arm and slapped his hand on the rear window twice.  The truck’s engine came to life, and they started moving forward.

As they picked up speed, Alice discovered that Mr. Eggor was right about it being bumpy.  She held onto him to keep herself from bouncing right out of the truck.  He had wrapped his large arm around her shoulders and held onto the side of the truck for more stability.  His other arm was holding onto some metal pipes that were attached to the rear window.  They were probably for holding something, but right now, the only thing they held was Mr. Eggor.  Danny held onto his other side, Mr. Eggor’s bag and the suitcases wedged between him and the far side of the truck.  He had snapped up the helmet he was wearing but it still bounced around on his head.  Danny reached across Mr. Eggor and held onto Alice’s arm.  She would have held his hand, but Alice didn’t want to let go of her grip on Mr. Eggor’s shirt.  Shoes didn’t have anything to hold on to and bounced a lot, but somehow managed to stay on Mr. Eggor’s lap.  He looked very silly with his floppy skin.  Alice would have laughed if she weren’t so scared.  Down near their feet, the chair and the backpacks were bouncing around and sliding back and forth.  Alice squeezed her eyes shut.  It was not like being pulled in her wagon.

* * *

After some time, Alice didn’t know how long, there was one really big bump and then the ride smoothed out.  Alice opened her eyes again.

“We’re back on the highway,” Mr. Eggor told her.

“Thank God,” Danny sighed.  He sat up and stretched all his limbs.

Alice decided to do the same.  An odd pop came from her elbow, and she glared at it.  She didn’t like it when her body made those odd snaps.  It felt weird.

“You both all right?” Mr. Eggor asked.

“I’m okay,” Alice nodded, forgetting about her elbow already.  “Shoes, are you okay?”

The dog woofed.

“I guess we should wait awhile before opening this pop, huh.”  Danny pulled out the can of pop that Kelly had given him, which he had wedged, between the bags.  It was orange-flavoured, Alice’s favourite.

“Can I have a pudding?” Alice asked.

“Sure.”  Danny passed her a chocolate pudding.  “There are no spoons though, so you have to eat with your fingers.”

“That’s okay.”  Alice peeled back the top of the pudding.  She liked eating pudding with her fingers.  Her Daddy would only let her eat the last little bits like that but she had always wanted to try eating the whole thing with her hands.  Now she got to.

“Would you like something?” Danny asked Mr. Eggor.

“I’ll have a granola bar if you don’t mind.”  Mr. Eggor reached for himself.

There were several kinds of granola bars, and Alice was pleased to see that he took the gross one, the one without any chocolate.  Although Danny took one of the best kind.

“After you’re done the pudding, do you want to share the Dunkaroos with me?” Danny asked Alice.

“What are Dunkaroos?”  Alice had never heard of them before.

“They’re little cookies you dip into an icing,” Danny explained.  “It looks like we got a vanilla flavoured one.”

“I hate vanilla,” Alice made a face,  “but I’ll try the cookies.  Do they have chocolate chips?”

“I don’t know,” Danny shrugged,  “some do and some don’t, and I can’t see which ones these are.  It probably means they’re the kind that don’t.”

“I’ll try them anyway,” Alice decided.  Some cookies were still good, even if they didn’t have chocolate in them.

Shoes got up off of Mr. Eggor’s lap.  He flopped back down at Alice’s feet, next to Mr. Eggor’s knees.  Mr. Eggor tore off a piece of his granola bar and gave it to Shoes, who gobbled it down in one quick bite.

“Too bad we have nothing to give him some water in,” Mr. Eggor said.  “He looks like he could use some.”

“He drank from a pool earlier today.”  Alice remembered.

“Well, hopefully that’ll tide him over till we find something.”  Mr. Eggor patted Shoes on the head.

A small section of the back window slid open near Mr. Eggor’s own head.

“You three okay back there?” Kelly asked.

“We’re good.”  Mr. Eggor gave her a thumbs up.

“If you’re cold, there should be an old blanket in the left side panel,” Kelly told them.

“Thank you.”  Mr. Eggor said as the window slid closed again.  “Either of you cold?”

“I’m all right.”  Danny took another bite out of his bar.

“I’m only a little chilly,” Alice told him.

“Well, that’s no need for a blanket, but here.”  Mr. Eggor shifted around until he could reach the back of the truck where he picked up a big, beat-up, green jacket.  It was the one that Danny had draped over his bag when they first met.  Mr. Eggor had brought it with them from the Jeep.

Alice noticed that when Mr. Eggor moved, he grabbed his pants and used his arms to move his legs.  “So you can’t move your legs because you got shot?”  Alice remembered the story he had told in the Jeep.

“That’s right.”  Mr. Eggor made his way back over.  “Here, let Danny hold your pudding for a moment.”

Alice looked at her pudding.  She trusted Danny, but could she trust him with her pudding?

“I promise I won’t eat it.”  Danny held up his hands so that Alice could see that he didn’t cross his fingers.

“Okay.”  Alice handed him the pudding even though he might have been crossing his toes.

Mr. Eggor wrapped the big coat around her.  He then rolled up the sleeves really high so that Alice’s little hands could stick out of them.

“Is that better, Princess?” he asked, as he folded the front around her.

Alice had been called Princess before, but not in the way that Mr. Eggor said it.  He said it in that way that grown-ups had, when they were lying, but they wanted you to know they were lying, as if it was a joke or something.  Alice knew there was a word for it, but didn’t know the word.  Her Daddy always called her his little princess.

“Yes, thank you.”  Alice reached for her pudding, which Danny gave to her right away.  He had kept his promise and hadn’t eaten any of the pudding.

“Where are we going?” Alice asked as she scooped up a blob of chocolate on her finger.

“We’re going to a place where we can be safe,” Mr. Eggor told her.

“Safe from the crazy people?”  Alice ate the pudding blob.

“Yes, safe from the crazy people,” Mr. Eggor nodded.

“Will we able to call my Daddy from there?”  Alice looked up at the older man.  “And tell him where I am?  He’ll be worried if he finds out me and Shoes are gone.”

“I’m sure he would be.  And I’m not sure if we’ll be able to call him.  We can try though.”  Mr. Eggor seemed very truthful for an old man.  Alice had begun to notice that lots of adults lied but she didn’t think Mr. Eggor had done so yet.  He just wouldn’t always give a complete answer.  Or sometimes he just wouldn’t answer at all.

“I wish I had a number to call my brother at,” Danny sighed.

“You’ve never been able to get in contact with him?”  Mr. Eggor turned to Danny.

“There’s an emergency number at Keystone where they can relay important messages to him, like if I get into an accident or something, but nowhere I can call him directly,” Danny shrugged.

“Well I think this counts as an emergency,” Alice spoke up.

“I think Keystone knows all about this emergency,” Mr. Eggor smiled at her.  “They aren’t going to be helping us out anytime soon, though.”

“What about your mommy and daddy?” Alice asked Danny.  “Can you call them?”

“My mom and dad died when I was little,” Danny told her.

“My mommy died when I was little too.  Daddy said she was very sad and didn’t want to make us sad,” Alice nodded.  “I have pictures though.”

“I have pictures too,” Danny smiled but it wasn’t a real smile.  It was a sad smile.  “My brother took care of me.”

“I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” Alice told him.  “It’s just me and my Daddy and Shoes.  Do you have any brothers or sisters, Mr. Eggor?”

“Mr. Eggor?”  He smiled a real smile.  He thought it was funny.  “You can call me Alec okay?”

“Alec.”  Alice tried the name.  “Alec and Alice.”  She smiled brightly at the similarity.  “So Alec, do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“I had a sister,” Alec told her.  “She passed away a few years ago.  She was married though, and her husband is pretty much my brother now.”

“What about your mommy and daddy?” Alice wondered.  Although it was always weird for Alice to picture grownups with mommies and daddies, she had met her grandparents and knew they existed.

“They passed away an even longer time ago.  There was a plane crash,” Alec sighed.  It was a sad thought for him.

“My mommy’s mommy was in a plane crash once.”  Alice remembered overhearing a story.  “It was a little one, though.  A little plane.  They went too far and went off of something called a tarmac.”

“A tarmac is what planes land on,” Alec told her.

“Oh, so a runway?”  Alice knew what a runway was.  “I got to fly in a plane once.  Me and my Daddy went to visit grandpapa and grandmama last year.  We got to fly over the country to Vancouver.  I saw mountains.”  When saying Vancouver, Alice always stressed the cou part.

“I’ve been in a plane a few times,” Danny told her.  “I wanted to learn to fly helicopters.”

“You don’t want to anymore?”  Alice had noticed the past tense.

“I don’t know if that’s possible anymore.”  Danny looked sad.

“Sure, you can still learn.”  Alec knocked on Danny’s helmet.  “This will right itself out and they’ll still need chopper pilots.  You’ll see.”

“I want to be a vet,” Alice told them.  “I want to help animals, like Shoes.”

“I’m sure you’d make a great vet,” Alec told her.

“Do you think it’s safe to open the pop?” Danny wondered.

“No idea,” Alec shrugged.  “You might as well try though.”

“’kay.”  Danny picked up the soda can again.  He held it out away from his body and squinted his eyes when he pulled on the tab.  The can cracked open and the pop fizzled.  It didn’t explode or gush out, but Danny quickly placed his mouth over the hole and sucked out the top stuff just in case.  He then held it out to Alice.

“You don’t have cooties, do you?”  Alice took the can.

“Nope, I got my cootie shot,” Danny told her.

“Cootie shot?”  Alice had never heard of the concept.

Danny gasped.  “You don’t know what a cootie shot is?  Then you must have cooties yourself.”

“I do not,” Alice pouted.

“Want me to give you a cootie shot?” Alec asked her, showing all his teeth when he smiled.

“Does it hurt?”  Alice didn’t like shots.

“Not at all.  In fact, it’s the least painful shot you could ever get.  All you have to do is hold out your hand.”  Alec held out his own.

“Okay.”  Alice imitated him.  “But if it hurts, I’m going to be really mad at you.”

“I promise it won’t hurt.”  Alec held her hand in his own.  He drew circles on the back of her hand and tapped the centre of them with his finger while he chanted, “Circle circle, dot dot, now you got your cooties shot.”

“That’s it?”  Alice looked at her hand.

“That’s it.”  Alec smiled.

Alice then took a big drink from the pop can.  It was delicious and fizzy.  When she was done, she burped loudly and giggled.

“Excuse me,” she giggled into her hand.

“Oh yeah?  Watch this.”  Danny took the pop can from her and took another drink.  He waited a brief moment and then burped louder than Alice had.

Alice giggled even more and Danny laughed.

“That’s nothing.  You’re sitting next to the burping champ,” Alec told them both.  He then started to burp out the ABCs without taking a single sip of pop.  He got to G before he started laughing too hard to keep going.  They were all in stitches.

Danny and Alice passed the pop back and forth, trying to burp more, until it was all gone.  They then shared the Dunkeroos.  Alice liked the little cookies.  She tried the dipping stuff, but she still didn’t like vanilla, and so she didn’t have any after that.  They went through the rest of the snack food that Kelly had given them.  Even Alec ate some more granola bars.  When it was all gone, Alice yawned loudly.

“You tired?”  Alec looked down at her.

“A little,” she nodded.  Also her head was hurting a little.

“Why don’t you try to sleep then?” Alec suggested.  “I'll wake you up if something happens or if we stop.”

“Do you promise you’ll still be here when I wake up?”  Alice looked up at him.  The last time she went to sleep, Paul and Judy disappeared.

“I promise,” he nodded.

“You too, Danny?”  She looked across Alec to Danny.

“I promise to be here also,” he smiled.

“Okay, good.”  Alice snuggled down next to Alec, placing her head on his leg.  She pulled the coat tighter around her, then grabbed Shoes and pulled him up to her chest.  The dog huffed but didn’t try to get away.  She fell asleep almost instantly.

28:

Abigail

Abby looked through the bag that she had been given.  Although they had a list telling them what was in each pack, they all sorted through them anyway, making sure.  She couldn’t understand what had made Cender’s doctor friend run off without waiting for him, but she also thought that maybe the dead bodies on the back porch and in the bedroom had something to do with it.

“So, let’s take a vote,” Cillian spoke up from where he was sitting in a plushy, grey armchair.  “Who thinks we should take a short break here to regain our energy before following the map we were left?”  He raised his own hand.

Tobias, Cender, and Jessica all raised theirs as well.  Although Abby would have rather gotten moving as soon as possible, she raised her hand in the end so as not to be labelled as separate from the group.

“Second vote: Who thinks we should trade the limo for the hybrid Ford Escape in the garage?  Both have about half a tank of gas in them.”  Cillian raised his hand again.

Abby and Jessica also raised their hands, but Tobias and Cender did not.

“Three to one, sorry guys,” Cillian shrugged.

Tobias shrugged back and kept looking through his pack.

“Third vote:  Who thinks that, along with the packs we’ve been left, we fit as much else in the Escape as we can?”

Everybody voted unanimously for that one.

“All right.  Now this next one is not a vote.”  Cillian got up from his seat.  “I’m starving and I’m going to make some food.  Who else wants something?”

Everyone but Jessica raised their hands again.

“Okay, I’ll check out what’s in the cupboards.”  Cillian headed into the kitchen.

Not long after he left, Abby came across the gun in her bag.  It was some sort of pistol, matte black.  It looked like the kind the actors used in the TV show she worked for, only this one was real.  It came with a holster that could be threaded onto a belt, two extra clips already loaded, and a sack of extra rounds.  Abby didn’t have a belt to put the holster on, but since the backpack was the hiking kind with the straps that buckled in front, Abby was able to thread it through one of the straps.  She put the sack of extra rounds back into the backpack and put the loaded clips into a side pocket.  The side pocket already held a water bottle, but since the other side held one too, she packed that bottle into the main section of the pack.

Abby knew that everybody in the house now had a gun.  Cender’s was a bolt action hunting rifle of some kind, so was Cillian’s, and Tobias also had a pistol.  Jessica got a pistol too, but she instantly handed it over to Cillian as if it carried a disease.  Cillian didn’t ask, and just put it in with his own gear.  Jessica stuck with her shovel.

Abby also kept her field hockey stick.  Some small straps on the side of the bag were able to hold the stick.  Bullets eventually ran out, but the composite object, made of carbon, Kevlar, and some fibreglass, could handle some serious whacking before breaking.  It had been expensive, but it was worth it; now more than ever.  Abby had played for her college team and was thinking of signing up for a league, but she never imagined she would be using the stick to crack skulls.

“Abby?”  Jessica looked up from a can of peas she had found in her bag.

“Yeah?”  Abby finished packing up the rest of her stuff and closed the pack.

“I want to change my shirt.”  Jessica stood up.  “Could you come with me and help see if any of them fit?”

“Sure, no problem.”  Abby got to her feet.

She and Jessica walked down the hall and into the bedroom.  They both tried not to look at the bed.  Cillian had checked out the blanket-wrapped lump earlier and told them that it was a dead body, and that no one should touch it.  Abby could tell by looking at it that it wasn’t the dead body of someone full grown.  She tried to put it out of her mind by imagining that it was just a prop, like on the set of the TV show she worked for.  The show could be violent and even gross sometimes, and they were always doing makeup and props of that sort.

Jessica went to the dresser and started looking through the drawers.  Abby felt slightly embarrassed for the owner of the house as Jessica opened her underwear drawer.  Eventually she found one that was full of t-shirts.  Jessica grabbed the first one and held it up to look at the size.  It was a medium men’s shirt so it would probably be loose on Jessica, but she seemed fine with that.  Jessica began unbuttoning her blouse.

Abby reddened in the face a little, not used to being around women who were that comfortable changing in front of other women.  She politely turned the other way and looked at a bookshelf in the corner.  Every book on it looked like it was either a factual book about things like nuclear power plants and agriculture, or it was a fictional story about people in awful and/or end-of-the-world-type situations.  There were Cell, The Stand, and Under The Dome by Stephen King, Hater and Dog Blood by David Moody, Phantoms and The Taking by Dean Koontz, The Year Of The Flood by Margaret Atwood, The Ruins by Scott Smith, and lots of others.  One book in particular, stood out to Abby, though.  The top books were the fiction stories and the bottom books were the factual ones, but there was one book sitting in-between.  Abby went up to it and pulled it off the shelf.  It was called The Zombie Survival Guide and had been written by someone named Max Brooks.  Considering its mention of zombies, Abby thought it must be a fictional story, but as she flipped through it, she realized it was not.  It was an actual guide on how to survive a zombie outbreak.  There was another book on the shelf by the same author, World War Z, but it looked more like a story.

“What do you think?” Jessica asked from over by the dresser.

Abby turned around and looked Jessica up and down.  She still wore Abby’s hiking boots, pale blue scrub pants, and now a slightly too big, faded, red T-shirt with the slogan, ‘you caught me at a bad time, I’m awake’, written in white across the chest.

“Stylish,” Abby joked.

Jessica cracked a half smile.  It was the first one Abby had seen since they had run into Cillian and Tobias.  She wondered if Cillian had something to do with her not smiling, or her starting to smile again.  It was hard to tell.  The incident with the gunman happened at the same time.  And Jessica had been stressed out even before then.  Abby had a perfect memory of what she did to the legless man in the ER.  She had been like an animal.  She still looked like that sometimes: a caged animal thinking about another place.

“What’s that you found?”  Jessica pointed to the book in Abby’s hand.

“Oh, just a book that might prove useful.”  Abby shrugged.  “It looks like we’re going to be driving for awhile, so having something to read would be nice.”

“I can’t read in moving cars,” Jessica told her.

“That sucks.”  Abby noticed the lump out of the corner of her eye again.  “Let’s go find out what Cillian’s cooking up.”

“I’m not hungry,” Jessica shook her head.

“Well then, you can just sit and put your feet up.”  Abby took Jessica’s hand with her free one and led her out of the room.

They passed the bathroom where the shower was running.  Everyone had used the bathroom earlier to wash off any blood and dirt they had on their hands and faces.  And to use the toilet.  Right now Cillian’s jacket and gloves were in the bathtub getting a good soaking.  He was trying to wash off as much blood as possible, but it had really caked on.  They continued into the kitchen where Cillian was filling up a pot with water.  Jessica sat down at the table.  Abby put the book she found on the table and walked over to Cillian.

“What are you making?” Abby asked him.

“I found a huge pile of Kraft Dinner in a cupboard, so I’m going to cook up a bunch of boxes for everybody.”  Cillian pointed to a section of counter next to the stove.  He had placed seven boxes of the brand name mac and cheese there.  “I found some other food too.  Tobias, Cender, and I agreed that MREs sounded terrible-tasting, so they’re swapping some of them out for real food in our packs.”

“Sounds good.”  Abby loved Kraft Dinner and ate it regularly herself.  Although she rather enjoyed cooking, she didn’t always have time.  She also agreed that MREs sounded awful.

Cillian finished filling up the pot and put it on the stove to boil.  He found salt and poured some into the water.  Abby went to the fridge to get out the milk and margarine, or butter if that was the case.  She opened the door and started looking through the interior.  The inside of the fridge was the only normal thing Abby had come across in this entire house.  There were guns and gas masks in the living room, fuel and biohazard suits in the basement, and an arsenal of meds everywhere.  It worked out for them in the end, but it was still very odd.  The inside of the fridge though, looked like what you’d expect the inside of a single person’s fridge to look like.  It was fairly bare, filled mostly with leftover containers from order-in restaurants, and condiments.  Abby had just spotted the margarine container when the fridge’s interior light went out.

“Hey.”  Her first thought was that somebody had pushed on the door sensor, making the fridge think it was closed.  Her brothers used to do that all the time.  Then she realized that the fridge’s motor had also gone out.

Abby grabbed the margarine and the milk and closed the fridge door.  She placed the items on the counter, then tried a light switch on the wall.  She flicked it up and down a few times but the overhead lights didn’t come on.

“What’s wrong?” Cillian asked from over by the stove.

“I think the power went out.  One second.”  Abby went into the living room and tried a lamp in there, but it also didn’t turn on.

Tobias and Cender gave her odd looks.

“The power’s out,” Abby told them.

“Crap,” Cender actually looked and sounded more concerned than the power outage warranted.

“What?”  Abby thought, maybe, because of the food.  “The stove is gas, so Cillian will still be able to finish cooking.”

“It’s not that,” Cender shook his head,  “come look at this.”

Abby went and sat next to him on the couch.  Tobias also walked over and peered over his other shoulder.

“This is the map that my friend Bishop gave me, right?”  Cender unfolded the piece of paper.  “You see these coloured rings?  Well, part of the note explains them.  We have maybe four hours to get beyond this ring here.”

“Why?  What happens in four hours?” Tobias asked the obvious question.

“Apparently, with the power out, the chemical storage facilities that Keystone and other companies have around here, will no longer be able to keep things cool.  The chemicals are now changing from a liquid to a gas, which is going to build pressure.  Now apparently, there shouldn’t be too many explosions, but the pressure is going to cause the safety valves to open and release giant chemical clouds.  Depending on the generators, this could be starting to happen now and I guess in four hours it’s bad enough that we have to be beyond this point.” Cender explained as best he could.

“So now we know why there’s gas masks lying around.”  Abby glanced over at one.  “What’s the other ring?”

“That’s the seven day ring, so I don’t think we need to worry about that one so much,” Cender shrugged.  “Apparently seven days after the power goes out, nuclear storage facility diesel generators will run dry.  They will no longer be able to keep the material in cold, flowing water, and I don’t know why it needs to be stored that way, but apparently, after it’s been sitting in stale, un-chilled water for about three days, it’s heated up enough to set fire to the building.  That one will be a giant explosion as well as radiation being spread all over the place.”

“Well who’s to say the power won’t come back on?” Tobias frowned.

“Think, man.”  Cender poked his forehead.  “Why would the power go out in the first place?  Because people either fled their stations or were killed there.  I don’t think anyone is going back to fix the problem.”

“So we should leave as soon as we’re done eating.”  Abby knew there was a good reason she wanted to leave as soon as possible.

“Yeah, I think so,” Cender nodded.

* * *

Abby went back into the kitchen to see how much longer the food would take, and to tell Cillian and Jessica what was happening.  Cillian looked very unhappy to hear the news, but Jessica’s expression didn’t change.  She kept on her neutral, blank stare.  Abby guessed that that was better than a total meltdown and freak out.  She had taken her boots off while Abby had been out of the room.  Her stockings were torn and it looked like she might be getting blisters.

Tobias popped his head into the kitchen.  “Hey, do you have anything else you want to pack in your bags?  I think I’m going to load up the car.”

“I’m good,” Abby told him.

“Us too,” Cillian nodded, answering for himself and Jessica.

“Great.”  Tobias disappeared again.

“How much longer until the KD is done?”  Abby walked over and looked into the pot.

“I think it’s almost done cooking.”  Cillian fished out a noodle and dropped it on the counter.

Abby picked it up, and, after shifting it from one hand to the other a few times to cool it down, popped it into her mouth.  “It’s soft enough.”

“Cool, now where is the strainer?”  Cillian started looking around the stove.

Abby helped him look and found it in a cupboard near the sink.  She placed it in the sink and Cillian dumped all the noodles and water into it.  Abby used the sink’s flexible nozzle to spray-rinse the noodles while Cillian jostled the strainer to shift them around.

“Mind if I put in the cheese?” Abby asked as they dumped it back into the large pot.

“Go for it, but can I ask why?”  Cillian sat down next to Jessica, and, without her asking, lifted her feet up onto his lap and started rubbing them.

“I think they put too much cheese powder into the packets, so I like to keep some back.”  Abby started mixing the ingredients together.  She vaguely wished someone would rub her feet for her.  If her friend Lauren was here, Abby might have been able to convince her to massage them.

Lauren.  She was Abby’s only real, female friend, the only one she saw outside of work.  Of course, they worked together as well.  She was one of the makeup artists for the main actors.  Abby wished that she could’ve come with them, that there had been time to find her.  But there wasn’t.  There hadn’t even been time to think about her until they were in the limo.  That made Abby very sad.  She never would have survived moving to the city without her.  Although, the fact that she was fleeing the city without her made that almost poetic.  Too bad Abby wasn’t the poetic kind of person.  Lauren was though, so she could appreciate it wherever she was.  Abby knew that she would be alive.  Lauren was strong, the strongest person she ever met.  If anybody could get through this, it was she.

“Soup’s on!” Abby called out loudly when the Kraft Dinner was done.

While looking for the strainer, Cillian had found the bowls, so he got up and took them down, leaving Jessica’s sore feet to herself.  Cender came clacking into the kitchen.  He hopped up and sat on the counter so that he didn’t need his crutches and, therefore, had both hands free to hold and fill his bowl.  Tobias came into the kitchen and waited in an impromptu line formed by Cillian and Abby.  Abby filled up her bowl and went to sit at the table.  Despite eating at the hospital, she was starving again.  She looked at a clock on the wall and saw that it was about dinnertime.  She had no idea what time it had been when they were at the hospital, but it was probably four hours ago at least.

Cillian took the third and last remaining seat at the table causing Tobias to resort to sitting on the counter as well.  He didn’t seem to mind though, as he ferociously dug in.  Cillian put his bowl down in front of him and slid another bowl over to Jessica.

“I told you, I didn’t want any.”  Jessica looked up at him.

“Come on, you should eat something,” Cillian coaxed her.  “Besides, I made that bowl just the way you like it, with pepper and hot sauce.”

Abby sat up a little straighter to look into Jessica’s bowl.  There was indeed pepper and hot sauce on it.  It looked sort of gross, but then, if Abby thought about any food hard enough, it all looked sort of gross.

Jessica looked down at the bowl again.  Finally, she sighed and stabbed a few pieces with her fork.  She ate the mouthful, then put the fork back down.

“Happy now?” she asked him.

“Very,” he smiled.

Abby continued eating, ignoring the little conversation between them.  It looked like Tobias and Cender were doing the same.  The former couple clearly still had their own little world between them.  When Cillian turned to his own food, he started wolfing it down at a startling speed.  If he was that hungry, Abby was surprised he had been able to wait so long before eating.  The only times she ever ate like that, she had been hungry enough to consider chewing on walls.

By the time Abby was about half done, Jessica picked up her fork and had another mouthful.  Then another.  Then she began eating normally.  That one bite Cillian had made her take seemed to have started up her appetite.

After everyone finished eating, they all sat around for a minute or two digesting.

“I guess we should get going,” Cender finally spoke up, sliding off the counter and onto his crutches.

“We should take one last look around to make sure there’s nothing else we think we’ll need.”  Cillian rose from the table.

Abby also got up and picked up her bowl.  She was about to grab Cillian’s and Jessica’s as well but then stopped herself.  Who would care if they left their dirty dishes on the table?  She put her bowl back down.  Then she couldn’t stand it, gathered up the dishes, and put them in the sink.

Everybody split up to search the corners of the house.  Abby knew exactly what she wanted to get.  She took the book off the table and headed back to the bedroom.  She once again tried to pretend that the lump under the sheet was just some prop, but that was harder to do when she was alone.  She went to the dresser and opened the woman’s underwear drawer.  Avoiding the panties and the bras, she grabbed a pair of white socks.  Abby had the feeling she was being watched.  She spun around quickly and looked at the bed, but the little lump hadn’t moved.  She hurried out of the room without bothering to close the dresser drawer, but she closed the bedroom door and made sure the latch caught.

* * *

“You okay?”  Cillian was just down the hall from her.  His voice made her jump.

“Yeah, just my mind playing tricks on me,” she smiled.  Abby had always had a great memory, but a terrible imagination.  Having her mind play tricks on her let her know just how terribly shaken she was.

“What were you doing in there?”  Cillian had clearly just come from getting his gear out of the bathtub.  He was using some towels to dry the jacket and gloves quicker.

“I thought Jessica would like some socks.”  Abby held up the little rolled pieces of cloth.  “You should press those, by the way.”

“I should what?” Cillian raised an eyebrow.

“Here.”  Abby walked over and got Cillian to hold the socks and the book.  She spread out the jacket and gloves on the plush carpet.  The owner of the house was not likely to mind.  She then found some dry towels that Cillian hadn’t already used and placed them on top.  She started stepping on the towels, effectively squeezing most of the moisture out of the jacket and gloves into the towels and carpet.

“Huh.”  Cillian walked over and helped.

They did this for a couple of minutes, giggling at how stupid it seemed, until Tobias showed up at the end of the hall.

“Look what I found!” he crowed happily.

Abby looked over and saw he was holding up a video camera.  Although it was the same size as the last one he had been using, it was clearly a different kind.

“Not only this, but I found a couple of spare batteries, too.  I might be able to record for weeks,” Tobias was extremely excited.  “No more dangerous battery jury-rigging for me.”  He started to take off the harness belt he had been wearing.

“You know, that thing saved your life.”  Cillian gestured to the belt.  “You might want to keep it on.  It could be lucky.”

Tobias stopped and looked at the belt.  “You’re right.  But this battery pack is starting to get heavy.  I have to lose it.”

“Turn around, I’ll get it.”  Cillian handed the book and socks back to Abby with a smile and walked over to Tobias.

Abby watched with some amusement as Cillian tried to unhook the battery from the belt.

“Just don’t go grabbing my ass,” Tobias told him.

Abby couldn’t help but laugh at this.  Eventually, Cillian figured out that the battery itself could be unhooked and lifted out of the pouch it was contained in.  He dropped it on the ground with a heavy thunk.

“You’ve been running around with that thing the whole time?” Cillian whistled, somewhat impressed.

“Yeah.  That’s so much better.”  Tobias reached behind him and checked out the size of the pouch he now had.  “And, I can put my new battery packs in there.  Sweet.”  He did just that.  The new packs looked much smaller and lighter than the one Cillian had just removed.

“Do you think they’re dry?”  Cillian gestured to the towels Abby was still methodically stepping on.

“Well, they’re most likely still a little damp, but most of the wetness should be gone.”  Abby stepped off the towels and began lifting them up.  She folded them and placed them on the bathroom counter.  Dampening the owner’s carpet was as far as she’d go.  Although, part of her been kind of exhilarated by that.  Maybe that’s how peaceful people got swept up in riots.

Cillian picked up the gloves and stuffed them into the jacket’s pockets, and then draped the jacket over his arm.  They walked down the hall together and followed Tobias’s trail into the living room.

“Check it out, there’s even room left over to hold another clip of ammo,” Tobias told them gleefully.

“I have to say, that’s not a sentence I ever thought I would hear used in a real conversation,” Abby said truthfully.

“I bet there’s been a lot of those,” Tobias grinned.  “The most common one being ‘ahh, there’s a zombie eating me!”

“Well I haven’t heard that one yet, but you never know, there’s still time,” Abby smiled.

“If I’m being eaten by a zombie, I promise to yell that out for you,” Tobias grinned larger.  He had the kind of grin that showed all his teeth.  Abby noticed that his eyeteeth were particularly pointed and could pass for vampire fangs if they were larger.

Cender came clicking into the room.  “You guys ready to go?  Jessica’s waiting in the garage.”

“Sure thing.”  Tobias headed for the door.

“Wait.”  Cillian stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“What?” Tobias frowned.

Cillian held out a fist.

“What?  Fist bump?”  Tobias tapped his fist against Cillian’s.

Cillian looked like he was trying hard not to laugh.  “No, rock-paper-scissors for who gets to drive.”

“You got to drive the limo, so I should get to drive the car,” Tobias frowned.

“Yeah, but I’m bigger than you.  It would make sense for you to sit in the back seat with the girls,” Cillian rebutted.

“Why can’t Cender sit in the back?”  Tobias turned to the third man.

“Crutches, dude.”  Cender patted them.  “I kind of need the front seat.”

“Fuck.”  Tobias turned back to Cillian.  “All right then.”  He held out a fist.

“On the count of three.”  Abby stepped forward to be the judge.  “One, two, three.”

Tobias threw scissors.  Cillian threw rock.

“Fuck!” Tobias grumped.

“Oh come on now.”  Abby patted him on the shoulder.  “It can’t be that bad riding in the back with us, can it?”

Tobias mumbled something unintelligible under his breath.

“Oh, Cender.”  Cillian turned to Cender as they headed toward the garage.  “Your friend doesn’t happen to smoke, does she?”

“Not that I’ve ever noticed,” Cender shrugged.  “Sorry.”

The four of them headed into the garage.  Jessica was already sitting in the back seat on the right side.  Abby slid in next to her.

“Here, I got you some proper socks to wear in those boots.”  Abby offered her the socks.

“Thanks,” Jessica sounded genuinely surprised by her thoughtfulness.

Cender got into the front seat and Cillian climbed into the driver’s position again.

“We all set?” Cillian turned and asked the girls.

“Umm, have you forgotten about Tobias already?”  Abby gestured to the empty seat next to her.

“He’s going to open the garage door,” Cillian grinned.  He had little teeth considering the size of the rest of his build.

“Oh, then I guess we’re ready.”  Abby looked at Jessica who nodded her agreement.

Cillian started up the car.  As soon as he did, they heard the sounds of the garage door as it started rumbling open.  Tobias had been off to one side, waiting to lift it.  He then ran over, hopped in through the door that Abby had left open, and took the seat next to her.  He slammed the door shut as they began rolling backwards out of the garage.

“Jesus, Toby, you think the trunk’s packed enough?”  Cillian was using only the side mirrors to navigate backwards.

Abby didn’t notice when she first got in, due to the dim lighting, but she turned to look now.  The truck was jam packed up to the ceiling.

“I managed to wedge all seven bags in,” Tobias shrugged.  “I thought it would be better than having to sit with a bag on your lap.  Besides, how often will you need to look behind us anyway?  Also, enough with the ‘Toby’ crap.”

“Toby, Toby, Toby,” Cillian mocked.

They exited the garage and got out onto the street.  They drove past the limo without a second thought.

“I was just thinking.”  Abby leaned forward between the front seats.  “If everybody heard that radio broadcast and is heading north, like the woman suggested, would that mean the highway is going to be clogged up?”

“Very likely,” Cillian nodded.  “I had thought of that myself, actually.  That’s why we’re going to take a bunch of side streets first, heading north-west.  Our final destination is toward the west right?”  He looked at Cender for clarification on this last part.

“Yup, it’s fairly far north-west.”  Cender was digging around under his seat and then in the glove box.  He found a map book of Ontario and started to flip through it.  “And I’m not sure if it’s our final destination.  It’s just where we’re supposed to meet up with Bishop.”

“I hope she doesn’t need us to give her a ride,” Tobias spoke up.  “She may have bought this car, but it’s ours now.”

“I don’t know,” Cender shrugged.

“Zombie.”  Abby pointed straight out the front windshield.

Shuffling toward them, in the middle of the street, was a very dirty, half-naked woman missing her lower jaw.  If that wasn’t a zombie, Abby didn’t know what was.  Cillian actually stepped on the gas harder as they neared her.  He didn’t hit the woman dead on, but steered slightly so as to clip her.  She went wheeling off to the side but then Abby lost sight of her as she disappeared behind the car.

Cillian was watching in his side mirror.  “Well, I didn’t take her out, but I at least wounded her badly enough so that she shouldn’t be much of a threat to others.”

“That’s good,” Abby nodded.  What an odd response to hitting someone with a car.  She sat back in her seat and looked at the book she was still carrying.

“The Zombie Survival Guide,” Tobias read over her shoulder.  “Where did you find that?”

“Inside the house.”  Abby thumbed over her shoulder.  “There was a bookshelf in her bedroom full of interesting books.  I thought that this one seemed best, given our situation.”

“Sounds like something we should all read.”  Cillian shifted his rear-view mirror so that he could see those in the back seat.

“I’ll pass it around when I’m done,” Abby offered.

“Why don’t you read it out loud?” Cillian counter-offered.

“Ah, no,” Abby blushed a little and shook her head.  “I’m not one for reading out loud.”

“Oh come on, why not?” Tobias ribbed her.  “I bet you have a great reading voice.”

“No really, I don’t,” Abby shook her head again.

“What do you do for a living?” Cender suddenly asked from up front.

“I’m a continuity girl,” Abby told him.  “I work on a TV show and I make sure they keep all the information straight from scene to scene.  You know, ’cause they film it out of order?”

“Really?  What show?” Tobias sounded very curious.

“Blazing Star,” Abby told him,

“Seriously?  You work on Blazing Star?” Tobias sounded like he almost didn’t believe her.  “That’s awesome!  I mean, the name of the show kind of sucks, but the show itself is great.”

“You watch it?”  Abby couldn’t believe that out of all the people she ended up fleeing the city with, one of them was a fan of the show.

“Of course, it’s one of my favourites.  I got to work the camera once for an interview with Isaac Reynolds,” Tobias told her.

“Who the fuck is Isaac Reynolds?” Cillian asked.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Cender added.

“He’s the main actor of the show,” Abby told them.  “He’s had a few other small parts, but this has been his big break out role.”

“You guys need to spend more time watching TV or on the internet,” Tobias said.  He then turned back to Abby.  “Do you know him?”

“I wouldn’t say I know him,” Abby admitted,  “but I see him around the set all the time.”

“It sounds like you have a man crush on this Isaac guy there, Toby,” Cillian laughed.

“Fuck off.”  Tobias leaned forward and hit Cillian in the back of the head.

“Hey!  It’s not okay to hit,” Cillian patronized him.

“Isn’t that the show with Trisha Dunbar?” Jessica actually spoke up.  It was quietly, but everyone heard her.

“Yeah, it is,” Abby nodded.  “My friend does her makeup.”

“She’s the reason I started watching the show in the first place,” Tobias admitted.

“She’s the reason any guy starts watching the show in the first place,” Abby added.  It was true, too.  The majority of their male audience was due to the beautiful starlet.

“Please tell me you guys at least know who she is?” Tobias asked the boys in the front.

“Nope,” Cillian shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” Cender said at first.  “Wait, was she the one on the cover of April’s Maxim magazine?”

“That’s the one,” Tobias half laughed.

“She’s in a TV show?” Cender whistled.  “I think I might have to watch that.”

“Was,” Jessica spoke up again.

“What?” Tobias looked at her, confused.

“Was in a TV show.”  Jessica was correcting what Cender had said.  “Things like that don’t exist in the present tense.”

The car went silent.  Jessica had brought down everybody’s mood.  She was right though.  The whole world was probably being put on hold.  Not just on hold, but being completely reshaped.  When this thing died down, if it died down, nothing would be the same.  No TV shows that were on before it happened would come back on.  Books would remain half completed on writer’s hard drives, movies partially filmed.  Even the countries may not be reformed in the same way.  The government would need to be rebuilt.  Abby suspected that Canadians were no longer going to mass along the American border but build out in the northern areas.

“Do you think they’ll bomb the city?” Abby suddenly thought out loud.

“Why would they do that?” Tobias looked at her funny.

“I don’t know,” Abby shrugged.  “The woman on the radio said the infection had started here, so right now, here is probably where it’s the worst.  Do you think some other country will find that out and bomb us?  Or maybe even our own country will bomb us in an attempt to stem it from spreading?”

“Maybe another country will, but ours won’t,” Cender told her.  “It’s already spread too far.”

“How do you know that?” Abby asked him.

“Because we get a percentage of our power from Niagara Falls.  The infection would have had to spread at least that far for the power to be killed.”  Cender’s logic seemed pretty sound.

“The power outage could be completely unrelated,” Tobias offered.  “We don’t know that it was due to infection scaring people off.”

“What do you think the odds of that happening today are?”  Cender turned in his seat to look at Tobias.

“Pretty good, I’d say,” Tobias frowned at him.  “We have no indication that the power was cut off from the source.  It could be just that area, that block, that has no power.”

“He’s got a point, Cender,” Abby backed Tobias.  There were a lot of reasons the power could’ve died.

“He does, but I’m still glad I grabbed these before we left.”  Cender reached down between his feet and held up a gas mask he had apparently stashed down there.

“And if you’re right, we all might end up very glad that you brought those,” Cillian told him.  “Right or wrong though, it doesn’t matter.  We just have to focus on getting out of this city alive.”

“So you know what route we’re taking, right?” Abby clarified.

“Yup,” Cillian nodded.  “Being a firefighter, I had to learn a lot about the city’s layout.”

“How many people do you think will also take that route?”  Abby was concerned about another incident occurring like the one when they were in the limo, when they got swarmed.

“Well, I think most people will go for the highway, but anyone from the surrounding area will probably come this way.”  Cillian was trying to be honest.

“So we could end up in another swarm?” Abby sighed.

“There’s a chance,” Cillian nodded.  “Although, with any direction we take, there’s a chance of being swarmed.  Even staying put runs the risk.”

Abby sighed again and nodded.  She looked at the book in her hands again.

“All right, I’ll read it out loud,” she gave in to the argument that had ended so suddenly earlier.  She opened up the first page and began reading.  The first section was about the disease itself and they all quickly learned that these weren’t the same kind of zombies.  The book simply covered the slow and dim-witted ones.  Still, it was very likely to hold some very useful information.

At one point Abby glanced out the window to the west, past Tobias.  She noticed a slight reddening in the sky.  The sun was going to start setting soon, and then it would be nighttime.  It would be dark.

29:

Matty

Mathias Cole was relieved that it looked like Danny had gotten a ride.  Even more so, that it meant he was alive.  He just wished that he could catch a ride as well.  Currently they were walking near the middle of the highway and had been for some time.  The shadows being cast by the trees were getting longer.  From their angle, the sun had started touching the treetops.  Every time a car passed by on the other side of the ditch, or the southbound side of the highway, they had tried to flag it down, but so far, they had no luck.  Now the number of cars was few and far between.  Whatever was behind them was getting worse, stopping nearly all the cars now, and those that had been ahead of the tanker accident, had gotten far enough to be out of sight.  They had given up on the abandoned cars they passed.  They were either trapped, or too broken down to get running.  Any car that did go by was always racing along faster than the last one.  Thinking of the last one, its front bumper had been bloody and dented, the windshield a spider web of cracks and stained red.  The driver could probably barely see.  That car had passed about a half hour ago.

“Looks like any northbound cars from here on, will be on the road, boys,” Bishop said, pointing off to the side of the highway.

Mathias looked to the right, where she pointed.  The ditch, that had been following the length of the highway, became mostly levelled out, and there wasn’t a barrier.  There was still a little ditch that would cause one hell of a bump, but judging by the tracks, all the cars that had passed this way had taken it.  That meant that Danny had and was now moving even faster away from him.  As long as they met up in the end though, that was fine.  That’s what he kept telling himself.

“Great, so now we have to be careful that these speeders don’t run us over on top of everything else,” LeBlanc sighed.  They had been sticking to the northbound lanes because they were safer than the southbound lanes.  On the south side, the vehicles came ripping up the pavement at high speeds, whereas on the north side, they had always been confined to the tree line due to the large ditch.  Now though, the cars would be driving at full speeds in all lanes.

“Better run over by a car than trampled by the hoard behind us,” Bishop said.

“True, true,” LeBlanc nodded.

“So, when are we going to eat?”  Mathias had been hungry for a while but he had had training to deal with that while on the march.  He had been waiting until someone, probably Bishop, brought it up, but he now thought that maybe she was trying to be tough for the boys.  Or maybe she wasn’t just trying and actually was tough.  From what Mathias had learned so far, she was a fairly intense and strong woman.

“Whenever you want,” Bishop shrugged.  “We’re not stopping though.  If we stop, the hoard might catch up.”

Mathias swung his pack around in front of him and started going through it.  He had no idea how long they would be travelling and therefore, didn’t know what the best way to ration his food was.  Eventually he settled on an MRE.  He put his pack on the right way again and cracked open the packaging.  He ate slowly, chewing thoroughly to try to trick his body into thinking it was getting more food than it was.  It may have been a ‘Meal Ready to Eat’ but he never found them filling enough.  When he finished, he tossed the packaging over his shoulder.  He had never cared about being a litterbug in the first place, and now was definitely not the time to start.

“No longer concerned about global warming, eh?”  LeBlanc had watched him toss his trash.

“Have you ever seen me concerned about global warming?” Mathias pointed out.

“You were when that chick, what was her name?  Penny something?  When she first showed up, and was all into the global warming movement.  You were totally into it then,” LeBlanc reminded him.

Mathias laughed because it was completely true.  “It paid off though, didn’t it?”

“That it did, my friend.  That was a good angle on your part,” LeBlanc nodded.

Bishop made a sound of distaste and rolled her eyes.

“What?” Mathias eyed her.  “You’ve never lied to a guy?”

“Not about something that was clearly a big issue with him,” she scoffed.

“What if you didn’t know it was a big issue with him until after you had already lied?” Mathias asked.

“Then clearly, I wasn’t right for him,” Bishop answered.

“But this wasn’t about being right for somebody,” he pointed out.  “This was about getting laid, having a good time.”

“And what if it wasn’t about that for her?” Bishop frowned at him.

“Oh, it clearly was about that for her.”  Mathias remembered the girl in question.  Kinky was a word that came to mind.

Bishop just shook her head and looked away from the guys.  Mathias knew he was grinning like a fool idiot and when he looked at LeBlanc, he was too.  This caused both of them to burst out laughing.

“You guys are weird,” Bishop muttered.

This only caused them to laugh even harder.

“Guys, shut up.  Seriously, shut up,” Bishop suddenly sounded a lot more worried than annoyed.  “Someone is coming, see the light?”

There was, in fact, a light coming through the woods on the left, on the other side of the southbound lanes.  They had left the development area, with its sound-blocking wall on that side, some time ago.  Now it was forest on both sides.  The woods were a lot darker than the highway, explaining why someone had a light on.  They had no way of knowing if the light was being held by something dangerous or not.  As one, they ran up to the concrete highway divider and crouched down behind it.  Bishop had assimilated to their team quickly.  Mathias made a mental note to ask her if she had had any military training.

“What are people’s bets?” LeBlanc whispered.  “I’ll give you ten to one.”

“Ten to one for what?” Bishop whispered back.

“I’ll tell you after we’ve found out if you won,” LeBlanc grinned.

Bishop rolled her eyes.  Mathias sat silently.  He had heard that one before, several times.  Whenever there was someone new with them, in fact, LeBlanc would find some point and time to use that joke.  It was the only one he reused.

The light reached the edge of the road and flicked off.  Either it was a thinking being, or a zombie that had a lot more reasoning skills than its cohorts.  Or it just managed to hit the button at a lucky time, which made it look like it did it on purpose.  They couldn’t see anything moving amongst the trees.  Whoever or whatever was there was staying still.  This added another point in favour of it being a rational human.  Well, rational in that it was thinking about self-preservation.  After roughly a minute, some bushes moved, and a man appeared between the trees.  The light he had was strapped onto a hat he wore, which was useful since both his hands were occupied holding a large hunting rifle.  He started to scan up and down the highway.  As his eyes were about to sweep over their position, all three of them dropped completely out of sight.

“What do you think?” LeBlanc whispered to Mathias.

“I’m not sure,” Mathias shook his head.  “I’m not sure I like the look of that guy.  The way he’s holding that rifle makes him look like he intends to use it.”

“We hold our rifles the same way when we’re being cautious,” Bishop pointed out.

“Yeah, when we’re being cautious about the presence of zombies.  This guy showed up not long after we were being pretty damn loud.  Odds are, he showed up here knowing there would be people,” Mathias counter-pointed.

“He also didn’t look like he had any supplies with him.”  LeBlanc had apparently been studying him even more closely than Mathias had.  “Now it’s possible he left them in the woods for fear of someone stealing them, but that would also mean that the idea of theft has popped into his head, at least once.”

“You think he wants to rob us?” Bishop gave him a disbelieving look.

“Yeah, actually, I do,” LeBlanc told her.

“There’s three of us and one of him.  He’d be stupid to try,” Bishop gripped her rifle tighter.

“We don’t know that there’s only one of him,” Mathias cautioned.  “There could easily be more in hiding.”

“You guys are paranoid,” Bishop sighed and started to get to her feet.

Mathias pulled her back down before she got high enough to be seen.  “Says the girl with a plan for every disaster she can think of.”

“So what do you want to do?  Belly crawl along the divider until you think we’re far enough away?”  Bishop threw up her hands.  Well, not quite, because she couldn’t put them up very high without having them go over the barrier.

“We’re just going to wait a few minutes.”  Mathias placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her.  He was all for keeping moving forward, but he also knew he would be no good to Danny if he were dead.  He recalled his haste earlier that nearly got him run over.  Since then, he swore to himself that he would be more careful.

“And what are we going to do then?  What if he doesn’t walk away?” Bishop crossed her arms in front of her.

“I actually don’t think he will leave.”  Mathias shifted into a more comfortable position.  “But I happen to know that a few minutes’ walk behind us, there’s a man walking down that side of the highway.”

“So?”  Mathias actually saw his idea click in Bishop’s head.  “Wait, you want to use him as bait?  To see what the guy in the woods will do?”

“You got it, sister.”  LeBlanc also made himself more comfortable.  Mathias rarely ever needed to tell him what he was thinking.  They usually came up with the same plans at the same time.

“And what if he does get robbed?”  Bishop’s helpful doctor nature came through again.

Mathias was thinking he liked her better when they first met and she remained a cold clinical fish.  “If it’s just the one guy, or even two or three, we’ll help out the other traveller.  If it’s more than that, or if the guy is just looking to shoot some people…  Well then, yeah, we’re probably going to have to belly crawl.”

Bishop was silent for a moment, considering.  She then settled herself like LeBlanc and Mathias had.

“This is a stupid plan,” she muttered.

“Agreed, but it’s the best one we’ve got.”  Mathias thought about eating some more, but then remembered he had to ration for an unknown amount of time.  Rationing sucked.

Bishop, on the other hand, took out some sort of squeeze food and started eating it.  It looked like toothpaste the colour of peanut butter.  It looked gross.  LeBlanc hadn’t eaten anything since they left Keystone.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Mathias asked LeBlanc over Bishop’s head.

“No,” LeBlanc shook his head and gave Mathias a confused look.  “Should I be?”

“Probably.  You haven’t eaten since Keystone,” Mathias reminded him.

“Actually, I ate at Bishop’s house,” LeBlanc grinned.

“What?” Bishop frowned at him.

“Yeah, while I was bringing those boxes to the garage, I totally raided your fridge.  You had some left-over pizza in there; it was extremely delicious.”  LeBlanc patted his stomach.

“And you didn’t save any for me?” Mathias put on an exaggerated sad face.

“Hell no.  When did you ever save me some cold pizza?  That’s right, never,” LeBlanc gave him a mock smile in return.

“That’s ’cause I could only eat pizza when I went to see Danny, and there is no way I’d be able to smuggle that in,” he explained.

“Sure you could,” LeBlanc put on his shark grin.  “You’d just have to…”

“Stop there.”  Bishop put her hand up in front of LeBlanc’s face.  “I don’t know where you’re going with that, and I really don’t want to know.”

When Bishop removed her hand, it revealed that LeBlanc’s grin had gown wider, but he stayed silent.

* * *

The trio sat in silence for some time.  The only sound was the wind in the trees.  They had no idea if the man with the gun was still standing in the woods.  He could have easily walked off while they were whispering, and none of them would have noticed.  Mathias hated waiting, but he constantly reminded himself of the importance of it.  Although he would have loved to have been up and doing something, he knew that was how guys got shot.  Hell, it might have been why most of his family had bitten the bullet already.  Some predisposition to charge into the fray half-cocked.  He had gone through a reckless phase himself.  When he was in the army, his whole unit had been reckless.  It wasn’t until one of them, another kid named Kestrel, got shot through the eye while he was right next to Mathias, did he realize the insanity.  When he realized that, he also realized his commander was a total bat shit dick wad.  He had let him know it, too.

His commander had let it slide the first time, and the second, because the rest of the guys in the unit liked Mathias, but when Mathias punched him, full force, on the third instance, he got dishonourably discharged.  He didn’t care though, he had kind of been hoping for it.

He drifted around after that, not being able to hold down a job for very long, his family dropping like flies.  There were a lot of funerals.  His mother died giving birth to Danny while he was still in the army.  She had been too old to have another child, but she insisted on bringing him into this world.  Not long after, it had been Mathias’s father, a formerly high-ranking soldier who let himself waste away in a drunken stupor until he wrapped his car around a tree.  Mathias’s older brother and another younger brother were both killed in action: soldiers like he had been.  His sister, only a year younger than him, had been raising Danny on her own.  She was shot when she placed herself between a group of kids and a man robbing the convenience store.  Aunts, uncles, and cousins all died off or vanished without a trace throughout Mathias’s entire life.  When it ended up being just him and Danny, he freaked.  He never told Danny, but he had seriously considered just dumping the kid and bugging out.  He couldn’t raise his brother like he was supposed to, not like his sister had, no way.  Keystone had found him, though.  They approached him one night, out of the blue, with a job offer.  It seemed almost too good to be true.

He worked for them doing various private security jobs.  At first, low clearance stuff, so that he and Danny still lived together and saw each other all the time.  Then they had to move into the first place, which was this creepily happy town full of Keystone employees and their families.  It was the kind of place that was going to turn into its own version of Leighton one day.  Neither of the Cole brothers had liked it there very much.  Eventually Mathias got offered a position in a high security facility.  That was when the foster family thing had started for Danny.  They had talked it over a lot, the two of them.  First, it was just five days a week, weekends off to spend together.  Then it was every other week.  Then once a month.  Then, finally, how things had been for the past year.

“I hear something,” Bishop interrupted Mathias’s reminiscing, bringing him back into the present.

All three of them listened intently.  It was the sound of shuffling feet walking down the highway.  The man that had been trailing behind them had finally caught up.  They practically held their collective breath as he approached.

Finally, a voice spoke up.

“Hey, you!”  It sounded like it came from the woods.  The man was still there.

The scuffling steps stopped.

“What you got in that bag?”  The voice was gruff, harsh, like there were pebbles in his throat grinding together.

“Noth… Nothing,” the walking man stuttered.

“It don’t look like nothing.  Looks kind of heavy.”  The gruff voice had moved closer.

“It’s just so…so… some photo albums.  Pi… pi… pictures of my family.”  The walking man’s voice had also gotten closer, stepping away from the woods.

“Pi… pi… pictures?” the woodsman mocked.  “Let me see ‘em.”

“No,” the walker said firmly.

“Let me see ‘em or I’ll blow your head off,” the woodsman got angry.

A gunshot sounded, loud and clear.  Before Mathias could put a restraining hand on her, Bishop sprang to her feet, rifle at the ready.  Mathias grabbed a strap from her backpack that was hanging near her hip and pulled hard.  She toppled sideways as a bullet ripped past her ear.  She fell into his lap.

“Don’t shoot!” LeBlanc yelled in their defence.  “We’re not here to hurt anyone!  Don’t shoot!”

LeBlanc raised his hands above the barrier, palms spread wide.  He slowly stood up, not holding his gun, but not hiding it either, as it hung from its strap off his elbow.  He glanced down at Bishop and Mathias and gestured for them to stand.  Bishop scrambled off Mathias.  Mathias didn’t say anything, but in her attempt to get up, Bishop had shoved on the bruise the sniper bullet had made earlier.  He got to his own feet, trying to raise his hands the same way LeBlanc and Bishop were.  It was painful to raise his left arm, but he did it with only one wince.  Bishop gave him a quick side glance, scrutinizing his face.  He tried to play it cool, but it was obvious she knew she had hurt him.

When Mathias stopped thinking about his pain, he was surprised to see the walker was still standing and the woodsman lay dead on the ground.  The walker was pointing a huge revolver at them, steady as a rock.

“All I have are my fffffffamily pipipictures.”  The man’s stutter must have been something he had always dealt with because the rest of him appeared perfectly calm.  The woodsman had probably made the mistake of thinking it was fear.

“And you can keep them,” LeBlanc spoke calmly.  “We don’t need, or want, anything from you.  We were hiding from that guy in the woods.  We weren’t sure if there were more of them or not.  It seems there aren’t, and we’d like to go on our way now if you don’t mind.”

“You used me as bait.”  Mathias wondered if the stutter had disappeared briefly out of anger, because his voice carried no emotion.

“We did, and for that, I apologise,” LeBlanc continued to speak calmly.  “We didn’t have much of a choice without putting ourselves in danger.  It was selfish, but these seem to be selfish times we’re in.”

The man nodded.  He agreed with LeBlanc’s statement.  That was good.  It meant he was a little less likely to shoot them.  Or, at least, Mathias hoped so.  It could also mean he was more likely to shoot them.

“Can you put your gun down, please?”  LeBlanc gestured to the man’s hand with his head, keeping his arms up and hands open.

The man looked at the revolver he held, then lowered it to his side.

“Thank you,” Bishop sighed, lowering her arms.  “Do you need someone to travel with for awhile?  In case he’s not the only one waiting along the side of the road?”

The man shook his head.  “I’m d… d… dying.”  He pulled down the collar of his shirt so that they could see a partly healed but still quite nasty wound on his chest.  “Bbbbbit.”

Bishop nodded.

“Where are you heading then?” Mathias wondered.  It now seemed a lot more believable, and even sensible, that he was only carrying family photos.

“Ffffamily cabin.  Best years of my lllllife.”  A look of sadness and pain washed across the man’s features briefly before returning to its neutral state.  “Proposed to my wi… wife there.”

“What happened to her?” Mathias realized how stupid the question was the moment it left his lips.  Bishop also noticed and gave him a light kick in the shin for it.

“Home.”  The man gestured with his head toward the city.  “With the ch… chi… ch… kids.  Wouldn’t let myself inffffect them too.”

“You’re a very brave and noble man,” Mathias told him.  He didn’t know what he would do if he found Danny, but also got infected.  Would he be able just to walk away?

The man gave him a weak smile and a brief nod.  It was probably easier for him than to say thank you.

“We should get going.”  LeBlanc hopped over the barrier and took a few steps forward.  He looked like he was going to shake the man’s hand but stopped out of arm’s reach.  “It was nice meeting you sir.  Thank you for not shooting us.”

“I’ll wait a mmmmoment.  Let you get ahead a sssss… safe distance.”  The man waved them on.

“Thank you,” Bishop smiled at him then turned and started walking.  LeBlanc began following after her.

Mathias took a few steps in that direction as well, but then turned to the man.

“What’s your name?”  He thought the man should be remembered.

“Tyler,” the man said without any stutter.  “Tyler Jacobson.”

“Good luck, Tyler,” Mathias told him.  “I hope you make it to the cabin.”

Tyler nodded and Mathias turned to keep walking.  He caught up with the others in a short amount of time.  He looked back once more and saw that Tyler was dragging the woodsman’s body toward the tree line.  Mathias didn’t know why he was doing that, but he wanted to think he was relieving those behind him of the tension that seeing the body would cause.  Heaven knew, they would be wound tighter than a clock already.  He looked even further back and saw that the delay had allowed the swarm to get even closer.  He could see several people walking along now, some in small groups like theirs.

“If we don’t find a ride soon, we’re going to need to head off into the woods.”  Mathias knew the majority of people would stick to the highway, making the forest the safer of the two options.

“Find us a ride then,” LeBlanc turned and smirked at him.

“Found one,” Bishop said it in such a nonchalant manner, Mathias assumed she must have been joking.

LeBlanc must have assumed the same thing as he also said nothing.

“No really, look over there.”  Bishop pointed up ahead.

It took a moment for Mathias to see what she was seeing, but there was indeed a car sitting a good distance ahead.  It sat off to one side, partly off the road, almost sideways.  What looked like exhaust was coming out of the tailpipe.

“Well, it may not be drivable, but it couldn’t hurt to check it out.”  Mathias picked up his pace a little, trying not to get his hopes, up but they were.

* * *

As they got closer, they could see that it was indeed running.  This meant nothing though, as the car may have just been abandoned for other reasons that made it undrivable.  The car looked familiar to Mathias and it took him a moment to figure out why.  It dawned on him that it was the same car that had flown past them earlier; the one with the bloody windshield.  It was a beat-up, little, tan Escort that looked to be at least as old as Danny.

As they approached the vehicle, they all raised their rifles and began to circle it, coming at it from different angles.  The windshield was still intact and still a bloody mess.  There were skid marks behind the car, and it didn’t appear to have hit anything, so it must have just skidded out.  The reason why the car would’ve done that worried Mathias, especially considering none of the tires looked flat.  The car was in park, which was a good sign.  It meant that whoever had been driving when they spun out had at least half a brain left when they stopped.  The driver’s window was open and Mathias approached it slowly.  LeBlanc stood back to watch his ass while Bishop took up a post a few arm lengths away from the opposite corner of the car.

Through the window, he could see that no one sat upright in either the driver’s seat or the passenger seat.  That didn’t mean they weren’t slumped over where they couldn’t be seen, however.  Mathias stepped closer, one step at a time.  Each step allowed him to see more inside the vehicle.  Finally, he got close enough to search the whole front interior.  There was no one inside.

Just as Mathias was beginning to feel relieved that it was safe, something wrapped around his ankle and pulled his feet out from under him.

“Fuck!”  He went down hard on his back, his rifle managing to pop out of his hands and skid away across the pavement.  One of the first things he had been taught in training was never to lose your rifle, and there it went.  Luckily, his pack broke most of his fall or else his head would probably have broken on the pavement.

From underneath the car came an eerie groan, as whatever had his ankle tried to pull him under it.

Mathias kicked out with his free foot.  His boot connected with something, and there was a crunch.  It felt and sounded like it could have been a nose.  He kicked two more times at the same location, two more crunches.  That didn’t stop or even slow the tugging on his other leg.  This time, instead of kicking, he braced his free foot against the side of the car.  He pushed against it, hoping that his other leg would come free.  The thing under the car though, had a grip like a bear trap.  He looked between his legs and saw a bloody face peering out at him, trying to bring his foot into its mouth.  Its nose was completely pulped into its face leaving a gaping nasal hole.

“Shoot the fucker!” Mathias yelled at LeBlanc.

LeBlanc had lain down in front of the car with his rifle pointed underneath it.

“I can’t.”  He stood back up.  “I can do body shots just fine but I can’t take a head shot without risking blowing off your foot with it.  Not with this gun.”

“Then pull me out!”  Mathias usually appreciated LeBlanc’s always calm nature, but not at the moment.  “Drag it out with me, then shoot it!”

“Can’t,” LeBlanc shook his head.  “The damn thing’s legs are wrapped around the axle.  It’s probably the only reason it hasn’t made it to your face yet.  It’s too stupid to let go of it.  Give me a minute and I’ll think of something.”

“It’s chewing on my boot!”  Mathias would rather something be done now than a minute from now.

“You boys want to shut up so I can concentrate?” Bishop spoke up.

Mathias looked over and saw that she was lying on the ground at the rear of the car, her rifle pointed underneath it.

“Hey now, I like my foot.”  Mathias did not feel any better about the situation.

“LeBlanc, move away so that I don’t risk the bullet passing through it and into you,” Bishop sounded as calm as LeBlanc.

Why was Mathias the only one panicking?  Right, because he was the one about to loose his foot to either a zombie or a rifle shot.

“When I tell you to hold, you hold as still as you can, okay, Cole?” Bishop was using what was probably her clinical voice.

“Fuck me,” Mathias muttered.  He regretted wanting that side of her to come back.

“Okay, Mathias?” Bishop spoke harsher.

The fact that she used his first name didn’t go unnoticed by him.  “Okay.”

There was a moment of silence.  Well, almost silent, the zombie still made slobbery chewy noises.

“Hold!” Bishop shouted.

Mathias froze, and the rifle went off.  Most of the sound echoed under the car making it louder than it should have been.  It hurt Mathias’s ears to be that close.  He had squeezed his eyes shut on instinct.  When he opened them, he expected the zombie still to be chewing, but it wasn’t.  Then he expected to feel a great pain in his foot, but there wasn’t any of that, either.

LeBlanc grabbed his arms and pulled him backward.  He slid easily enough although the one leg felt heavier than the other.  The zombie was dragged out with him, still latched onto his boot with its mouth.  Its legs had apparently let go of the axle.  LeBlanc punted it in the head, knocking it off of Mathias’s leg.  Before that, Mathias saw where the bullet had gone.  It had entered the zombie’s skull and exited it again in a straight line.  A straight line that had passed mere centimetres above where his toes had been.  Mathias wiggled his toes in his boot to make sure they were all accounted for, then he scrambled up to his feet.

“You could’ve shot me.”  Mathias didn’t know whether to be extremely grateful, or extremely pissed.

“But I didn’t.”  Bishop shouldered her rifle once more, irritated by either his accusation or lack of confidence.  Or both.

“Whatever, no point in arguing about it, what’s done is done.”  LeBlanc got between them before anything could even think about starting up.  “Let’s just get rolling.”

Mathias went to pick up his fallen rifle while LeBlanc went to open the back door.

“Fuck!”  LeBlanc stumbled back a quick three steps, raising his gun into a firing position.  He didn’t squeeze off a shot, though.

Mathias quickly ran to his side, his own rifle at the ready.  He lowered it when he saw inside the car.  The whole back seat was covered in a bloody mess.  A woman lay across it, her bright blue eyes shining out of a red mask.  She was reaching toward them, her mouth moving.  Mathias took a step closer, so as not to miss when he fired.

“Help,” the woman gasped out weakly.

Mathias was stunned.  She wasn’t a zombie.  She was still alive.  She had wounds all over her body and was surely bleeding to death, but she wasn’t a zombie yet.  Mathias didn’t know what to do.

Bishop stepped forward then, snapping on a pair of latex gloves.  She grabbed the woman’s shoulders and dragged her out onto the pavement.  The woman gasped in pain, but it was very weak.  She was fading.

“Please,” she managed to get out.

Mathias was barely close enough to hear her, so he crouched down beside her.  Bishop crouched on her other side, carefully looking over her wounds.

“Kill me,” she whispered.  The woman tried to raise her hand toward Mathias, but was too weak to get it any higher than her own hip.

Mathias looked across her body to Bishop.

“She’s too badly injured for me to do anything,” Bishop answered his unasked question.  “Even in a fully stocked hospital, survival would be extremely slim.  She’s lost too much blood and is very badly injured.”

Mathias looked down at the ruined woman again.  Her mouth moved to speak, but this time, nothing came out.  Mathias thought she was trying to say please again.

“Okay,” Mathias nodded to her.  She must have been in extreme pain.  She probably also knew what she would become.

The woman nodded, the barest of movements.

Mathias stood up and took out his pistol.  Bishop walked away, snapping off her gloves and tossing them on the road.  LeBlanc stayed to watch but made no move to do it himself.

“It’ll be painless,” Mathias spoke to the unknown woman.  “And it’ll be quick.  I’m sorry this happened to you.”  He meant every word.

When he pulled the trigger, the light went out of her eyes as a clean hole appeared in her forehead.  Mathias would never forget her bright eyes.  He stood there, looking down at her, for at least a minute until LeBlanc put a hand on his shoulder.

“I think the still-living need some help, too,” LeBlanc said to him, directing his attention to Bishop.

She was kneeling on the highway’s shoulder, her shoulders shaking.  Mathias holstered his pistol, walked over to her, and knelt down beside her.  She wasn’t crying, but her chest and breath kept hitching as her body threatened to bring forth tears.  Mathias had no idea what to say, so he just sat next to her silently and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.  Eventually, she got herself under control and turned to him.

“Thank you,” she said and got to her feet.

Mathias didn’t know what he did, but accepted it and got up himself.  They gathered with LeBlanc on the other side of the car so that they didn’t have to see the woman.

“Would you be able to do that for me if the time came?” LeBlanc asked out of the blue.

“What?  Shoot you?” Mathias frowned.

“If I were infected and dying,” LeBlanc nodded.  “Could you do it?  Place a bullet in my brain?”

“I don’t know,” Mathias shrugged.  “Why do you ask?”

“Just an insurance policy,” LeBlanc shrugged back.  “I don’t want to become one of the walking dead if I can help it.”

“We can’t take this car,” Bishop sighed looking at the backseat.  “If anyone sits on that seat, they’ll be at serious risk for exposure.”

“That’s why you’re riding bitch,” LeBlanc said to her.

Bishop frowned at this, insulted.  “What?”

“It’s simple,” LeBlanc explained.  “I’m going to drive, and you’re going to sit on Matty’s lap in the passenger seat.”  He grinned broadly.

“What?”  This time Mathias wheeled on him.  Not only did he find the idea absurd and surprising, but did he just call him Matty?

“I am not sitting on his lap.”  Bishop crossed her arms and sounded almost disgusted.

“Don’t think I’m totally pleased with the idea.”  Mathias was actually kind of offended by her tone.  Did she really think he was that repulsive?

“Seriously now.”  LeBlanc held up his hands the same way he did when he talked to Tyler.  “It’s either that or walking.  Or you could sit on my lap.”  LeBlanc made suggestive faces at Bishop.

“Why don’t you sit on his lap?”  Now Bishop really was disgusted.

“I would, but I think things might get a little too hot and heavy for you to keep driving.”  LeBlanc was clearly joking, but it still took Bishop aback.

“Seriously, dude?” Mathias looked at his friend.  “If you tried anything, I would put a bullet in your head.”

“Good to know.”  LeBlanc started walking around to the driver’s door.  “Now I’m going to get into the car.  If either of you would like to join me, you’re welcome to do so.”

Bishop and Mathias watched as LeBlanc got into the car and shut the door behind him.

“What do you think?”  Mathias turned to Bishop.  “Think we can get along long enough to find a better ride?”

“If we don’t, just remember that I know where you’re wounded.”  Bishop shoved on his chest where the bullet had hit him.  Again.

Mathias sucked in a sharp breath.  He wondered what colour the bruise was, purple or black?  Probably black.

They walked over to the car and opened the passenger side door.

“I forgot, put this in the trunk.”  LeBlanc handed his pack to them.

Mathias took it and his own bag to the rear of the car.  The trunk popped open as he got close.  LeBlanc had hit the switch inside.  Bishop followed him with her own stuff.  There was already a lot of stuff in the trunk, so they had to shift things around to make room.  They didn’t even discuss just removing it.

“I’ve been meaning to ask.”  Mathias thought of the question he had had earlier.  “Have you had any military training?”

“No,” Bishop shook her head.  “Not officially, anyway.  My dad trained me and all my siblings in a very military-like fashion.”

“Sounds tough.”

Bishop shrugged.  “Not really.  I didn’t really know anything else.  And hey, it’s come in handy.  Wouldn’t you agree, Matty?”  She added that last part with a bit of spite, clearly hoping it would irritate him.

“Seriously, he has never called me that before,” Mathias told her.  “I mean, other people have a few times, but never him.”  The name didn’t bother him in the slightest.

“So?”

“So it has me worried, is all,” Mathias sighed.  “The name plus what he asked me earlier just doesn’t jive with who he is.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re all doing things lately that don’t jive with who we are.”  Bishop stepped back from the trunk as Mathias closed it.

“You mean like sitting on a strange man’s lap?” Mathias grinned as he led the way back to the front of the car.

“For starters.”

Mathias opened the door and climbed in.  Bishop hesitated a moment, but then climbed in on top of him.  It was a bit of a squish, but once they had the door closed, they found she could sit sideways against it with a bit of comfort.  LeBlanc put the little car into drive, and they started down the highway once more.  At least now, the gap between him and Danny wasn’t going to get any bigger.  If he would just stop, then they would have a chance of catching up.

It took a lot of washer fluid to clean off the windshield.

30:

Sergeant

Alec McGregor, or Mr. Eggor as Alice had apparently been calling him until recently, looked down at the small girl sleeping against him.  She had very blonde, wavy locks, and when they were open, vividly blue eyes.  Currently, she was somewhat chubby and had a large gap in her front teeth.  It looked like she had good bone structure though, and her future, at one time, held the chance of her becoming someone famous.  The future was changed, though.  Even if the zombies all suddenly dropped dead, this event would be a serious mark in history; a definite turning point.  Alec wondered if he had played a hand in it; if something they had found in that jungle led to the nightmare he was now living.

He looked over at Danny next.  The boy wasn’t asleep, but he certainly didn’t look awake.  His eyes were open, but he hadn’t moved in some time, except for his hand that was sticking out and riding the air currents.  It looked like his mind was very far away.  The kid was scrawny, all bone with some thready muscle attached to it.  Short, too.  It might just be the awkward teenage phase, but Alec didn’t have high hopes for him growing up to be a good-looking guy.  His eyes were small, which made his forehead look big.  If his brow line developed more, he could wind up looking like a bruiser.  If he built up some more weight and muscle, that was.  He also had a viscous rash of acne on his left cheek and jaw.  He would grow out of it, and as long as he didn’t pick at it, there shouldn’t be any scars left behind.  If he lived long enough to grow out of it, that was.

Alec sighed and thumped his head on the truck.  Not hard enough for those inside or outside to hear, but just hard enough that he felt it.  He wondered how he, of all people, ended up being a shepherd of children.  He had no desire to have kids of his own.  He loved the act involved in their creation, but that was as far as it went.  His sister had always been the child lover.  She had wanted a big family.  It was her first child who had killed her.  Complications with the pregnancy; a cancerous-like growth had suddenly shown up near the end.  It was left to Alec’s brother-in-law to decide whom the doctors should focus on.  In the end, it didn’t matter, and both of them passed away.  Alec had never asked his brother whom he had chosen.  Maybe that’s why they were able to stay on such good terms.  The baby had been a boy, and they were going to name him Jacob after Alec and Beatrice’s father.  Well, he was still named Jacob, but only on his headstone.

While they bounced on down the highway, his thoughts also wandered over to Kara.  Despite being an older woman, she was beautiful in her own way.  It was obvious she had never had any work done and had just let herself age the way nature had intended.  She didn’t even dye her hair and just let it grow the steely colour it was.  She was very fit as well.  Alec probably would have hit on her if she had been twenty years younger.

Instead, he had attacked her with words.  He wasn’t upset about how they parted.  He had directed his anger at her, there was no denying that, but, he felt some pity for her which put her in the neutral territory in Alec’s books.  In the end, her lovely features had been shattered.  She had a nasty scalp laceration that caused a chunk of skin and hair to hang off the side of her head.  There was blood everywhere.  Alec wouldn’t let Alice look and tried to do the same for Danny, but he thought the boy looked anyway.  He was only half surprised when she woke up.  The wound was devastating, but she had also proven herself to be tough as nails when the time called for it.

Walter was a different matter.  Alec had seen the bite wound when they first met and had suspected the worst.  He didn’t think he would turn so fast though, or so suddenly.  Maybe he had been infected at an earlier time and it just caught up.  Alec wondered if one of the kids might be infected.

Alec wondered if he might be infected.

It wasn’t impossible.  He shared a home and a job with a guy who got up to who-knows-what during the day.  A simple, unwashed glass or mistaken toothbrush apparently had the risk of spreading the virus.  Not to mention all the times they shared cheese-covered nachos.  He also spent a lot of time at the rehabilitation centre.  He might have picked up something there.  His injury though, did work in his favour on that front.  He used to hit on a lot of women who would almost always flirt back.  Alec was aware that he was good looking and played to it.  He was a male slut and he knew it.  And was totally fine with it.  The chair changed his appearance though, both to other people and to himself.  He still flirted a lot, but it never went to the bedroom.  He wouldn’t admit it, but he was scared about what the women might think about his battered and torn legs.

There was also Rifle, his dog.  The woman on the radio said nothing about dogs; maybe they were carriers.  Rifle had a habit of sticking his nose into things and had no qualms about slathering his tongue all over Alec’s face.  If dogs were carriers, that was his biggest risk right there.  Heck, he even let Rifle sleep on his bed.

Alec reached down and scratched Shoes’s belly, which was sticking out under Alice’s arms.  Now there was a dog that clearly loved its child.  Alice dragged the pooch around as if it was a favourite teddy, and the dog didn’t get fed up once.

Suddenly the truck began to slow and pulled off to the side of the road.  This brought Alec jarringly back into the present situation.  Next to him, Danny snapped out of his stupor.  He looked around the truck bed then settled his eyes on Alec’s face.  The kid had been through a lot.  It showed in his eyes.

“Wake up, Alice.”  Alec gently shook the girl’s shoulder.  “We’ve stopped.”

“I don’t wanna go to school,” the girl mumbled, snuggling down deeper into his coat.

The man named Corey hopped out of the truck and looked up at Alec.

“The girls have to pee,” he told him.  “Maybe it’s best if we all took a quick pit stop while we can.”

“Sure thing,” Alec nodded.  “Come on Alice, wake up.”

“Mr. Eggor?”  Alice looked up at him, rubbing sleep out of one of her eyes.

“It’s Alec, remember?”  He helped her sit up.  “We’re making a pit stop.  You should go pee while you can.”

Alice looked around the area.  “I don’t see a bathroom.”

“You’ll have to pee in the woods,” Danny told her, shaking his legs out.

“Like when Kara taught me how to pee in the bushes today?”  Alice crawled toward the tailgate, disentangling herself from the large coat as she went.

“Yeah, like then.”  Danny had no idea what she was talking about, but just went with it.

The two kids climbed out of the truck, Shoes being unceremoniously dropped out.  Once Alec had the room, he used his arms to manipulate himself toward the tailgate.  He dropped it down and sat on the edge for a moment.

“Can you handle things yourself?”  Danny looked at him.

“Sure I can.”  Alec looked back.  “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Shoes is coming with me,” Alice said as she walked off into the bushes.  “No other boys allowed.”

Kelly and the twins from the truck went over to the other side of the road to use the bushes there.  Although Alec wasn’t keen on the idea of Alice being alone, he figured Shoes would make a ruckus if something happened.  Danny walked up the road a way to pee while Corey crossed it and went down a ways.  Alec was pretty much alone with the truck, which he was grateful for.

He locked the knees of his braces again and slid off the truck on his belly.  His legs were killing him.  He had been on them way too much today already.  He avoided putting much weight on them by keeping his upper body prone across the truck bed.  He used one hand to help hold himself to the truck while the other went south of his belt.  Alec hadn’t realized just how much he needed to pee until he let it go.

* * *

Even though he had kept most the of weight off his legs, Alec was still exhausted by the time he zipped up.  It was possible he had peed on Corey’s truck, but he wasn’t too concerned about that.  He began hauling himself back up into the truck with his arms again.  His arms were nearly as tired as his legs.  The muscles ached from the constant strain he had been putting on them all day.  His hands hurt as well.  Even though he had been wearing his leather sniper’s gloves all day, the ones that covered his hands but not his fingertips, the palms of his hands were starting to feel a little raw.  When he finally managed to get his body up into the bed, he lay flat on his back for a while.

“You all right?”

Alec raised his head to see Corey coming back.  “I’m fine.”

“You look a little sweaty.  You don’t have a fever, do you?” Corey eyed him suspiciously.

“No,” Alec shook his head.  He knew what a fever implied.  “Just been using my fucked-up legs too much is all.  My muscles are tired.”

“I noticed the kid’s helmet.”  Corey nodded in Danny’s direction.  “That yours?”

“It was until I gave it to him,” Alec told him.

“What were you in?”

“Special forces.  Sniper division.”

“Oh yeah?  What rank?”

“Sergeant.”

Corey nodded.  “My father was a Corporal by the end.”

Alec nodded back.

“Is that what happened to your legs?”  Corey pointed to Alec’s booted feet.

“It was a helicopter.”

Corey nodded again.

Danny came back around the truck then.  “Alice not back yet?”

“One thing you’re going to learn Danny, is that women always take forever when it comes to everything having to do with a washroom,” Alec told him.

“I’ll go check on her.”  Danny headed toward the woods.

“Careful!” Alec warned him.  “An embarrassed girl is a dangerous girl!”

“He yours?” Corey asked.

“No, neither of them are.”  Alec started to pull himself into a more upright position.  “I’ve just been picking up strays as I go.  There were two other adults with us earlier, but one of them got sick.  The car crashed, and neither of them made it.  The twins yours and Kelly’s?”

“Yup.”  Corey looked toward the woods, but Alec caught a brief glimpse of an expression he couldn’t read.  “Tessa and Terra.  I wanted to give them different names but Kelly insisted.  She thinks it’s really cute.”

Danny returned from the woods again, this time with Alice and Shoes in tow.  Danny helped Alice up and then lifted the dog up himself.  He was quite the helpful little bugger.

Alice crawled over to Alec and held her hand out to him.

“Look what I found!”  She was clearly delighted by the object she stuck under Alec’s nose.

Alec carefully moved her hand away from his face and looked into her open palm.  A small chunk of glittering quartz sat in the middle of it.

“It’s very pretty,” he told the young child.  He was honest; he didn’t like lying to children when it was unnecessary, but he held back his whole thought.  There was a ton of quartz in this area, much of it probably pinker, or shinier than hers.

“It’s lucky,” she said, putting it into a pocket on the front of her jean dress.

“I hope so.  We could all use some luck.”  Although Alec knew they had been really lucky so far.

As Corey’s girls walked out of the woods, Alec realized their luck had probably gone.  One of the twins did not look well at all.  She was very pale and had a slight shine to her skin.  Her sister was clearly very worried, and Kelly quickly gathered them up into the truck.  Alec looked at Corey who just looked back.  They spoke no words but had a mutual understanding.  Corey wasn’t going to do anything about it.  He didn’t believe his little girl could be infected.  If Alec didn’t like it, he was welcome to get out of the truck now.

Alec didn’t move, and so Corey climbed up into the cab.  They pulled off the shoulder as Danny lifted the tailgate back up.  Alec decided he didn’t want to ride with Corey anymore.  One car crash was enough.  First though, he wanted to think awhile, see if he could figure out something better than walking.  Or, in his case, rolling.  The sun was setting, and soon it would be dark.  Both he and the kids were tired.  They were unlikely to get very far before they would need to stop for the night.  He took out the GPS in his pocket.  When he turned it on, it brought up a screen that showed their route.  Unfortunately, the only man-made things it showed were roads.  He reached up and knocked on the cab’s rear window.  Kelly slid it open a crack.

“Do you have a map I could barrow?” Alec had to speak loudly.

He watched as Kelly spoke to Corey about something.  They spoke too quietly for him to hear over the wind, and he had never learned how to read lips.  In the end though, it didn’t matter what they said.  Kelly opened the glove box and took out a pile of paper.  She sifted through it until she found a map book and handed it out through the little gap of a window.  She then quickly closed it before Alec could even say thank you.  Their hospitality was deteriorating with the little girl’s health.

He settled back into his original sitting position and looked through the book.  It had maps of places all over Ontario.  Alec opened it up to the Leighton page first.  It didn’t take him long to discover that they had already passed the edge of that page.  This was a good sign.  He flipped through the book and figured out where they were.  The wind kept trying to tear it away from him so he kept a tight grip.

At first glance, things didn’t look so good, as there was nothing between where they were and where they were going.  Alec looked closer though, searching for places just off the highway that they would be able to walk to.  Finally he found it.  About an hour’s drive ahead, there was an exit off the highway.  Not far from that exit was a service station.  They could hold up there for the night, and there might even be better buildings near it that weren’t marked on the map.  It wasn’t labelled as a town either, so it should have a small population, if any.  If they ran into any people there, they were likely to be uninfected.

He sat up and knocked on the truck’s window again.  Once again, it slid open a tiny amount.

“We’re here,” Alec told Kelly, holding up the map and pointing to it.  “Could you pull over and let us out when we get to here?”

Alec slid the map book through the window.  Kelly took it and looked it over.  She then looked back at Alec and nodded.  Alec gave her a thumbs up, and she shut the window again.  Before settling back down, he looked in at the two little girls.  One appeared to be asleep in her mother’s lap.  The other held the first one’s hand and just sat there, staring at her.  The one sitting up was clearly concerned for the one lying down.

Alec settled down again.  He had once met a twin, a woman, in a bar.  Actually, most of the people he met were women in bars.  Which then became women in bras.  Then women without bras.  That wasn’t why he thought of this one now, though.  He thought of the conversation they had had.  The woman had told him about what it was like being an identical twin.  About mistaken identity, about falling for the same boy, about arguing over who got to wear what on what day so that they didn’t look completely the same.  One thing she mentioned though was this connection they had.  She said she always knew how her sister was feeling if they were in the same room.  Even if they were far apart, she could feel the most extreme of emotions.  Her sister was the same way with her.  If one of them had a bad break-up, the other would call out of the blue.  When she had been in a skiing accident and broke her leg, her sister knew right away that something bad had happened.  When her sister was proposed to, she called immediately, knowing that there was going to be good news.

The little girls in the front of the car would likely be the same way.  The amount of concern the one had for the other made Alec even more concerned.  He hoped that Corey would drive way over the speed limit and get them there in under the hour he estimated it would take.

* * *

Alec reached into his pocket and took out his pistol.  He looked it over and decided he should probably replace the shots he had fired off earlier in the day.

“Hey, Danny, could you drag my pack over here to where I can reach it?”  Alec pointed to his sack.

“Sure.”  Danny had been sitting next to the tailgate just staring off into space.  He crawled toward the front of the truck and shoved Alec’s bag over to him.

“Thanks, kid.”  Alec opened part of his bag and went straight to where he had packed his pistol’s extra rounds.

He slid the magazine out of the handle and checked how many rounds he would need to put in.  He had fired off four rounds already.  He remembered that one of those rounds had gone into the head of his friend, Michelle.  At least it had been quick.

“Can I do it?” Danny asked, looking at the mag.

Alec thought for a moment.  “Sure, why not.  You should probably learn anyway.”

“I know how to do it, I’ve just never done it,” Danny told him.

“Well, you can’t really know something until you’ve done it yourself.  Here.”  Alec handed Danny the magazine and the four bullets to put into it.

He watched Danny figure out how to put in the bullets without comment.  If he had seen him do something wrong, he would have told him, but Danny got it right.  He handed it back to Alec, who slapped it back into his pistol and pocketed the gun.

“Do you know how to clean a gun?” Alec asked.

“Well, if you don’t really know unless you do it, then no, I don’t,” Danny answered.

“Maybe once we stop for the night I’ll show you,” Alec offered.  “It’s a little more complex than putting bullets into a magazine.  Where did you learn that anyway?  Your brother?”

“No, internet.  Where are we going to stop?” Danny wondered.  “I saw you looking at a map earlier.”

“Not too far off the highway is a service station.”  Alec took out his GPS and showed the spot to Danny.  “I figure we can probably barricade ourselves in it for the night.”

“Are you going to teach Alice anything about guns?” Danny asked, seemingly out of the blue.

Alec looked over at the little girl.  He didn’t even know how old she was.  Or how old Danny was, for that matter.  She was currently kneeling, resting her arms on the side of the truck bed.  She had stuck her head past the side like a dog out of a car window.  The wind whipped her hair in all directions.

“I don’t know,” Alec shook his head.  “Certainly not tonight if I can avoid it.”

“What’s the future going to be?”  That was a heavy question.

“I know even less about that,” Alec sighed.

“Are we just going to start living with you?” Danny kept asking.

“I don’t know,” Alec let a little bit of irritation creep into his voice hoping it would get him to stop.  “Maybe.  I still don’t really know what’s going on, or what this virus deal is about.  This could be over by tomorrow, or several years from now.  It might never go away.”

Alec should have held off on that last part, but it slipped out.  Danny’s face subtly changed.  Clearly, he hadn’t thought about that yet.  He assumed there would be an end, that order would be restored.  Alec had thought that too, up until they fled the city and saw all those other cars, all those other people.

“How old are you?”  Alec decided to use his recent thought to change the subject.

“Fourteen,” Danny muttered.

Alec nodded.  “Do you know how old Alice is?”

“No.”

“Hey, Alice.”  Alec put a hand on her back to get her attention.

She turned around with a big, bright smile on her face.  Alec couldn’t help but feel slightly better.  He hoped her smile worked as well on Danny.

“How old are you, kiddo?” Alec asked.

“I’m five and one half.”  Alice held up five fingers, three on one hand and two on the other.

“Do you know anything about guns, Alice?” Alec was going to have to teach her gun safety, at the very least.

“I know that my Daddy has to carry one for work, and that it’s very dangerous,” Alice said matter-of-factly.  “I’m not ever supposed to touch one, and if someone has one, I have to do what they say.”

“Very good.”  Maybe he wouldn’t have to teach her.

“You have a gun,” Alice said.  “I saw it when we met.”

“I do,” Alec nodded.  “It’s to keep us safe from the bad people that want to hurt us.”

“Why do they want to hurt us?” Alice huffed.  “They’re mean.”

“Actually, they are very, very sick,” Alec told the five-year-old.  He tried to find words that she would understand.  “Have you ever had the flu?”

Alice nodded.  “It was icky, and I threw up.”

“Right, and you didn’t have a choice about throwing up, did you?”

Alice shook her head.

“Well, these people, they’re sick like that.  They wouldn’t hurt us if they weren’t sick, but because they are, they can’t help it.”

“Can we give them medicine?” Alice wondered.  “My Daddy gave me medicine that tasted yucky.”

“There is no medicine that can help them.”  At least as far as Alec knew.

“Will they get better?”

“I don’t know.  They might not.”

Alice looked down at her hands and pondered this.  “Kara said their souls were torn in two, and that the only way to help them was to kill them.  That would put their souls back together in heaven.”  She didn’t ask any more questions.

Alec wasn’t going to say anything to that.  He couldn’t.  Instead, he leaned his head back and stuck his own hands into his pockets.  One of them touched his pistol, which was expected, but the other pocket had something in it as well.  He pulled out some dog treats that he had forgotten he had on him for Rifle.  He put all of them back but one.

“Here Shoes.”  Alec held the biscuit out to the hound.

Shoes got up from where he was lying and waddled his way over.  When the dog saw what Alec held, he opened his mouth as if expecting him just to place it in there.

“He has to do a trick first.”  Alice stopped Alec from just giving him the treat.  “Shoes, sit.”

The dog sat, then opened his mouth again.

“Shoes, shake a paw.”  Alice held out her hand to the dog.

Shoes lifted one of his short little legs up.

Alice took it in her hand and shook his leg.  “Other paw.”

Shoes lifted the other leg up.

Alice repeated the shaking gesture.  “Down.”  She held out her little hand, palm spread and gestured to the dog that he should lay down.

Shoes lay down.

“Up.”  She turned her hand over and reversed the gesture.

Shoes sat back up.  He continued to open his mouth, waiting for his treat after every trick.

“One more, you silly boy.”  Alice patted his head.  “Signal.”

Shoes lay down and started chuffing.

“Good boy!”  Alice patted her dog.  She took the treat from Alec and gave it to Shoes.

“I think for all that he deserves an extra treat.”  Alec took another biscuit from his pocket.

Shoes sat up next to him, mouth hanging open and slowly leaning toward the biscuit.

“Shoes, wait,” Alice commanded.

Shoes closed his mouth, but continued to stare at the treat, his nostrils wiggling as he sniffed it.

“Now you say ‘Okay’ when you give him the treat,” Alice told Alec.

Alec held the treat right in front of Shoes’s face, but the dog continued to wait as it was told.

“Okay.”  Alec didn’t make him wait long.

Shoes gobbled up the treat in an instant, then waddled off toward the rear of the truck bed before they could command any more tricks out of him.

“He’s a very well-trained dog,” Alec commented.  “What was that signal command you gave him?”

“He used to work for the police with my Daddy,” Alice told him.  “He would find cadavers.  Lying down and barking was his signal for when he found or smelled one.”

“Really?”  Alec looked at the hound.  That could prove to be a very useful trick to have.

“Yup, he’s found lots of people,” Alice nodded.  “He got old though, and had to retire.  That means he gets to stay home with me!”

Alec looked at the pooch.  He remembered Shoes had started barking not long before Walter had crashed their ride.  Was it possible that Shoes could smell the sickness in people?  If he could, it was clear that he couldn’t smell it right away, only shortly before they turned, but that was still better than nothing.  Alec would now pay more attention to the dog and what it was doing.

Danny yawned, his mouth opening so wide that Alec was pretty sure it popped.

“Either of you kids hungry?”  Alec would rather not have to dig into their rations yet, but he needed to keep the kids’ energy up until they got to a safe location.

“No,” Danny shook his head.

“I’m okay,” Alice agreed.  “Unless you have cookies.  I would like a cookie.”

“Sorry squirt, no cookies.  Although where we’re going may have some, you never know,” Alec shrugged.

He kept trying to picture what the service station would look like.  There were a few things it could be.  It could be a simple gas station where the only structure was a little hut-like building for the attendant to stand in.  Or it could be the kind of gas station that had a full shop with the cheesy gift merchandise.  There was even a chance it would have a fast-food joint.  Alec hoped it would be one of those so that he could fry them up some burgers.  He was hungry, starving even, but he was going to wait till they got to their destination.  If there were food there, he would eat that instead of what they had with them.

They continued to ride in silence awhile longer.

* * *

“So what kind of chair is that?” Danny broke the silence.

“You mean my wheelchair?”  Alec asked as if there were other chairs present.

“Yeah,” Danny nodded.  “It doesn’t look like a normal wheelchair.”

“You mean it doesn’t look like what you picture a wheelchair to look like when you think of one,” Alec corrected him.  “There are lots of different kinds of wheelchairs.  If you remember when I was talking to Kara, I said that Keystone is the one that ended up fixing me.  Well, they gave me that chair.  I guess they knew I wasn’t going to be the most friendly with it, so they gave me the heavy duty, rough and tumble one.  I never bothered to look up exactly what kind it is, but it seems like they crossed an everyday-use chair with a rugby chair.”

“Rugby chair?”  Danny looked at him, confused.

“Yeah, there are wheelchair rugby leagues.  As well as basketball, hockey, tennis, whatever really.”  Alec noticed Danny still looked confused.  “What?  You didn’t think people in chairs could play sports?”

“I guess I just never thought about it,” Danny shrugged.

“Don’t get me wrong, walking and running and all that is great, but there’s nothing wrong with being in a chair.”  That was something Alec had to tell himself a lot.  He really did miss the use of his legs.  If he was going be confined forever, then maybe he would adapt, but having the chance to regain the use of them had put him in a sort of grey zone.  Not long after being in a chair, he had gone to a bar and hit on the most beautiful girl he could find there.  She had talked and flirted with him, but when he had suggested that they leave together, she had laughed.  She told him that she would fuck him when he could fuck her standing up.  Needless to say, that had set his mental therapy back about a week.

Danny looked like he was about to say something else when the truck ground to a halt on the shoulder again.  Alec looked up as the window in the back slid open slightly.

“We reached your exit,” Corey grunted then slid the window closed again.

No one in the cab got out to help them.  Their friendly attitude had completely vanished, which suggested things were looking very bad for the young girl.  Alec was very glad they were getting off.  In fact, he was thinking that if they hadn’t decided to separate when they did, either Corey or Kelly would start blaming one of them for the girl’s sickness, and then all hell would break loose.

Danny crawled to the tailgate and dropped it down.  He started moving their bags and placing them on the ground behind the truck.

“Time to get off, squirt.”  Alec gestured for Alice to get off the truck.

Alice crawled over to Shoes.  She looked like she was going to drop him onto the ground herself but Danny quickly helped her.  Once the space was made, Alec once again hauled himself around to the tailgate.

“I think I remember how to set up your chair, but you better watch, just in case.”  Danny hopped out of the truck and pulled the chair down.

He opened it up and checked the locks.  He only forgot to check one, but Alec reminded him of it.  Alec then, once again, got up on tired and shaky legs.  He moved quickly to drop into his seat, then unlocked his knees and set his feet on the footrest, which consisted of a single bar covered in rubber grip.  His leg muscles were absolutely screaming.  There were some pain medications in both his and Danny’s bags, but he didn’t want to take any.  Those were for emergencies only.

He slung his pack onto his back, and Danny did the same.  Alice dropped off the back of the truck and scooped up Shoes’s leash.  Danny lifted the tailgate back up, and Alec smacked the rear of the truck twice.

Corey and his family drove away quickly.

“Bye!”  Alice waved with her whole arm.  “Thank you for the ride!”

Alec looked at the highway exit.  Thankfully, the grade didn’t look too steep; he should be able to get up it on his own.  Or, at least, with only a minimal amount of help from Danny.

The sun had finally finished sinking below the trees, leaving only a glow behind it in the sky.  Alec took his pistol out and placed it on his lap.  He hoped they could get to shelter before it became fully dark.

31:

Jessi

Jessica watched the world go by outside the window.  She looked for horses or cows whenever they passed fields, but, so far, she had had no luck.

The others were snickering again.  They kept making stupid jokes.  None of this was funny.  The world was ending, and they were making jokes.

Stupid fucking Abby.  Stupid fucking Cender.  Stupid fucking Tobias.

Even Cillian was making jokes.  Her Cillian.  He had come, and he had saved her, but the others were corrupting him.  Tobias especially.  That goddamn boy cunt.

She was also pretty sure Abby was trying to steal him from her.  She had seen her flirting with him.  To her utter disgust, it looked like Cillian was flirting back.  It’s not like he could help it, though.  He was a man.  Men couldn’t help themselves.

Still, she liked Abby, so it was very troublesome.  They had gone through a nightmare together and come out on the other side.  If she would just stop flirting with her Cillian, then they could probably be best friends.

It was nearly dark now.  The last of the sun still lit the sky, but she couldn’t see the sun itself.  The dark was coming.  The fucking dark.  It didn’t feel like that long ago when she and Abby were in the darkness of the subway tunnel.

As that memory came, so did the ensuing memories: the hospital, the zombie she had pummelled, the man known only as B.  He hadn’t been infected, but she killed him anyway.  Once she started swinging that shovel, she couldn’t stop.  She told Cillian she couldn’t remember what happened, but she did.  She remembered every sickening thump.  He might have lived if only he didn’t have that damned gun.

Jessica did not like guns.  She did not like anyone who carried a gun either, and now she was in a car full of them.

When Jessica was twenty-one, and still attending school, she had to stay late one night.  Her group needed to get an assignment done and had gathered in the library.  They had worked for hours because all of them were really busy and didn’t know when they could get together again.

It was one in the morning when they finally disbanded.  They had gotten a lot of work done, and Jessica left satisfied.  They all had a section of the report to review and edit.  Once edited, they would trade sections with someone else in the group and cross-edit.  They would do this continuously until everyone had edited every section.  Since the swapping could be done online, they wouldn’t need to gather again unless something really drastic came up.

Jessica had left the building with two of her classmates, a couple that she had been friends with for quite awhile.  They offered to give her a ride home, but she politely declined.  They lived in the opposite direction, and her bus stops at both ends weren’t far.  They said their goodnights and went their separate ways.

She walked to the bus stop and sat in the shelter there.  She sat and she sat and the bus never came.  She waited for nearly a full hour before deciding that the bus was never going to come.  Later, she found out that the bus drivers had gone on strike that night at midnight.  She started walking home.

The apartment that Jessica rented with a friend wasn’t that far from the school if you looked on a map, but there was a river between the two that had a fairly long and round-about way of getting from one side to the other.  Taking the bus didn’t take too long, but walking always felt like forever.

As she neared the main bridge, she looked down at the river.  It carved a ravine into the landscape that was surrounded by large amounts of foliage.  There was also a path following one side of the river that lots of students walked, biked, or jogged along in nice weather.  At this time of night though, Jessica did not trust the path.  She did, however, trust the trees.

Once she crossed the bridge, she climbed down the side, into the forest.  She and her roommate had spent many weekends exploring these woods and she knew all the trees and all the hidden deer paths.  She made her way through the dark with confidence.  It would cut her travel time down by over half.  She saw only a couple of people the whole time.  They were two boys sitting on the opposite bank of the river, just off the path.  Judging by the glow that kept passing between them, it was likely a couple of stoners.  The stoners usually came out to the woods at night to get high.

As Jessica neared the end of her journey, the path on the other side of the river crossed over a footbridge to her side.  She met up with it where it bent to go uphill and joined with the street.  Her apartment building sat on the corner where they met.  She was almost home.

“Well, look what we have here,” a voice spoke out of the dark on the other side of the path.  “Looks like a lost, little deer.”

Jessica had turned to face the speaker, but wound up having something cracked into the side of her skull.  She was stunned, and it took her a moment to realize that she was being dragged into the woods.  She screamed, but it was cut short by a hard punch to her face, and then a kick to her stomach.  She gasped for air, not able to breathe for a moment.

“Shutyourdirtymouth.”  It was a man’s voice, and it had turned harsh and violent.  “Give me your wallet.”

Jessica realized she was being mugged.  She pulled her bag to her and started to open it, but the man grabbed it out of her hands.  She watched as he tore open the bag and rooted through the contents.  She remembered thinking how upset her group would be when they found out part of the report had ended up on the dirty forest floor.  Some of it was even getting picked up by the wind and heading for the river.

The man had a large beard and beady eyes.  He was very dirty.  He found her wallet and tossed the rest of her bag aside.  Opening it, he took out all the cash and stuffed it into a pocket in his pants.  He then pulled out her debit card.

“What’s the pin?”  His head snapped, and he glared down at her.

At first, Jessica had no idea what he was talking about.  What pin?

“What’s the fucking pin?”  He pulled a gun out from the back of his waistband, pointing it at her face.

For a moment, Jessica couldn’t breathe again.  She tried to say something, anything, but it wouldn’t come out.  The gun was then cocked.

“8472,” she said.  She wasn’t even sure that that was the right number, but it was the only thing she could get out.

The man put the card into his other pocket, then glanced back at the path.

“Please, let me go,” Jessica whimpered.

“Let you go?”  The man faced her again.  “But honey, we’re just getting started.”

Jessica knew only fear and pain for the next half hour.  The man jumped on her and crudely grabbed her breasts.  Jessica turned to scramble away, but she only managed to crawl a few paces before he grabbed her hips and pulled her back to him.  The muzzle of the gun was placed against the back of her skull.

With the gun there, Jessica was afraid to do anything as the man reached his other hand around the front of her.  He squeezed her breast again, hard.  Then he undid her jeans and yanked them down with her panties in one tug.  The gun moved away as he presumably undid his own pants.

Now was her chance.  Jessica kicked back with one of her legs.  She wasn’t sure what part of his body she hit; she just tried to scramble away again.  She was foiled by her dropped garments though, and tripped, scraping open her chin on the root of a tree.  Before she could try to get back, a shot was fired, narrowly missing her head.  She never forgot that sound.  It was the loudest thing she had ever heard.  She froze.  The man was on her again in seconds.  She tried to scream again, but a dirty, smelly hand was clamped over her mouth.

“Don’t try that again,” he hissed in her ear, the gun placed against her temple.  “I’d rather do this while you’re still alive.”  His words were emphasized by the dead body.  Another girl lay in the leaves nearby, her dead eyes staring.  Watching.

He then forced himself inside her.  The only thing Jessica could do was lie there and cry.  She could only smell his dirty hand, and practically taste it too.  Part of her mind couldn’t even fathom what was going on.  It couldn’t comprehend that she was actually being raped and that there was a dead woman beside her.  He didn’t stop with just once, either.  The second time, he raped her up the ass.

When it was finally over, he hit her in the face with the gun, leaving a small gash and a cracked cheekbone.

“Thanks for the fun, hun,” he said as he did up his pants.  He then spit on her and left.

Jessica lay there the rest of the night, too hurt and afraid to move.  She had pulled her pants back up, not caring about the dried leaves that had gathered inside them.  She then curled into a ball and sobbed for her and for the unknown dead girl.  She should’ve made her group find the time to meet again, so they wouldn’t have had to stay so late.  She should’ve accepted the ride from her friends or they should have insisted.  The bus drivers shouldn’t have gone on strike that night.  She shouldn’t have walked through the woods.  She should have, she should have, she should have.

She was found the next morning by a jogger.  Three other joggers had gone past that day, but all of them had headphones on and didn’t hear her.  This one, Liz Patterson, happened to enjoy the bird song and never listened to music while she jogged.  She thought she had heard a wounded animal, but when she went to look, she found Jessica’s ruined form instead.

Jessica was taken to the hospital, patched up, and had a rape examination done.  She was assigned a councillor who helped her through the emotional aspects.  At first, Jessica didn’t want the help.  She wanted to curl up and die of shame.

The man was named Albert York.  He had sudden onset schizophrenia and his family had been looking for him for days.  He was caught when an ATM camera picked him up trying to use Jessica’s card.  This was three days after the attack.  Those three days were a nightmare for Jessica, knowing he was out there.  He had gone through her wallet; he would know her address.

The dead girl had been another student, also walking home, who had fallen victim to Albert about an hour before Jessica.  She had been killed by a severe blow to the head.

When Albert was caught, Jessica felt only slightly better.  She knew there were other people out there like him.  She dropped out of school, moved home, and did nothing for a year but read books and see her therapist.  Eventually she got a job as a temporary secretary.  Then as a full-time secretary.  Then she joined the Marble Keystone family and started her career.  She was better.

At least she thought she was better.

* * *

Abby laughed loudly next to Jessica, her voice filling the car.  Jessica winced at it.  Such laughter wasn’t right.  Jessica turned and looked at her.  She was obviously laughing at something Cillian had said.  He was smiling back in the rear-view mirror.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Jessica said loudly in order to be heard over the others.

“Now?” Tobias frowned.

“Yes, now,” Jessica scowled at him.  “Do you have control over when you have to go?”

“I could probably do with a pit stop myself,” Cender agreed.

Tobias sighed.  Arrogant little freak.  They turned out of the convoy they had joined and went down a dirt road.  It was some sort of access road for a farm field.  Tall stalks of corn passed on either side.  Once they were out of sight of all the other vehicles, Cillian stopped the car.

Instantly Jessica popped open her door and got out.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Cillian called from the driver’s seat.

Jessica shook her head.

“Be careful, don’t go too far,” he cautioned.

Jessica held up her shovel to show him she had it, then disappeared into the stalks.  She didn’t actually have the slightest urge to use the facilities, but she needed some air.  And some time alone.  She walked a way into the corn, the dense leaves brushing against her skin.  It was dark surrounded by the corn stalks.  Once she felt she was far enough, she knelt down in the mushy dirt.  She put her hand in one of the pockets of her scrub pants.  She hadn’t been able to accept the gun she was offered, but she did find a sharp combat knife.  By slicing a few seams open in the bottom of the pocket, she had been able to turn it into a makeshift sheath.  No one knew she had it.

Jessica didn’t even know why she had taken the knife.  It had been on impulse, but she was very glad she did.  It made her feel safe.  Safer, even, than her shovel, although the shovel had already proven itself in combat.  Maybe it was because more people expected violence from a knife.  Especially a knife that looked like this one.  She could intimidate people with it, like she had once been intimidated.

Guns were overpowered in Jessica’s opinion.  With one, you could do so much damage with so little effort.  A little kid could kill a fully grown man the size of an elephant if his aim was good.  So much power, yet so little control.  A reckless force that one needed no training to wield.  The knife, though.  So up close, so personal.  It took real skill to use one well.  Jessica didn’t have that skill, at least not yet, but she was sure she could learn.  She had time for it now.  She never needed to go back to work; she never needed to worry about making money.  She could do what she wanted; she was free.

“There you are.”

Jessica nearly jumped out of her skin.  She got quickly to her feet, brandishing her shovel.  It was only Abby.

“I’m sorry, did I startle you?” Abby asked the obvious question.  “I didn’t mean to.  I wasn’t being quiet or anything.”

“I was thinking.”  Jessica sat back down on the dirt.  She used to worry about getting her clothes dirty; now she did it without thought.  Of course, these weren’t really her clothes.  Only her underwear actually belonged to her.  Hospital pants, a stranger’s shirt, and Abby’s boots.  Abby’s boots, which were too small for her feet.  She knew she had blisters, and they pained her constantly.  She was beginning to like the pain, though.  It reminded her that she was alive.

“Thinking about what?”  Abby sat down not far away.  Close enough to be seen through the clustered corn leaves.

About slitting your dirty throat.  Jessica didn’t know where that thought came from, but it wasn’t the first time.  She had first thought it in the limo.  It surprised her then, but now she was getting used to it.  She almost followed through with it when they were in Cender’s friend’s house.  They were alone in the bedroom, and Abby’s back was to her.  It would have been easy.  She wouldn’t have been able to cover it up though.  The house had already been checked for zombies, and it would have been pretty obvious if one came smashing through a window.  No, she didn’t do it then.  They were alone now though.

“Just…  Everything,” Jessica finally answered her question.

“I know what you mean,” Abby nodded.

She had no idea what Jessica meant.

“All this craziness.”

Was she calling Jessica crazy?

“I can’t believe it’s all happening.”  Abby looked up at the nearly dark sky.  In the corn, it was already a dark night, but her long neck was still very visible.

One swift slice was all it would take.

Some noise came at them from the car’s direction, interrupting Jessica’s impulsive plan.  Someone was coming through the corn toward them.

“Jessi?  Abby?”  It was Cillian’s voice.  “Where are you girls?”

“We’re here,” Abby called back.

Jessica scowled at her in the dark.

Cillian came through the corn and found them.  He looked down at Jessica, through the corn leaves, a smile on his lips.  A fake smile.  Jessica always knew when he was lying, even when it was just an expression.

“Come on, we should get going.”  Cillian held out his hand.

He didn’t even ask if Jessica was done.  She took his hand anyway and let him help her up.

There was another rustling through the corn, only this time it didn’t come from the direction of the car.  The rustling was coming toward them from deeper in the fields.  Jessica raised her shovel.  A high pitched squeal came at them; clearly it was one of the infected.

Another squeal sounded between them and the car.

* * *

Jessica ran laterally to the squealing.  She didn’t think twice about it, just ran.  She used her shovel to help slice her way through the corn leaves but many of them still whipped painfully past, especially against her legs.  She didn’t think about that either, just ran.

Where Cillian and Abby may have gone, she didn’t know.  She didn’t care.  Well, she cared a little for Cillian, how could she not?  She didn’t want him dead.  Maybe hurt a little as punishment, but not dead.

She hit another path in the corn, this one more like a footpath than the one the car was on.  She picked a random direction and headed down it.  She didn’t care where she went as long as it was away from where she was.  There was more squealing in the corn now.  Most of it behind her, thankfully.  It seemed odd that they were all screamers.

Up ahead was a large barn.  Jessica made a beeline for it.  Something behind her started to give chase.  Jessica didn’t dare look back in case she tripped.  She had tripped once before, never again.  The barn was her only focus.  Get there and she would be all right.  As she got closer, and the corn dropped away from around her, she could see a door standing open.  That was her goal.  Get into the barn, and slam the door closed behind her.

She passed through the entryway and swung the door shut.  When it was halfway closed, she realized it was a Dutch door, the kind that was in two halves, and she was only closing the lower half.  A zombie could easily grab her through the top half.

Jessica saw no zombie though, as something hit the door.  She locked the latch and was very confused when something furiously tried to get through the lower section.  A child perhaps?  She slowly looked over the edge at the squealer, holding her breath.  It was a pig.  Jessica frowned wondering why a pig was trying to kill her.

It took a moment for it to sink in.  Pigs were similar enough to humans that their heart valves could be transplanted into one.  Not to mention that whole swine flu thing that had happened.  Whatever virus that woman on the radio was talking about, it clearly infected pigs as well.  That might have been useful knowledge for her to share.

Then again, she might not have known.  Jessica worked for Keystone for how many years without knowing something as shady as this was going on?  She wondered if her superior knew.  She wondered if she would have been let in on the secret when she got to her new position in Australia.  She thought she would have been.  That she would have been told, and that they would have had some contingency plan in place for the employees.  That she would have been whisked away to some secret and safe facility.

Instead, she was here, trapped in a smelly barn with the most psychotic pig in existence trying to get in.  In addition, she could now hear gunshots in the distance.  The others were trying to shoot the psycho pigs.  Maybe they were succeeding, maybe they weren’t.  Either way, Jessica flinched at every shot.

She decided to look around the barn.  There was a hayloft up top and stalls down below.  She thought maybe the stalls were for the pigs, but then she saw the horse looking back at her.  It snorted and stamped its foot against the stall door.

Jessica walked toward the horse.  She had always liked horses.  In fact, part of her therapy had been to ride one for a day.  It was a simple trail ride, walking down a path, but Jessica loved it.  Suddenly the barn didn’t seem so stinky.  It still reeked something awful, but now it had more friendly associations as well.  The horse flared its nostrils, its ears flicking forward and back.  It didn’t know if it could trust Jessica and, it too, was scared by the gunshots and the pig from hell.

Jessica let the beast sniff her hand, then she gently placed her palm on its nose.  The horse whinnied and shook its mane but then let Jessica pet it.  She stroked its hard yet velvety soft face.  It had a little white star between its eyes.  Jessica wondered if its name came from that star.  She liked to think it did, even though, for all she knew, it was named Bob.

She inspected Star’s pen and found out how to undo the latch.  She opened his pen and stepped aside quickly.  Star burst out and turned circles in the space between the stalls.  He, or maybe she, then charged the half door where the pig was still smashing its face.  Star stopped at the last moment, but even Jessica could tell he was issuing challenges to the pig.  The pig, of course, was brain dead, and just kept butting its head.

Jessica had an idea then.  It was, quite possibly, an extremely stupid and suicidal idea, but it was an idea none-the-less.  She made her way toward the half-door, being very careful of the large horse.  Its movements were erratic, and Jessica didn’t want to get smashed up against a stall.  She made it safely past however, and reached the half-door.  Before she could think about not doing it, Jessica undid the latch.

The pig came bursting through the door, squealing its undead brains out.  Star, the horse, roared at it, raising its front hooves.  Jessica never thought she’d ever see a fight between a pig and horse, yet here it was.  The pig got in a few good bites, and Jessica worried for Star, but then the big horse managed to get a hoof down right in the middle of psycho pig’s back.  The pig’s back was broken instantly, but regardless, it continued to fight.  Unfortunately for it, so did Star.  His heavy hooves came crashing down again and again until most of the pig was turned to mush.  The horse then turned a quick circle and dashed out the gate, favouring one of its bitten legs.

“Jessica!”

Someone was looking for her.  Jessica peered out the door and could see Abby walking out of the corn.  She must have seen the horse and guessed that Jessica was in the barn.  Now would be the best time for Jessica to strike.

She looked around the barn for the best place.  She could jump from the loft, but that risked breaking her leg.  There was a back door.  Jessica ran over to it and opened it up.  There were no pigs outside this door.  There was a large flat stretch of land, and then a slope that led to a swiftly flowing river.  The owners of the farm probably walked their horses down there for a fresh drink every now and again.

Jessica left the door open and flattened herself against the outside wall of the barn.

“Jessica!”  The voice was much closer now, just inside the barn’s other door.

She waited in silence, taking the knife out of her pocket.  Only a few more feet to go.

As soon as a shadow passed through the doorway, Jessica whipped her arm out, striking like a cobra.  It wasn’t Abby though, it was Cillian.  Her razor sharp knife slid easily through the flesh of his face.

“Jessica!” Abby screamed.  “It’s us!”

“You made me hurt him!” Jessica screamed, wheeling on the other girl who stood just behind Cillian.  She raised her shovel and swung it down toward her shocked face.

Abby was quick though, and dived out of the way.  Jessica’s killer shovel hit only dirt.

“Jessi, what the hell are you doing?” Abby screamed.

“Don’t you dare call me that!”  She had no right to use that name.  No right at all.  She swung the shovel again, but again, Abby ducked out of the way.  Despite swinging it one-handed, Jessica managed to bury the shovel’s head into a wooden beam.  She didn’t bother to try to pull it out and focused on using her knife.

Abby scrambled backwards, but tripped over something in the dark.  Jessica grinned at her luck.

Two thick arms grabbed her from behind, though.  They dragged her outside and threw her toward the hill.  She stumbled, but managed to keep upright.  She turned, furious, and saw that it was Cillian.  The side of his face was a bloody mess.  Even in the dark, Jessica could see that her knife had sliced through his cheek.

“How could you?” Jessica screamed at him.  He cared more about that cunt, Abby, than he did for her.

He had to die as well.  It was better for both of them.  She went at him with the knife.  Unlike Abby, Cillian fought back; he didn’t just run away.  But he never directly hit Jessica.  He didn’t say a word.  It probably hurt his face too much to move it.  But he hit her forearms, knocking her stabs off course.

Jessica slashed at the air in front of him.  Finally she got him, the knife burying into his gut.  She had won.  Suddenly though, he tackled her.  Cillian charged at Jessica, wrapping his large arms around her small waist.  They went tumbling down the hill, head over heels.

Jessica managed to disentangle herself before they hit the water.  She collapsed at its edge.  Cillian however, went tumbling into it.  Jessica got to her knees and saw Cillian floundering.  He had never been a strong swimmer, and his heavy boots and firefighter’s gear were dragging down his bleeding body.  The river was deeper than it first appeared, and the swift current was quickly dragging him away.

If he managed to survive the river, she would deal with him later.  Right now, she had a bitch to take care of.

Jessica looked around and found that the knife had managed to avoid the river as well.  She scooped it up and began scrambling back up the hill.  She went back into the dark barn, but couldn’t see the cunt, Abby, anywhere.  She went back outside to see if Cillian had made it to shore yet.  Maybe she would take care of him first.

“Hey bitch!”

Jessica turned around just in time for the field hockey stick to connect with her face.  She was swung around by the force and staggered back toward the hill.  Who knew Abby had that kind of hit in her?  Jessica spat out a tooth.  Her mouth filled with the taste of her own blood.  She turned around and saw Abby standing there with the stick raised high.  Tobias stood next to her.  Goddamn freak dog.

“Where’s Cillian?” he demanded.

“He flewwww away,” Jessica laughed, making wing motions with her hands.  She wasn’t sure what she found so funny.  Her tongue explored the space where a tooth had once been.

“Why?” Abby screamed, tears running down her face.  Weak.  “Why did you do that?  What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Because you were stealing him from me!” Jessica screamed back, her blinding rage returning in an instant.

“I would never,” Abby gasped, genuinely shocked.

“You fucking flirt.”  Jessica spat at her.  It was mostly blood.  The side of her face throbbed, a bone was probably cracked.  Again.

“I’m a lesbian, you selfish cow!” Abby screamed at her.

Jessica cocked her head to one side, barely understanding.  “A lesbian?”

“I’m more likely to flirt with you than with him.”  She was sobbing, her grip on her stick loosening.

Jessica started laughing.  A lesbian.  Of course she would be a lesbian.  A lesbian that lived right across the hall from a couple of gay men, why not?

She had felt threatened by a goddamn lesbian.  Cillian had flirted with her.  He had flirted with a chick who would never have any interest in him.  She had killed him because of a lesbian.

She attacked with a furious rage, her laughter suddenly cut short.  Abby was unprepared, but Tobias wasn’t.  He raised a pistol.  Jessica stopped short, an immediate reaction to the gun.  Tobias took several steps toward her, while she took several steps back.  They walked this way until they reached the water’s edge.  Jessica couldn’t back up anymore.

“Give me the knife.”  Tobias held out his hand.

Jessica looked at his hand, and then her knife.  What to do?  If she ran, she would be shot.  It was just like that time… like that time in the woods.  Helpless.

No, this time she had a knife.  Tobias had come too close.  She slashed out, grazing the knuckles of the hand holding the pistol while ducking out of its sights.

Tobias screamed in pain and dropped the gun.  Jessica tried to duck around him but he managed to grab hold of her shirt.  He yanked hard, pulling her off her feet.  Jessica tried to bring the knife around, but all of a sudden, Abby was there.  She swung her field hockey stick the way it was meant to be swung, like a golf club.  The crook end connected with her hand, breaking her fingers and sending the knife flying.

Ignoring the flair up of pain, Jessica wasn’t going to let something like a broken hand stop her.  She would bite if she had to.  She went for the freak’s ankles.  He grabbed hold of her and they ended up in a tussle on the ground.  Jessica realized that Abby could do nothing without risking hitting the dog freak.

Jessica kept trying to hit him in the nuts, every guy’s weakness, but somehow she kept missing.  She felt water on her hair, and then her back.  She was partway into the river.  Tobias got his hands around her neck.  Jessica’s eyes widened as she figured out what he was going to do.

She tried to scream out no, don’t do that, but a rush of water literally drowned out her words.  She should have tried to hold her breath, but she couldn’t, her lungs just wanted to scream.  She thrashed, trying to get at Tobias’s eyes, but his arms were longer than hers were.  She remembered his shoulder wound and starting aiming for that, but even solid hits didn’t loosen his grip.

No, not the freak, anyone but the freak.  Even being killed by the lesbian cunt, Abby, would have been better than the freak killing her.

Still, Cillian was in this river somewhere.  They would be together forever now, and nothing would be able to separate them.

Jessica breathed in, her lungs taking in the cold sweet water.

32:

Daniel

Danny yawned so wide that his jaw cracked loudly.  It wasn’t the first time it had done so in the past half hour.  He was exhausted.  A day had never been so long in his life, yet so short at the same time.  It felt like both ages and minutes ago he had been sitting at home playing his video game with his online friends.  His limbs were beyond exhausted and felt like lead, but he continued managing to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.  The backpack felt like a sack of rocks strapped to his shoulders, but he wasn’t going to complain.  Alec had a much heavier bag strapped to his own.

Just getting up the off ramp was a struggle.  Alec was clearly tired as well, although he wouldn’t say a word to Danny.  Danny helped push him up the grade, sharing the load.  Even little Alice helped.  Shoes’s string leash had been tied to the armrest of Alec’s chair, but there was no way the dog was going to help.  It trotted along next to them huffing away.  Shoes was showing his age, getting a lot more of a workout than he needed.

Once they reached the top of the ramp, they took a much needed rest.  Danny sat on the pavement.  It was dark now, but the pavement still held the sun’s heat and was quite warm.

“How far to the service station?” he asked, slightly panting.  He didn’t think this would be so hard.

“Depends on the road surface,” Alec told him as he pulled his bag around in front of him and started rooting around in it.  “Dirt will slow me down, and so will hills.  If it’s a flat, paved shot, then maybe twenty minutes.”

“Let’s hope it’s a flat, paved shot then,” Danny sighed.

“Here.”  Alec passed him a water bottle and a protein bar.  “Your body hasn’t been getting enough of what it needs.  Those won’t exactly fix the problem, but they should act as a temporary Band-Aid.  Here, Alice.”  He handed the same things to her.

“I don’t like this.”  Alice tried to hand the protein bar back to Alec.

“Have you ever tried one?” Alec asked her.

“No,” she shook her head twice.

“Then how do you know you don’t like it?” Alec wondered.

“I just do,” Alice said firmly.

“Just try some,” Danny told her.  “Look, I’m eating mine.”

“And my Daddy likes gravy and I don’t,” Alice pointed out.

“Even if it doesn’t taste good, you have to eat it,” Danny tried to convince her.  “How about we make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Alice looked at him suspiciously.

“Whatever kind you want, so long as you eat that,” Danny offered.

“I want a princess Barbie,” Alice told him.

“Well, I don’t have one on me, but the moment the opportunity comes up, I’ll get you one.  Deal?”  Danny held out his hand.

Alice continued to look at him suspiciously.  “Pinkie swear?”

“I pinkie swear.”  The two of them hooked their pinkie fingers together and shook once.

Danny was scared for Alice nearly all the time.  He had charged himself with taking care of her, just as he had with Emma.  Emma hadn’t made it and Alice was considerably younger and smaller than she had been.  A tiny girl against the world.  Danny had to try very hard to not mentally superimpose little Nelly’s bloody face over Alice’s.

“Open this first.”  Alice held the water bottle out to Alec.  He cracked it open and handed it back, then opened his own.

Alice unwrapped the bar and took a tiny bite.  She made a disgusted face and instantly took a drink of water.  She kept eating it though, just washing down every bite with the water.

Danny had no idea what a princess Barbie was, or if the opportunity to get one would ever arise, but he would keep his promise if he could.

“Danny, hand me the helmet,” Alec asked, holding out his hand.

Danny took the army helmet off and passed it over.  Although he felt safer with it on, it was nice to take it off.  His scalp was all sweaty from it.

He watched as Alec poured some water into the helmet and put it down next to Shoes.  Shoes started lapping it up immediately.  Taking advantage of his bare head, Danny rubbed his hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp.  He had never wanted a shower more badly than right at that minute.  He wondered if he would ever again get the chance to shower like he used to.  Or use flush toilets and toilet paper.  He was not looking forward to the time when his body decided it needed a bowel movement.

“We should get moving again,” Alec eventually sighed.  He picked up the helmet from which Shoes had drunk every drop of water, and handed it back to Danny.

Danny decided to wait until it dried out completely before putting it back on his head.  He used the straps to attach it to his backpack then got up on his feet again.

At least leaving the off ramp was a downhill process.  Alec could easily go down on his own, and walking was just generally easier.  Alec probably could have gotten down a lot faster than Danny and Alice, but he applied his brakes in such a way that he kept pace.  He had also scooped Shoes up and put the dog on his lap so it could take a longer rest.

“Do you think my Daddy will be able to find me?” Alice suddenly asked.

“I don’t know,” Alec shrugged,  “it seems unlikely.”

Danny was surprised by Alec’s blunt honesty.

“I think he’s dead.”

Danny was even more surprised by Alice’s assumption.

“He would have found me by now if he wasn’t.”  Alice appeared emotionless about this.  “I think one of the bad people got him.”

“You can’t know that,” Danny told her.

“I do,” Alice nodded.  “Something happened.”

“No, you can’t know that,” Danny frowned at her.  “There’s no way you could know that unless you saw something happen.”

“Hey kid.  Come over here for a second.”  Alec gestured for Danny to walk next to him.

“What?” Danny grumped.

“What does it matter to you if she thinks something happened to her dad?” Alec asked him in a quiet voice.  “If anything, it’s better she start accepting it now, because the odds are she’s never going to see him again.”

“Because you shouldn’t give up like that.”  Danny couldn’t believe that Alec thought that way.  “There’s still hope.”

“This isn’t about Alice’s dad, is it?”  Alec cut to the chase.  “This is about your brother.  You still have hopes of seeing him again one day.”

“And why wouldn’t I?” Danny raised his voice a little.

“You really think that, when all this is said and done, you’re going to be able to find one another?” Alec raised his own voice.  “The odds are astronomical.  You don’t even know if he’ll survive.”

“He will.”  Danny knew he would.  “He works in the Keystone facility.  It’s safe there.”

“How could you know that?”  Alec mirrored Danny’s own words.  “If the outbreak came from Keystone, it could easily be worse there.”

“No,” Danny shook his head.  “They’d be prepared for stuff like this.  The facility is safe, I know it.”

“Then you have such a low opinion of your brother that you think he would hide in a hole and do nothing while this is going on?  You don’t think he would come looking for you?”

Danny didn’t have a response for that.  His brother wouldn’t just sit in a hole, not unless Danny was in the hole with him.  Alec had a point.

“Please stop fighting,” Alice whined.  “I’m sorry.  I’ll pretend to think my Daddy is still alive if you’ll just stop fighting.”

Alec sighed.  “I’m sorry, Alice.  This fight isn’t because of you.  You believe whatever you want to believe.  We’re all just tired and stressed out.”

They continued on in silence.

Danny knew that Alec had a point.  As much as he didn’t want to accept it, he was likely never to see his big brother again.  He was the last survivor of his tragic family.  How odd that one of the Coles managed to survive an apocalypse.  Of course, he didn’t know for sure he was going to survive, not by a long shot, but he thought things were going pretty well, considering.  The fact that he didn’t die alongside Emma was kind of amazing.

Poor Emma.  He had done all he could to help her, but in the end, it wasn’t enough.  And little Nelly, all covered in blood outside the park.  That dog, Tugg, had saved his life.  And there was Michelle, Alec’s friend or whoever she was.  She tried to help but only ended up undead.  Kara and Walter, they were gone too.  Like Alec, Danny had noticed the decaying condition of the little girl in the truck.  So many people were dying around him and yet he continued to live.  Why?  What made him so special?  Why did he get to live when so many others did not?

Danny had never been religious; he never saw a point to it.  He didn’t find God now either.  It was all so random.  Luck was what he chose to believe in, in the end.  Everything was a combination of good luck and bad, one thing leading to another.  Over all, Danny’s luck had been good, but he knew it could go bad in an instant.  He swore to himself that he would be prepared for when that happened.  He would do whatever needed to be done.  Whether it was God, fate, or luck that brought him to this point didn’t matter, he wanted to live.  No matter what happened to the world around him, Danny wanted to live.

He had never been a depressed kid despite everything, but he was surprised at the depth of his need for survival.  He had never thought about something like suicide, but he also didn’t have much concern over, say, being hit by a bus.  He had an indifferent opinion about death.

Now though, he wanted to live more than anything. Maybe it was because he was the last of his family’s line, or maybe it was because of all those others who had died around him.  He just felt the need to live, to go on despite all of it.  Live for those who had died.

“Alec,” Danny spoke up.  “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“It’s okay, kid.  I’m sorry too,” Alec replied.  “We’re just tired is all.  Our emotions are getting the best of us.”

Danny nodded, and they kept on walking.

* * *

There was another up hill between them and their destination, but at least it was gradual.  Alec didn’t need any help with it, and it didn’t add too much extra strain.  When the hill levelled out again, the service station was in sight.  Alec brought them to a stop.

“Give me a minute.”  Alec put down his pack and opened it up.  He took out the scope from his rifle and brought it up to his eye to inspect the place from afar.

“See anything?” Danny asked.

“No.  There’s no movement, and I can’t see anything out of the ordinary.”  Alec brought the scope away from his eye and held it out to Danny.  “You want to take a look?”

“Sure, thanks.”  Danny took the riflescope and looked through it.  He didn’t know what any of the dials on the sides were for, so he didn’t touch them.  He trusted that Alec had set them to the appropriate distance.  The closest building was definitely a gas station, but the roof that jutted out over the pumps blocked off the view of the building next to it.  Danny guessed that it was probably a restaurant of some sort.

“Think it looks safe?” Alec asked him.

Danny knew Alec didn’t need his opinion; that he was asking as a way to make sure they were back on good terms.  Danny nodded and handed the scope back.

Alice yawned.  “I’m tired.”

“Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”  Alec ruffled her hair.

She scrunched her face up into an exaggerated scowl at him and tried to fix her hair.

Alec woke up Shoes and put him on his feet.  “Danny, do you mind taking his leash?”

“No problem.”  Danny untied it from the chair.

“Try to encourage him to walk in front of us too.”  Alec put the scope back in his pack and slung the pack back over his shoulders.  He then took out his pistol.

Danny got Shoes moving with a slight bump to his butt.  He yawned larger than Danny ever could and began waddling forward.  Shoes walked slower than the rest of them did on a normal basis, but now they made sure he took the lead, pacing his little legs.  Alice knew something was going on and stepped closer to Alec.  She reached up and held onto the handle at the back with one small hand.  Danny took a breath, then decided to take out his own pistol.  Holding it in one hand at his side, it felt heavier than it had all day.  Slowly they approached the gas station.

At no point while they were walking did Shoes react.  He just waddled along as if he was out on one of his daily walks.  They even had to stop for a moment while he did his business on the side of the road.

As they got closer, Danny saw that the other building was not, in fact, a restaurant.  It was a mechanic’s shop.  It appeared not to have many windows either, which Danny took to be a good thing.

They approached the gas station first.  Even though the sign announcing their hours indicated they should be open at this time, the other sign next to it stated that it was closed.  Alec went up to the glass-paned door and looked inside.  Danny looked through a big window between some brightly coloured advertisements.  It looked closed and empty.  It was also very dark inside and hard to make out much detail.  They didn’t bother to try the door, as there were security gates closed across it.  Danny thought it was likely that whoever worked there had heard the radio report and decided to close up early.

They went over to the mechanic’s shop next, where they checked things out through one of the few windows.  It appeared to be split into two sections.  The first was the reception area, with a desk and some waiting chairs.  Danny could just make out two doors behind the desk: one looked like it was labelled ‘washroom’ and the other ‘employee lounge.’  There was a third door on the left that led into the other, larger section of the building.  It was unmarked and made of metal.  Judging by the two roll-up doors on the front of that section of the building, it was the actual garage.

Alec put down his pack again and opened it up.  He took out a pair of flashlights.  One was a large, police-style flashlight, and the other was a small, LED light on a shoestring.  He put the shoestring over Alice’s head so that the light hung around her neck.  It hung to her belly.  He turned on the police light and shone it into the shop.  There wasn’t much more to see with the added light, just more dirt.

Like the gas station, there were security gates over these windows and the door as well.  Alec handed the big flashlight to Danny.  He pointed to Danny’s gun, and then swept the area around them.  Clearly, he wanted Danny to watch their backs.  He then reached over and clicked on Alice’s light.  He held it up and pointed it at the gate, then got Alice to hold it up in that position.  He took out some of the tools that he had packed as well as his lock picks.

Danny didn’t watch him work; he did his job of watching everything else.  At first, he pointed the light around, but it was spooky doing that.  He couldn’t see anything outside the cone of light.  It was a clear night and the moon had already risen, so he shut off the flashlight.  He decided to let his eyes adjust and use his night vision, resorting to the flashlight only if he thought he saw something.  That happened more than he liked.

When Alec broke the glass pane, it was quieter than Danny expected, but also much louder.  It startled him even though he knew it was coming.  The rest of the night was so quiet that it felt out of place.  As Danny thought about it, he couldn’t even hear crickets or frog song or anything, just a very light breeze through the trees, and Alec working to get the gate open.

In was obvious Alice wasn’t totally focused on her task.  Her light kept drifting down, only to be jerked back up, most likely by Alec correcting her.

Danny looked up at the stars that had started to come out.  It was odd how they were the exact same.  Despite all that had happened this day, the stars hadn’t changed at all.  Well, maybe they were brighter actually.

Danny looked toward the city then, or at least the direction he thought it was in.  There was no glow on the horizon, no light pollution.  The power must have gone out at some point.

He continued to scan the woods and the road.  He could see about a tree or two’s depth into them but then the brush was too thick, and it got too dark.  It was unnerving not to be able to see that far.  Anything could be between the trees.  Anything could be watching them.

There was rattling as the security gate slid open.  Danny turned.  Alec put down his tools and gripped his pistol in both hands.  He pointed to Danny and then Alice and then held his hand up in a stop sign.  He was going in, and he didn’t want them to follow.  He looked at Danny, pointed to his eyes and then the surrounding area again.  He wanted Danny to continue being a lookout.  Alec took the flashlight from Danny, then rolled through the door, broken glass crunching beneath his wheels.

Danny was left alone outside with Alice.  He hoped he wouldn’t fail her as he had Emma.  He held out his hand to her, the one not holding the gun, the one that had Shoes’s leash looped over the wrist.  Alice placed her little hand in his, staring with him out at the forest.  The light hung against her belly, casting a weird light up from the ground.

Shoes seemed totally unperturbed by all of this.  He huffed and lay down.  At first Danny thought it might be his signal, but the dog rolled onto its side, wanting to sleep, and made no more noise.

Danny could hear Alec moving around the reception area.  The doors to both the washroom and the employee lounge opened and closed.  He couldn’t tell in which order they were checked, but they were both checked.  Next, the metal door was opened with a creak.  Once Alec went through that door, Danny couldn’t keep track of him with his ears anymore.

Waiting in both the silence and the dark was the worst.  Danny’s imagination started to act up.  Did that bush move against the wind?  Did he hear something scraping its way up the road?  He expected something to grab him out of the dark at any moment.  It was like watching a horror movie you didn’t know the ending to and couldn’t turn away from.  Or worse, having a nightmare and just not being able to wake yourself up.  Danny had never had as good an imagination as some of the other kids, but it was going full tilt at the moment.  Not that anyone needed much after today.

Alice’s hand slowly squeezed his harder and harder.  She was younger, so she probably had a better imagination than he did.  Danny looked down at her to see that she was looking up at him.  He was surprised to find no fear in her eyes.  Instead, she looked worried.  She looked like she was worried about Danny.  He realized she could probably feel his fear, and it was likely that he had slowly been squeezing her hand back.  He did his best to relax, for her sake.  If she could bravely face this, so could he.

Things like that were always easier said than done.

* * *

The metal door inside creaked again, and Danny heard Alec’s wheels rolling toward them.  He turned to look.

“It’s clear,” Alec whispered, grabbing his pack.  “Come inside, but be careful of the glass.”

Danny let Alice go in first.  She stepped carefully around the glass, looking like she was afraid it would hurt her despite the fact that she was wearing shoes.  Danny scooped Shoes the dog up into his arms and carried him over the glass.  They followed Alec into the garage section.

With both flashlights shining around, Danny could see the inside was full of tools and scrap parts.  Two vehicles appeared to be in for repair.  One sat at the far end with its hood up, and the other was a minivan that was being stripped.  The seats had been taken out and were lying around the space, the engine was out of it, hanging off a large chain, and the tires were nowhere to be seen.  One side of the van was partly smushed in.  It had definitely been hit by another car at some point.

Alec closed the door behind him.  “I want you both to watch this.”

Alice and Danny turned to Alec.  He shone his light on the door so that they could see what he was doing.  He had apparently found a loose piece of chain earlier and now wrapped it around the inside handle of the door and a solid-looking bracket on the wall nearby.  Once done, Alec then showed them how this stopped the door from being opened.

“Get it?”  Alec turned to them.

Both of them nodded.

“Good.”  He then wheeled over to one of the van’s bucket seats and put his pack down next to it.

Danny went and put his bag on the van’s long back seat.  He then untied Shoes’s homemade string leash from his collar and put it on top of his bag.  The dog went off, busily sniffing all the exciting smells of the place.  Danny thought it smelled of rust and oil.

“Don’t sit down yet.”  Alec came over to him.

Danny sighed.  All he wanted to do was sit.  Sit and sleep.

“You and I still have a job to do.”  Alec headed toward the door again.

“What’s that?”  Danny followed him.

“We’re going to break into the gas station and get some food,” he told him.

“What about Alice?”  Danny looked at the girl, who stood watching them.

“It would be better if she stayed here,” Alec said.  “Alice, come over here.”

Alice walked over.

“Do you think you can chain this door closed by yourself?” he asked her.

“Yes,” Alice nodded.

“Okay, well Danny and I are going to go next door and get something for us all to eat tonight and tomorrow morning.  When we go out, I want you to chain the door closed, okay?”

“Okay,” Alice agreed.  “But how will you get back in?”

“We’ll say the password,” Alec said.

“What’s the password?” Alice got excited, like it was a game.

“I don’t know,” Alec shrugged.  “What do you think it should be?”

“Purple monkey dishwasher!”  Alice giggled excitedly.

Danny couldn’t help but laugh.  “All right, purple monkey dishwasher it is.”

Alec started to unwrap the chain.

“I get to keep the flashlight, right?”  Alice held onto the little light around her neck.

“Of course,” Danny comforted her.  “You and Shoes just hang out until we get back.”

“Okay,” Alice nodded.

“And be careful,” Alec warned her.  “Some of the things in here are sharp and dangerous.  Don’t start touching stuff if you don’t know what it is.”

“Okay,” Alice nodded again.

Danny had a bad feeling she would touch at least one thing in here.  He hoped that if she did, it wouldn’t be something that would hurt her.

Alec got the chain off and opened the door.  He handed it to Alice to make sure she could even lift it.  She could.  Alec rolled out through the door, and Danny followed after him.

“We’ll be back in a few minutes,” Danny promised her.

Alice then shut the door behind them.  Both Danny and Alec waited until they heard her threading the chain through the door and the bracket, before they headed back outside.

They crossed over to the gas station quickly.  Not at a jog, but it was at least a fast walk.  Well, a fast walk for Danny, a quick roll for Alec.  Alec’s tools were sitting on his lap.  When he had picked up his pack earlier, he hadn’t bothered to put them away.  He must have been planning to head to the shop all along.  He probably had decided it the moment they looked through the shop’s windows.

Alec rolled up to the door and handed Danny the flashlight.  Danny pointed it at the section of the door where the lock was located.  He kept glancing between watching Alec work, and the area around them.  There wasn’t as much to see this time though, because of the pump islands.  The pumps blocked most of the view to the other side of the road.

As Danny watched, Alec used the end of a screwdriver to break out a section of glass.  He did it in such a way so as not to break out the whole window.  Still, breaking glass was noisy.  Once he had a space big enough for his hands, Alec didn’t bother to stop and listen for any noises.  Danny tried to listen but couldn’t hear anything beyond Alec working.  He saw that Alec was now using the screwdriver to take out the screws around the gate’s locking plate.  Danny wondered if all shop security gates were designed this way or if this gas station just had some sort of cheap kind.  Either way, it worked out for them.

Alec separated the gate’s bars from the locking mechanism and shoved them aside.  Once the gate had been moved out of the way, he then had enough space to bend his hand around and unlock the glass door.  Danny held the door open while Alec shoved the gate open the rest of the way.  The gate’s lock was still holding itself in place in the door jam.  Danny made a mental note to see if the other gate had been dismantled that way.

“Try to find some healthy food,” Alec whispered as they went inside,  “stuff that will last for days like the stuff we’ve been carrying with us.”

Danny went to one side of the store while Alec took the other.  Using the flashlight, Danny found mostly bags of chips and salsa.  He did find a fridge, however, and it had milk in it.  He needed something to carry the milk in, though.  He went to the cashier’s counter to grab some bags.

Danny had never stood behind a cash register before.  His initial reaction was that he shouldn’t be there, that it was wrong.  That thought quickly passed though.  He found the bags rather quickly but he took a bit of time to look around.  Behind the counter, he found cigarettes and skin mags.  He debated stealing some, glancing over at Alec.  Danny had stolen a gun already; how bad could stealing them be?  He took a skin mag bearing the image of a large-breasted, topless woman but decided to leave the cigarettes.  Too many things had already tried to kill him today.  He also found some scratch lottery cards.  He took those, too.  Even if the world ended and money became useless, scratching them would give Alice something to do.

After raiding the counter, he crossed the store again, over to the fridges.  He opened one up and was surprised by how warm it was.  It was still cooler in there than in the store, but it was warmer than he expected these kinds of fridges to be.  With the power being out, milk was something that wouldn’t last very long.  Danny wondered if the milk he was stealing would be the last he ever drank.  Since he wasn’t sure the milk would keep till morning, he also swiped a few cans of pop, some energy drinks, three sports drinks, and a few water bottles.  His bags were now heavy, the plastic handles stretching.

Danny walked over to Alec to see if he had found anything.

“I got some bread, some peanut butter, and some jam,” Alec told him.  “I hope you like sandwiches.”

“Sandwiches are good,” Danny shrugged a shoulder.  He was rather indifferent about sandwiches.

“Do you know what this Nutella stuff is?”  Alec picked up a dark jar.

“It’s like peanut butter, but it’s chocolate,” Danny told him, shining the light on it so he could see better.  With only the one light between them, Alec had been searching in darkness.

Alec placed the jar on his lap with the other stuff.  “Anything else good you see around here?”

Danny looked around and shone his light up and down the aisle.  There wasn’t much on this side of the store, mostly just household products.  He did spot some small cheesy toys, though.  He went over to them and looked at the shelves.  There was nothing as grand as a Barbie, but there were some cheap plastic horses.  Danny remembered from the conversation in the car that Alice liked horses.  He grabbed a few and fit them into one of the bags.

“Let’s go.”  Alec took the flashlight from Danny and headed toward the door.

While Alec quickly surveyed the outside for danger, Danny took one last look around.  They crossed quickly to the mechanic’s shop again.  Alec went up to the metal door and knocked.

“What’s the password?”  Alice’s small voice called from inside.

“Purple monkey dishwasher,” Alec answered her.

They listened as Alice giggled before she started to unchain the door again.  As soon as it was open, they went inside and closed the door behind them.  Alec started chaining it up again as Danny went to put his bags down.  He took the skin mag out of the shopping bag and quickly hid it under his backpack.  He then felt something poking at his arm.

“What?”  He turned to see what it was.

Alice stood there with this long, thin, wire-looking thing that waved around in her hand.

“What is that?” Danny wondered.

“I don’t know,” Alice shrugged.  “But look what it can do.”  She pressed a plunger on her end of it and these really thin, slightly claw-shaped wires came out of the end of it.  With her tongue sticking out in concentration, Alice waved the thing about until the claws were over a screw on the floor.  When she released the plunger, the little claws retracted.  After three tries, she managed to get them to pick up the screw.  She looked proudly at Danny.

“Very nice,” Danny applauded her.  “Where did you find that?”

“Over there.”  Alice pointed to one corner of the workshop.

Danny decided not to bother scolding her for touching things she was told not to.  “I have something for you.”

“What?” Alice got very excited.

“I know they’re not Barbie, but I found these.”  Danny took out the horses and handed them to her.

Alice took them with greedy eyes.  “Thank you, Danny.”

She then hurried off to play with them near Shoes, the light around her neck bouncing widely and throwing crazy shadows up and down the walls.  Shoes seemed to have taken up residence on a bucket seat and was sound asleep.  He even snored, somewhat.

Without any of the flashlights near him, Danny could hardly see a thing in the workshop.  He did, however, notice there was a tiny amount of light coming through some windows near the ceiling.  They were very high up though, and very small, and so covered in grime and dirt that you couldn’t see out of them.

Suddenly, there was more light from over where Alec was.  Danny looked over and saw that Alec had found a large, battery-powered something.  Danny didn’t even know what the device was, but part of it was a decent-sized light, which Alec had turned on.  Alec then began heading over to Alice so Danny went the same way.

“Alice, turn off your flashlight to save the batteries,” Alec told her.  “This light should be good enough for now.”

Alice picked up the light from around her neck and pressed the big button on the back of it.  Her light clicked out.

“How do you feel about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?” Alec asked the little girl.

“Yum!” Alice replied.  Then she saw the Nutella on his lap.  “Nutella!” she squealed.

“I take it you like this stuff?”  Alec held it up.

Alice nodded several times.

“All right, we’ll have Nutella sandwiches then.”  Alec put the bag of bread down on a workbench next to him.  “Everyone will have to make their own though.  I don’t have anything to spread it with, so we’ll have to use our hands.”

Danny was about to ask him about the combat knife he knew he had, but then remembered when he had seen it.  Alec had used it to kill the guy that had been trapped under the garage door and it was probably still covered in infected blood.

Alice didn’t seem to mind the finger idea.  In fact, she didn’t even bother with sandwiches.  She peeled the crust off the bread and then mushed up the remainder into a ball.  She then dipped the bread ball into the chocolate paste and shoved the whole thing into her mouth, chewing in great big, smacking bites.  Shoes had woken up from the smell of food, and Alec handed the dog Alice’s crusts.  He ate them without getting up.

Danny stuck with the peanut butter and jelly.  Mostly the jelly.  Although it was sticky and kind of gross to touch, he found he could kind of pour it onto his bread with only a bit of prodding.  Partway through the meal, Danny remembered the milk and went to get it.  He gave a carton to each of them.

“No chocolate milk?” Alice frowned.

“I didn’t see any,” Danny shrugged a shoulder.  “Besides, don’t you think you have enough chocolate right now?”

Alice giggled.  “You can never have enough chocolate!”

They continued to eat, talking about what their favourite candies were.  Alice loved anything chocolate.  Danny had more of a preference for Nerds, the hard, tiny, sugar candies that came in boxes.  Alec seemed to like sour stuff like Sour Keys and Cherry Blasters.

* * *

When the meal was over, Alice curled up on the end of the long van seat next to Danny’s bag.  She was asleep in an instant.  Danny sat down in one of the captain’s chairs.  He wished the van had been an older model, the kind with a second, short bench seat for the middle.  If it had been, then Alice could’ve slept on the short one, while he stretched out on the long one.

Danny slept in fits.  He couldn’t remember having any dreams, but he woke up a lot.  Often he found himself clutching for a blanket he didn’t have.  It wasn’t cold; the mechanic’s shop had managed to hold in quite a bit of heat throughout the day.  It was just strange not to have a blanket.  Or a pillow for that matter.  Or Mr. Ears.  Danny had never admitted that he loved having Mr. Ears with him while he slept.  He knew it was a baby thing, but he couldn't help it.  He just felt comforted, safe even, having the stuffed elephant nearby.

Several times, Danny woke up, opened his eyes, and looked around the shop.  Alice would still be fast asleep on the bench seat, one of the horses clutched in her hand, and Alec’s coat draped over her.  Shoes would be snoring away in another captain’s seat.  Danny had yet to see Alec asleep.  He knew the former military man was tired, but he wasn’t sleeping.  The first few times, he was looking over the second car’s engine.  Probably determining if it would run or not.  The next few times, he was sitting in another captain’s chair looking over his wheelchair.  He seemed to be making minor repairs to it.  His chair had gone through a lot.

Danny eventually woke up and couldn’t seem to fall back to sleep.  He got up and walked over to Alec, who had stopped working on his chair and was cleaning his gun.  Danny sat on the floor next to him.

“I told you I would teach you how to do this, right?” Alec whispered.

Danny nodded.

“All right, get out your own pistol then, and I’ll teach you.”

The next several minutes, Alec showed him the proper way to take apart and clean a pistol.  Once that was done, he showed him how to put it all back together.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Danny finally asked in a low voice so as not to wake Alice.

“I can’t,” Alec answered.

“You look exhausted,” Danny pointed out.

“I know, I am,” Alec nodded,  “but I can’t sleep knowing that you kids would be defenceless.”

Danny frowned, “I can keep watch for awhile.”

“You need the sleep more than I do,” Alec told him, shaking his head.  “Besides, it’s my body that’s tired, and I’ve been letting it rest.  It’ll be fine.”

Danny wasn’t going to argue with him.

“You should try sleeping again,” Alec said after a moment.  “You’ll need the rest for tomorrow.”

Danny nodded.

Before he could get up to go back to his seat, there was a rattling as the metal door was shaken.  Alec and Danny went stock-still, eyeing the door from across the room.  The door was shaken a second time, more forcefully.  The chain rattled loudly against the door and frame.

“What’s the password?” Alice called out from where she was lying.

Danny’s head snapped around to look at her.  She looked wide awake as she stared at the door.  Alec never took his eyes off it.

There was silence then from the other side.  The silence lasted for what seemed like forever, but was probably only several seconds.

“Is the password password?” a voice with an accent asked from the outside.

“No,” Alice giggled.  “Try again.”

“Uhh, how about please let me in?” the voice asked again.

“Nope, that’s not it either,” Alice replied, giggling more.

“Stay here,” Alec told Danny.

He shifted himself from the captain’s chair into his wheelchair and made his way toward the door.

“Is it open sesame?” the voice guessed again.

“Nope,” Alice kept up the rapport.

“Who are you?” Alec asked through the door as he got close.

“My name is LeBlanc,” the voice told him.  “Myself and two others stopped here for some gas, and I saw a bit of light through the windows.  I thought I’d come check it out.”

“What do you want?” Alec asked next.

“A safe place to crash for the night would be nice,” LeBlanc suggested.

“Has anyone in your party been bitten?”  It sounded like Alec might be considering it.

“No, none of us are infected as far as we know.  You?”

“No.  No infection so far.”

“Then can we come in?”

“Give me a minute.”  Alec wheeled back over to Danny.  “What do you think kid?  Do you think we can trust them?”

Danny looked from Alec to the door.  “I don’t know,” he shrugged.  “I don’t see why not if they’re not infected like they say they aren’t.”

Alec nodded and went back over to the door.  “All right, but you eat your own supplies.”

“Not a problem,” LeBlanc agreed.  “Let me just go grab the others.  They waited by the car.”

“He didn’t say the password,” Alice frowned as Alec began unwrapping the chain.

“Shoes, come here, boy,” Alec patted his leg.

The dog had been woken up by the rattling, like the others.  He flopped off his chair and made his way over to Alec.

“Sniff here, boy.”  Alec opened the door and got the dog to stand just outside of it.  He didn’t react in any way.  LeBlanc passed the basic sniff test.  No scent he left behind set off any alarms.

Danny walked over and sat next to Alice.  He gripped his pistol a little tighter than necessary, but kept his finger away from the trigger.  He didn’t want to fire off a nervous shot.

Alec waited by the door for the newcomers.  When the first one walked in, Alec held out his hand.  “I’m McGregor.”

“LeBlanc.”  The man shook his hand.  There was something familiar about his clothes.  “This is Bishop and-”

“Mathias!”  Danny leaped off the seat, all fear forgotten, pistol falling to the floor.  His big brother had just walked through the door.

Danny ran to his brother, who in turn, quickly stepped out from behind the others.  He ran smack into him, wrapping his arms tightly around his ribs.  Mathias let out a grunt.

“Easy, Danny.”  Mathias wrapped his arms around him, a large smile on his face and in his voice.  “You’re going to break a rib.”

Danny thought he must be asleep.  He must have actually fallen asleep and was now dreaming.  He expected to wake up at any moment.  He didn’t want to wake up.

“Okay, okay.”  Mathias started to pry him off.  They were weak attempts as he obviously didn’t want to let him go, but knew he had to.  “I missed you too, buddy, but we can’t keep standing here.  We’re in the way of the door.”

Danny released his brother and looked at him.  It wasn’t a dream.  His brother had really found him.  He couldn’t stop smiling as they headed deeper into the shop.

“So this is the baby Cole, eh?”  The man named LeBlanc walked over.  “You know, we’ve been looking for you.”

Danny looked at LeBlanc and quickly studied him.  He had never met him.  He had never met, nor was even told about, anyone who worked at Keystone, but now that he focused, he recognized the clothing and gear as being from there.

He looked at the woman next, Bishop.  She clearly didn’t come with them from Keystone.

Alice took his hand then, having gotten up.

“Oh, Mathias, this is Alice,” Danny introduced her.  “Alice, this is my big brother, Mathias.”

“Hello,” Alice waved.

“So you’re the one with the tough-to-crack password.”  LeBlanc leaned down.  “Mind sharing it with me for next time?”

“Purple monkey dishwasher,” Alice half smiled, but was being shy.

“Of course!  Why didn’t I think of that?” LeBlanc exaggerated, smacking his forehead with one hand.  This caused Alice to smile.

“Thanks for letting us in,” Bishop told Alec.

“Well, it turned out to be the best idea I’ve had all day.”  Once the door was chained again, Alec led them over to where he had the larger light set up.

Shoes wove around between everyone’s legs, interested in the newcomers.

“Actually, I think the best idea you had was breaking into my place.”  Bishop pulled out a stool from under a workbench and sat down with a relaxed sigh.

“That was your place?” Alec raised an eyebrow at her.  “Quite the arsenal you have there.”

“Thank you,” she smiled.  “Taking the map though, was smart.  We figured we’d run into you eventually if we followed the route.  Didn’t expect to find you here, though.”

“Our ride became unsafe,” Alec told them.

“You should see the death trap we’re driving in,” Bishop sighed and glared at Mathias.

“Hey, that was probably more uncomfortable for me than it was for you,” Mathias put up his hands defensively.  “If you’re going to blame anyone, blame LeBlanc.”

Danny couldn’t stop looking at his brother.  He kept expecting him to disappear or change into a stranger.  Or spontaneously combust for that matter.

“Daniel, stop staring, it’s creeping me out.”  Mathias turned to him, smiling.  Although engaged in conversation with the others, he kept looking over at Danny as well.  He was probably having the same thoughts of dreaming that his younger brother had.  “Seriously, it’s weird.  Oh, and here.”

Mathias reached into a pocket and took out a beat-up, stuffed elephant.  It was Mr. Ears.

“I guess you were in a rush.”  Mathias handed it over.

Danny didn’t know what to say.  He accepted the stuffed animal.  He was no longer a fourteen-year-old kid trying to be an adult; he was a fourteen-year-old kid who remembered what it was like to be six.  He brought the stuffed animal up to his cheek, where it used to sit while he slept when he was little.  It smelled the same.  This wasn’t a dream.

“Hey mutt, I don’t have anything.”  Shoes was sniffing intently at LeBlanc’s boots.  “And I don’t think I stepped in anything either.”

“His name is Shoes,” Alice told him.  “I think he likes you.”

“Good for him.  Shoo Shoes.”  LeBlanc tried to wave the dog away.

“So you’re the one who’s been taking care of my brother?”  Mathias turned to Alec.  “I’m sorry but I didn’t catch your name.”

“McGregor.  Alec McGregor.” Alec held out his hand.

“I owe you the biggest one.”  Mathias shook it.

“Careful, I’ll probably hold you to that,” Alec grinned.

Danny suddenly felt very tired.  Everything that happened today suddenly came crashing back down upon him and he felt exhausted.  His head drifted forward.

“Hey buddy, looks like you need some sleep,” Mathias noticed.

“I had just convinced him to try sleeping again when you guys showed up,” Alec told him.

“Why don’t you sleep, Danny?” Mathias told him.  “I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Mathias led him over to the bench seat that Alice had vacated.  Danny lay down on it.

“You promise?” Danny asked his brother.

“I promise.  We won’t be separated again.  We’ll get through this together.”  Mathias placed his hand on Danny’s head.

Danny nodded and curled up, burying his face into Mr. Ears’ soft belly.  He fell into a deep and dreamless sleep before Mathias could take his hand away.

33:

The Russian

Misha was exhausted.  He was so tired he felt sick.  There were three things he desperately wanted right then, but he didn’t have any of them.  The first was that he wanted a drink.  He was so thirsty.  The second thing he wanted was food.  He hadn’t eaten since the old lady’s house, and that, he had thrown up.  He should have grabbed something from Rifle’s house, but he hadn’t been thinking.  The third thing he desperately wanted was sleep, preferably wrapped in a warm, fluffy blanket.  His exhaustion made him cold, and the cold made him sleepy.  It was a vicious cycle.

Every muscle in his body was screaming.  He had gotten the motorbike out of the city by taking dirt roads through the woods that really weren’t anything more than a pair of ruts.  Two cars couldn’t pass each other if they met going in opposite directions.  He had no idea where he was at the moment; he just tried to head north-west.  Thankfully, the bike had a built-in compass between the handlebars to help with that.  It was the bike’s only redeeming quality.  The thing shook and shimmied all the time, especially on the dirt.  The vibrations were rattling Misha’s bones and brains.  The steering wasn’t the best either, and sometimes Misha found himself using whatever strength he could muster to make certain turns.  He couldn’t even feel his feet anymore.

In the sidecar next to him, Rifle didn’t look too happy either.  The dog constantly had his ears flat, and every time they came to a smooth straightaway, which wasn’t often, he tried to shift around in the little sidecar.

When darkness first descended, Misha had nearly panicked.  It got dark really quickly in the woods, and he didn’t know where the switch for the headlight was.  He eventually found it, but not before a few narrow misses with the edge of the road.  Also, when it first got dark, a lot of bugs suddenly appeared.  Misha was probably moving just fast enough that they couldn’t land on him and bite him, but a lot ended up spattering on his chest and face.  He was grateful that they disappeared as it got later.

The restored bike was also fairly loud.  That bothered Misha a lot.  If the crazies were drawn to sound, he was a giant beacon.  He hoped he had gotten far enough away from the general populace not to have to worry about that.  He deliberately avoided all the routes that everybody else had chosen.

Well, not quite everybody.

As Misha rounded the next corner, his single headlight shone across the back of another vehicle.  It was off the rutted path and smashed up against a tree.  Misha stopped the bike.  He couldn’t afford to pass by without checking out the vehicle.  He had come across another before hitting the deep woods.  Everything of value to Misha had been stripped from it.  The gas was still in it though, and he had found a hose to siphon it into his own tank.  Misha turned off the engine, but left the headlight on.  The sudden lack of engine noise left a deafening silence in its wake.

The moment Misha moved his bare feet off the footrests, was the moment he felt them again.  A small cry of pain escaped his lips.  He had learned quickly while riding to stay in first gear, because shifting was murder.  It was slower, but it was painless.

Rifle hopped out of the side and wobbled.  The vibrations had affected the dog too.  Rifle then lifted a leg and peed on the bushes next to him.

Misha lifted his own leg up and over the seat.  He could feel a creak in his hips.  He tried to stand, but immediately fell over.  He could feel his feet, but not his legs.  Rifle walked over to him on rubbery legs and snuffled his face and hair.

“I’m all right,” Misha muttered, his throat dry.  “Just got the wobbly legs is all.  Just like you.”

He slowly pushed himself upright and sat in a tuft of weedy grass.  He rubbed his legs, trying to get the life back into them.  Rifle waited patiently.  Once he thought he had the strength, Misha stood up.  He swayed a little, but he managed to keep upright this time.

“Let’s go check out the car, bratishka.”  Misha had taken to calling the dog ‘brother’ in Russian every so often.  He had really bonded with his furry companion.

Before heading to the car, Misha leaned into the sidecar and located the revolver.  He held it loosely in his hand as they headed toward the crashed vehicle, Rifle trotting ahead.  It was a Mazda 3, a strange car to find in the backwoods.  Even though the front end was smooshed, the battery must still be working because the overhead dome light was on.  Rifle went up to the open driver’s door and sniffed around.  He didn’t seem to find anything he didn’t like and sat next to it, looking at Misha.  Misha went up to the car and peered inside through the windows.  He checked out both the back seat and the front, even though he didn’t think there were any crazies in the car.  If there had been, they would have burst out by now, thanks to the sound of the bike.  Also, Rifle would have reacted.

Misha stuck the revolver into the back of his shorts and climbed into the car.  He searched the whole thing for anything useful  Anything at all.  In the glove box, there were only insurance papers, a tissue box, an old pack of cigarettes, and a lighter.  He pocketed the lighter, which had a little bit of fuel left.  He looked under the front seats and under one of them, he found three ultra dried out and shrivelled fries.  He dusted them off and ate them.  They tasted awful and crunched terribly.  He found no other food and nothing to drink.  He did find a first aid kit though, which he opened up to look through the contents.  He climbed out of the car and opened all the power locks.  Going to the trunk next, he searched through it.  There wasn’t anything useful in there either, just some bungie cables, windshield wiper fluid, jumper cables, and a spare tire with a jack under the carpet.

Misha sat on the bumper of the Mazda, in the light of the bike’s headlamp, and opened the first aid kit again.  He lifted up a leg and looked at the bottom of his foot.  It was similar to raw meat.  He took out the iodine first and began washing his foot with it.  It stung something fierce and Misha drew in a lot of sharp breaths between his teeth.  Rifle watched, ears down and whining occasionally.  The dog probably didn’t understand why Misha was hurting himself.

Once the foot was washed, he picked up the tweezers and went over every inch of his foot.  He plucked out any splinters and sand-sized pebbles he came across.  This was also extremely painful at times.  After the tweezers, he finally picked up the bandages and the gauze.  He placed a generous helping of gauze all along the bottom of his foot and wrapped the bandage around it.  He then used the medical scissors to cut off some medical tape, which he also wrapped around his foot to keep the bandage on.  Misha gingerly placed that foot back on the ground, and picked up the other one to start the process again.

It was at this point that Rifle trotted back over to the motorbike.  He stuck his muzzle into the sidecar and started rooting around.  He pulled his head back out and in his muzzle was his skunk toy.  He carried it over to Misha and dropped it in his lap while he was trying to tweezer out a splinter.

“Thanks, bratishka, but this isn’t going to help me right now, okay?”  Misha rubbed the dog’s head.

Rifle responded by placing his head in Misha’s lap.  He sat like that while Misha worked around him.

Once Misha’s second foot was wrapped up and placed on the ground, he continued to sit there.  He ran his fingers methodically through the fur on Rifle’s head, playing with the dog’s ears.  He entered a dream-like state, not focused on anything.

* * *

Misha didn’t know how long he sat like that, totally spaced out, but Rifle eventually brought him out of it.  The dog pricked his ears suddenly and raised his head.  He picked up his skunk toy and walked to the edge of the woods.  He stopped there and looked back at Misha.

“What is it, Rifle?”  Misha got to his feet, worried it was something bad.

Rifle’s tail swooshed back and forth a few times.  He took a few steps into the woods and looked back at Misha.  It was pretty clear he wanted him to follow.

Misha retrieved his gun and trailed after the German shepherd.  It was hard to follow the dog through the brush without any light.  He had to track him via sound and what little movement he could see ahead.  He had to take it slowly too, being very precise about where he placed his freshly-wrapped feet.

“Rifle?” Misha whispered.  He could no longer hear the dog ahead of him.  “Bratishka, where did you go?”

He pushed through some particularly tall bushes and then, suddenly, there was Rifle standing in front of him.  He wagged his tail and chomped on his skunk a few times.  Then he placed the skunk at Misha’s feet and hurried off across a clearing.

Misha left the ratty toy where it was and started to follow him.  The long grass brushed against his bare legs, some of the blades feeling almost razor sharp, but a very familiar noise kept drawing him forward.  He realized that the clearing wasn’t just some random clearing; there was water flowing through the middle of it.  Some sort of stream or river.  Misha wanted to rush at it but managed to hold himself back.  Rifle was sniffing around at something large next to the water.  Misha approached with caution until he could see what it was that Rifle had found.  It was a dead body.

As Rifle sniffed and snuffled around, it suddenly moved.  Perhaps not dead after all.  It groaned and Misha instinctively took a step back, gripping the butt of the revolver.  A hand reached up and pushed Rifle’s head away, but Rifle kept sniffing around him anyway.  The dog looked up at Misha, tongue hanging out in a happy grin.  He was not afraid of this person.  Perhaps the body  wasn’t one of the crazies.

Misha approached it once more.  As he got closer, he saw it was a man in firefighter’s gear.

“Sir?” Misha called out hesitantly.  His eyes kept getting drawn passed the man, to the water.  He was so thirsty.

The man raised his head slightly so that Misha could see only his eyes.  He then tried to push himself back toward the river, away from Misha.  Maybe he thought Misha was one of the crazies.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Misha told him.  “I’m not one of them.”

He couldn’t resist the water.  He made his way over to it in an arc, giving the man space.  Both of them followed the other with their eyes.  Once Misha reached the shore, he dropped to his knees.  First, he tried cupping his hands to bring the water to his mouth, but he didn’t get nearly enough that way.  He decided to bring his mouth to the water and dunked his whole face into it, sucking in as much as he could drink in one breath, half choking himself.

He did this for at least three breaths before finally sitting back.  He belched, feeling the water sloshing around in his belly.  He turned his attention back to the man.

“I’m Misha.”  Misha held up a hand in greeting.

The man just continued to watch him.  Something was wrong.

“Are you all right, man?” Misha got worried.  Maybe he was one of them.

The man shook his head and rolled onto his side.  His eyes squeezed shut with pain as he did so.  The moon was bright enough for Misha to see his full face as he did this.  His right cheek had been torn open, and was bleeding pretty badly.

Misha went closer.

“Holy shit, what happened?”  The wound looked clean, straight, not like the tearing the crazies did.  “Do you want some help?  I have a first aid kit.”

Misha pointed back to where he came from.  He had left it back at the vehicles.  The man shook his head.

“Are you sure?”  Misha went a little closer.  “I mean, I’m not a doctor or anything, but there are bandages in there, some antibiotics, and I think I even saw a kit for stitching.”

The firefighter tilted his head, drawing Misha’s attention to his stomach.  The man had been holding it.  When he moved his hands, Misha saw a hole in his shirt.  Dark liquid was oozing out of it and onto the rocks beneath him.  The facial wound looked awful, but this gut wound appeared to be what was killing him.

“Fuck,” Misha sighed,  “what happened?”

The man gestured a stabbing motion with one hand.

“You were stabbed?”  Misha hadn’t seen any of the crazies use a weapon yet.  Well, not since Dean’s rudimentary bat swinging.  It was possible one used a knife.

The man nodded.

“Are you dying?”  It was a stupid question to ask.  How would the man know?  Besides, it should have been obvious by how pale he had become.  Misha looked practically tanned by comparison.

The man nodded his head again anyway.  He also thought he was dying.

“Fuck.” Misha sighed again and ran a hand through his hair.  “Is there anything I can do for you?  Make it easier?”

The firefighter held up two fingers and patted them against his lips.  He wanted a smoke.

“Cigarette or pot?” Misha asked.

The man held up one finger, he wanted the first one, a cigarette.

“Okay, I found this crusty pack in a car back there.  If you hold on, I can get it for you.”  Misha started to head back to the woods.  “Rifle, you watch over him, okay?  Don’t let him die before I get back.  That’s Rifle, by the way.”  Misha turned his attention back to the man briefly.  “He’s a good boy, he’ll watch out for you.”

The man gave him a thumbs up and managed to roll over onto his back.

Misha took off across the field, not running, he was too tired and his feet were too sore for that, but he was moving quicker than he had been earlier.  The blades of grass continued to slice across his shins, which were probably getting even more scratches on them.  Not only had his escapades through people’s yards left Misha banged up, but so did the bike.  Even at slow speeds, flecks of dirt and pebbles got kicked up by the wheels and not all of them missed his exposed flesh.

Not wanting to get lost, Misha made sure he entered the woods at the same place he had left them.  He found where Rifle had left his skunk toy and started snapping off branches.  He brought the skunk toy with him so that it wouldn’t get lost.

Finding his way back to the car and bike was easier than following Rifle in the first place.  He could see a bit of the light from them shining through the trees.  To make getting back to the river easier, he broke off branches he passed and flattened the brush when he could.

When he was almost there, the biggest source of light, the headlight from the motorbike, went out.

* * *

Misha stood still, unmoving, barely breathing.  He expected to see something pass between the dome light in the car and himself.  He expected to hear some howling, screeching thing rush at him.  He heard nothing and saw nothing.  Eventually he realized that the bike’s headlight must have turned itself off.  It must have been set on a timer or something so that if the bike were turned off without switching off the headlight, it would turn itself off after a time.  Clever, really.

Misha headed toward the car again.  Just in case he was wrong, he moved as silently as he could.  Although, he had been snapping branches the whole way, so something would have already heard him if there was something to hear him.

Eventually he reached the car without incident.  He searched the glove box, but at first, couldn’t find the package of cigarettes he had come across earlier.  Apparently, he had dropped them into the foot-well when he realized they were of no use to him.  He scooped up the package and headed back into the woods.

Despite his attempt at trailblazing, he did have to stop and search for his broken stick markers several times.  Getting this package of cigarettes was taking much longer than Misha had planned.  On the other hand, it wasn’t as if he had much else to do.  It was a task, one he could complete and focus on.  The focus helped take the edge off his exhaustion and hunger.  The water had helped with that too.

Finally, he entered the clearing again and made his way, once more, through the grass.  Once he got close enough to see the body, he feared the worst.  The firefighter hadn’t moved an inch, and didn’t appear to be moving at all now.  It seemed he had slipped away in Misha’s absence.

Then his arm lifted up and scratched Rifle’s ears.  He was still alive.

Misha walked over to him, not sure if he preferred the rocky shore under his feet over the sharp grass against his legs.  The firefighter though, was on a single, large, and quite flat rock and Misha’s feet appreciated standing on it.

“I found them.”  Misha held the pack in front of the firefighter’s face so he could see it.

Rifle stood up from where he had been lying next to the man and sniffed them.  Misha then gave the dog his toy, who left with it to frolic in the field.

The man squinted, making out the pack in the frail light.  Half his face started to grin, but the ruined half quickly pained him and caused the grin to turn into a grimace.

“Are you sure you can even smoke like that?” Misha wondered.  He took the pack away from the man and shook out a cigarette.

The man was so weak, he couldn’t even bring his hand up to smoke.  Misha carefully placed the cigarette in front of his lips and the firefighter did the rest.  Misha took out the lighter next.  It took a few flicks but the flame caught and Misha brought it down to the cigarette.  The man inhaled deeply, then exhaled through his nose.  He didn’t cough at all.  Clearly it wasn’t his lungs that had been stabbed.  Maybe it was his liver, or kidneys.  Maybe nothing really vital at all had been stabbed and he had just bled out.  Misha had no idea how long he had been there.  He guessed he came from the river though due to his position and general sogginess.

“I think you should know, if you pass, I’m taking your jacket and boots,” Misha told the man honestly.

He nodded weakly.  He understood.

“If it happens, I can’t bury you, I don’t have the strength, but would you like to be pushed back into the river?”  Misha thought he could at least do that.

The man frowned and shook his head.  He definitely did not want to end up in the river.  He gestured weakly to the field.

“You want me to drag you into the field?” Misha guessed.

The man nodded.

“Coyotes or wolves would probably eat you.”

The man nodded again.  He was okay with that.

Although Misha had spoken as if it might not happen, he was certain they both knew it would.  Otherwise, the man wouldn’t have refused help, and Misha would have brought the first aid kit.  He continued to sit next to the man in silence, watching him smoke his last cigarette.  It looked painful for him, especially the occasional times he exhaled out through his mouth around the cigarette.  Misha could see the smoke come out through his slashed cheek, sometimes creating a little bubble of blood with it.

Finally the cigarette fell to one side, only two thirds smoked.  The firefighter stared up at the stars, his breathing becoming more laborious.

His lips moved as he tried to speak.

“What is it?”  Misha leaned a little closer to hear what the dying man had to say.

It clearly took a lot of effort and was extremely painful, but he managed to speak.  “Cillian.”  It was the first word Misha had heard another speak since he stole the motorbike from that family.

“Cillian?”  Misha didn’t understand.

The man weakly patted a hand on his chest.

“Your name?  Your name is Cillian?”  It seemed right to Misha.

The man, Cillian, nodded.

“It was very nice to meet you, Cillian,” Misha told him.  “I’m sorry you have to go so soon.”

Cillian tried to grin again, and this time succeeded more than before.  With the gash, it looked horrific, but at least he was happy.

His breathing became more laboured, and weaker at the same time.  His chest barely rose with each breath.  As he closed his eyes, Misha again noticed how pale his skin was in the moonlight.  It was totally white, as white as the moon in the sky.  Cillian’s chest hitched, then hitched again.  Finally, it stopped moving altogether.

Misha sat there for several minutes looking down at the body.  He kept expecting it to move again.  Not because of what happened to Dean, but because it was so strange that he just slipped away.  They had only just met, and now he was gone.  Not just gone, but dead.  Misha thought he would have liked to have gotten to know Cillian.  Perhaps in another life.

Once he realized that the firefighter truly had passed, Misha got to work.  He took his boots first, pulling them off of the dead man’s feet and putting them on his own.  They were big for him, but they would do.  He looked at Cillian’s socks, debating, but decided, in the end, that the bandages and tape would be enough.  He could also wrap more around his feet if it became necessary.  Getting the jacket off him proved to be a lot more difficult.  He had to roll Cillian’s body and manipulate his arms out of the sleeves.  As he pulled it off, he discovered a firefighter’s glove in one of the pockets.  He looked for its match but couldn’t find it.  It must have gotten washed away in the river.  He put the glove down on the rock.

Finally the coat was free and Misha put it on.  Like the boots, the inside was still damp and he shivered slightly.  He would have to dry it out, but, for now, he would wear it while he did this last job.  Misha surprised himself by not being concerned about any blood that may have fallen into the coat.  He was so covered in dirt and grime, anything he wore probably didn’t touch his skin.  And a little more wasn’t going to kill him.

Next, he hooked his arms under Cillian’s and started to drag him toward the grass.  It was extremely difficult.  Misha was so tired already and Cillian was a big guy, but he had said he would do it and so he did.

Rifle trotted back over to see what he was doing.  He sniffed at Cillian then looked up at Misha as if to ask what happened.

“He died,” Misha told him.  “Bled out.  He was stabbed.”

Rifle sniffed at Cillian again.  He then went to where Misha had left the glove and sniffed at that.  He picked it up in his mouth, carrying it along with his skunk.  He then followed Misha’s struggle to drag Cillian.

“You could help, you know,” Misha grunted.

Rifle just stood there.  Then sat there.  It was as if he was mocking him or something.

Misha pulled Cillian until he was completely in the grass.  Once there, Misha dropped the man’s shoulders and collapsed in a huff.  He lay there next to Cillian’s dead body, staring up at the stars.  He wondered what was happening to his family back in Russia, whether they were dealing with the same problem.  Although he had lived in Canada for many years now, he had never felt so far away.  He shivered.

He started shivering quite badly, uncontrollably.  Part of it was from exhaustion, part of it was from cold, part of it was just the weight of the future combined with that of the past.  Misha couldn’t remember what he thought about as he lay there, shaking, or if he even thought at all.  He just knew that when it had subsided, it was time to leave.

He went back to the river to get another drink of water.  He didn’t know when he’d have another opportunity.  If he had had something to carry the water in, that would be a different story.  But he thought about everything he had found and none of it would help him.

“Come on Rifle, time to go.”  Misha patted his leg as he crossed the field once more.

Rifle trotted up alongside him, ratty skunk hanging out of one side of his muzzle, tattered glove hanging out the other.

“Do you want me to carry one of those for you?” Misha laughed.

Rifle paid him no attention.

The two got back to the bike, once again, without incident.  After using the hose he had found at the last car to top off his tank, Misha gathered up the first aid kit and placed it in the sidecar, then put the revolver back inside it.  Rifle put his own belongings in there as well and Misha helped him up into it.  The bike started fine and they made their way around the car.  The monotonous backroad journey continued.

* * *

They rode until Misha was pretty much falling asleep at the handlebars.  He was afraid of ending up like the car: smashed into a tree.  He didn’t know where to pull over, and he didn’t want to stop just anywhere; that seemed like a very unsafe idea.

As he came to crossroads, he tried to pick the ones that looked more used.  By doing so, he managed to find a road that led to a house.  He thought it was a farmhouse at first, as these woods were between the highway and farm country, but he realized there was no barn, nor any crop fields.  The house sat alone, nestled in amongst some trees.

Misha didn’t come at the house from its main access road; that was to his left at the front of the house.  He came at its side from what was probably some four wheeler, or snowmobile path.  Either way, the house meant shelter.

It was dark inside.  There were no lights on.  Still, that didn’t mean that nobody was home.  Misha parked the bike at the edge of the woods and rolled it between two trees.  It wasn’t really well hidden, but it should do.  Misha had no idea what time it was, but he figured it was late enough that people could just be asleep in the house.

“Stay here,” Misha told Rifle.  “Watch over the bike.”

Rifle sat obediently.

Misha snuck up to the house, heading for the closest window.  The place had only one floor, which was convenient, and didn’t appear to have a basement.  It was probably a summer cottage, but being that it was summer and the weekend meant Misha would have to use caution.  The first window he found revealed a kitchen.  He made his way around the house looking into each and every window.  All the rooms and all the beds appeared empty.  It looked like no one had decided to use the place that weekend.

He quickly headed back to where he had left Rifle.

“Come on, boy, let’s find a way inside,” Misha whispered.

After retrieving their things from the sidecar, Rifle tagged along with Misha back to the house.  Misha tried the front and back doors first, but they were both locked.  He tried all the windows as well, but got the same result.  He figured that whoever stayed there probably kept a spare key somewhere nearby.  He began searching for it under the welcome mat, behind lamps, under rocks.  He finally found one tucked behind the downspout.  He unlocked the front door and let Rifle inside.

He searched the house again, just to make sure it was empty.  Rifle joined him in the search so that when they found no one, he was extra sure that the place was empty.

Misha went into the kitchen and raided the fridge.  The power seemed to be out because the little light inside didn’t turn on.  He wondered if the power was out everywhere, or if these people just turned it off when they weren’t using the place.  He didn’t find much in the fridge that he could eat quickly, just some cheese slices and some jelly.  He made mini jelly sandwiches, using the cheese slices as bread.  They were kind of gross but they were food.  He looked in the cupboards next.  He found some cans of soup and some cans of gravy-covered meatballs.  Once the can opener was located, he opened the soup for himself and the meatballs for Rifle.  He dumped the meatballs and gravy on the floor, not giving a rat’s ass about being tidy.  Rifle ate them greedily.  Misha drank the various kinds of soup out of the can, using a spoon only to scrape out the chunks at the bottom.

Once their bellies were full, Misha led them to a bedroom.  He collapsed on a bed that smelled faintly of mothballs.  Rifle began circling a throw rug on the floor.

“You can sleep up here if you want, bratishka,” Misha told his friend, patting the bed.

Rifle looked up at him and decided to accept his invitation.  He hopped up on the bed and started circling the end of it.  He lay against the side of Misha’s legs, placing his toy between his paws.

Although Misha had meant to take off the damp jacket and boots, he suddenly felt very, very heavy.  Moving anything seemed extremely difficult.  He didn’t have the energy to get them off.  The only things he had the energy to do were to place the revolver on the nightstand, and get the blankets on top of him.  Curled up in a nest of puffy blankets and puffy pillows, with Rifle against his legs, Misha instantly fell into a deep sleep.  He slept heavily, and without dreams.

He slept until someone’s hands yanked him out of the bed.

iv:

Those Left Behind

Hendrickson heard the woman on the radio.  It’s not that he didn’t believe what she said about the infection, he just didn’t think heading north was the best idea.  He decided to stay in his tiny townhouse and defend himself.  It didn’t take that long for a zombie to get in and its screeching brought more of them.  He locked himself into a windowless room in his basement.  Before he had the chance to die of thirst, the zombies managed to dig through the drywall.

Nicolas was more prepared.  He and his family barricaded themselves in their apartment on the top floor.  The stairs leading to the rest of the building were blocked off with dressers, beds, whatever they could cram up against them.  Even after raiding the other apartments on their floor, it didn’t take that long for them to run out of food.  They were starving; Nicolas’s children and wife were starving.  He waited as long as he could, until he thought he was almost too weak to do it.  Nicolas went into Mr. Ou’s apartment with a butcher knife.  He went into Mr. Ou’s bedroom where the man had died of a heart attack two days earlier.  He raised the knife.  His children weren’t going to starve if he could help it.

Young Rachael had been at a friend’s house.  They had had a sleepover.  Her friend’s family had decided to flee, and they said they would take her with them.  They packed up the car, but Rachael realized she had left her stuffed bear in the bottom of the sleeping bag she had spent the night in.  She told her friend to wait and ran into the house to get it.  It had been made for her by her grandmother.  It took longer to find than she thought.  When she ran back out of the house, her friend’s family had left.

Dom didn’t hear the warning on the radio.  He didn’t go north.  He stayed in the heart of the city, living off whatever he could find.  He became an animal, killing pets for food when he needed to.  He savagely defended himself against the infected, somehow managing to avoid becoming one himself.  Other survivors that spotted him however, couldn’t tell the difference, especially when Dom had no trouble attacking them as well. If he became infected, it would make little difference.  The only change would be that his insanity would become contagious.

The Madisons did extremely well staying at home.  They had quite a bit of food and water, and slowly and carefully, they even started to reinforce the fence surrounding the backyard to turn it into a garden.  It would be hard, but they were determined.  They didn’t realize how closely they lived to a nuclear waste storage facility however.  When the explosion happened, they were blasted away almost instantly.

Further away, Sara survived that blast.  Unfortunately, her shelter wasn’t protected from the radiation that then descended upon it.  She didn’t even know why she got sick.

Victoria had been sheltering with some people in a bank when they heard the radio broadcast.  Everybody wanted to heed the woman’s advice and leave, but Victoria was too scared.  In the end, they all left and she stayed alone in the bank.

Bret had been torn about staying or going.  Part of him really wanted to flee, but another part thought his girlfriend might come home and he wanted to be there if she did.  In the end, he stayed.  He stayed until the soldiers came.

Section 5:

United

34:

Carter

Alice woke up looking at the roof of the car.  When the other grown-ups had come, they decided she should sleep in the back seat of the broken car.  She didn’t mind the new grown-ups, but she wasn’t sure about them yet.  They were still strangers, although LeBlanc seemed nice.  And he had a funny voice and a name that was fun to say.

She sat up and looked out the car door, which had been left open.  The doctor lady was asleep in the front seat.  The grown men were all sleeping in chairs like the ones in the front of cars, but they were on the floor.  Danny was still sleeping on the van seat.  Shoes was also asleep in a chair.  He wasn’t normally allowed on furniture, but Alice thought it would be okay today, just like it was okay for him to go poopies without them picking it up.

She got out of the car and walked around the room.  There was light coming in through the dirty windows, but it was still hard to see well.  The flashlight was still hanging around her neck on the shoestring, so she turned it on.  She also carried around one of the horses that Danny had gotten her, pretending to gallop it across tables and tools.  It was the brown horse with the yellow mane and tail.  It was her favourite of the five she had been given.

It was boring playing in there though, especially with everybody sleeping.  She heard one of them mention something about standing guard the night before, but she had been half asleep at that time and wasn’t paying much attention.

She looked at her horse and then at Danny.  He had found the horse somewhere outside.  It wasn’t a Barbie, but who was to say that there were no Barbies?  Maybe he didn’t look hard enough.

Alice went over to the door and started to remove the chain.  She did it extra quietly because she didn’t want to wake up anyone.  Whenever she had woken up her Daddy by accident, he was always very grumpy.  She didn’t want to upset Danny or Alec, and she was taught always to be polite to strangers.

Once the chain was off and on the floor, she looked over at Shoes.  Alice wondered if maybe she should bring him with her, in case he had to go potty.  Alice had to use the bathroom herself now that she thought about it.  In the end, she decided that Shoes looked too tired last night to wake him up now.  She left the room without him.

In the other room, she looked around in the light from the rising sun.  The colours of the sunrise sparkled prettily off the broken glass.  She noticed that one of the doors in that room was labelled as a bathroom.  It didn’t say whether it was for boys or girls though.  Alice decided it would be okay for her to use it.

She pushed open the door and stepped into the bathroom.  It didn’t smell very good.  It reminded her of the time her Daddy took her to use the bathroom at a gas station.  Then she remembered that they were next door to a gas station and assumed that that was why.  All gas station bathrooms probably smelled like this.

It was unlike other public bathrooms though.  There were no stalls, just one toilet, one trashcan, and one sink.  A little, single window let in enough light to see by, so Alice turned the flashlight back off, then closed the door behind her and locked it.  She tried the light switch but it didn’t work.  The power must still be out, although Alice didn’t know why.  She thought the power only went out during storms.  She then used the toilet and debated whether to flush.  Toilets could be loud and wake people up.  She thought no one would mind if she didn’t flush because it was just pee.  She put the toilet seat down and had to stand on it to use the high sink.  She washed her hands and then used some water to scrub her teeth.  She didn’t like brushing her teeth, but she also didn’t like them feeling fuzzy.

She went back out to where the desk was and looked around.  There wasn’t much in there; clearly it was not where Danny had found the horses.  She went to the other door and looked inside.  There wasn’t anything in there either: just a table, a small fridge, a coat rack, a microwave, and a safe.  The safe was interesting, but not what Alice was looking for.  Finally, she decided to go outside, being extra careful when crossing the broken glass.

The sun still hadn’t quite made it over the trees, but it was really bright out anyway.  The empty sky made Alice think that is was going to be hot like yesterday.  Normally her Daddy wouldn’t let her go outside on her own, especially near a road.  Alice thought it would be okay though, because they had walked on the road last night and seen no cars.  Also, her Daddy wasn’t there to tell her what not to do.  He would never be able to tell her what to do again.  Alice was happy that Danny’s brother had found him, but she wished it were her Daddy instead.  Her Daddy was dead though.  He was a police officer; he would have found her by now.  It was the police’s job to find people.

Alice noticed that there was a car at the gas station that wasn’t there before.  The other grown-ups must have come in it.  She went over to take a look, but wasn’t tall enough to see through the windows and when she tried the doors, she found them locked.

Giving up on the car, Alice headed toward the shop.  The glowing sky reflected off the broken glass around this door too, although there was less of it here.  This door was unlocked and Alice went inside.

The first thing Alice saw was all the candy.  She walked up and down the aisle, trying to decide what to eat first.  She loved candy, all kinds of candy.  She loved chocolate more, and there were several chocolate bars.  She didn’t know which one to choose.

She decided to check the other aisle to see if there were more there.  Instead of finding more candy, she found the toys.  She saw the shelf Danny had gotten the horses from.  There were lots of horses.  Some were different from the ones Danny gave her.  They were at the same level as her eyes and she looked through all the horses, but decided that the one she had with her was still her favourite.  There were other toys here as well.  There were moose, and deer, and dolphins, and cows, and beavers, and eagles, and lots of others.

She found a pile of little neon-coloured water guns in a basket near the floor.  Danny had a gun but it looked real.  Alice didn’t think it was a water gun.

Next to the water guns was a basket full of rubber snakes.  She picked them up, giggling.  They were fun to wiggle around.  She tied some in knots and then put them back.

There was a bright, coloured box higher up.  Alice couldn’t see what was in it, but she was intrigued.  She stood on a lower shelf and reached up for it.  She grabbed the side of the box and pulled.  It was heavier than she thought, but she managed to tug it to the edge of the shelf.  Suddenly, it tipped over and fell to the floor.  It was full of super balls that began bouncing all over the place.

On the very top shelf, Alice thought she saw a stuffed toy.  She started to climb up higher but slipped.  She fell to the floor, and because of all the super balls, she couldn’t land on her feet.  She fell, just managing to get her hands out to break her fall.  It hurt though.  Alice cried more from the shock than from the pain.  Nobody came to make her feel better, so eventually, she stopped crying on her own.

Alice was mad at the super balls.  She picked one up and threw it as hard as she could.  It hit the side of the checkout counter, launching off it into another part of the store.  Alice threw another one to the same effect.  She starting throwing lots of super balls, becoming happy again as they flew all over the place.

That is, until something broke.

* * *

Alice stood still, knowing she had done something wrong.  She had broken something.  She waited for someone to come and yell at her, but no one did.  The only people around were asleep in the other building.  Even if they were awake, none of them had yelled at her for anything yet.  Alice went to look for what she broke.  It turned out to be a drinking glass.  There were shelves full of them, as well as mugs and those little glasses her Daddy said were called shot glasses.  Alice didn’t know why they were called that and thought they were strange.  Who would want to drink such a small amount of something?  Alice reasoned that they must be used to taking medicine, because that was the only thing someone would have to drink that tasted yucky.

She reached up and wrapped her hand around one of the little glasses.  She looked around the shop, as if someone might have suddenly shown up, then dropped the glass.  Part of the top broke when it hit the hard floor.  She started grabbing several glasses and mugs and throwing them on the ground.  They exploded in wonderful patterns.  The whole time, Alice thought that, at any moment, her Daddy would show up.  He would show up and tell her to stop because she was doing something wrong.  He didn’t though, and Alice began to enjoy herself, giggling with delight.  The broken glass made the floor sparkle.

Alice then remembered how dangerous broken glass could be.  She remembered how Kara had hurt her hand on some and now she was surrounded by it.  Carefully, she made her way away from it.  She held onto a shelf just to make sure she didn’t fall.

Candy came back to mind, so Alice went back to the candy shelf.  She decided it didn’t matter which one she ate first, because she could eat all of them.  In fact, she could eat just one bite of all of them if she wanted.  There was no one around to get her into trouble for being wasteful.  She could do whatever she felt like.  She picked a Kit-Kat bar first, peeling off the wrapper and taking a bite.  It was very yummy.  She then picked up a Reese peanut butter cup and ate only one of the three cups.  As she ate bite after bite of the chocolate bars, she realized that some of them weren’t very yummy.  They had gross stuff inside.  She committed the names of those to memory so that she wouldn’t eat them again.

The sound of the front door opening stopped Alice in mid-binge.  One of the grown-ups must have woken up.  If they saw that she had made this mess, she was going to be in trouble.

She went to the end of the aisle and peered down it.  A man shuffled through the glass she had broken, bits of it making popping sounds beneath his feet.  Alice didn’t recognize the man.  It was possible he was a bad man.

Alice started to make her way toward the door slowly.  She wasn’t watching where she was going though and she stepped on another super ball.  Her foot skidded out from under her, and although she managed to catch herself, her shoe made a loud screechy noise against the floor.

The man wheeled around and looked at her.  A large piece of skin was missing over one eye and Alice could see bone.  He charged at her, smashing his way into a shelf and knocking it over.

Alice ran for the door, screaming the whole way.  She pushed it open and turned.  She remembered the gate that had been across the door the night before and pulled it shut behind her.  The man slammed into the gate.  He reached through the bars and grabbed Alice’s arm.  He bit down hard.

Alice really began to scream then.  She shrieked at such a high pitch that it was almost out of human hearing range.

Alice fought to get her arm free.  She kicked at the gate, tugging her arm, but the man’s teeth held tight.  She punched him in the head, where she saw bone, but it only hurt her hand.

Finally, the man let go.  He tried to pull more of Alice through the bars, but his suddenly loosened grip allowed Alice to pull herself free.  The man pressed himself into the gate, trying to get her, trying to reach her.

Alice was briefly reminded of when she was in that basement with Kara.  Only then the monster man had been outside the cage and they had been inside it.

She ran then.  She had never been so scared or so hurt before in her life.  She ran into the woods and hid in some bushes.  Her arm really, really hurt and it was bleeding.  It was bleeding really bad.  Alice didn’t know what to do.  She tugged up the hem of her dress and wrapped her arm in it, but it still really hurt.

* * *

Alice cried.  She wanted her Daddy.  She wanted to be back home with him where no one could hurt her.  She wished none of this had happened.  She wished she was just asleep at day-care and Mrs. Lou would wake her up at any moment.  She would wake her up and tell her that she was just having a bad dream; it was only a bad dream.  Monsters didn’t exist, and they certainly didn’t look like people.  She wished, and wished, and wished.

Her arm felt very hot.  It felt like she was holding it close to a fire, much closer than she had ever been before.  It was spreading up her arm too.  It hurt so bad.  She couldn’t do anything though, she just kept crying.  She curled up in leaves, sobbing and cradling her arm.  The heat was in her chest now.  It hurt even more than it did when it was in her arm.  She wasn’t just near the fire, she was in it.  Alice was burning.  She had the flu once before, but that fever didn’t feel like this.  Her Daddy had told her that the fever was burning her up but she had felt cold.  This time she did not feel cold; she felt like she must be on the sun.  The sun was a very hot place and Alice didn’t want to be there anymore.

As it spread through the rest of her body, Alice started to become confused.  She saw shapes and colours in the woods she hadn’t seen before.  She saw impossible creatures, fairies, and people she thought were dead.  She saw someone that she was sure was her Mommy.

“Mommy?” Alice called out very weakly, very faintly.  “Mommy, I’m here.  Why did you leave us, Mommy?  I never got to know you.  You never got to know me.  Do you want to know about me now, Mommy?  Okay.  My name is Alice Genevieve Carter.  I live at 38 Buttermilk Ave.  My Daddy is named Sam Carter, he’s a police officer.  Mommy?  I can’t remember my phone number.  Okay.  I have a dog named Shoes, but not like shoes on your feet.  My feet are itchy, my shoes aren’t comfy.  I wish upon stars and collect them in jars.  Beetles are in my hair.  My hair is falling out.  I hope the spiders will make a nice web of it.  Catch a yummy fly, feed it to my shoes.  Mommy?  I can’t see you anymore.  I cannot see.  There’s darkness, Mommy.  Is Daddy with you?  Okay, I’ll come see you then.  Please wait for me.  I need to change my dress. This one has cake on it.”

Alice couldn’t speak anymore.  She muttered words but none of them were real.  She had forgotten real words.  She knew sounds, but not what they meant.  She knew smells and sights but not what they were.  She thought she slept.

* * *

When Alice awoke once more, she was hungry, so very hungry.  Her body was still in the fire but she didn’t care.  That was unimportant.  The hunger though, that was everything.  People were nearby.  She would go to the people.  The people were chocolate, and she wanted a bite.

35:

Mackenzie

Tobias slowly opened his eyes, surprised that he had managed to sleep.  He was extremely cramped and uncomfortable and couldn’t stretch out, but somehow he had slept.  He hadn’t realized just how tired he was.

They had driven a good portion of the night, but they almost ran out of gas.  Although the vehicle was a hybrid, which gave them good mileage, the battery could only get them so far on its own.  They had decided to pull off on a side road and stop for the night.  All three of them, Tobias, Cender, and Abby, lay in the back.  They had figured out how to fold the back seats down flat.  With the three of them lying there though, it was a tight fit.  None of them had wanted to stay in the front seats; they had felt too exposed.  After some decision-making, they pulled out all the winter clothing that had been packed in the bags and slept underneath them, hidden from view.  The bags themselves were put on the front seats and on top of their sleeping forms as well.  If anyone looked in, like perhaps a zombie, none of them could be seen.  This meant that Tobias was also extremely hot as well as cramped.  His height was a disadvantage.

He lay in the semi darkness staring at the carpet that covered the back of the seats.  The sun had risen and found its way into the car.  It was bright enough to reach down through the spaces in his blanket of clothes.  Soon, the car would become an unbearable inferno, but for now, Tobias lay still.

He thought about Jessi.  He had murdered her.  She had gone completely psychotic, and so he had drowned her.  He kept seeing her face through the water, her eyes looking up at him.  He didn’t feel badly about it, and that was actually what was worrying him.  He felt no remorse.  She had tried to kill Abby, and they were pretty sure she had killed Cillian.

Cillian.  They had looked for him up and down the river for as long as they could, but they saw no sign of him.  Cillian had been floundering in the river, his heavy clothes dragging him down.  Abby said she saw him go under, and he never came back up.  Tobias had wanted to look longer.  He thought that if they had just looked a little longer, they would have found him.  Abby kept pleading with him to go.  She was worried about more of those pigs showing up.  Those things were fucking scary.

Abby also looked afraid of him.  Although she kept pleading with him, she wouldn’t get within arm’s length.  She kept her distance.  Even now, she had insisted that Cender be the one to lie in the middle.

It was Cender who finally got Tobias back to the car.  He had hobbled over on his crutches and given Tobias a good whap on the arm with one.  He said that if Tobias didn’t come right then, they were going to leave without him.

Once they were moving again, nobody said a word.  They drove in silence.  When Tobias had glanced in the rear-view mirror, he saw that Abby was crying silently, tears running down her face.  Tobias didn’t like that he had made her cry.  Even though Jessi was insane and had tried to kill Abby, they had become friends.  Just like he and Cillian had become friends.  Going through what they had gone through together had forged a tight bond.  Now they had both lost their friends, but Tobias didn’t have to look at the person who had murdered his.

He had been falling for Abby.  She was pretty and had a charming smile.  She seemed shy, but she had a good sense of humour and came across as being rather intelligent.  Then he found out that she was a lesbian.  He hadn’t known; it hadn’t come up.  And why would it?  Tobias had once heard that relationships forged out of traumatic events never lasted, so in the end, it probably wouldn’t have mattered.  Although he may have heard it in a movie, and they weren’t always right.  Either way, she wasn’t into men, and he had killed her friend.

Tobias didn’t know what to do.  He didn’t know what was next or even how to approach that question.  He tried to think of a plan, but nothing came to him.  He just lay there looking at the slightly fuzzy carpet fabric.

Cender stirred next to him.  With the extreme closeness, even the slightest move was felt.

“You awake?” Tobias whispered.

“Yeah,” Cender replied.  He didn’t sound sleepy either; he had probably been awake for a while like Tobias.

“I’m awake too,” Abby also replied.  Although this meant that everyone was awake, she had whispered as well.

“What are we going to do?” Tobias kept up the whispering.  He felt if he spoke aloud the world would crash down upon him.

“There’s still juice left in the battery, right?  Even a little gas?”  Cender must have had the same idea.  Whispering was the way to go at the moment.

“Yeah.”  Tobias didn’t really know the exact amount, but there had still been some gas left when they shut the car off.

“Then we hope it has enough to get us to a gas station,” Cender decided.

“And if it doesn’t?”  Abby asked the question before Tobias could.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”  Cender clearly didn’t want to do a lot of thinking either.

Despite having made a plan, none of them moved.  No one wanted to break the peace that currently inhabited the car.  They all lay still for several more minutes.  Finally, Tobias couldn’t take anymore.  It had gone from comfortably warm to unbearably hot, his leg was cramping up, and now he needed to pee.  He sat up, brushing the clothing off his head and shoving a bag off his side and toward his feet.  It was so much brighter above the clothing.  Tobias looked east at the rising sun.  It was coming up over a farmer’s field, bathing it in a soft golden glow.  Unlike that last farmer’s field, which was tall corn, they had chosen this one for its emptiness.  It was probably growing potatoes, cabbage, or maybe even pumpkins.  They couldn’t tell in the dark what was growing, but they liked how much they could see around them.

Tobias looked out through all the windows scanning for threats.  When he didn’t see any, he opened the door next to him and got out on stiff legs.  He didn’t bother walking away from the car, just unzipped and relieved himself right there.

“That’s a nice sound,” Cender half joked as he sat up.  “My mouth tastes like ass.”

“What are we eating for breakfast?” Abby sat up and asked just as Tobias zipped back up.

He frowned at his hands; he didn’t have anything to wash them with.  He didn’t want to use their drinking water and the only puddle he could see was the one he had just made.  He rubbed his hands on his pants, although unhygienic, it was the only thing he could do.

“What do we have?”  Tobias opened the passenger side door and grabbed the list off the dashboard.  Cender had been smart enough to bring the list with them, so that they knew what they should have in each bag.  He skimmed the list quickly, then handed it back to Abby.  He wasn’t actually all that interested in what they ate.  In fact, he wasn’t all that interested in eating, period, but he would.  He couldn’t help but remember how Jessi was refusing to eat before she went nuts.  He didn’t want to become like her.  He didn’t think he would, but he didn’t want the others to think he was becoming like her either.

“None of this sounds very appetizing.  At least not cold.  And I’m still unsure about theses MRE things.”  Abby sighed.  “How about we go with cans of Zoodles?  One can each?”

“Sounds good to me.”  Cender swung his legs out of the car and rubbed his knees.  He also checked out the skin around his cast.  “Which bags are they in?”

“Let’s start with the higher numbers, the ones that we have extra.  Bag five has some in it.”  Abby started looking around the car.

Just last night, bag five had not been an extra.  Since then, they wound up with two extra bags of supplies.  Tobias recalled that he had been assigned bag three, but he couldn’t remember who was bag five.  It might have been Abby, but it could have just as easily been Cillian or Jessi.  All he knew was that it wasn’t Cender.  Cender was bag one with most of the medical stuff.

“Do you mind taking a look at my shoulder?” Tobias asked Cender.  Jessi’s pounding on it had been excruciating and then sleeping all cramped up had not made it any better.  His knuckles also hurt from where she had cut him with the knife, but Cender had said the cuts weren’t actually that bad.  They didn’t even require being bandaged unless he wanted them to be.  He had declined.  Still, they stung worse than the worst paper cut he had ever had.

“Sure.”  Cender leaned backwards and dragged a bag toward him.  He opened up a side pocket and pulled out a pair of gloves from a box that was in it.

Tobias stood in front of him and pulled up the sleeve of his T-shirt.  It was crusty with blood.  Cender started unrolling the bandages.  The closer he got to the wound itself, the redder they became.  He got them off and then gently pulled off the gauze that covered the actual wound.  Tobias pulled in a sharp breath through his teeth; it stung about as much as his fingers did.  He looked down at the wound, which looked pretty bad, but he had been expecting worse.

“Well this gauze is useless, but the bandage we should hold onto in case we need to suddenly tie something up,” Cender said to no one in particular.  He tossed the gauze into the field and rolled the bandage up into a neat bundle.  “I should clean this up a bit.”  Cender said peering at the wound.

“With what?” Tobias frowned.  “I don’t want to waste any drinking water.”

“I was going to use iodine, actually.”  Cender reached for his bag again.

Tobias blanched.  Just having the gauze removed hurt like hell.  Iodine straight to the wound sounded extra unpleasant.

“Eww.”  Abby sat behind Cender in the car and looked at Tobias’s shoulder.

“How did this happen again?”  Cender turned back to him with the disinfectant.  “I was kind of drugged up when you told me, and I don’t really remember.”

“I fell down an escalator,” Tobias told him through clenched teeth as Cender started cleaning the wound.  It burned as if a hot pipe was being pressed to it.

“What were you doing on the escalator that caused you to fall?”  Cender was probably trying to keep him talking to keep his mind off the pain.

“Being chased by a horde of zombies.”  It wasn’t working.  “Cillian and I had this bright idea to try and lure them to one side of the mall while we ran across the top floor to the other side.”

“I take it, it didn’t work so well?” Cender grinned.

“Some of them are a lot faster than they look,” Tobias nodded.

Finally, the cleaning was done, and Cender pressed a fresh gauze pad on the wound.  He then took out another bandage and wrapped it around Tobias’s arm.  Tobias noticed he used fewer bandages to wrap it than he had before.  He must be limiting himself to how much he used.  He didn’t want to risk running out before they reached their destination.  It then dawned on Tobias that, although their destination was likely to be stocked, supplies like bandages would still run out eventually.  He made a mental note about that.  In fact, if they had a constant water supply where they were going, they could probably just wash the bandage that he had on earlier.  He wondered if Cender had thought of that and just didn’t say anything.

“I got the cans open,” Abby told them as Cender stripped off his gloves.  He kept them as well, placing them in a ziplock bag with the used bandage.

“Thanks,” Tobias accepted the can she handed him.  She also handed him a small spork to eat it with.  “You know, if I’m infected, those gloves probably won’t protect you.  You know, considering you slept next to me and all.”

“The gloves weren’t about the zombie virus,” Cender laughed.  “Okay, well maybe partly.  I wear them to keep myself from infecting your wound.  Regular infections still exist, you know.”

“Right.”  Tobias felt some heat in his face.  Things like the flu, colds, and even gangrene weren’t very high on his list of things to worry about anymore.

They ate their cans of food in silence after that, each to his own thoughts.  Tobias was thinking about supplies.  He wondered how well stocked the place they were going to was and how long it would all last.  It was a useless thought because he wouldn’t know until he got there, but he thought about it anyway.  If it were anything like Cender’s friend’s house, then it would be extremely well stocked and prepared.

He finished eating and wondered whether he should keep the can or not.  He couldn’t think of a use for an empty Zoodles can, so he tossed it.  Cender tossed his as well but it looked like Abby stashed hers away somewhere.  Well, if they needed one, they would have one.

They went through the car and repacked all the bags, making sure the correct things were in the correct bags according to the list.  Cender used a stubby pencil to correct the list with the items that were used since they had headed out.  They spent a good deal of time trying to remember how many shots had been fired at the pigs.

Tobias could barely remember the battle; it was all a blur.  It seemed like there had been hundreds of the demonic pigs, but in all likelihood, it was the same four or five pigs rushing at them over and over again.  The side of the Escape still bore several marks where the swine had slammed into it.  Cender had trapped himself inside the vehicle, shooting out through a window he opened, while Tobias had climbed on top.  The pigs couldn’t get to either of them, but they made sure to take out their frustration on the doors and bumpers.

Abby seemed to remember the whole event in perfect detail.  She could count the number of shots she had heard, and that was how they decided on the final number of bullets fired.  They also had to mark off the lost guns.  Tobias’s gun had gone missing during his tussle with Jessi; presumably, it had been kicked into the river.  Abby had lost hers during the fight with the pigs, and no one knew what happened to Cillian’s rifle.  They still had Cender’s though, and the pistols from the extra bags.  They were all still able to carry a firearm, for what it was worth.

Tobias looked down at the angry red wounds on his fingers.  Jessi had done more damage to the group with the knife than any one of them could’ve done with a gun.  Not only did they lose two members, but now there was unrest between them.  Tobias was sure that Abby didn’t trust him anymore and that could hurt them in the long run.  He was sad for her, having lost her friend, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t lost one too.  Then he remembered again that Abby was a lesbian.  Was it possible she had a thing for Jessi?  Was that why she was taking it so hard?

* * *

Once the bags were packed, they shifted them around so they could fold up one of the back seats again.  They didn’t bother to bring the whole thing back up, just the single seat on the passenger side.  Everything was piled next to it and in the back.

Tobias got into the driver’s seat, and Cender climbed back into the passenger seat.  Abby sat in the back.

“Everybody look for a gas station.”  Tobias said as he turned the key, fearing the engine wouldn’t start.  Either the car was built awesomely, or there was more gas left in the tank last night than he realized, because it came to life.  They drove slowly back to the road they had been following, never getting much higher than 30 km/h.  Tobias didn’t want to risk the car trying to kick into the gas mode more often than it needed to.  He was hoping to save what little was left in the tank.

“All right,” Cender finally spoke up after several minutes of silent driving.  “I’m bringing up the elephant in the car.”

“What?” Tobias frowned.

“Clearly you two are having some issues that need to be worked out,” Cender said.  “I’m hobbled and rely on both of you immensely.  If you’re at odds with each other, it’s not very good for me.”

Tobias just kept frowning, although he knew exactly what Cender was talking about.

“Toby, you go first.”  Cender had picked up the nickname, probably trying to bait him.

Tobias sighed but didn’t correct him.

“Come on,” Cender pushed.  “Air your grievances.

“I don’t have any grievances,” Tobias told him.  “Why don’t you ask Abby to air hers?”

“What?” Abby frowned at him from the back seat.  “I don’t have any grievances.”

“Seriously?” Cender frowned at them both.  “So neither of you have a problem with each other?”

“No,” They both spoke at the same time.

“What?” Tobias was confused.  “So you’re saying you have no problem with the fact that I killed Jessi?”

“What?  No,” Abby shook her head.  “She was trying to kill me.  You were just defending me.  I know that.”

“Then why are you acting all weird?”  Tobias looked at her in the rear-view.

“Because you’re acting weird,” she told him.  “I thought you had a problem with me because it’s my fault Cillian is dead.”

“What?”  There were a lot of ‘what’s’, going on in the car.  “That had nothing to do with you.  Jessi’s the one who stabbed him.”

“Yeah, because he defended me.  And because she thought I was flirting with him.”  Abby looked down at her hands, tears threatening her eyes again.  She really believed what she was saying.

“That’s not your fault,” Tobias shook his head.  “You had nothing to do with it.  Jessi just snapped is all.  We’ve all been under a lot of pressure, and apparently she couldn’t handle it.”

There was silence again for a moment.

“See?” Cender finally broke it again.  “Isn’t that better?  You’ve both been acting weird because you thought the other had a problem with you, and it turns out you were both wrong.  You’re both idiots.”

Tobias couldn’t help but chuckle somewhat at that last random line.  They were both being idiots.

“So, Abby.”  Cender turned in his seat to look at her,  “you’re a lesbian, huh?”

Tobias whacked Cender in the ribs with his arm.

“Ow, what?” Cender frowned at him.

Abby had turned bright red.  “Well, yeah.”

“Cool.  You got a girlfriend somewhere?”  Cender turned back to Abby, missing the dark look Tobias gave him.

“Last time I saw her was yesterday morning, in the city.  We had coffee in a café we like but I had a doctor’s appointment later, so she went to attend a make-up conference.”  Abby looked out the window, clearly worried.

“Sorry.”  Cender realized he should have known where that question might head.  “Is she hot?”

“Cender, really?” Tobias interjected again.  “You’re one of those guys who only care about what a girl looks like, aren’t you?”

“I’ll admit that, yes, the way a girl looks plays a massive part,” Cender laughed at himself.  “Personality does count though, especially in lasting relationships.”

“I can’t see you having a lasting relationship,” Tobias told him honestly.

“Ouch,” Cender frowned.  “For all you know, I’m in one right now.”

“True, but with your line of questioning, it seems unlikely to me,” Tobias pointed out.

“You’re right, I’m not.  But I could be, and that’s the point.  We don’t actually know all that much about each other.  We’ve been too busy running for our lives for that.”  Cender sighed.  “Like, did you know I’m worried about my parents and little sister in Toronto?”

“I’m worried about my family in Vancouver.”  Tobias hadn’t spent a great deal of time thinking about them, but they had crossed his mind from time to time.  There was no way for him to know if these things could reach that far.  They also seemed like they were a million miles away on another planet, in another life.

“My family is in Alberta.  They’re on a farm in the middle of nowhere.”  Abby didn’t actually sound all that concerned.  “I’m mostly worried about my girlfriend.  She’s likely still back in the city somewhere.  She never liked the radio.”

“Well I don’t have a girlfriend but I know what you mean,” Cender agreed.  “I have a lot of friends back there.  I also know quite a few who got bitten before we knew what this thing was.”

“Right, you must have seen several infected before anyone knew what the infected were,” Tobias realized.  “What did you guys think it was?”

“Some new street drug,” Cender shrugged.  “Some chemical driving them mad.”

“Cender, can I ask you a personal question?” Abby asked.

“Sure,” Cender nodded.  “In fact, I encourage it.  The better we know each other, the more likely we are to survive, I think.  Besides, I just asked you a lot of personal questions, so it’s only fair.”

“This woman we’re going to meet, you really like her, don’t you?” Abby asked seemingly out of the blue.

Cender chuckled slightly, but it had an almost nervous tone to it.  Tobias couldn’t believe it, but Abby was actually right.

“Yeah,” Cender finally admitted, his face becoming a slightly redder tint.  “I respect her a lot actually.  She’s my boss though, or teacher, kind of both really.”

“Did you ever tell her?” Abby wondered.

“No.  That kind of relationship is greatly frowned upon and she’s never shown any interest,” Cender sighed.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about the teacher-student thing now,” Tobias pointed out.

“And she did save your life out of everybody’s,” Abby also pointed out.

“Only because I happened to find her when she was about to steal an ambulance,” Cender laughed, but it sounded different than usual.  It was clearly meant to hide how he really felt about that.

“Are you going to tell her when we meet up with her?”  Tobias found this ‘no holds barred’ kind of questioning kind of interesting.

“If we meet up with her,” Cender reminded them all that nothing was certain.  “And maybe.  I don’t know.  I’ll have to judge her mood which can be difficult.”

Cender picked up Tobias’s camera, which had been sitting on some cup-holders.  He turned it on and pointed it at Tobias.

“So Toby, do you have a special girl?” Cender grinned behind the lens.

Tobias hated being on the filmed side of the camera.  “There was this one girl… something between us might have been going somewhere.  I guess I won’t know now.”

“What was her name?” Abby wondered.

“Katie.  Cender, will you put down my camera please?  This doesn’t need to be recorded.”  Tobias swiped a hand out to try to get him to lower it, but Cender dodged his half-assed attempt.

“Why not?  You recorded the pigs, right?”  Cender must have seen him with his camera through the moon roof.  “You record all the gross and actiony stuff.  Why not the quiet times in the car?”

“Because I’m not the one filming it,” Tobias actually laughed at his own expense.  “Seriously dude, I hate being filmed.  Could you put that down?”

“I will in a bit.  I just want to capture some more of this lovely sunrise.”  Cender actually filmed some of the scenery outside of the car.  “But at least now we’ve got one shot of you for posterity.”

Tobias didn’t tell him that Cillian had already recorded him attacking an old lady with an axe.  Not one of his finer moments, to say the least.

“Why have you been filming all the things that have been happening?” Abby asked.

“I don’t completely know,” Tobias shrugged.  “I feel safer looking through the lens.  It doesn’t feel like I’m actually there, you know?  Like it’s already happened.  And maybe because it represents some kind of hope to me.”

“What do you mean?” Abby frowned.

“If I record it, that means there’s going to be somebody left who will watch it.  It’s weird and really bad logic, I know,” Tobias laughed to himself again.  “There’s no guarantee anyone will be left after all of this, but it’s just the way filming makes me feel.  Something is filmed to be watched, therefore there must be someone to watch it.”

“Aw, how touching.”  Cender had turned the camera to him again.  “When the new world Oscars get established, you’re going to win every award, including acting.”

Tobias gave him the finger.

“And now you blew your chances.  Way to go,” Cender laughed.  He finally put down the camera and turned it off.

The car, which was still cruising in electric mode, quietly died.  They coasted down the road as far as they could until it came to a stop.

* * *

“I guess that’s that,” Tobias sighed.  “Looks like we’re hiking it from here.”

“Great,” Cender grumbled.

Everybody opened their doors and got out, Tobias grabbing his camera and slinging it over his neck as he went.  Abby dragged packs one through three out with her.

“You sure you can handle this?” she asked Cender as she helped him get his pack on.

“Do I really have a choice?” Cender retorted.  “We all have to carry our own weight, and in this case, that’s pretty literal.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have to do it with a broken leg,” Abby pointed out as she hiked her own bag up onto her shoulders.

“True, but I also don’t have to spend the trip listening to someone complain about having to carry a heavy bag with a broken leg.  I think our irritation levels will be even,” Cender joked.

Tobias picked up his bag.  The thing was immensely heavy, but he could handle it.  It was like carrying that camera bag that Lucas Jonas had made him carry.  That had felt like forever ago, but really, it had been less than twenty-four hours.  He adjusted the shoulder straps and did up the buckles in front.  At least the bag had been designed with long hikes and heavy equipment in mind, so it distributed the weight nicely.  He took one last look at the car and the other bags.  Then he turned and began walking.

They had separated from the caravan of cars sometime last night.  Although a few other vehicles had picked the same roads as they had, they were all gone for the moment.  Tobias walked down the centre line, Abby on his left and Cender, using his crutches, to the right.

He picked up his camera and started to film some of the scenery.  Cender did have a good idea about that, but Tobias saw it in a different light.  It was the emptiness, the stillness of the scenery that made him want to film it.

“Let’s play a question game,” Cender finally spoke up again.  He just couldn’t keep his mouth shut for more than five minutes, could he?  “We each get to ask a question, and everybody has to answer it truthfully.  Sound good?”

“Fine,” Tobias answered without emotion, still filming.

“Sure,” Abby agreed.

“All right,” Cender said happily.  “Who wants to go first?”

Tobias assumed that he had had a question in mind, but apparently he didn’t.  “I got one.  Cender, I don’t even know your name.  Is Cender your first or last name?”

“You missed the point.  We all have to answer the question and that was directed only at me.  How about we all state our full names then?” Cender decided.  “I’m Joshua Juliann Cender.”

“Joshua Juliann?” Abby laughed.

“Yup.  My parents are lovely folks,” Cender laughed as well.  “They like to call me JJ.”

“Well, I’m Abigail Margaret Walker,” Abby told them.  “Although, if you call me Abigail I’ll punch you in the nose.”

“That’s how I feel about being called Toby, but nobody seems to listen,” Tobias sighed.  “My full name is Tobias Mackenzie.  I don’t have a middle name.”

“Really?  I didn’t know people could not have middle names.  Huh.”  Abby was genuinely surprised.

“Of course he has one, it’s Toby,” Cender ribbed him.

Tobias just groaned.  Having Cillian call him that was bad enough.  And at least Cillian hadn’t talked nearly half as much as Cender seemed to.

“I’ve got a question, but it’s a little morbid,” Abby frowned to herself.

“Fire away, it’s just between us and the pavement,” Cender encouraged.

“I was just wondering, who was the first dead person you saw yesterday?” Abby asked quietly, sounding somewhat ashamed of her question.

“Lucas Jonas,” Tobias said without hesitation.  Odd that he had just been thinking of him.

“No way!” Cender said excitedly.  “You saw Lucas Jonas?”

“I told you I was filming at the concert, right?”  Tobias couldn’t remember exactly what he had told Cender when they met.

“Yeah,” Both Cender and Abby nodded.

“Well, it was him I was filming.”  Tobias tried to shrug, but the weight of his bag didn’t let his shoulders go far.  “He ran off into the crowd, and I had to follow him.  When I got to him, he was in the middle of this circle of chaos with an umbrella sticking out of his chest.”

“The umbrella wasn’t open, was it?” Cender asked.

“What?” Tobias frowned, pulling his eye away from the eyepiece to look at him.  “No.  You’d think that being a doctor you’d realize that the human body is tougher than an umbrella spring.”

“Okay, just wondering.”  Cender briefly let go of his crutches to put up his hands in a defensive posture.  “It could have been a really tough umbrella, like, a razor umbrella.  Or maybe it went so far through him it opened on the other end.  Being a doctor, I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit that I didn’t think was possible.  Oh, and as for your question Abby, I’m not sure who the first dead person I saw yesterday was.  If I remember right, we had some old guy come in who had an MI.”

“That’s a myocardial infarction, right?” Abby asked.  “A heart attack?”

“Look at you!  Watch a lot of medical shows?” Cender grinned.

“No, I just like to study things.  And I remember things really well, better than anyone I’ve ever met, actually.”

“Do you have an eidetic memory?” Cender sounded extremely interested.

“I never really looked into it, but I might,” Abby admitted.

“For the unintelligent here, what does an eidetic memory mean?”  Tobias had no idea what they were talking about.

“Most people refer to it as a photographic memory,” Cender told him, but clearly had no interest in talking to him at the moment.  He quickly turned his attention back to Abby.  “So, you can remember things in crazy amounts of detail?”

“That depends on what you mean by crazy amounts of detail,” Abby said.  “Like, I wouldn’t be able to tell you how many stalks of corn we’ve driven past.”

Tobias slowly faded out of the conversation, not actually all that interested.  Although it did sound somewhat fascinating, he didn’t understand half the words Cender and Abby were using.  Apparently, she was a bookworm.  Abby even walked around to the other side of Tobias so that she and Cender weren’t talking through him.

Tobias didn’t mind.  He was happy just to keep filming.  That was his perfect memory, whatever he caught on film.  As they walked, the landscape changed from fields to forest.  Tobias actually spotted and captured a deer on film as it wove its way through the trees.  It saw them, or rather heard Cender and Abby’s mumbo jumbo talk, and directed its path further into the woods.  As Tobias kept filming the trees, trying to pick out more wildlife, he saw a little house up ahead.  It had a large white truck parked in front of it that seemed vaguely familiar.

“Guys.”  Tobias had a bad feeling.  “Guys!” he said louder to get their attention.

They stopped and looked at him.

“There.”  He pointed ahead to what he was looking at.  “There’s a house with a weird white truck in front of it.”

“So?” Cender frowned.

“There were white trucks driving with the military guys.”  Abby did have a good memory.  Being in the backseat, they had barely been able to see the military convoy as it crossed their path.  They had to press themselves against the side windows to see around the cars ahead.

“Come on.”  Tobias headed for the trees.  He had a really bad feeling about this.  “Hurry up.”

They followed him to the tree line and let him drag them into the bushes.  He ducked down and encouraged them to do the same.  Cender had no problem taking a break from his crutches.

“Wait here.  I’m going to go closer,” Tobias whispered.  He shook out of his pack and headed toward the house.  He found a spot near the edge of the clearing it was in and resumed filming.

He couldn’t see anyone in the truck, but there was movement beyond the windows.  A lot of movement.  Suddenly he could hear barking as well, coming from inside, and then the sound of a shot being fired.  Tobias scrunched deeper into the protective brush and leaves.  It could easily be a zombie fight going on in there.

The door burst open with a loud bang and a big man in fatigues walked out.  He was carrying a German shepherd by its arm pits, the dog’s rear legs flopping and kicking pathetically at the air in front of it.  Following him came three other men.  It looked like they had someone between them, but Tobias couldn’t get a good look.  Whoever it was, was furious.  It looked like he or she was kicking and thrashing, and doing whatever he could to escape, but the men surrounding him were built like oxen.  The scrapper was yelling in some language Tobias had never heard before.

Both the dog and the fighter were tossed into the back of the truck.  A soldier followed them in and after about a minute, he popped back out and the rear doors were slammed shut.  Three of the men climbed into the front section.  The fourth was about to climb in when he stopped and looked around the area.  Tobias froze; he assumed this was how the deer felt when it noticed them coming down the road.

Finally, the big man turned and got into the truck as well.  The engine roared to life and the truck did a multi-point turn to face the road again.  As it did this, Tobias saw that the front bumper was covered in blood.  It then pulled out onto the road and drove away from him.

He waited several minutes to make sure the vehicle was completely gone before he headed back to the others.

“What happened?” Abby asked.

Tobias started to put his backpack back on.  He shook his head.  “I have absolutely no idea.”

37:

Cole

Mathias Cole bolted awake at the sound of a shrill scream.  The first thing he did was look over to where Danny slept.  He was still there.  Last night hadn’t been a dream; he really did find him.  Danny was awake now too, frightened awake like Mathias.  Then Mathias glanced around the rest of the room making sure the screamer wasn’t in there with them.  He saw LeBlanc already on his feet, rifle in hand.  McGregor, the man he had met last night, was shifting himself from his seat into his wheelchair.  Bishop had already gotten out of the front seat of the car she had slept in.  No screamer in sight, though.

“Where’s Alice?” Bishop asked, the first to notice the little girl’s disappearance.  She had already looked in the back seat.

“Alice!” McGregor called out, but there was no answer.

“The chain’s off the door.”  Danny pointed.  Was that a pistol he had pulled out?

Mathias got to his feet quickly and shouldered his own rifle.  He was closest to the sheet metal door and went closer now.  In his head, he swore up a blue storm aimed at little Alice.  If she went out on her own, she was going to get such a spanking.  That is, if she wasn’t the screamer herself.

He opened the door slowly, listening carefully.  He reminded himself that charging out into something unknown was how you got killed.  Most of his old army buddies had been killed that way.  He narrowly avoided death on several occasions himself.  Once the door was open wide enough, he stepped through it, rifle first.  The outer room looked clear, which was both a good sign and bad.  He had been somewhat hoping to find Alice sitting out there playing with her ponies.

As he thought about checking behind the desk, something brushed passed his leg.  He wheeled around, bringing his gun to bear, but it was just the dog.  What was its name again?  Socks or something?  The dog headed straight to the door, big nose snuffling at everything.  Mathias followed it.  As he did, he saw LeBlanc come out of the garage, following him.  He hoped the others would stay inside and watch out for Danny.

The hound made its way to the gas station, where it lay down and started woofing.  McGregor had told them the night before that this was what it did when it found a cadaver.  The hound’s signal, though, was unnecessary, as the slamming of bars drew their attention quickly.  A zombie had somehow gotten into the store and was now trying to get out through the security gate.  It rattled and shook the bars, which had the effect of slowly sliding the gate open, bit by bit.  Mathias looked at the blood around the zombie’s mouth and then on the bars.  He noticed it was about the height of a small child’s arm.

Even if they found the child now, things didn’t look good for her.

That pissed Mathias off.  He had just met Alice and couldn’t say he felt particularly bad about what happened, considering what had happened to so many others already.  But the fact was, it could just as easily have been Danny.  Danny was smart, but Mathias could actually think of a few reasons why Danny might have walked out here without telling him, and it could have been he they were looking for.

Mathias stepped over the dog, Shoes, that’s what its name was.  He stepped over Shoes and braced his rifle hard into his shoulder.  He fired off three quick rounds, unnecessary, as the first went through the zombie’s eye.  The second hit one of the bars of the gate and the third tore open its neck.  He was tempted to pump a few more rounds into it, but knew better than to waste more ammunition.

“You need to work on your aim,” LeBlanc muttered.  “You missed two shots.”

Mathias ignored him.  “Shoes, find Alice.  Go on.”  He booted the dog lightly in the butt.

The basset hound rose up on its short legs and placed its immense nose against the ground.  It waddled toward the woods, snuffling loudly as it went.  They all went a few steps into the trees when Shoes suddenly stopped.  He pulled his droopy ears forward as much as he could, listening to something neither Mathias nor LeBlanc could hear.  His ears pulled back then and he whined.  He shuffled back and forth and side to side several steps, whining some more.  He lay down and barked, then got up and shuffle-stepped some more.  When he suddenly peed, Mathias knew something was very wrong.  He looked at LeBlanc who nodded.  He understood as well.

Mathias didn’t know how to tell the dog to stay without using words.  He held up a hand to it, hoping that would do, then slowly went deeper into the woods.  LeBlanc matched his slow pace, keeping a few steps to his left and a few steps back.  Behind them, Shoes suddenly howled.  It was a long and very mournful sound.  Things really didn’t bode well for Alice now.  Still, Mathias had to check.

Last night, after Danny had gone to sleep, Alec McGregor had told them everything that had happened.  He told them that when he had met Danny, the younger Cole had been travelling with a different young girl.  The girl was older than Alice, but Danny seemed to be looking out for her.  McGregor told them about how the other girl had died, but how Danny had pressed on.  Apparently he had really been looking out for Alice as well, and that was how she had gotten her toy horses.  Danny would want to know what had happened and Mathias was going to make sure he had an answer.

A twig snapped behind him, and Mathias almost didn’t react quickly enough.  As the weight thumped onto his back, he swung an arm up and grabbed a handful of hair.  The little girl’s teeth snapped just under his ear, trying to bite his neck.  Mathias was using his fistful of hair to hold her head back.  He tried to pull her off, but her grip was like that of a determined jaguar.  She didn’t claw at him; she just kept snapping her teeth, her hot breath on his neck.  Mathias couldn’t help but think about how that meant she was still breathing.  One of the weird things about zombies was that, although they had no need for air, their lungs continued to take it in and push it out.  Not exactly the best thing to be thinking about when a five-year-old was trying to eat you alive.

“Not today, little one.”  LeBlanc had finally stepped up behind Mathias and grabbed the girl.  He pulled hard, yanking her off Mathias’s back.

Mathias turned and saw that LeBlanc was holding a little hell cat in a blue jean dress.  He had one arm around her waist and one around her neck forcing her mouth shut.  Her arms and legs flailed, both trying to free herself from LeBlanc and to attack Mathias.  LeBlanc slammed her face first into the ground, kneeling on her back and holding her head into the leaves with one hand.  His weight was more than enough to keep her pinned.  LeBlanc pulled out his pistol.  Mathias expected him to shoot the girl, then and there, but instead, he held it out to Mathias.  Mathias frowned, confused.

“Do it,” LeBlanc told him, no humour in his voice.

“Why don’t you?”  Mathias shook his head.

“Please, just do it.”  LeBlanc wouldn’t look at him.

Mathias took the pistol.  He knelt down and placed the gun against the back of Alice’s struggling little head.  He looked up again at LeBlanc who wouldn’t meet his eyes.  He fired the pistol.

The shot rang out loud and clear.  As it faded, another mournful howl rose up from the woods.  Shoes probably knew what had happened to his little girl.

* * *

Mathias rose to his feet and so did LeBlanc.  He handed LeBlanc back his pistol.

“What was that about?” he asked his friend.

“Nothing.”  LeBlanc holstered the pistol.

“Bullshit, nothing,” Mathias frowned at him, annoyed.  More than annoyed actually, he was kind of pissed.

“I’ll tell you later,” LeBlanc sighed.  “What are we going to do with her?  Do we take her back with us?  Let the others say good-bye?”

Mathias looked down at the girl in the jean dress with her white stockings and undershirt.  “I think it’s best that we don’t.”

LeBlanc looked down at her as well.  The hole in the back of her head spoke volumes.  He bent down and rolled her over onto her back.  She looked so much more peaceful than she had a minute ago.  LeBlanc placed her hands on her chest, almost as if in prayer, and straightened her hair neatly around her head, hiding the exit wound next to her left ear.  He got back up again and walked off.

Mathias followed, now more concerned than angry. His friend was acting very strangely, and he didn’t know why.

They found the hound again who had stopped howling and was sitting there looking mournful.

“Come on, Shoes.”  Mathias patted his leg as he walked past.

The dog didn’t move.

“Come on, boy,” Mathias tried to encourage the dog along, but it was having none of it.  He sighed.  “Give me a minute, LeBlanc.  I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” he grumbled to himself.

He headed back toward Alice’s body and patted his leg again.  This time, the dog followed.  Mathias led him to the girl.  The dog sniffed her prone form all over, gently licking her hands and face.

“She’s gone, boy,” Mathias told him.  “Time to go.”

The dog lay across his girl’s lap.

Mathias sighed again.  The hound had no intention of leaving her, and Mathias didn’t know if he should let it stay or make it come with him.  Shoes was useful, and it seemed that McGregor liked the dog.  Danny probably liked the dog too, on some level.

“Okay, you’re coming with me now.”  Mathias hauled the dog up in his arms.  He didn’t like having to carry the pooch as it meant he couldn’t hold his gun, but he hoped the dog would give him some sort of warning beforehand if they were attacked.

He carried the dog all the way back to the edge of the forest where LeBlanc was still waiting.  Mathias expected some sort of remark but got nothing.  Now he was really concerned.

He carried Shoes back into the mechanic’s office.  When he put him down, he stayed put.  Mathias knocked on the door three times.

“We’re coming in.”  He pushed on the door, which the others hadn’t chained back up.

Shoes instantly squeezed his way back inside.  Mathias opened the door wide enough for both him and LeBlanc, and walked through.  Bishop held her rifle pointed at the door while McGregor had a pistol up.

“Just us.”  Mathias waved them down.  He then closed the door behind him and started to chain it back up.

“Alice?” Danny asked Mathias, daring to be hopeful.

Mathias shook his head without turning to look at him.  If he had failed his brother already, he didn’t want to see it.

“All right then.”  McGregor sounded pain-free, but when Mathias looked at him, it was in his eyes.  He hadn’t been taking care of the girl for long, in terms of hours, but these hours were practically a lifetime.  Mathias knew; he had lived them too.

“What’s next?”  McGregor looked around the room.

“We keep moving on to my place,” Bishop said.

“In what?” Mathias asked.  “Our car isn’t safe enough to hold all of us.”

“How about this one, then?”  McGregor patted the car that Bishop and Alice had slept in.

“It’s in the shop.”  Bishop said what Mathias was thinking, only in a more snarky way.

“I fixed it.”  McGregor gave her a sarcastic smile.

“You fixed it?”  Danny looked confused.

“Yeah, I’m a mechanic.  It’s normally my job to fix cars.”  McGregor turned to him.

“A mechanic?” Danny was even more confused.  “I thought you were a soldier?”

“I was, but disability pay sucks ass,” McGregor laughed.  “No way in hell was I going to sit around doing nothing.  I worked for my brother-in-law in his shop.”

“Well I, for one, am glad you did,” Mathias told him.

“Well then, let’s go.”  Bishop carried her bag to the car’s trunk.

“Question.”  LeBlanc stepped forward.  “How do you plan on opening the garage door without electricity?  That beast looks motorized.”

“Fuck.”  Bishop put her bag back on the floor.

It was a very good question.  Mathias walked up to the door and looked at all the components.  He placed his hand on the door and pressed, trying to gauge how heavy it might be.  He would have liked to shake it, but that would make way too much noise.  There was a surprising amount of give to the door.  It was made out of a weaker material than it looked.  He reached down and wedged his fingers in between the rubber and the floor.  He pulled, but the door didn’t budge an inch.

“That thing ain’t moving.  Looks like we’re walking,” McGregor sighed.

Mathias wondered if he saw the irony in him saying that.  He kept looking at the door though.  Something that felt so flimsy shouldn’t have been that hard to lift.  Not even the support structure looked really that heavy.  And the door hadn’t budged an inch.  Mathias knew he wasn’t the strongest guy in the world, but he liked to think all the push-ups he’d done weren’t for nothing.  It didn’t feel like trying to lift a heavy object.  It felt like trying to lift an immobile object, like a house.  Finally, he saw it.

Part of the garage door’s lifting mechanism was actually holding it closed.  The door wouldn’t open, not because it was heavy, but because something was physically holding it shut.  It was like trying to lift a hockey puck that someone was standing on.  The puck itself wasn’t heavy, but the person on it was.  However, if you could remove that person…

“Hey, you said you’re a mechanic, right?  And we’re in a room full of tools.”  Mathias turned around, stopping everyone from shrugging into their packs.  “How long do you think it would take you to dismantle that?”  He pointed to the mechanism.

“Why would you want to-” McGregor cut himself off as it clicked with him what Mathias had figured out.  He grinned and put his pack down.  “With help, it shouldn’t take very long at all.”

“I’ll help.”  Danny hopped from his seat and walked over.  He was wearing an army helmet and a neutral expression.

“Where’d you get this?”  Mathias knocked on the top of the helmet as he walked by.

“Alec gave it to me,” Danny told him and smiled.  He clearly liked the helmet a lot.  It also looked like he wasn’t upset or mad with Mathias about what had happened to Alice.  It was impossible to say for sure how he was feeling about it, though.  He might just be putting on a brave face for him.  He would have to find a moment to talk to him when things quieted down.  Maybe when they got to Bishop’s place.

Mathias had a brief moment of heart sickness when he thought that McGregor was better for his brother than he was.  He hadn’t even been there when he was needed most; he was in a hole in the ground.  The thought passed, though.

Bishop also offered to help, and, with the three of them working closely together, there was no room for Mathias and LeBlanc.

“Hey, can you come with me for a moment?” LeBlanc whispered to him.

“Where are we going?” Mathias frowned.  There wasn’t really anywhere to go.

“Just to the employees’ lounge.”  LeBlanc started for the door, leaving his pack and rifle behind.  “I was going to tell you about what happened in the woods; it shouldn’t take long.”

Mathias was actually concerned that LeBlanc didn’t take his rifle.  Every time they had ever been issued one in the past, LeBlanc would never let it leave his sight.  Now, during the worst times, when it would be needed most, he left it behind.  He did have his pistol though.

“Danny, I’ll be right back okay?”  Mathias turned to tell his brother as LeBlanc left the room.

“Where are you going now?” Danny sounded worried.

Mathias realized he had probably been extremely worried for him when he had gone out to look for Alice.  “LeBlanc just wants to talk to me about something in the employees’ lounge.”

“Why?” Danny frowned.

“No idea,” Mathias shrugged, telling him the truth.  He would know soon enough though.

Danny nodded and Mathias shouldered his own rifle.  LeBlanc may not have taken his, but he wasn’t going to leave his own behind.  He went through the metal door once more and this time, headed to the employees’ lounge.  As soon as he stepped through the door, LeBlanc held his pistol out to him.  It was in the same manner as in the woods.

Mathias looked around the room.  “I don’t see any infected little girls.”  It was probably way too soon for a joke like that, but LeBlanc was starting to piss him off again.

“It’s for me,” LeBlanc told him, not meeting his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Mathias frowned.

“I’m infected,” LeBlanc said this without emotion, which was the weirdest part.

“No,” Mathias shook his head.  “No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”  LeBlanc looked up at him finally.  His face was dead serious.  “Back at Bishop’s place, when I went to back the ambulance up against the garage.”

He put the pistol down on the table and rolled up his sleeve.  There were clear teeth impressions there.

“It barely broke the skin, so I knew I had some time,” LeBlanc told him.  “I’m glad I got to see you reunited with your brother.  But now you have to do it.”

“No,” Mathias shook his head.  “You’re fine.  Even if you’re not, you should still have another day left.”

“I can’t risk it.  I don’t want to become one of those things, especially if it happens while I’m next to one of you guys.  I can feel it, Matty.  I can feel it spreading through me and into my brain.  I remember what they were like back at the White Box.  How savage and stupid they were.  I don’t want to be like that.  When I woke up this morning, hearing that scream, I wanted to check it out.  Not because I was worried about the screamer, but because I wanted to be there, I wanted to watch, to see the carnage.  It’s already affecting me.  I don’t want to be one of them.”

“Why me?”  It was hard, but Mathias tried to accept the facts his friend was telling him.  He knew from the beginning that this could happen.  “Why do I have to be the one?”

“Because you’re my friend,” LeBlanc laughed, but in a pained way.  He picked up the gun again and held the grip out toward Mathias once more.  “I can’t do it myself.  I thought about doing it while you were taking that dog to see the body.  I held the gun to my head and everything, but I couldn’t do it.  Someone else has to, and I’d rather it be a friend I’ve known for several years than someone I met in the last twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t want to do it.”  But Mathias took the gun anyway.  LeBlanc was one of his oldest friends.  When one got transferred, the other always ended up transferring not long after.

“Of course you don’t.”  This time LeBlanc really laughed.  “Why would you?  Why would anyone other than a pure psychopath?  I know I’m asking you the hardest thing in the world right now, and I’m being selfish not to do it myself.  Just do this one last thing for me, Matty.  Think of your brother if you must.  You don’t want me changing while I’m sitting next to him in the car, do you?”

Mathias shook his head.  He knew LeBlanc was using his weakness against him.

“Well then, let’s get it over with.”  LeBlanc stripped off his flack jacket, his gloves, even his belt.  He placed them in a pile on the table.  “You might be able to use those,” he explained.

Mathias took a shaky breath then raised the pistol to the height of LeBlanc’s head.  His hand shook badly.  LeBlanc stepped up to it, his forehead only a centimetre away from the barrel.  He closed his eyes.

“Don’t miss,” LeBlanc breathed out.

Mathias’s hand suddenly went steady as a rock, and he pulled the trigger.

* * *

LeBlanc’s head rocked back, a dark red hole suddenly appearing in his forehead.  His eyes half opened as his knees gave out, and he sank to the floor.  Mercifully, he landed on his back so that the exit wound wasn’t visible.  Mathias didn’t move.  Couldn’t move.  Couldn’t think.  Everything stopped.

The door burst open behind him.  Someone had come running because of the sound of the shot.  Probably Bishop.

“Cole,” she gasped.  It was Bishop.  “What did you do?”

Mathias managed to turn his head to look at her.  “He was infected,” he managed to get out.  His eyes were hot and stung; he hadn’t cried in years.  Not since his sister’s funeral.

Bishop had been pointing her rifle at him, but she lowered it now.

“He said he got infected just outside of your place,” Mathias told her, his own voice sounding strange and distant to him.  His vision was blurred from the tears.  “He lasted as long as he could.  He said he could feel it though.  He wanted me to do it.  He didn’t want to become one of them.”

Bishop then did something he didn’t expect.  She walked up to Mathias and wrapped her arms around him.  Mathias gave into her hug, wrapping his own arms around her and letting her take part of his weight.  He buried his face into her shoulder, suddenly overcome by heaving, racking sobs.  His mind couldn’t actually comprehend what his body was doing.  It was still detached from it all, wondering what the hell was going on.  What happened?  What was happening?

Finally, he regained control of himself and stepped away from Bishop.  He wouldn’t meet her eyes and turned his back to her.

“Those were his.”  He dropped the pistol onto LeBlanc’s gloves, belt, and jacket.  “He wanted us to have them.”

“Okay.”  Bishop’s voice was soft, in a way Mathias had never heard it.  She took all of the items off the table, including the pistol, and left the room.

Mathias looked down at his friend’s body.  He understood now why he couldn’t shoot Alice.  He sympathized with her too much.  He could see too much of himself in her.  That was sad.  That a mercenary could see so much of themself in a five-year-old little girl.

“Mathias?” Danny’s voice came from the doorway.

Mathias turned and tried to give him a smile.  “Hey, buddy.”

“You okay?”  Danny looked at the body.

“Yeah.  I’m okay.”  Mathias wasn’t, but a part of him could already tell he would be.  This wasn’t the first time he had to deal with death.  Not by a long shot.

“I saw a blanket-like thing in the shop if you want to cover him up,” Danny said.

Mathias thought of how LeBlanc had positioned Alice.  “Yeah.  I think that would be nice.”

Mathias went with Danny back into the shop, slinging an arm across his shoulders.  In the shop, McGregor didn’t spare him a glance, even though Bishop must have told him what happened.  He just kept working, which Mathias appreciated more than the look of concern Bishop gave him.  Seeing her worried about him made him worry.  Strange.

Danny found the blanket.  It was this scruffy thing that seemed to be made out of felt, but that was fine.  They carried it back to LeBlanc.  Mathias wouldn’t let Danny anywhere near the head due to the blood, but he allowed him to help shift LeBlanc’s legs into a better position.  Once he was roughly straightened out, Mathias unfolded the blanket and draped it over him.  His feet and hair still stuck out but that was all right.  The Cole brothers stood over the body a moment, then, at the same time, turned and left.

“I saw that you’re carrying around a pistol.”  Mathias mentioned to Danny as they entered the machine shop and started to chain up the door again.

“Uh, yeah.  I got it from that Bishop lady’s house,” Danny said nervously.

“I’m not mad,” Mathias told his brother.  “In fact, I’m glad you were smart enough to think to take it.  I’ll teach you how to shoot if this place we’re going to is as safe as I’ve been told.”

“Cool,” Danny smiled widely.  “But…  Would you mind if Alec taught me as well?  He was a sniper.”

Mathias gave an impressed whistle.  “A mechanic and a sniper.  You clearly fell into good hands.”  He said this loud enough for McGregor to hear him.  He would have to find the time to thank him properly, but he didn’t know how he could do that.  A simple thank you was not nearly enough.  He didn’t think anything would be good enough.

“A sniper?” Bishop raised an eyebrow at McGregor.  “You wouldn’t happen to have your rifle with you, would you?”

“It’s in my bag.”  McGregor gestured with a quick flick of his head.  He was focused solely on his task.

Bishop opened the rucksack and looked inside.  She laughed like a kid in a toy store as she pulled out the large gun.  Obviously, she knew more about it than Mathias did.  What an interesting pair for him and his brother to have fallen in with.

37:

McGregor

Alec McGregor dismantled the garage lift, piece by piece.  It was a stubborn bitch at times, but he kept at it.  This was something he could do.

He had not been having a good morning.  He awoke to Alice’s screams, and he could do nothing about it.  He couldn’t keep up with LeBlanc and Mathias as they went to investigate.  He couldn’t be there for her at the end.  He hoped the other boys handled it well.

He felt so stupid.  Someone should have been watching.  They discussed someone keeping guard in case a zombie got in, but they had decided that anything getting in would make a hell of a lot of noise.  They didn’t think about a five-year-old sneaking out.  He should have realized.  She clearly didn’t understand the danger.

Then, there was what had just happened with LeBlanc.  When they heard the gunshot, it terrified them.  It was unexpected, especially in its singularity.  Bishop had dashed out before him.  Again, he couldn’t keep up.  He did leave the shop that time, however, Danny sticking closely behind him.  They had found an odd sight.  Mathias appeared to be crying on Bishop’s shoulder, while LeBlanc’s dead body lay on the floor behind him.

At that point, Alec had quickly left.  It wasn’t his place to see such a thing.  His brother was one thing, but a total stranger?  Alec went back to work on the lift.  Bishop came in later and told him what Mathias had told her.  Alec understood the reasoning behind it.

LeBlanc did take the coward’s way out by not doing it himself, but he understood that too.  After his accident, there were a few times his own guns had looked mighty appealing, but he could never bring himself actually to do it.  Thinking it was one thing, doing it was another.  He briefly wondered if he could do it if he got infected.  Although it wasn’t like he would have to worry about hurting the others.  They would just have to stay out of arm’s reach, or roll him down a steep hill.

On the floor next to him, Shoes sighed loudly.  The dog had been following him around since he came back, looking like the saddest animal in the world.  The poor old guy was in mourning.  Alec leaned over, gave him a quick scratch behind a floppy ear, and then went back to work.

The lift was terribly rusted, and Alec had to scrape much of it off to get at the screws.  He enjoyed that part, though.  The scraping and prying was an excellent way to take out his frustration.

He felt like he was at war again.  People kept dying around him, but he couldn’t stop.  Others were counting on him to keep pushing forward.  They could all mourn the dead later, but for now, they had to keep on surviving.  Survival was all that mattered.  Alec may have lost one of his charges, but the other was still around.  His big brother had somehow shown up, but Alec didn’t know if he was the best one to be taking care of him.  He didn’t look like he knew how to.  Alec would probably have to look out for both of them on some level.

Bishop, though, she seemed capable of handling herself.  She wasn’t inhuman, registering the deaths around her, but she stayed solid and seemingly unfazed.  Alec wondered if that was because she was a survivalist or because she was a doctor.  Or maybe it was just some inner strength she had.  So far, she was coming across as a remarkable woman.

She also met Alec’s first criteria for a woman; she was good looking.  She had straight, white teeth, smooth skin, a small, slightly upturned nose, and well-defined eyes and cheekbones.  He had yet to determine the colour of her eyes as they seemed to shift depending on the light, and the light in the shop was terrible.  Her long brown hair was tied back into a French braid, and Alec wondered what it would look like in the sunlight.

He knew he spent too much time thinking about it.  Women were a weakness with him.  He had been doing really well until Bishop showed up.  He figured if he was going to die before they made it to the supposed safe grounds, it would be because of her.

* * *

There was a great clang as the last piece came unhinged.

“I believe we’re good to go,” Alec tossed aside the tools he had been using.

“Did you check that the engine starts?” Bishop asked, as she put his rifle back into his bag.  The sight of her holding that was probably going to stick in Alec’s head for a while.  Both because it was an unusual sight and because he had never met a woman so interested in his guns before.

“I couldn’t without risking waking the kids,” Alec told her.

Danny gave him an annoyed look.  He still didn’t seem to like being called a kid even though, since his brother’s return, he had basically regressed to one.

“Got the keys?” Mathias asked next.

“No, but they’re most likely on a pegboard somewhere nearby.  If not in here, then out in the office.”  Alec thumbed toward the metal door.

They all searched the shop, but the keys were nowhere to be found.  Eventually Mathias went out to look for them in the office.  He found them and quickly returned.

“Doesn’t look like there’s any more zombies out there right now,” Mathias commented heading toward the car.

“Doesn’t mean there aren’t any right outside that roll up,” Alec gestured to the garage door as he rolled over to the trunk.  He knew the engine would start.  He had fixed it himself.  He had been good at three things his whole life; shooting, fixing engines, and pleasing women.  Although that third one had taken a beating lately.

Mathias sat in the driver’s seat and put the key in.  He turned it over, and the engine roared to life.  At least it roared as well as a twelve-year-old car with a knock could roar.

“Wicked,” Danny grinned broadly.

“I’m driving,” Bishop ordered Mathias out of the driver’s seat.

“Yes, ma’am.”  Mathias popped the trunk first then climbed out.

Danny helped Alec bring the bags to the trunk.  “Is your chair going to fit in there with these?”

“I think one or two bags are going to have to sit in the back,” Alec sighed.  He was not looking forward to lifting himself up again.  His arms and legs both still ached from all the work they had done the day before.

“Hey, Mathias?”  Alec gave up trying to do it on his own.  “Can you help me get in the car?”

“Sure thing.”  Mathias walked over.  “What do you need me to do?”

Alec wheeled up to the front seat.  “Just give me a bit of a boost.”

Mathias grabbed his one arm and helped lift, while Alec used his other to pull himself onto the front seat.

“You must be having a hell of a time,” Bishop commented.

“Thanks for noticing,” Alec grumbled.

“Actually, I’m impressed,” she continued.  “A lot of people in your situation wouldn’t have made it nearly this far.”

Alec didn’t comment, but that did make him feel a little better.  Probably only because it was coming from her, though.

Mathias shut his door for him and walked his chair back to the trunk.  Alec watched in the rear-view mirror as Danny showed his big brother how to collapse it.  He clearly adored the guy and loved being able to show off some new knowledge.  Alec could see the resemblance in the boys.  Judging by Mathias, Danny had a good chance of growing up to be halfway decent looking.  Mathias wasn’t anything like movie star quality, but he had a face that wouldn’t scare anyone off either.  The bigger Cole even had some old acne scarring in the same place that little Cole was getting his.

They argued and debated about the best way to pack the trunk until Mathias played the ‘I’m older’ card.  They packed the trunk as best they could.  Danny’s backpack and Alec’s rucksack had to share the backseat with them.  Danny peeled Shoes up off the floor and sat down with him behind Bishop.  The dog grumbled.

“Everybody good to go?” Mathias asked, closing Danny’s door.

The other three in the car gave a thumbs up.

“Nobody needs to pee or anything?” he grinned.

Nobody said anything.  Alec had a feeling though, that about ten or twenty minutes out, they would need to pull over for a bathroom break.  Everyone just wanted to leave this place and fast.  Nothing good had happened here since the sun had come up.

Mathias walked up to the door and placed his ear against it.  He was listening for the sounds of zombies outside.  Smart guy.  Then he leaned down and grabbed hold of the rubber strip again.  The door lifted easily this time, but noisily.  Mathias quickly hurried back to the car and jumped in behind Alec.  As soon as his door was shut, Bishop pulled out of the garage.

“How are we on gas?” Mathias quickly asked before they could hit the road.

“Don’t worry, I checked,” Bishop waved off his concerns, “we have a full tank.”

“That still won’t get us all the way.”  Alec knew the distance.

“No, but I know where all the gas stations are between here and there, so we’ll be able to stop and get some before we run out.”  Bishop knew the distance better than he did.

“That’s why we ended up here last night,” Mathias added as he shifted the bags to get comfortable.  “We were running low on gas, and Bishop knew about this place.”

Alec nodded.  Then he had a thought.  “You call her by her last name too, huh?”

“I’m pretty sure she’d kill me if I used her first name,” Mathias sounded like he was only half joking.

“I don’t even know it.”  Alec looked over at Bishop, expecting her to tell him.

“What does it matter?” she clearly didn’t want to tell him.

“I think we should all use first names,” Alec told everyone in the car.  “First names are more personal, and we’re going to be hanging out with each other for what will probably be a long ass time.”

“Well, you all already know me as Danny,” the kid spoke up.

“Right,” Alec nodded.  “And you can call me Alec.  It makes me feel more buddy-like with you.  Less impersonal.”

“I guess I’ll start thinking of you as Alec too then, as opposed to McGregor,” Mathias agreed.

Alec looked at Bishop, waiting for her to say something.

She sighed heavily.  “Fine.  I’ll call you boys by your first names, and you can use mine.  It’s Riley.”

“I would have taken you for a Samantha,” Alec told her.

This actually caused Riley to laugh.  It was a surprisingly harsh sound.

* * *

They reached the highway and came to a screeching halt.  Riley quickly slammed the old car into reverse and began backing up the way they had come.  The highway was full of zombies.  The mob from the city must have trooped by, trailing a secondary mob of undead behind it.  Some of them spotted the vehicle and lurched after them.  The groans and shrieks they made alerted several others.  Soon a swarm was peeling off the highway after them, many running full speed.

“Hold on!” Riley shouted and spun the wheel hard.

Alec had just enough time to grab his armrest and the handle above the door before the car spun.  His hip was slammed painfully into the side of the door.

Riley seemed to be an expert driver as well as a doctor and a survivalist.  She slammed the stick back into drive, and they took off, flying away from the hoard.

Alec checked the mirrors, watching the crowd recede.  Soon enough, they were cruising past the gas station and mechanic’s shop again.

“I hope you know another way to get to your brother’s,” Mathias said, as he too, turned in his seat to watch behind them.

“I do, but it’s going to be a lot bumpier,” Bishop sighed.  “Alec, this car isn’t prone to overheating is it?”

“No idea,” Alec shrugged.

“Well, let’s hope it isn’t, I may have to push it pretty hard at times.”  Riley turned the car down a smaller road.  “What I wouldn’t give for four wheel drive right about now.”

The new roads were winding and in various states of upkeep.  Some were hard packed dirt, others gravel.  Some were two lanes wide, and another was so narrow the trees on either side brushed against the doors and roof of the car.

“I take it you wouldn’t find most of these roads on a map,” Alec commented as another branch scraped his side of the car.

“Nope,” Riley seemed rather calm as she drove.

“We’re not going to get lost are we?” Danny asked worriedly.

“We won’t get lost,” Riley assured him.  “I know these roads almost as well as the highway.”

“Why?”  Alec realized that was a very encompassing question with this woman.  There were a lot of ‘whys’ he had about her life.  He remembered what her house had looked liked.

“In case of an event where the highways were closed off and guarded,” Riley said it like it was nothing.

“Seriously, Riley is prepared for anything,” Mathias said.

Riley looked a little irked by the first name use, but didn’t say anything about it.

“Again, why?”  Alec thought it kind of insane.  Any other time it would be completely insane, but under the current circumstances, it was extremely useful.

Riley shrugged.  “People in my family have apparently always thought this day would come.  Maybe not zombies, specifically, but something.  Every situation you could think of has probably been thought up and planned for by my family.”

“Even aliens?” Danny asked.

“Yup,” Riley nodded, looking at him in the rear-view mirror.  “And not just aliens in general, but all kinds of aliens.  Locust-like types here to take our resources, enslavement types, body snatcher types.  Again, you name it, we Bishops have a plan.”

“What about sudden nuclear war?” Alec asked.

“Well, in my case, the plan is to kiss my ass good-bye,” Riley laughed again.  “My family was rather against me moving into the big city of Leighton.  Most world-ending stuff starts with cities.”

“So they would have thrown a shit fit if you moved to, say, Toronto,” Mathias said.  Alec could already picture his grin without having to see it.

“I wouldn’t be invited to Thanksgiving if I did that.  Leighton was as large as I could go,” Riley was also grinning.

“What if you went to New York?” Danny wondered, enjoying the conversation.

“Excommunicated.  They would deny my existence,” Riley sounded light hearted about this, but Alec also got the impression that she wasn’t lying.

“I don’t know, I think I’d opt out of your family’s Thanksgivings,” Mathias commented.

“Ah, but why?” Riley mocked sadness.  “Wouldn’t you want to be grilled on what to do if a tsunami was coming?  Or the Norwegians started invading from the north?”

“Not the normal dinner topics with your family then I take it?” Alec chuckled slightly.

“Not even close,” Riley shook her head.  “Don’t even think about telling someone how your day went unless it included news about the possible end of the world or some sweet bow hunting kill you made.”

“You know how to bow hunt?” Danny was amazed.

“You know, we’ll probably have to learn, right?”  Mathias turned to his brother.

“Cool.  Bet I’m better than you at it,” Danny challenged him.

“Ha, I doubt it.”  They really were brothers.

“I’ll probably kick both your butts.”  Alec looked over his shoulder.

“FUCK!” Riley suddenly screamed, startling everyone.

Alec didn’t have enough time to face forward again to find out what the screaming was for.  The car was suddenly skidding sideways.  It went off the road and down a steep drop.  Alec could feel the car threatening to tip over, to roll, but it slammed into a tree, rock, or something instead.  They came to a stop on an angle, Riley sitting considerably lower than him.  The window next to her was smashed from the impact.  They had hit a tree.

“Everyone okay?” Mathias asked from behind him.

“I’m okay,” Danny’s voiced trembled.  “Shoes seems okay too.”

“Riley, Alec?”  Mathias grabbed the back of Alec’s seat.  He needed the leverage to pull the bags off Danny, which had fallen on him.

“I’m okay.”  Riley checked herself over.

“What happened?”  Alec turned his head to look back at the road.

He quickly saw his answer.

Apparently, they had rounded a fairly sharp bend and almost smacked right into a large white truck.  Guys dressed up in gear very similar to Mathias’s and LeBlanc’s stood on the road with rifles pointed at them.  Keystone mercenaries, their personal soldiers.  Their faces were stone cold.

“Get out of the vehicle!” one of them ordered.

“Yeah, ’cause I planned to stay in this shit box,” Alec muttered and rolled his eyes.  “Mathias, you’ll probably have to be our liaison.  That tree seems to be blocking Riley and Danny from getting out, and I won’t be able to stand for very long on my own.”

Mathias nodded.  He was eyeing the soldiers suspiciously.  It was possible he even knew one or two of them.  He opened up his door and scrambled out onto the hill, arms raised high.

“Hey, guys,” Mathias said cheerfully.  “Lovely weather we’ve been having isn’t it?”

Alec watched the soldiers give each other strange glances.  They were probably confused by Mathias’s outfit.  One of them said something into a microphone attached to the side of his head, but he spoke too quietly for Alec to hear.  He attempted to read his lips, but he had never been very good at it.  His spotter, Nick, had always been the one to do it, if it needed doing.  That guy had a knack for it.

“How many in the car?” the man asked, glancing past Mathias.  He made brief eye contact with Alec.

“Three.  Four, if you’re including me, but I’m currently out of the car.”  Mathias was trying to keep the air light and friendly.

“Any infected?”

“I sure as hell hope not.”  Mathias was also being honest.  That was probably a good thing.  Alec really hoped he knew what he was doing.

“Get them out of the car,” the soldier ordered.

“That may take awhile,” Mathias told him.  “The man in the passenger seat uses a wheelchair.  Currently the driver is trapped between him and that lovely mature tree, and a kid, my brother, kind of had some heavy bags fall on him.  I was helping to free him when you ordered me out.”  Mathias had emphasized the words ‘kid’ and ‘my brother.’

“Just get them out,” the man ordered again,  “we’ll wait.  You can also take out any supplies you’re carrying.  Don’t worry, we aren’t going to steal them from you.”

Clearly these guys had dealt with other travelling survivors.  Promising not to separate them from their things was important in gaining trust.  Hopefully, they kept that promise.  Alec would see to it that at least one of them stopped breathing if they tried anything fishy.  He still had the combat knife he had used to kill the zombie trapped under his garage door.  There was sure to be some infected blood still on the blade.

“All right.”  Mathias looked at Alec, who nodded.

Alec opened his door and pushed.  It was hard to open uphill without being able to use his legs as leverage.  Mathias helped pull it open all the way.  He also helped Alec climb out, and set him down on the hill, sitting with his back against the front tire.

“You all right there?” Mathias whispered as he set him down.

Alec nodded and whispered back, “I’ll keep an eye on them while you help the others.”

The way Alec was sitting gave him a perfect view of the soldiers on the rim of the hill.  They had slackened their holds on their rifles somewhat, but Alec made sure they could see the pistol in his hand.

Mathias disappeared into the backseat, but it was only a short time later that Riley popped out of the front.  She had bits of safety glass in her hair but otherwise looked unhurt.  She and Alec exchanged a brief and subtle nod before she went to the trunk.  He listened, as she had to pry a bit to get it to open.  It had probably warped a little from the impact.  She then lifted the bags out and placed them against the rear tire where they wouldn’t slide off down the hill.

Alec’s bag came out through the back door then and was put in the same spot.  Danny’s backpack followed shortly after.  Then Shoes.

“You didn’t say anything about a dog,” the soldier who was doing all the communicating called down as Shoes made his way over to Alec.

“You don’t have something against dogs do you?” Mathias called back as he climbed out of the car, Danny following him.

The soldier made a show of irritated posturing, but said nothing about it.

All the packs were taken out of the back, and then finally, Alec’s wheelchair.  They didn’t bother to unfold it though, as there was no way it could be used on the steep slope.  Even those with working legs were having difficulty with it.  Alec had put Shoes on his lap to make sure the squat dog didn’t end up sliding away underneath the car.

He watched as the soldier with the microphone went up to the one who did all the talking.  They exchanged a few hushed words before microphone man walked off.  Orders coming through from higher up.  The one communicating with them didn’t look happy.

“We’re sending down a rope to help you up,” the soldier informed them.

It took a few moments, but sure enough, a rope came snaking down the hillside.  Handy knots were already in place.

“Do you need any help getting up?” Mathias asked Alec.

“I’ll be fine on my own.”  Alec put his pistol in his pocket.  He lifted Shoes off his lap and handed him to Danny.  Danny had managed to fish a small rope out of somewhere, probably Alec’s bag, and tied it to the dog’s collar.  It made a better leash than the string they had been using yesterday.  Alec realized he had no idea why Shoes had a string for a leash instead of a real one, and there was no one to ask.

He grabbed hold of the rope that had been lowered for them and started to pull himself along.  The hill was thankfully covered in dirt as opposed to rock, like some of the other hills in the area.  Dragging himself up, hand over hand, was therefore slightly less painful.  Dirtier though.  When he reached the top, the soldiers there bent down to help him over the edge.  They let go of him quickly and allowed him to watch the others climb up.

Riley came second, her bag on her back and dragging LeBlanc’s.  Danny was behind her wearing his own backpack, Shoes’s new leash in hand.  The dog climbed without the use of a rope, chuffing like a little train as he went.  Mathias had the hardest task.  Alec’s bag was slung across his back, while his own pack was hanging off his front.  He climbed the rope with one hand and dragged the wheelchair with the other.  His military training was shining through.

Alec also took a quick look around at the top of the hill, trying to get a feel for these guys.  Their truck was a large, white monster, so out of place on the back roads.  It was broken into two sections by a solid-looking yet flexible accordion-like piece.  The front section resembled a Hummer, while the longer back end was more like a tank.  It had no windows and only one pair of small doors in the rear.  All the tires were rough, off-road types, four on the front section, six on the back.  Alec figured the back section must be able to steer itself in some way, or else it would never have been able to navigate these roads.  There were six soldiers in total, or at least there appeared to be.  There could have been more that Alec couldn’t spot.

When Mathias finally reached the top, the soldiers quickly coiled up the rope and stashed it in a compartment on the side of the tank-like section.

* * *

“So what now?” Mathias asked, sitting to take a quick breather.

“Well, we’d like you to come with us.”  The lead solider motioned with his head to the truck.  They had all lowered their guns when the rope had been let down, but still held them in their hands.

“Oh yeah?”  Mathias raised his eyebrows.  “Last time I saw some of you guys, you tried to kill me with a flame-thrower.”

Danny suddenly looked worried.  Neither he nor Alec had heard that before.  In fact, Alec didn’t get much of a chance to ask exactly what had gone on with Keystone.  Last night he had only been told the part of the story that occurred after he and LeBlanc had run into Riley.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”  The soldier actually sounded like he meant it.  “There has been a split within Keystone.  Some of the higher ups are having some different ideas about what’s to be done.”

“And how do I know you’re not on the side that shot me?  You know, my chest still hurts from that.”  Mathias lightly patted his chest.

“You were shot?”  Danny sounded really worried now.

“It’s okay, kiddo,” Mathias quickly reassured him, placing a hand on his helmet.  “I had a vest on.  Just left a nasty bruise is all.”

Riley gave a side glance that suggested there was a little more to it than that, but didn’t say a thing.

“We’re trying to help people, not kill them,” the soldier said.  “We’re gathering as many people as we can, and we’re taking them to a safe place.”

“We’re already going to a safe place, thanks,” Riley told him.

“Places you may think are safe are not.”  The soldier had no idea about the Bishop plans.

“Believe me, this one is.”  Riley kept walking the line between being polite and being rude.

The soldier just looked at her.

“What will you do if we don’t go with you?”  Mathias asked the important question.

The soldier thought for a moment, probably thinking of the best way to phrase his words.  “In most cases, we would force you to come with us.”  The truth was a surprise.  It looked like it was a surprise to the other soldiers as well.  “I personally don’t think we’d be able to do that with you.  If you don’t want to come, we can’t make you.  At least, not without several casualties on both sides.”

Damn right, Alec thought.

“However, since your mode of transportation got destroyed, I don’t think you’ll make it out of these woods.  They’re crawling with zombies.  When that woman told everybody to go north, it meant the zombies were sent north as well.  All throughout the night they’ve been spreading.  Most of them are still congested on the highway, but they’ve been coming further and further into the woods in search of things to infect.  I don’t think you’ll get far.”

“That woman was named Chant.”  Mathias went cold.  “She was trying to save people.”

“I know,” the soldier nodded.  “She was very brave, I commend her.  She did what she thought was best, and that message likely saved a lot of lives.  You must have known her.  I’m sorry for your loss.  I do wish however, that she had left Marble Keystone’s name out of it as it is now making our job much tougher.  As you can imagine, we’re not getting a lot of trust.”

“Let us talk it over,” Mathias finally said.

“Sure.  Just don’t take too long.  The zombies are coming.”  The soldier stepped away and got the others to follow him so that they could talk in private.

“What do you guys think?”  Mathias turned to the group.

“I don’t know.”  Riley shook her head.

“Me neither,” Alec agreed.

Danny shrugged.

“What do you think, Shoes?”  Mathias looked at the dog.

Shoes looked up, hearing his name.  He wagged his tail once as Mathias looked down at him, probably hoping for a treat or a scratch behind the ears.

“I don’t know what that means, Shoes.”  Mathias kept a serious tone as he spoke to the dog.

“Whether we trust them or not, he has a point,” Riley said.  “Without a new ride we’re likely to become zombie lunch.”

“I say we go with them,” Alec decided.  “It’s not like we really have a choice.”

“Danny, you cool with that?”  Mathias looked at his brother.

“Did they really try to kill you with a flame-thrower?” Danny asked.

“Someone did, but not these guys specifically.  If they were, I would have shot first and not bothered with questions later.”  Mathias was honest again.  Alec liked that quality in him.  “I’ve never met these guys.  They probably worked in a different branch.  A lot of people from branches all over the world have been flooding in over the past week or so.”

Danny thought it over.  “Okay, we’ll go with them.”

Mathias nodded and turned to the soldiers.  “We’ve decided to hitch a ride.”  He spoke loud enough for them to hear.

The apparent leader of the group nodded and walked to the back of the truck.  “You’ll have to ride in back with me.  There’s not enough room up front.  Also, it’s safer back here.”

The back of the truck was opened.  Inside, the walls were thick, white metal, and the floor grey steel.  It was well-lit, and there were benches running along both sides.  Some cargo crates were piled up against the front end, but there was more than enough room for everyone and their stuff.

Mathias climbed in first, and Riley handed him all of their bags and Alec’s wheelchair.  He then hopped back out and helped Alec over.  The soldier offered to help as well, but Alec refused.  He got into the back of the truck and sat on a bench.  There were no seat belts, but there were straps on the wall he could hold onto if he wanted.  After the experiences Alec had been having with vehicles lately, he wished there were seatbelts.

Everyone climbed in and found seats along the benches.  The soldier they had been talking to climbed in behind them while another shut the door.  There were two bangs from the outside, and the soldier banged back.  They were ready to go.

“So, what are your names?” the solider asked.

“I’m Mathias Cole, this is my brother, Danny.” Mathias handled the introductions.  “That’s Bishop and that’s McGregor.  And the hairy one is Shoes.”

Mathias gave Alec a look.  He had introduced them by their last names on purpose.  He was letting them know that he was uncomfortable with these people.

“Good to meet you.”  The soldier nodded to each of them.  “I’m James Brenner.”

The engine roared to life, the vibrations of it easily felt through the benches.  Alec wondered if they were heading in the direction of Riley’s place, or if they were heading away from it.  Either way he felt like a fish in a fish bowl.  Trapped.

38:

Walker

Abby picked up a revolver off the floor and turned it over in her hands.  Tobias had told her and Cender about what he had seen, and Abby guessed that this was the room that the individual had been dragged out of.  It looked like there was one bullet missing from the revolver.  The shot Tobias had heard must have come from it.  She looked around the room but saw no blood.  The shooter had missed.  She then found the bullet hole high up in a wall.

“Find anything?” Cender asked as he showed up in the doorway.

Abby held up the gun so that he could see it.  “I think this is where he was taken from.  He fired off a shot but missed.”

“Why do you think they grabbed him?”  Cender came into the room and looked around as well.

They hadn’t waited long after the truck had left to explore the small cottage.  The room, like the rest of the place, wasn’t much.  The main feature was an old bed under a window.  Its quilts were now spilled across the room like the bed’s gutted entrails.  Abby didn’t like that metaphor but that’s how she saw it.  Next to the bed was a nightstand painted a faded green.  The green matched all the trim in the room.  On the nightstand was a lamp that had somehow managed to keep upright.  The green shade was knocked askew, and a third of the base was over the edge of the table.  Across the room from the bed was a dresser, again green.  Abby mentally referred to this room as the green room.  She imagined the owners of the place would have referred to it that way too.  There was also a blue room and a red room.  The kitchen had yellow accents while the bathroom was white.  Over all, the place was rather cosy.

“I don’t know.”  Abby shook her head, answering Cender’s question.  She had been asking herself that same question ever since Tobias had told them what he had seen.  She couldn’t think of any reason that made any real sense.  One of her ideas was that he had something to do with the outbreak, but this didn’t seem like the kind of place where someone like that would end up.  Another was that he was infected and they wanted him for study, but how could they have known he was infected if he hadn’t turned?  And of course, if he had turned, then the dog made no sense and neither did the gunshot or the shouting in a foreign language.  Tobias had shown them a little bit of what he had recorded, but neither Abby nor Cender could even identify what language it was, let alone understand it.  Cender was guessing Russian though, and it seemed right, but they had no way of knowing for sure.  Likewise, they had no real way of knowing for sure why those uniformed men had grabbed him.

“Find anything?”  Tobias asked the same question Cender had, as he entered the room.

“Just the gun that was fired.”  Abby showed it to him, then placed it on the nightstand.  They already had enough guns.  “Looks like they grabbed him from here while he was sleeping.”

Cender poked around the quilts with his crutches.  “What’s this?”  He lifted one of the blankets off something small and oddly coloured.

Abby walked over and picked up the object.  It was a glove.  A firefighter’s glove.  She remembered that Cillian had a pair.

“Holy shit.”  Tobias walked over and took the glove from her.  “You don’t think…”  He let his question trail off.

Abby shrugged.  “We don’t really know what happened to him.”  She knew what his question was despite the fact he hadn’t finished it.  She knew because she wanted to ask the same thing.

“He didn’t know Russian, did he?” Cender asked.

“I have no idea.”  Tobias kept turning the glove over in his hands as if it would tell him something new.  “I didn’t know that much about him, not really.”

“Maybe there’s something we missed on the tape,” Abby suggested.

“Yeah.”  Tobias walked out of the room and back to the kitchen.

Abby and Cender followed after him, the rubber tips on Cender’s crutches making a slightly squeaky sound on the hardwood floor.  They sat at the table and clustered up in front of the video camera.  On the table sat all of their bags, which they had decided to take off while they explored the cabin.  They were heavy, and it was nice to take a break from lugging them around.

Tobias took the camera from around his neck and held it out to where they could all see it.  He opened up the viewport on the side and turned the camera on.  He had to rewind the footage somewhat because he had filmed parts of the house but, soon enough, they were watching the man, or boy be dragged out of the cabin.  They couldn’t even tell his age.  The tiny screen offered only tiny detail.  As it ran through the images of soldiers manhandling him into the back of the truck, they didn’t see much.  The soldiers blocked just about everything.

“Run through it again,” Abby said.

Tobias rewound the film and played it once more.

“One more time.”  Abby thought she had seen something, but she wasn’t sure.

Once again, the film was played.

“Okay, one last time, but pause it when I tell you to,” Abby asked.

Tobias played the film a final time, finger poised on the pause button.

“Now!”  Abby saw what she had been looking for.

Tobias’s reaction time was spot on and he managed to pause the camera on one of the few frames Abby had wanted.

“See, right there.”  Abby pointed to a tiny section of the screen.

Tobias squinted and looked closer.  He then used the zoom on the camera to make that section larger.  There was a fairly clear shot where you could just see between two of the soldiers.  They could all see that the person they were hustling along was wearing a dirty, yellow firefighter’s jacket.

Tobias sighed.  “What do you think?  You think it could be him?”

“I don’t know,” Cender shook his head.  “That guy seems pretty lively for someone who got stabbed.”

“He may not have been stabbed very deeply,” Tobias pointed out.  “And terror does a really good job of making you forget your injuries.”  As if for emphasis, he placed his hand on his own wounded shoulder.

“And what would we do if we knew for sure it was him?”  Cender asked the most important question.

“I’d want to go after him,” Tobias told him.  “It may be stupid, but the guy saved my life.  More than once.”

“He saved my life too,” Abby nodded in agreement.  Cillian had saved her from Jessica.  No matter what Tobias or Cender said, his being stabbed still rested partly on Abby’s shoulders.  If he had lived, she needed to thank him somehow.

“And how do you intend to go after him, huh?” Cender raised an eyebrow.  “We have no mode of transportation other than our own feet.  And he could be miles away by now.”

“Well, they went the same way we plan on going,” Tobias reminded them.  “I think that if we happen to see them on the way, we should stop to investigate.”

“I think that’s a stupid plan.”  Cender frowned and looked at Abby.  “But I have a feeling I’m out-numbered here.”

Abby nodded.  She was on Tobias’s side on this one.  Even if it wasn’t Cillian, she still wanted to know what was going on.

“All right then,” Cender sighed.  “I guess we’ll stop.”

Tobias closed the camera and turned it off, slinging the strap back around his neck.  “Speaking of wheels, let’s see if there’s any around here.  If not, then we better get to walking again.”

They all rose from the table and picked up their bags.  Abby, once again, helped Cender to get his on.

“How’s your leg?” she asked as she clipped up the buckles for him.

“Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, but it could be worse,” he shrugged a shoulder.

“Why don’t you take a pain killer then?”  Abby knew they had some.

Cender shook his head.  “I don’t want to waste any.  Also, I don’t want my mind compromised at all right now.  I want to be completely clear-headed.”

“I don’t think being in pain makes you clear-headed, but if that’s what you want.”  Abby wasn’t going to fight him.  He was also a doctor after all.

They all headed outside.  It hadn’t been hard for them to get into the cabin because the front door had been smashed open.  It probably hadn’t taken much smashing, either.

“So do we split up or stick together?” Abby asked.  They had split inside, but she hoped they opted for sticking together out here.

“Umm.”  Tobias thought for a moment.  “We’ll work it like the parking garage.  We don’t have to be joined at the hip, but keep within easy visual and communication distance.”

“Okay.”  Abby could accept that plan.

They headed around the left side of the cabin first, the side they had approached it from.  Tobias went the deepest into the woods, while Cender stuck to the tree line.  It was hard for him to manoeuvre among the trees with his crutches.  Abby took up the space between the boys, making sure she could see both of them with ease.  They walked in a slow circle around the cabin, searching for… really anything.  A few times, Abby had to tell Tobias that he was wandering a little too far away.

Tobias was the first to find the dirt road, but Abby was the one to find the motorcycle.  She called out excitedly and they gathered around.  The excitement died off fairly quickly though.  They realized that there was no way for all of them to ride on it.  The motorcycle’s seat could hold only one person, same with the sidecar, and that wasn’t including all the gear they were lugging.

“I think I saw another dirt road to the right of the cabin,” Cender said once they agreed the bike was useless to them.  “Maybe there will be something else there?”

No one had high hopes for that as they headed over.  The dirt road he saw was more like a pair of ruts.  They followed it a short way and found a shed nestled in between some close-growing trees.  The shed had a padlock on the front and no windows.

“Do you think the key’s inside the cabin?” Tobias wondered aloud as he walked around the perimeter.  It was a lot deeper than it was wide.

“I’m sure it is.”  Abby turned the padlock sideways and slid the pair of doors as far apart as it would allow.  She pressed her eye to the gap and looked inside, but it was too dark to see anything.  “Can someone hand me their flashlight?”  She knew everyone’s bag had one, but hers was buried under a bunch of stuff.

“Yeah, I’ll get mine.”  Cender let go of a crutch and reached around behind him.  He tried to reach a particular pocket, but couldn’t.

“I’ll get it,” Abby smiled.

She opened the pocket he was trying to reach and pulled out the light.  It was the small kind that straps onto the head.  She went back over to the doors, flicked the light on, and peered inside.

The light revealed shapes but the narrow field of view still made it difficult to tell what they were.  Finally though, it clicked.  Abby laughed.

“What?  What is it?” Cender wondered.

“There’s a four wheeler in here.”  Abby turned to him, grinning.  “Even if it can’t hold all of us, it, plus the bike, will.”

“Nice!”  Tobias grinned widely.  “Too bad we lost the crowbar.”

During the pig fight, Cillian had grabbed the crowbar out of the SUV.  At some point, he must have lost it in the cornfields, and they hadn’t been able to find it.

“You guys wait here, I’m pretty sure I know where the keys are inside.”  Abby flicked the light’s strap, plunking it down on Tobias’s head, and jogged off toward the front of the house.

She was excited that they had a ride again.  She had been fit her whole life, but even she got weary of constantly walking with her heavy bag on her back.  The idea of having a ride made her bag seem much lighter.  Maybe God was looking out for her after all.

* * *

Abby had grown up in a religious household on a farm out west.  There, her belief in God was harshly tested.  She and her mother were the only girls in the household.  While her father and five brothers worked the farm, she had to help her mother with the cooking and the cleaning.  Of course, she and her mother also had to work the farm from time to time.  The test came when she realized she was a lesbian.  She realized it when she had no interest in the boys at high school but always felt really funny in the girls’ change room.  There was nothing in particular that made her the way she was, it was just who she was.  She feared telling her parents or any one of her brothers.  She wouldn’t even dare tell anyone at school.  Not only was she afraid of them ostracizing her, but also everybody knew everybody in that school, and her family was sure to find out.

She couldn’t keep it in forever, though.  One day, she finally decided to tell her mother.  It was summer, and they were cooking dinner for the men.  Abby had convinced her mother to take a break from cutting up the vegetables and had her sit at the table with her.  After she had told her mother, the woman had gone as white as a sheet.  She wouldn’t talk to Abby the rest of the night.

The next few days, nothing happened, other than that, her mother would only speak to her when necessary.  It was when they went to church that things went downhill.  Her mother told her to stay in the car.  Of course, all the boys were confused about this.  How was a good Christian supposed to be a good Christian if they didn’t go into the church?  Her mother then explained to them that Abigail Walker wasn’t a good Christian.  She had forsaken God and decided to become a heathen.  Abby, of course, protested this, but her mother would have none of it.  She told everyone what Abby had confided to her about herself.

Her father had been furious.  He spanked her, a girl of sixteen, in the parking lot of the church.  Much of the town went to church, and some of them saw this.  The news spread like wildfire.  Abby was then forced to sit in the car and think about what she had done, as if she had done anything.  Her father had always been the spanking type, but he hadn’t laid a hand on her since she was eleven, when she had broken her mother’s favourite vase.  Abby cried the whole time.

Her family never treated her the same after that, and they pressed their religion on her even harder.  She was allowed to go into the church, but everyone watched her carefully when she did.  It was as if they expected her to burst into flames or something.  Her mother kept wailing about how it was her fault, how she should have known, how she should have saved her child.  That’s how she saw what she was doing: saving her child.  Abby saw it as being permanently grounded.  She was never allowed to go anywhere except to school and church.  If her homework and house chores were done, she had to stay in her room and read the bible.  No one talked to her at school, and they all gave her strange looks.  She could hear them whispering behind her back sometimes.  The worst was changing for gym class.  The girls would pick on her and scream if she looked at them in any way.  They called her a pervert.  She started changing in one of the toilet stalls after that.

Only one of her brothers treated her like she wasn’t carrying an infectious disease, but he also didn’t treat her the same way he used to.  He thought it was something she would just get over one day, like a phase.  Whenever he had his male friends over, he would make sure to introduce them, probably hoping Abby would suddenly fall for one of them.  Needless to say, it never worked.  At least he didn’t cram the word of God down her throat.  How could Abby believe in God if he had made her this way and then punished her for it?

Abby got good grades and was able to go to a school of her choosing.  She picked one in Toronto for media studies and fled from her family.  Sometimes she wrote to her one brother, but otherwise, they never kept in touch.  She hadn’t seen them since she had left.

She wondered if their bibles and their prejudices would protect them from the zombies.  Probably not.

* * *

Abby found some keys hanging on hooks in a cupboard.  The cupboard was small and opposite the door, which was why she had assumed it held the keys.  She had been right.  None of the keys was labelled so she just took all of them.  First, she had instinctively tried to stick them in her pocket but then remembered she was wearing her nice pants.  Her nice pants were the pants she wore to interviews, meetings with important people, or in this case, a doctor’s visit.  They had pockets, but they were tiny and wouldn’t be able to hold all the keys without the risk of them popping out.  Shrugging out of her bag, she opened a side pocket and jammed them in next to the water bottle that was already in it.  She then zipped it back up, put the bag back on her back, and headed for the door.

As she stepped outside, she gasped.  A zombie was looking right at her.  It was a petite Asian woman whose lips had been torn off so that her lower face was all teeth.  She lowered her head and charged.

Abby turned and ran back into the house.  She slammed the door closed, but it didn’t close in time.  It hit the zombie woman and slowed her, but didn’t stop her.  Abby ran through the little cabin.  Both her gun and her field hockey stick were inaccessible.  The gun was in a pocket on her bag, and the stick was strapped to the side of it.  She cursed herself for not putting the gun in a more accessible place when she switched from bag four to bag two.

She ran into a bedroom, the red one.  She knew that this one was her best chance.  She slammed the door behind her and the instant it closed, the zombie woman smashed into it.  She started turning the knob, but Abby grabbed it and did her best to hold it still.  Abby leaned all her weight against the door, pressing the cheap lock button on the handle.

She had picked this room because she knew that behind the door was a bookshelf.  With the door locked, she quickly stopped leaning on it and went to the shelf.  The zombie kept slamming herself into the door; the lock wouldn’t hold long.  Abby grabbed the side of the shelf and pulled.  It wasn’t as heavy as she had hoped, but at least it wasn’t so heavy that she herself couldn’t move it.  The shelf toppled sideways and thumped into the door handle, which bent at a strange angle, but managed not to snap under the weight.  Eventually though, it would, and the shelf barricade wouldn’t hold much longer than that.

Abby quickly shrugged out of her backpack again.  If she had done up the front buckles before she walked out the door, she would have run out of time.  Once the bag was off, she threw it at the window, the weight of the bag shattering it.  She didn’t hesitate and followed her bag out the window, getting a nasty gash on her forearm in the process.

As she hit the ground, she heard the door to the bedroom burst open.  She abandoned the bag and took off running toward the others.  The zombie woman came flying out of the window behind her, running after her.  Abby saw Cender and Tobias ahead.

“Help!” she screamed at them.

Needlessly.  Tobias and Cender must have heard the glass shatter and had their guns out.  They both raised them, pointed in Abby’s direction.

“Down!” Tobias yelled.

Abby dropped.

Tobias and Cender opened fire.  Abby covered her head with her hands, although if their aim dropped to ground level, she doubted they could protect her.  She counted the shots.  There were five, three from one gun, two from the other, but she couldn’t tell which was which.  There was a thump on the ground behind her, and something touched her leg.  Abby kicked out and scrambled forward, unable even to scream from fright.  She looked back to see the zombie woman was down.  It just happened that when she had fallen, her hand had landed on Abby’s leg, but nothing was moving.  Abby couldn’t see the head shot wound at the angle she had fallen, but she was fine with that.

“You okay?”  Tobias ran over.  He helped her stand and noticed the wound on her arm.  “Go see Cender about that.”

Abby nodded and made her way over to the doctor.  She flinched when there was another gunshot from behind her.  Tobias had shot the zombie again, just to be certain.

* * *

“You all right?”  Cender mirrored Tobias’s question just like Tobias had mirrored his, back in the cabin.

“Yeah, but I got this nasty cut on my arm.”  She held it up so that Cender could see.

“Ouch.  Come on, I’ll put you back together.”  Cender led her over to a rock she could sit on while he patched her up.

As he put his gloves on and got out what he might need, Tobias walked over carrying Abby’s bag.

“I didn’t put a tear in it, did I?”  Abby had worried the glass might have shredded it open, making the bag useless.

“Doesn’t look like it.”  Tobias looked the bag over.  “But if there was anything breakable in there, I can’t vouch for its safety.”

“The keys are in that side pouch there, jammed in with the water bottle.”  Abby was surprised at how quickly she had moved on from the attack.  When it came, she was instantly afraid, running on instinct alone.  Now she felt completely normal again as if nothing had happened.  She wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Tobias found all the keys and tried each one in the lock.  Abby’s arm suddenly stung and she drew in a sharp breath.  Cender had put disinfectant on it without warning her.

“Do I need stitches?” she asked.

“I think you could get away without, but it might leave a nasty scar.”  Cender looked closely at the wound.  “You’re sort of in the grey area.”

“You would have to numb me up if I get stitches, right?”

“Yeah,” Cender nodded.

“Don’t bother then.  Bandage away.”  Abby wanted full use of her arm.  Now she kind of understood where Cender was coming from about the painkiller thing.

“All right.  There’s this kind of medical glue I’m going to use, just in case, and I’m going to keep a close eye on it.”  Cender picked out what he needed.  “If it keeps bleeding or I don’t like the look of how things are going, we’re resorting to needle and thread.”

“You’re the doctor,” Abby nodded.  She then smiled to herself.  She was wearing her doctor’s pants while she saw the doctor.  Apparently, some things never changed, even when the zombie apocalypse occurred.

“Got the lock open.”  Tobias held up the opened padlock triumphantly.  He slid open the doors revealing the blue and white four-wheeler inside.  “Anyone know how to drive this thing?”

“I can,” Abby told him.

“Seriously?”  Cender looked up from his ministrations.

“Yeah.  I can drive pretty much anything with wheels.”  Abby shrugged the shoulder of the arm that wasn’t being bandaged.  “I grew up on a farm; we all had to learn how to drive all sorts of things.  A four-wheeler is easy.  Heck, driving them around was a pastime.  I could drive them on my own by the time I was seven.”

“Awesome.”  Tobias disappeared into the shed to see what else was in there.

“All done.”  Cender released Abby’s arm, now with a clean white bandage from wrist to elbow.

Abby hadn’t realized just how dirty her shirt was until she saw that bandage next to it.  It was far from the white it had been when she put it on yesterday.  It even had some colour added now from her own blood.

She got up off the rock and joined Tobias in the shed.  “Anything interesting in here?”

“Actually, yes.”  Tobias held up a machete and a small hand axe.  “There’s also a trailer that I think goes with the four-wheeler.”

Abby walked around the side of the four-wheeler.  Behind it was indeed an open trailer.  It was an old metal thing of simple design, with a flat base and sides about a foot high all around.  The back end was higher; it was a metal mesh that could be lowered to make a ramp.  Abby guessed, by the bits of leftover debris, that it was used for hauling wood.

“If you don’t mind a bumpy ride, we can haul you and the bags along in this,” Abby told Tobias.

“That’s good, ’cause I have no idea how to drive a motorcycle,” Tobias admitted.  “I was willing to try though.”

“Hand me the keys.  I’ll see which one works with it.”  Abby held her hand out.

Tobias handed her the clump of keys and walked out of the shed.  Abby straddled the seat of the four-wheeler and started looking through them.  She found it rather easily because it looked different from the others.  She put it in the ignition and tried to start it up.  The engine wouldn’t catch.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Tobias’s voice came in from outside.

“It’s okay,” Abby called back.  “Its tank just needs to be filled is all.”  She got off the vehicle and looked around the shed.  On the bottom shelf on the right, there was a whole line of gas jugs.  She separated the empty ones from the full ones and got to work filling the tank.

“Tobias, do you feel a little emasculated right now?” Cender said loud enough for Abby to hear.

“Are you kidding me?  We don’t have to do any work, just enjoy a good thing.”  Tobias replied.

Abby couldn’t help but laugh.  She found the boys to be very entertaining.  Once the tank was full, she tried the ignition again.  This time the engine worked fine.  She rolled the four-wheeler out of the shed and turned off the engine again.  It was bigger than the one she used to drive out west, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.

“You want to do some manly work, Cender?  Help me attach the trailer then,” Abby quipped.

“Ah, you see I would, but my leg, you know,” Cender joked.  “I’m all laid up, can’t do any serious work.”

“I’ll help,” Tobias offered.

The two of them walked back into the shed and grabbed the trailer.  They pulled it out by the hitch and attached it to the four-wheeler.  While Tobias put their bags into it, Abby walked back into the shed and collected the jugs that still had gas in them.

“Cender, I’m attaching this axe to the side of your bag,” Tobias told him.

“But I want the machete.”  Cender put on an exaggerated pout.

“Too bad!  I found them, so I get to pick which one I want.  By the way, Abby, how long can this thing go without a refill?” Tobias wondered as he tried to organize all the stuff to fit into the trailer and still leave space for himself.

“I’m not sure.  I’ve never driven this model before,” Abby told him.  “And with the trailer, it’s hard to say.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”  Cender hobbled up next to the four-wheeler.  “How do I sit on this thing?”

“Just sit on that back end and hold onto these side bars just under the seat.”  Abby pointed them out.  “Once I’m on, you can hold onto my waist if you want.”

“I like the sound of that.”  Cender handed Tobias his crutches and got up on the four-wheeler.

Tobias climbed into the trailer and settled everything around him.

“You sure you’ll be okay back here?” Abby asked, helping to shift a few things.  He was sitting partly cross-legged with a bag packing him in on each side.  The third bag lay in front of him and the rest of the trailer contained the gas canisters.  The thought of siphoning the gas out of the motorcycle and into one of the empty jugs had crossed Abby’s mind earlier, but without knowing the mixture in it, she decided not to risk it.  They should have enough gas in the other jugs.

“I’ll be fine,” Tobias assured her.  “Just don’t go doing any rally racing stuff.”

Abby laughed.  “I’ll try not to.”

She checked the hitch one last time and then got on the four-wheeler.  She was surprised that Cender didn’t immediately wrap his arms around her.  He could actually be respectful at times.

She keyed the engine to life again and checked the mirrors out of habit.  Then she drove across the little clearing, going carefully so as not to be too rough on Tobias.  She had ridden in a trailer before; it could get really bumpy sometimes.  Once on the road though, she opened up the throttle some.  The smooth pavement allowed for a smoother ride.

“You okay?” Cender shouted back over his shoulder.

Abby used the mirrors to see Tobias’s thumbs up.  He almost looked like he was enjoying himself.

She didn’t get up to full speed, but she picked up the pace even more.  Tobias seemed fine with that.  In fact, he lifted up his camera and starting filming again.

“Make sure you get my good side!” Cender shouted back at him over the sound of the engine.

“Face forward then!” Tobias called back.

* * *

They drove down the winding and hilly road, now completely out of farm country, and into the woods.  Abby liked it better that way.  The farms reminded her too much of home.  Also, she didn’t want to run into any more pigs.  Abby had never seen pigs like that.  She guessed they must have somehow been infected.  Zombie pigs, how strange.

Abby was enjoying their ride immensely.  The day had been working up to a scorcher again and the walking had made her all sweaty.  Riding was creating a comfortable breeze.  The sky was blue, the air was fresh, the trees were in full green dress.  Then they drove past a body face down at the side of the road.

Abby sighed to herself.  Her wound was already getting itchy.  She wanted desperately to scratch at it but she knew that would be the worst thing to do.  She hoped the itching meant it was healing.

Cender suddenly tapped her on the shoulder, speaking in her ear, “Slow up a moment, stop.”

Abby stopped and checked her mirror, thinking it was Tobias.  Tobias seemed fine though, other than confused.

“What is it?” Abby asked Cender.

“There.”  Cender pointed.  “There’s a little bit of smoke coming up from over there.”

Abby looked.  Sure enough, some neat white puffs of smoke were rising up above the trees.

“It could be your white truck,” Cender suggested.

“I thought you were against the idea,” Tobias brought up.

Cender didn’t say anything.

“Let’s check it out then.”  Abby started them forward again.

They came across a fork in the road, and Abby chose the one that led toward the smoke.  She slowed as they neared it and rounded a corner.  The smoke was coming from the chimney of another cabin, this one much nicer than the one before.  The large, white truck sat parked in front of it, but none of the soldiers could be seen.  Abby stopped the four-wheeler.

“I don’t like this,” Cender said.

“Me neither.”  Abby went to turn them around, but halfway through the turn, two soldiers popped out of the brush on either side of the road, barring their retreat with rifles.  Abby looked forward again to see two more soldiers with guns.  They were trapped.

“Shit,” Cender said.

“Turn off the engine,” one of the soldiers ordered.

Abby obeyed.  She was scared of the large rifles.

“Get off and collect your things,” was the next order.

“Do you mind lowering your weapons?” Tobias asked as he climbed out of the trailer.  They acted as if they hadn’t heard him.

“Who the hell are you guys?” Cender asked the next question.  Again, they made no move.

Abby climbed off the four-wheeler.  She helped Cender off while Tobias got his crutches.  They all put their packs on their backs.  During this time, the soldiers all moved in closer.

“Is that everything?” one of them asked once they had their bags on their shoulders.

Abby nodded.  They decided to leave the gas cans behind.  She noticed Tobias was still filming but that they didn’t seem to care about it.  She took that as a bad sign, although why would they care?  The world order had changed in the last twenty-four hours.

“Head to the truck.”  A soldier gestured with his gun.

They walked toward it, the soldiers keeping a box position around them.  Their guns never wavered.

“Seriously guys, who the fuck are you?” Cender asked again angrily.  “And where are you taking us?”

“Give it up,” Tobias told him when they didn’t answer again.  “You can ask them questions until you’re blue in the face, and they won’t answer a single one of them.  They look like they’re trained not to.”

Cender didn’t bother with any more questions, trusting Tobias’s judgement.

Once they reached the truck, the back door was opened.

“Get in,” they were ordered.

Abby climbed in first, followed by Tobias.  Tobias helped Cender up.  Once they were all in, the heavy doors were shut and locked behind them.

Inside the cramped back were a few other people, all looking very frightened.  One of them was a young scrawny guy wearing a firefighter’s jacket.  His nose was bleeding.  He was also handcuffed to a handle on the side of the truck, a dog tied up and muzzled next to him.

The truck started moving with a jolt, and Abby nearly lost her feet.  Tobias caught her though.

“Hey.”  Cender went over and sat next to the guy in the handcuffs.  “You all right?”

The guy nodded but shifted as far away as he could.

“It’s all right,” Cender tried to comfort him.  “I’m a doctor, just let me take a look.”

The guy didn’t have much of a choice and didn’t bother to fight.

“It’s not broken,” Cender assessed his face.  “But you’re going to have some serious black eyes.”

“I saw them drag you in here,” Tobias told him.  “Is that how the rest of you ended up here?  Did they force you in here?”  He looked at the others in the back of the truck.

There were two women and one young boy.  The women nodded.

“They broke down the door and came charging in,” one woman told him.  “They just grabbed us and started shoving us toward this truck.”

“That’s what they do,” the handcuffed kid said.  “They take you whether you want to go or not.  I saw them in the city.  They shot a man that tried to run away.”

“Where are they taking us?” Abby asked, taking a seat.

The guy shrugged.

“Where did you get that jacket?” Tobias asked him.

He didn’t answer.

“Did you get it from a man?  A man named Cillian?” Tobias pressed.  “You don’t look like a firefighter but you’ve got their boots and jacket on.”

“Yeah,” the guy frowned,  “you knew him?”

“He was a friend travelling with us.  I’ll show you.”  Tobias gestured to the camera around his neck.

While he showed the guy the film, Abby introduced herself to the others.  “Hi, I’m Abby.”

“I’m Betty.”  The one who had spoken earlier introduced herself, but no hands were shaken.  No one knew if there was any infection in there.  “This is Georgia and the boy is Jean-Marc.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Abby nodded.  “That’s Tobias and that one is Cender.”

The women and the boy clearly had no interest in being friendly.  They shied away, grouping closely together.

“I’m Misha,” the cuffed guy said after seeing the video.  “And yeah, I definitely got these from your friend.”

“What happened to him?” Tobias spoke slowly, as if he didn’t really want to know.

“I found him washed up on the shore of some river,” Misha told them.  “He had been stabbed, once in the face and once in the gut.  He died.”

Tobias nodded and looked at his feet.

“Who’s the dog?” Abby asked attempting to lighten the mood, even though her gut clenched.  “He’s a little cutie.”  She leaned forward and patted the dog’s head.  His tail thumped on the floor.

“That’s Rifle.  I picked him up back in the city, and he’s been helping me out ever since.”  Misha smiled down at the dog.  He had clearly bonded with him.

“Where do you think we’re going?” Abby asked no one in particular.

“Nowhere good,” Misha grumbled.  “But when we get there, I’m going to find a way to take them out.  I’m not going without a fight.”

39:

Little Brother

Danny fidgeted with the straps of his backpack.  He didn’t like sitting in the back of the truck and it was obvious that no one else did either.  He sat at the front end, next to Mathias and across from Riley and Alec.  The soldier who said his name was James sat alone near the rear doors.

“So what were you doing out on that road?” Mathias asked James.

“Just out looking for survivors,” James answered.

“Seems like a random place to be looking,” Riley brought up.  “It was in the middle of nowhere.”

“We found you, didn’t we?” James retorted.

“Seems fishy if you ask me.”  Alec leaned his head back on the side of the truck, closing his eyes.

“Good thing no one asked you then.”  James rolled his own eyes.

“Hey, McGregor.”  Mathias turned to Alec with what Danny knew to be his shit-eating grin.  “What do you think about Keystone stumbling upon us in the woods?”

Alec grinned as well, then opened his eyes and leaned forward.  “Why Cole, I think it’s mighty fishy.”

Mathias smiled smugly at James.

“You guys should be more grateful,” James told them with a scowl.

“Grateful for what?” Riley scowled back.  Danny thought she was kind of scary when she did.  “Grateful that you caused us to go off the road?  That you could have killed us and destroyed our ride?  That you stopped us from getting to our destination and insisted we come to your supposedly safer location?”

“It is safer.”  James stuck to his guns.  Literally, actually, he still had his rifle in his hands.

“And how would you know how safe the place we were going to is?” Riley kept grilling him.

James stopped bothering to argue.  He seemed to focus on a point in the doors and decided to ignore them.

All the hostility made Danny feel uncomfortable, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it.  He went back to fidgeting with the backpack straps.

* * *

Shoes started pacing back and forth, chuffing and whining.

“What’s wrong with the dog?” James asked.

“I think he needs to pee.”  Danny may never have owned a dog, but it certainly looked to him like he needed to pee.

“Actually, I kind of have to go as well,” Riley spoke up.

“Likewise,” Mathias nodded.

James sighed in a very irritated manner.  He pressed a button on the wall next to him.

“Guys, we need to make a pit stop.  Pull over when it’s safe to do so.”  James didn’t speak toward anything in particular.

Danny looked around the truck’s interior, but he couldn’t see anything that looked like a microphone.  Other than the straps, the walls and ceiling of the truck were completely smooth surfaces.  The floor was made of tread plate so it was even less likely to be built in there.  Maybe it was in the seat near James, on the wall right next to him where his body blocked Danny’s line of sight.

They drove on a while longer with no indication that the guys in front had even heard them.  Shoes began to get really impatient.  He pawed at Alec’s leg, whining even louder.  Eventually he barked and the sound rebounded extra loud off the walls causing everybody to wince.

“You know, he’s going to start howling soon, and in here that could burst your ear drums,” Alec told James.

Danny wondered if that was true.  It seemed possible.

“We don’t know what’s out there.  There could be twenty zombies closing in on our position,” James explained, trying to be patient.  “They’ll stop when they know it’s clear.”

Just as he finished saying this, the truck came to a slow stop.  They all remained seated, waiting for James to open the doors.  He never did.  Eventually, another soldier opened them from outside.  Danny really hoped that didn’t mean that those doors couldn’t be opened from the inside.  He didn’t like the idea of being completely trapped with no way out.  What if something happened to the guys up front and no one came along to free them?

Shoes hurried to the open door and leaped out, his rope leash trailing through the air behind him.  Mathias and Riley both got up to follow after him.

“Do you need to go too?” Alec asked Danny.

“Do you?” Danny replied.

“It’s probably for the best we both go,” Alec suggested.  “I think James here might blow our heads off if we asked to stop again.”

James was not amused by that comment.  Danny was thinking Alec was probably right.

He helped Alec slide down the bench toward the door where he propped himself up against the tailgate.

“Watch your feet,” Danny heard Alec tell the soldiers as he unzipped his pants.

Danny walked away before that happened, finding his own spot along the side of the road.  He could hear Riley somewhere off in the bushes.  She was extremely angry with a soldier who would not leave her alone to do her business.  Danny thought that if that soldier didn’t leave her alone soon, he was going to get slugged.

He pulled down his shorts only as much as he needed to and tried to pee, but he couldn’t.  He had his own soldier standing right behind him, guarding him.  Despite the considerably full bladder, he just couldn’t go.

“Come on, Danny.”  Mathias walked past behind him.

“In a minute.”  Danny felt heat rush to his face.

“What’s the hold-up?” his brother asked, a small amount of concern in his voice.

“I can’t go while he’s watching,” Danny admitted.  It was creepy.

“This will go a lot faster if you turn around,” Mathias said.  Danny assumed it was to the soldier.

He heard a grunt and a shuffle.  He looked over his shoulder to see that the guard had turned, but now Mathias was standing there.

“You too,” he frowned.

“Right, sorry.”  Mathias threw up his hands in a defensive posture and turned.

It was still another minute, but eventually, Danny’s bladder released itself.  Once done, Danny quickly pulled his shorts back up and made sure his pistol was still jammed into his pocket.

“All right, get your asses back in, please,” James called from the back of the truck.  His attempts at a polite manner were getting worse every minute.

Everyone moved back towards the truck.  Alec had already hauled himself up inside.  Danny was about to climb in when he noticed someone was missing.

“Shoes!”  He turned around quickly to find the dog.

Shoes was sniffing at a tree near the side of the road, the rope lying on the ground next to him.  Danny ran over to grab him.

“Hey kid!  Get back here!” James yelled at him.

Danny didn’t care; he was going to grab Shoes.  He scooped the hound up in his arms.

There was a shriek from the forest ahead of him and Danny snapped his head up.  A zombie came charging at him.  Danny bolted for the truck, Shoes barely staying in his arms.

A solider was ready though, and put down the zombie with a single shot.  Another one came walking out of the woods.  Another shot put it down.  Then there were more and more shrieks and groans and howls from the trees, and even more shots from more soldiers.

Danny didn’t even have time to toss Shoes into the back before Mathias was hauling them both up inside.  As Danny lay panting on the floor, he looked back and saw a whole flood of zombies coming out of the trees.  The soldiers were putting them down with expert shots, but more and more just kept coming.  Danny wondered where the hell they could all be coming from.

One of the soldiers shut the doors as he made his way back toward the front of the truck, cutting off their view of the outside world.  Before the engine could be started up again, things began pounding on the back.  Danny remembered that trapped feeling.  He hoped the soldiers outside were okay.

At least one of them must have been, because they began moving forward once more.  The ruckus of banging continued along the sides, back, and even top of the truck for some time.  Danny didn’t move an inch until it stopped.  Behind him, neither did Mathias.  Eventually though, a general silence returned to the truck.  Mathias got to his feet and dragged Danny up with him.  They both returned to their seats without saying a word.

“You dropped this,” James got their attention.  He held out the pistol Danny had been keeping in his pocket.  It must have popped out when Mathias had dragged him up.

Danny hurried over, grabbed the pistol from him, and hurried back to his seat.

“I find it strange that you’re letting us keep our weapons despite the obvious hostility,” Mathias commented.

“Why would I try to take them?” James simply stated. “That would only create more hostility I would think.  Besides, we want you to be able to protect yourselves.  Again, we’re only trying to keep you safe.  Part of that means letting you keep yourselves safe.”

“But what if we decide that killing you will keep us safe?”  Mathias lifted his rifle up and pointed it at James.

James didn’t raise his own back.  He didn’t flinch.  He didn’t even twitch.  “Go ahead, but then you wouldn’t be able to get out of here.  There’s a camera in the corner.  See the glass bubble near the crates?  The guys up front can see what’s going on back here.  If I’m splattered and gooey, they don’t open the doors.”

“So we could be trapped in here?”  Danny’s fear had been proven.

“There’s an emergency exit that’s kept unlocked unless the guys up front decide to lock it.”  James gestured to the crates indicating it was behind them somewhere.  “Again, that would only happen if I were suddenly under duress.”

Danny still didn’t like it.  Although people had been helping him along the way, there had still been the option of running off on his own if he felt like it.  Take things into his own hands.  Right now, his life lay completely in the hands of people he didn’t know; people who didn’t even trust him to pee on his own.

Mathias finally lowered his rifle again, but did not look happy about it.

“We’ll be there shortly.”  James leaned back and closed his eyes.  “I suggest you get some rest if you can.”

No one did.  While James sat back, looking like he might be asleep, Alec took his GPS out of his pocket.  He and Riley looked at it, muttering quietly to each other.  Danny couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he guessed that they were trying to figure out where they might be going.

The ride was long, quiet, and dull.  Shoes got up and wandered around the truck a few times, but never with that insistent look he had before.  He didn’t bark or whine at anything or anyone.  Just sniffed.

Danny looked at the crates next to him, trying to figure out what was in them.  They were all labelled with letter and number combinations that made no sense to him.  Mathias probably knew what they meant, or at least some of them, but asking would take the occupational therapy out of it.  It was something to do.

Next to him, Mathias did nothing as far as Danny could tell.  Danny didn’t know how he could stand it, just sitting there.  Usually when they went on long trips, like when they moved, he would be driving while Danny played a Gameboy.  They would also have the radio on, tuned to whatever rock station they could find.  Both of them liked rock, especially the classic stuff.  They were both known to start belting out tunes at the tops of their lungs if the mood struck them.  Danny missed those car rides; driving in the middle of nowhere, just the two of them.  They would stop to eat junky fast food whenever they needed to, or braved gas station bathrooms if that’s what was called for.

In contrast, this ride sucked.  It sucked hard.  Not only was Danny trapped in the bland, white truck, he was also trapped with his thoughts.  He couldn’t stop thinking about everything that had happened: Emma, the dog Tugg, Nelly.  The run-away car, the zombie being trapped by the garage, the zombie in the window.  Michelle’s head being blown off in front of him.  Walter, Kara, Alice, all dead.  Even LeBlanc.  He also thought about those whose outcome he didn’t know: Luca, Beth, Holly, Joan, both John with an H and Jon without.  He thought about his online friends too.  This had probably spread to their parts of the world or was at least on the way.  The world suddenly felt like a much bigger place.  Bigger, emptier, and a hell of a lot more dangerous.

Danny still had his big brother though, and that counted for something.  That counted for a lot actually.

* * *

The ride suddenly got bumpier and there was banging all around the sides of the truck.  It was similar to when the zombies swarmed them earlier; they were probably being swarmed again.  Although, it seemed that this time they were running over a few as well.  The truck came to a halt before the zombie attack stopped.  Danny was about to have a panic attack when they heard the sounds of gunfire outside.  Everyone looked at each other nervously.  Except James, who seemed oddly calm.  Eventually the banging stopped, and shortly afterward, so did the gunfire.  The truck moved forward again, but stopped once more only a moment later.

“We’re here,” James told them, setting their minds both a little less and a little more on edge.

They waited nearly a full minute before the back doors were opened.  Danny knew, he had counted.  It took fifty-six seconds.

James hopped out and looked in at them.  “Get your stuff.”

The four of them set to unloading their things from the truck.  Danny was the last one out, taking it upon himself to shove the bags to where the others could reach them, so he didn’t get to see where they were.

Finally, after helping Alec get out and into his chair, Danny put his backpack on and got out of the truck.  He looked around to see an unpleasant sight.  They appeared to be in a prison yard.

All around were chain link fences, with high stone walls beyond them.  Workers were on top of the walls, welding something to them, probably making them even harder to get over.  All of them had rifles with them.  In the centre of the fencing was a big stone complex with bars in the windows.  A large sign read North Leighton Correctional Facility.  People moved around inside, but it was hard to make them out.  In one corner stood a large tower.  Several people walked around the top section of it.  They looked like they had very powerful guns, like Alec’s.

“Move out of the way,” James ushered them to the side.

The truck started up again and began to back up.  James was the only soldier from the truck who stayed with them.  The truck backed up through a pair of large steel doors.  Looking through the doors, Danny could see another perimeter wall, which also had big steel doors.  Between the two sets of doors, the ground was littered with corpses, which were riddled with bullets.  A pair of squat towers sat to either side, with three men in each who packed some serious firepower; here was the source of the bullets.  There certainly were a lot of guns in this place.

The truck backed over the bodies as if they were nothing, torsos and skulls being squished and popped.  It stopped between the two sets of doors and the inner ones began to close.  Everybody watched silently.  Once they shut, they could hear the outer doors begin to open, followed by the screaming of some zombies.  Danny flinched.

“Don’t worry, they can’t get in,” James assured them.  “Come on, we need to get you processed.”

“Processed?” Mathias frowned.

“Well, we like to know about everybody here.”  James led them to a door in a chain link fence.  “And we can’t just take your word that you’re not infected.”

“There’s no decontamination protocol, is there?” Mathias frowned some more.

James laughed.  “No.  That’s only for the big underground facility.”

They walked down what was essentially a hallway made of chain link fencing.  Mathias walked next to James up ahead, but Danny grabbed hold of the handles on Alec’s wheelchair again.  Riley walked next to him holding Shoes’s rope leash.  The dog tried to sniff at everything.

“I don’t like it here,” Danny whispered to Alec and Riley.

“I agree with you, kid,” Alec nodded.

“These walls can only keep people safe for so long,” Riley shook her head.  “They’ll eventually come through, and this place will be a prison again.”

“How are we going to get out?” Danny wondered.

“I don’t know,” Riley shook her head again.

Alec said nothing.

Danny scrunched up closer to them as they neared the building’s entrance.  It was a plain-looking, metal door.  James knocked on it twice and waited roughly five seconds, then he knocked again.  The door swung open, and an old and very serious-looking man stood there.  He looked each of them up and down and then stood aside.  James walked past him without a word and the others followed.  Danny looked at the old man as they passed.  The man simply looked back and shut the door.  Soon they turned a corner, and he was out of sight.  It was all rather strange.

They entered a room that had a glassed-in guard’s station across from them and two doors on either side.  There were several folding chairs here, like a waiting room.  Another soldier sat in the guard station.  He only glanced up at them once, then looked back down at something he was reading.

“Bishop, you can go straight through there.”  James pointed to the door on the left.  “That’s where we examine the girls.  Don’t worry; you’ll see the guys on the other side.”

“Who says I’m worried?” Riley scowled at him and went through the door.

“She’s a feisty one,” James said to no one in particular.  “Now, we can only examine two at a time so one of you will have to wait.  Oh, and the dog.  The dog counts as one; he’ll need to be examined too.”

“Why don’t the Coles go first?” Alec offered.  “I’ll take Shoes in with me.”

“Sure.  Come on, Danny.”  Mathias led the way.

Through the door was a hallway, which led to several rooms.  They tried the first one and guessed it was right because it looked like a medical set-up.

“Stay close,” Mathias said out of the side of his mouth.

Danny grabbed his hand.  He hadn’t held Mathias’s hand since he was a little kid but he felt no shame in doing so now.  Mathias didn’t seem to mind either.

A short, overweight man walked over to them.  He was followed by an equally short but much thinner man who carried a clipboard.

“Welcome to Paradise,” the fat man grumbled.  His voice sounded very nasally, like one of the teachers Danny had a few years back.

“You pick the name?” Mathias raised an eyebrow.

“No,” the fat man said in all seriousness.  “Let’s start the examination.  Each of you sit on a cot.”

They were led over to a pair of cots, and they each sat upon one.  The thin man was about to close a curtain between them when Mathias stopped him.

“No, it’s all right.  We’re brothers.”  Mathias looked to Danny, who nodded his head in agreement.

The thin man shrugged and left the curtain open.

“What are your names?” the thin man asked.  He had small glasses, which he peered over when he spoke to them.

“Mathias Cole, and he’s Danny Cole,” he answered for both of them.

The thin man wrote this down.  “And you said you were brothers.”  This wasn’t a question, he spoke to himself as he made note of that.  “Any other surviving relations with you?”

“No,” Mathias shook his head.

“I assume I don’t need to bother asking for your occupations.”  The man was observant enough to notice the patches on Mathias’s clothes and that Danny was too young.  “Have you been bitten?”

“No.”

“Spit or bled on?”

“No, we’re not infected,” Mathias sighed rolling his eyes.

The man peered over his glasses at him.  Then he wrote down something else.

Danny found an odd sort of humour in this.  He tried not to giggle but it was hard, especially when it looked like Mathias was trying to do the same.

“You’ll have to take off your clothes so we can examine you ourselves,” the fat one told them.

“How thorough is your examination?”  Mathias was trying to keep a straight face but it wasn’t working.  This, of course, made it even harder for Danny who couldn’t keep the stupid grin off his face.  Just what did they both find so amusing?  He didn’t even know.

“Thorough,” the man frowned.  He was clearly very annoyed.

The Cole brothers did as they were told, but they were in giggle fits nearly the whole time, despite the awkwardness of the examination.  It was hard to answer the men’s questions through their laughter.  This annoyed and confused the two short men, which for some reason made it all the funnier.

* * *

“You can put your clothes back on,” the fat man commanded them.  He was the more irritable of the two.

The Coles did so as the thin man wheeled over an instrument tray.

“Whoa, what is that?”  Mathias tried to get serious again and only partly succeeded.

“We need to take a sample of your blood to test for infection.”  The thin man showed him the needle for blood collection and pointed to a pair of microscopes in the corner.

“Oh, okay.”  Mathias’s smile returned.

Danny personally hated needles.  Mathias handled it fine, used to getting a lot of booster shots for his job, but Danny couldn’t even look.  He kept his head turned as the needle was stuck into the crux of his elbow, his face scrunching up.

“Hold Mr. Ears with your free hand,” Mathias suggested.  “That’s what I did until I got used to needles.”

Danny took his advice, taking Mr. Ears out of his pocket and holding him on his knee.  He was a very silly-looking elephant, made out of a patchwork of colours.

“Did you know that he was made by your great, great grandma?” Mathias told him.

“No,” Danny shook his head.  He had no idea how Mr. Ears had come to be.

“Yup.  She made him during World War I apparently, and he’s been passed down the family line.”

Danny didn’t know if what Mathias was telling him was true or whether he was just saying it to take his mind off the blood draw, but he liked to think it was.  It was a nice thought to have something from so far back.  Like a piece of history.  Knowing this, made his world more settled.  He hadn’t realized just how much it was spinning until then.  The future may be uncertain, but the past would remain the same.  This was just another chapter in the history of the world.  It had survived many things, and would survive this.  This strange little elephant in his hand was a testimony to that fact.

Finally, the blood draws were done, and the short men went off to the corner to look at them.

“Thank you,” Danny told his brother.

“You’re welcome,” Mathias shrugged a shoulder.

“No, I mean thank you for everything,” Danny reiterated.  “You did a lot for me, for a long time.  I wouldn’t be who I am today without you.”

“Right back at you little brother.”  Mathias learned forward and scuffed his hair.  It was already a disaster on his head and that didn’t help.  “You forgot to put this on when you got dressed.”  Mathias scooped up the helmet and plunked it down on Danny’s head.  “By the way, where’d you get the dog tags?”

Danny picked up the tags around his neck and looked at them.  “From Alec.  They were his spotter’s apparently.  Supposedly they’re lucky.”

“I suppose they would have to be if we managed to get here together.”  Mathias laughed.  Danny didn’t.  He couldn’t help but think of Alice and how she thought that quartz rock she found was lucky.  It wasn’t, at least not for her.

The thin man walked over once more.  “It appears you are clear of infection.”

“I told you.”  Mathias stood up.

“Not yet.”  The man held up a hand so Mathias sat back down with a sigh.

“You need a shot first.”  The fat man came over with a pair of needles.

“Hell no!”  Mathias shot to his feet once more, stepping over to Danny.  “Neither of us are getting shots.”

“It’s simply to help keep you from getting sick.”  The thin man frowned and looked somewhat confused.

“We’ll deal with the sickness, thanks,” Mathias continued to refuse.

The fat one took a step closer, but Mathias grabbed his pistol out of its holster and aimed it at him.

“One more step and you get a shot of your own.”  All the humour that Mathias had had in him earlier was completely gone.  Danny had never seen him so cold before.  He had never seen him threaten anyone.

“All right, all right.”  The thin man stepped back, encouraging the fat man to do the same.  “No more needles then.”

“We still have to go through your stuff though,” the fat man grumbled as he put the syringes down.  “We need to keep track of what’s in here.”

“Fine.”  Mathias lowered his pistol but didn’t holster it.

Danny and Mathias watched as the two men went through everything they owned, keeping a close eye to make sure they didn’t pilfer any of it.  It was odd to think of it that way, that these bags were literally all they owned.  Danny suddenly respected the homeless people he had seen on the streets.  All they had was with them, in a bag or shopping cart, or whatever.  He understood how defensive you could get about it too.  Danny was carrying quite a few of the medical supplies, having no idea what most were for, but if one vial or bottle went missing, he might get violent to get it back.  Mathias would definitely get violent to get it back.

It briefly crossed Danny’s mind, that he was glad he left the pilfered skin magazine in the mechanic’s shop.  If Mathias saw it, he would have been embarrassed.  He had also thought about bringing one of Alice’s horses, but decided that they should stay there.  They were the closest thing she would get to a grave marker.  Although as far as Danny knew, she didn’t even have a grave.

Eventually the inspection ended, and they repacked their bags.  They loaded up and headed back out the door they had first come through.  From there, they didn’t really know where to go, so they went forward down the hall.  They ended up in a cafeteria where they found Riley sitting at a table.  Danny wondered where they would have ended up if it turned out one of them was infected.

Lots of other people were in the cafeteria, but Riley sat alone, near the door they had come through, eating some sort of paste-like substance from a tube.  It was probably from her own bag, as she didn’t have a tray in front of her like everyone else did.  Danny and Mathias sat down at the little table with her.  The metal folding chairs scraped loudly against the floor, causing Danny to look around the room.  No one paid attention to them though; it sounded like their chairs scraped loudly as well.

“How’d it go for you?” Riley asked.

“He had sweaty hands,” Mathias joked.  They had worn gloves.

“Gross,” Riley commented without any emotion.

“Did you take the shot?” Mathias asked her.

“No, and I’m assuming you weren’t bone-headed enough to take it, either,” Riley told them.  “If you need any shots, I’ll be the one to administer them.”

“That sounds unpleasant,” Mathias frowned.  “You’d probably stick me in the ass deliberately.”

Riley laughed.

Danny kept looking from one to the other.  He had never seen his brother interact with a woman before; he never brought any home when they had lived together.  He didn’t think his brother was celibate or anything.  It was just something that had never crossed his mind.  He wondered if his behaviour around Riley was normal or if she got special treatment.

* * *

While they waited for Alec and Shoes, they got to talking about the others in the room.  Some of them looked like them: recently brought in, nervous, huddled in groups.  Others looked relaxed, clearly having settled in better.  They guessed that those were probably Keystone employees.  Danny noticed a few other kids around, some younger, some older.

Finally, Alec wheeled up next to their table, Shoes sleeping in his lap.  “Fuckers wanted to give me a shot.”

“I guess that answers that question,” Riley half smiled.

“I told them if they stuck that needle in me or Shoes, I was going to stick one up their asses.”  Alec was pretty pissed.

“I bet they loved that,” Mathias laughed.  “Tell me, did you get the fat, gropey one?”

“Guy’s got fingers like sausages.”  Alec shuddered.

This caused everyone to burst out laughing, and that time they did draw the attention of some others in the room.

“You should’ve seen how he reacted to my legs,” Alec told them.  “He didn’t know what the hell to think or how to proceed with his examination.”

“I guess there’s a lot of scar tissue then?”  Riley didn’t know why Alec was in the chair.

“Yeah, shredded by bullets,” Alec gave her the really quick version. “So what now?”

“Well.”  Mathias leaned forward in a very conspiratorial way.  “Now we plan our great escape.”

40:

Jovovich

Misha paced his little cell, back and forth, back and forth.  Rifle sat in a corner watching him, his skunk hanging out of his mouth.

When Misha had been grabbed from the cabin, his first reaction was to go for the revolver.  He managed to grab it and fire off a shot, but he missed terribly.  That just pissed off his kidnappers.  He had been knocked to the ground, and the revolver taken from him.  That was when he realized he was badly out-numbered and out-muscled.  When he saw Rifle’s skunk toy, he grabbed it to himself on instinct.  He then curled up to protect himself as he got pummelled.  His attackers didn’t say much, but they said enough for Misha to figure out they were friends with the soldier who had chased him the other day, the one who had gotten killed.  That thing he saw must have been a camera, or the person in the bubble suit gave an accurate description.  Maybe one of them had been the man in the bubble suit.

Rifle had tried valiantly to protect Misha, standing over his body, snarling and barking, biting at anyone who got too close.  One managed to get a hand on Rifle’s harness, scoop him up into his arms, and carry him away.  It was then that Misha feared the worst for his bratishka.  When he himself got hauled up, he started fighting and screaming his fool head off.  He was pretty sure he was yelling in his native tongue at that point, but he couldn’t actually remember that part so well.  He just remembered being sick with worry for his furry friend.

Then his terribly bruised and beaten body had been locked up in that ugly, white truck, with Rifle muzzled and chained next to him.  He was okay though, and didn’t look hurt.  Misha had managed to hold onto the skunk while he struggled and dropped it on the bench for Rifle.  Due to the muzzle, Rifle couldn’t clamp his jaws on it, so he settled for resting his big head on Misha’s lap.  Misha would have scratched his ears if he could, but his restrained limbs wouldn’t let him.

They had turned off the inside lights and shut the outer doors, plunging Misha into complete darkness.  He could only listen to the rumbling sound of the engine, which was, of course, no comfort.  When Rifle whined, Misha had started talking to him.  He told the dog inconsequential things, sometimes in Russian but mostly in English.  He figured that if Rifle could understand any human words, they were likely to be all English words.  He told the dog about home, both here in Canada and back in Russia.  He told him about his family and how they worked hard to get him through school.  He had no idea why they wanted him to go to school outside the country but he didn’t argue.  He didn’t mind getting as far away as possible.  Not that he had bad parents or anything; they could just be very smothering at times.  He talked about his classes and how all of them were pretty much useless at the present moment.  He had been going to school for metalworking, of all things.  After another year, he would have graduated.  Then, he would have signed up for a special, one year program for underwater welding.  Misha loved to dive.  Now, none of the knowledge he had learned would likely ever be useful.  He wasn’t upset about this, though.  He felt oddly free.

Well, except for the fact that he was handcuffed in the back of a truck.  In the dark.  With no idea where he was going.  When the truck did stop, and the engine was turned off, Misha listened closely.  He could barely hear anything through the truck’s thick sides, just some muffled noise that was impossible to identify.  He knew when the doors were about to open though, because Rifle lifted up his head.  Even so, the light blinded him when they were opened.  Two women and a young boy climbed in, looking frightened.

“It’s all right,” one of the soldiers had told them,  “he’s not one of the infected.  He just panicked a little, and we had to restrain him.  He won’t hurt you.”

“Igoon.”  Misha called him liar and wanted to spit on him.  Unfortunately, he was too far away and he risked hitting the others who were innocent.  Although, he sort of wanted to spit on them, too.  They had more of a choice than he did, and they had chosen to get in the truck.

“Sir, I hear something coming.  An engine,” another soldier told the first.

“Stay inside,” the soldier told the women and child.  “You’ll be safe in there.”

This time, when they had closed the doors, they left the lights on.  It didn’t take too much longer for them to open the doors once more, and three more people got in.  They were a lot friendlier than the first three.  One of them was actually a doctor.  Although Misha didn’t trust them at first, he discovered that they had been travelling with Cillian, which took him by surprise.  He was sorry to be the one to tell them he had died, although they were able to fill in the back story about why it had happened.  Apparently, another member of their party had gone insane.  Insane with a knife no less.  Misha was very glad he had decided to travel with no one but a dog.  People just brought trouble.

They also filled him in on the whole infection deal.  Misha had laughed at first, but no one else had.  Apparently, there had been some sort of radio broadcast about it that he had missed.  At least now he knew that the map in his pocket had been the right thing to follow.  Still though, zombies?  Dear god, he was in a bad horror film.

Thinking of film, one of them, Tobias was his name, filmed a lot, apparently.  He showed some footage to Misha, which was how they confirmed they knew the same Cillian.  It was weird for Misha to see him alive.  Alive and without a vicious wound slicing open half his face and caking it in blood.  He was also surprised to find out they had filmed his abduction.

Tobias and the two that had come with him, Cender and Abby, were interested in getting to know everyone in the truck.  Misha answered their direct questions, but he had none of his own.  He didn’t really care much for making friends; he had a feeling nothing good was going to happen to them soon.  The two women and the child had no interest in them at all.  One of them was polite enough to give their names, but that was basically it.  They barely even talked amongst themselves.

When they reached their destination, the doors in the back opened and several soldiers made them get out.  Well, made the others get out.  They had to come in and unlock Misha and Rifle.  Misha was dragged out, hands still cuffed together.  Tobias, Cender, and Abby stuck up for him, but that didn’t do squat.  They still shoved him around.  Misha knew they wouldn’t listen.  They were pissed off and blaming him for what happened to that other soldier.  The man had chased Misha through the streets with a gun; it wasn’t his fault he ended up getting eaten by a… well, a zombie, if Misha was going to go with the idea.

The women and child went willingly and were treated much nicer.  Even Tobias, Cender, and Abby were treated nicer despite their many verbal protests.  They were led away from Misha.

“What do we do about this one?” one of the soldiers had asked another.  “He’s clearly not going to go through inspection without a fight.”

Misha grinned internally because he had been right.  He would bite them if necessary, risk of infection or not.

“Put him and the dog in a cell,” the superior office had told him very nonchalantly.  “We’ll wait a week and if he hasn’t turned, then he isn’t infected.”

* * *

So now Misha was in a cell, pacing back and forth.  He wondered what was going to happen once the week was up.  He had no window and through the bars, he could only see into the empty cell across from him.  He could see the fronts of other cells, but not really into them.  He assumed they were empty.  If there were the same amount of cells on his side as on the other, there were ten cells total, five per side.  At one end was the door he had been dragged through, a big metal thing with extra locks on it.  On the other end was a large and heavily barred window, which provided Misha with enough light to see by.

He sighed and sat on the little cot.  It didn’t even have a pillow or a sheet.  Rifle looked at him and squeezed his skunk, so Misha reached over and scratched his ears.

“What are we going to do when you have to poop?” Misha asked the dog.

He himself had been given a bucket.  Apparently, the toilet in there wasn’t working.  He had no problem with the bucket, but he was fairly certain Rifle wasn’t trained to use one.

Rifle circled a spot on the floor and lay down with a huff.  He placed his toy down next to him.

“I hope they bring us some food soon.”  Misha lay back on the dingy cot.  “I’m starving, and I’m sure you are too.”

The soldiers had said they would feed him, but he had no idea how often this would occur.  He assumed they would continue to treat him as badly as they had been and spit in his food.  He was hungry enough not to care.

He sat up and took his boots off.  They were still damp inside, and his feet could use some airing out.  Carefully, he unwrapped the bandages.  They had become soggy and clung to his feet, which still looked raw, but at least they were clean.  Taking off the firefighter’s jacket, he saw that it had mostly dried, but a little bit of dampness still clung to it.  He hung it across the useless toilet bowl.  Misha lay back down on the cot and stared at the ceiling, wondering how he was going to get out of here.  He had never expected he’d have to one day attempt a jailbreak, and yet, here he was.

Rifle suddenly stood up and trotted to the cell’s front, drawing Misha out of his planning.  He rolled off his cot and walked up to the bars just as the door at the end of the hall opened up.  A soldier walked in, leading Tobias, Cender, and Abby.  Two other soldiers trailed behind them.  The first soldier opened the cell next to Misha’s without giving him a glance.  He directed Cender into it and locked him in.  He then opened the cell across from Misha and put Tobias in there, then Abby went into the one next to him.  The soldiers said nothing; they just left.  The outer door clanged a hollow and ominous sound.

“Hi, Misha.”  Tobias waved from his cell.

“What are you guys doing here?” Misha had to admit to his curiosity.

“Well, you know my broken leg?” Cender spoke from the cell next to his.  “Apparently, for their examination they wanted the cast taken off, which isn’t going to happen.  Even they don’t want to go through the trouble of recasting it, so they decided I needed to go into quarantine for a week.”

“We told them we weren’t going to separate from him, so they stuck us in here too.”  Tobias shrugged out of a large backpack and placed it on the floor.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a key in there, by any chance, would you?” Misha asked sarcastically as he turned from his cell’s front and lay back down on his cot.

“Sorry,” Tobias laughed.  “You don’t have any supplies?”

“Do you see anything in here that could be classified as supplies?”  Misha gestured with one of his scrawny arms around the cell.  He knew Tobias could see him.

“When was the last time you ate?” Tobias asked, sounding almost concerned.

“Let’s see, what time is it?” Misha kept up the sarcasm.  “That would be, sometime yesterday.”

Tobias didn’t answer, but Misha heard some rustling.  Something rattled across the floor and hit the bottom of his cell’s bars.  He lifted his head and looked.  There was a tin can sitting there.  He didn’t think, he just scrambled over and grabbed it.  It was a tin of fruit that had a pull tab on top to open it.  He yanked open the tin and started to devour the delicious and juicy fruit inside.  It wasn’t until he was licking the tin clean, that he realized he should have offered a piece to Rifle.  He felt badly for temporarily forgetting about the dog.

“Here.”  More stuff came skittering across the way as Tobias threw more things.

Misha reached through the bars and scooped them up.  There were four power bars, two granola bars, another fruit tin, and something called an MRE.  Misha started to gobble them down, thinking of nothing but filling his stomach.  He split the power bars, granola bars, and ‘Meal Ready to Eat’ 50/50 with Rifle, who wolfed his share down faster than Misha could.  Misha held a piece of fruit up to Rifle who sniffed at it.  The dog licked the fruit, but decided he didn’t want it.  Misha ate it despite the dog’s lick.  He ate the rest of the fruit one piece at a time, always offering it to Rifle first.  Rifle though, had no interest in it.  However, when he was given the tin full of juice, he quickly licked it up.  He was probably thirsty.

“Thank you for the food.  You wouldn’t have some water you’re willing to share, would you?” Misha turned and asked Tobias.  He knew he was being selfish, but at the moment, his stomach was more in control than his mind.

Tobias had been filming him, which was a little unsettling, but he reached down and pulled out a water bottle.  He rolled it across the floor.  Misha cracked it open and took a swallow.  He then poured half the bottle into the still clean bucket for Rifle to drink.  Both of them drank every drop.

* * *

Once the impromptu meal was over, Misha gathered up the litter and stored it in a corner with the bandages.  He doubted they would have a use, but just in case, he would keep them on hand.  He looked back at Tobias again.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?” Tobias gave him a confused look.

“Give me your food.”  Misha sat cross legged on the floor in front of the bars.  He could just make out the girl, Abby, sitting in front of hers.

“I don’t know.”  Tobias also sat down.  “I guess ’cause you were with Cillian when he died.  He saved my life, you know.  I would never have made it without him.  I would have gotten munched not long after the outbreak happened.”

“He saved my life too,” Abby chimed in.

“I don’t think he saved mine.”  Cender must also have been sitting against the bars judging by the location of his voice.  “I feel left out.”

“So, because you feel like you owe him, you’re helping me?”  Misha didn’t understand that.

“I guess,” Tobias shrugged.

“Whatever, I’m not going to complain.”  They were helping him, which was more than anyone had done so far.  Well, except for Rifle.  And, he guessed, maybe the addle-minded woman, but she had no idea who he was or what was going on.  He wondered if she had been taken to this place.

“Did you see anyone on your way in here?”  Misha hadn’t had the opportunity to look around.  He was just hustled quickly through a cellblock and shoved into this offshoot.  His large captors blocked off most of the view.

“Not really,” Tobias shook his head.  “I caught sight of a few people milling around, but most of the people I’ve seen so far have been soldiers.  Well, Keystone mercs, I guess would be a more accurate term.”

“It seems like there aren’t enough people here,” Misha voiced aloud.  “When I saw those trucks in the city, there were a lot of them.  They were going door to door, grabbing everyone out of their homes.  They even had these guys in these bubble suits.”

“We saw some in the city, remember?” Abby spoke to the other guys.  “When we were in the limo, before that flood of infected swept over us.”

“There must be other places set up like this,” Tobias suggested.

“Or they killed off a bunch of people,” Misha muttered.

“Why would they do that?” Abby asked him.

“I don’t know, but they had no problem gunning down a man who didn’t want to go with them.”  That was an image Misha’s mind would hold onto for a while.  Possibly for life.  “Did you get a good look at what they were doing to the outer walls?  I saw some welding equipment but I didn’t get a good enough look to see what exactly was being done.”

“No, sorry,” Tobias shook his head again.

“You might be paranoid,” Cender suggested.

“I might be,” Misha agreed.  “But you don’t sound very trusting of them either.”

“The woman on the radio said that Marble Keystone had let out the virus on purpose,” Abby told him.  “If they did that, why would they then want to protect us?  It all does seem rather suspicious to me.  What can we do though?”

She brought up a very good point.  In their cells, they couldn’t do anything.  They couldn’t even see outside.  Misha got up and lay down on his bunk again.  He was tired of talking.  Instead, he went back to thinking, trying to plan.  Now he had slightly more options because the others had some equipment with them, equipment that they might be able to use.

* * *

Misha was lying there, perfectly still, for some time before the next interruption.  The door at the end of the hall was once again opened.  Misha sprang to his feet and looked out through the bars at the man coming in who looked like a Keystone merc, but was behaving rather oddly.  He moved cautiously, checking around him a lot, as if he was trying not to be seen.

“Cender?” the merc whispered.  “Joshua Cender, are you in here?”

“Yo.”  Cender stuck his arm out through the bars and waved.

The merc walked over to him.  “Hey, I’m Mathias.  I’m a friend of Riley’s.”

“You must be if you can call her Riley and live,” Cender answered him.  “Where is she?  Is she here?”

“She is, although we’re trying to find a way out,” Mathias told him.

“Join the club,” Tobias spoke up.

“Friend of yours?” Mathias asked Cender without turning.

“Yeah.  How did you know I was in here?” Cender wondered.

“Riley spotted you being hustled along by some guards,” Mathias explained.  “The crutches made you stand out.”

“Better question,” Misha drew attention to himself, “how did you get in here?  In this room?”

“I look the part.”  Mathias gestured to his merc clothes.  “There’s a lot of them walking around here and they don’t all know each other.  This was a hastily put-together operation.  I literally just walked up to the guy with the keys and asked for them.”

“You have the keys?” Abby asked, trying to restrain her excitement.  That question had undoubtedly sprung to everyone’s minds.

“Yeah.”  Mathias held up his hand, revealing the keys dangling from them.

“Well come on, let’s go, hurry up.”  Cender stuck his arms through the bars to try to reach the keys.

“Whoa, hold on a minute, sparky.”  Mathias held the keys out of reach.  “There’s no point in letting you out until we know what to do once you’re out.”

“We leave this place,” Tobias said it like it should be obvious.

“And how do we do that, smart one?”  Mathias turned to him.  “There are guards walking around all over the place.  Not to mention the big walls with all the zombies pressed up against them.”

“Did you see what they were welding to the walls?”  Misha didn’t know why, but the welding irked him.  Something about it didn’t seem right, but he didn’t get a good enough look.

“No,” Mathias shook his head.

“Can you see out that window?” Misha pointed to the window even though it was obviously the only one in the room.

Mathias shrugged and went over to it.  It was set high and he had to pull himself up on the bars to see.  “Too hard to tell.  The window isn’t exactly clean and they’re far away.  Why?”

“Just a bad feeling is all.  Hey, if you work for them, why do you want out of here?”  Misha suddenly realized that this could be some sort of trick.

“I don’t work for them, not anymore, not since they tried to kill me.”  Mathias walked to where Misha could easily see him and showed him a hole in his shirt right over his heart.  There was a bulletproof vest under the shirt.  “Apparently I was creating too much of a fuss, so they cut me loose.  If it weren’t for Chant, the woman on the radio, if you guys heard it, I’d be dead.”

“Can’t you just commandeer one of the trucks?” Tobias asked.  “We can just drive out.”

“No,” Mathias shook his head.  “The trucks come and go constantly, they don’t stop.  I don’t even know where they stop for gas.”

“Can’t you at least let us out of the cells, so we can look around?” Cender sighed.

“Like I said, your crutches stand out,” Mathias shrugged.  “You might be spotted by someone who knows you should be in here.”

“Look, can you at least let me take a look out the window?” Misha asked.  “I know a thing or two about welding, and I may be able to spot something you can’t.”

“Actually, here.”  Tobias took the camera off from around his neck.  “Zoom in and film it.  Then you can show it to Misha.”

Mathias took the camera and did just that.  He managed to hold himself up with one arm while he used the other to film.  Misha had to admit the guy was strong and could pummel him to pieces if he wanted.  He filmed as long as he could and then dropped down again.  Once Misha was given the camera, he worked the buttons through the bars.  It took him a moment to figure out where the play back button was, but he managed.  He peered closely at what Mathias had filmed.

“See anything?” Mathias asked.

“Looks like a large metal plating,” Misha commented.  “Like they’re trying to keep something from climbing over the wall.”

“Like the zombies?  Some can climb, you know.”  Tobias sounded like he spoke from experience.

“Then why are they welding it on the inside of the wall?”  Misha had thought the same thing, but the plates pointed inward, not outward.

“They want to keep us in,” Mathias frowned and looked at the film himself.  He then handed the camera back to Tobias.

“So you have no idea what they’re planning?” Misha asked.

“No,” Mathias shook his head, his face clearly in concerned thought.  “I do know they like their experiments though.  When I got out of the main facility, I had to escort these scientists to a school.  They had all this equipment with them but I had no idea what any of it was for.  At the time, I didn’t care because I was getting out, but now that I think about it, it had to be something strange.”

“What if this is another experiment?” Abby worried.

“Oh God.”  Mathias clearly had a thought.  “It is.  It’s definitely an experiment.”

“For what?” Tobias and Cender spoke at the same time.

“Chant.  Chant said they did it deliberately to cleanse the world, or whatever, to make the world their own,” Mathias was thinking out loud.  “But the zombies aren’t going to just go away.  They would know that.  They would need to stay locked up in the White Box, hidden for quite some time, right?  Well what if a zombie got in?  One experiment they’ve never been able to run, is a zombie getting into an enclosed space full of non-infected.  Their computer simulations couldn’t figure out how the non-infected humans would react.  What they do about the zombie and what they might do to each other.”

“Oh, my God,” Abby gasped.  “You mean…” she trailed off.

Mathias nodded.  “I think they plan on locking everybody in here, then letting the zombies in.”

“That’s insane,” Cender cried out.

“You haven’t been out there.”  Mathias gestured to the rest of the prison.  “Riley noticed something out there.  There are cameras, discrete cameras, but cameras none-the-less.  They aren’t prison cameras, either; the prison cameras are obvious.”  He gestured to one up against the roof as an example.  “These new cameras are running as well.  At least on one of them we were able to spot a small LED light that was on.  If they are running an experiment, then they would want to see the results.”

“It’s still insane,” Cender said again.  “You’re just guessing.”

“Look, just let us out of the cells,” Tobias brought it up again.  “It would be better if we could all work on this together and when we do think up a plan, you won’t have to come back for us.”

“Technically, I’m only here for him.”  Mathias pointed to Cender.  “But I guess you’ll want them along.”

“I do,” Cender told him.

“What about this one?”  Mathias gestured to Misha.  “He doesn’t seem to have the same stuff you guys do.  He with you?”

“He is now,” Cender said.

Misha was touched to hear that, especially considering he hadn’t been the friendliest or most grateful of people.  They could have left him in the cell to suffer whatever fate was coming, but they weren’t going to.  He quickly stuck his feet into the boots and put his coat back on.  Rifle, who had been standing and silently watching the conversation, went and picked up his skunk toy.  He seemed to realize they were on the move again.

Mathias went from cell to cell and unlocked the doors.  Thankfully, the same key unlocked each door, so he didn’t have to search through them every time.  Grouped together, the freed prisoners headed for the outer door.  Mathias told them to wait there while he checked that the coast was clear.  He was back in a moment and gestured for them to follow him.

Misha actually felt slightly uncomfortable walking with so many people, but he dealt with it.  They had helped him so far, and he could always separate from them once they were outside if he felt he needed to.

Mathias led them through the prison to a large cellblock.  There were a lot of people milling about in the open cells.  Light was provided by a string of small bulbs along the floor.  Misha figured they must be hooked up to a generator; they flickered a lot.  Some of the other people also had their own lights for added illumination.  All of them looked like refugees: frightened and huddling together in small groups.

They passed by one particular cell where a boy, a woman, and a man in a wheelchair were sitting.  Rifle surprised Misha when he dashed straight to the man in the chair, put his paws on his lap and licked his face, whining with joy.

“Rifle!” the man cried out, overcome with emotion.  “Oh, Rifle, my boy!  What a good boy you are!  Hello!  How did you get here?”

“He was in a cell with him.”  Mathias singled out Misha.

Misha didn’t know what to say when everybody looked at him.  He actually felt like running, but the idea of running without his furry brother was sickening.

The man in the wheelchair rolled over to him.  “I’m Alec McGregor.”  He held out his hand.

“Misha Jovovich.”  Misha shook the offered hand.

“You took care of my dog.  I don’t know how to thank you.”  His sincerity was overwhelming.

“Well, he helped take care of me, so I guess we’re even,” Misha said awkwardly and looked at his feet.

“All right, so you’re Misha.”  Mathias turned to the others.  “Joshua I figured out.  What are your names?”

“I’m Tobias.”  He shook his hand.

“Abby.”  She shook it as well.

“Well, like he said, that’s Alec.  That’s my brother, Danny.”  Mathias gestured to the kid.  “And Josh, I guess you already know Riley.”

Cender was grinning at the woman.  “He calls you Riley and you haven’t ripped his balls off yet?”

“It’s a long story,” the woman sighed.  “What happened to your leg?”

“Also a long story.”  Cender, or Joshua, or whatever, crutched his way to the bed and sat down next to Riley.

The cell was very cramped with all of them in there, but it seemed like the safest place to talk about escape plans.  Those with large bags placed them on the top bunk to make space.

Misha jumped when something brushed past his leg.  He looked down to see a squat little dog with big floppy ears.  The two dogs started sniffing all over one another.

“That’s Shoes,” Alec told him.  “Don’t mind him, he’s harmless.  Just a ball of skin really.”

Misha nodded, but internally, he thought the ball of skin remark was kind of disgusting.  Rifle seemed to have an all right opinion of the other dog though, so he relaxed somewhat.  One of the last things he wanted to do was separate a dogfight.

“So there’s bad news.”  Mathias went on to tell them about the experiment theory.  They all seemed to take it very seriously, clearly trusting this Mathias guy.

“You have it wrong.”  Everyone in the cell jumped when a voice came from the door.  They all turned to see a Keystone merc standing there, listening in on Mathias’s theory.

“James,” Mathias frowned.  He clearly had met the man once before.  Misha thought that maybe they had worked together at some point.  Whatever it was, hands tightened on weapons around the cell, but he had nothing with which to defend himself.

The merc, James, put his hands up in a defensive posture.  He looked around nervously; making sure no one else could hear him.  “Look, you have it wrong.  They don’t plan on killing everyone here.”

Mathias raised his gun, levelling it at James’s chest.  “Why should I believe you?”

“’Cause I know more than you,” James scowled.  He stepped closer to the group and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.  “I don’t have long, so I suggest you shut up and listen.  We ran into you in the woods because we’ve been tracking you.  There’s a tracer built into your gun.  I’m not sure which one, just finding that out was hard enough, but it’s there.  They have no plans to kill the people here, more like turn them into slaves.  They’ll need people to work in their new order.  For now though, everyone here will be kept safe. Except you, Cole.  They still plan on killing you.  You’re to be the example of what happens to traitors.”

“Why are you telling us this?”  It was obvious Mathias still didn’t trust him.

“Because I knew Chant too.”  James looked around again.  “That split faction thing I mentioned wasn’t complete bullshit.  Some of us do disagree with what’s happened, and what’s still happening, just none of us are in a position of power.  I don’t care what you do with this information.  I just thought you should have a fighting chance.  I would have said something earlier, but there was always someone else around, someone watching.  I can’t help you get out of here; I won’t put myself at risk.  I need to stay here if I hope to find a way of getting the rest of these people out.  Me and the others working with me have been turning a blind eye to your group.  You don’t have that much time.  They plan on killing you some time tonight.  Find your own way out, and ditch the rifle.”

James suddenly turned and left before anyone could say anything more.  Misha glanced out of the cell and saw another merc walking down the hall.  He ducked his head back inside and hid behind the others, just in case they might recognise him.

The other merc walked by without even glancing at them.

No one said anything for a while.  What they had just learned didn’t really make a difference.  They still needed to bust out.  Their timetable had just been established.

* * *

“All right, so we need to figure out how to get out of here and ASAP.”  Riley was clearly a commanding type, breaking up everyone’s thoughts.  Misha hoped she wasn’t too bitchy.  “We know of the exit we came in through, but are there any others?”

“I asked around about that,” Alec told the room.  “Seems there’s one through the guard tower but I’m betting it’s heavily guarded.  That seems to be where most of the soldiers hang out.”

“Even if we do go through a door, there’s all those zombies outside,” Danny mentioned.  “Anywhere we go over the wall there will be zombies as well.”

“Maybe there’s a spot where there aren’t any, or at least only a few we can outrun,” Mathias suggested.

“Have you tried to outrun a hoard?” Tobias half laughed.  “It’s no picnic.  Besides, we have one man in a wheelchair and another on crutches.”

“Is there a way to distract them to one side of the building while we go out the other?” Cender suggested.  Tobias got an uncomfortable look about that, but didn’t say anything.

“That could work actually,” Mathias nodded.  “If we could cause an explosion on one side that would draw both the zombies and the guards over there, then we could slip out the other side.”

“What do we have that can create such an explosion?” Riley asked.  “I left my grenades and C4 at home.”

Misha didn’t think she was kidding about that, which scared him a little.  Still, he was more afraid of the guards.

“Did you pack some gas in the bags?” Mathias asked her.

“Yeah, there should be a small canister in each bag, including LeBlanc’s.”  Riley stood up to the top bunk to reach the bags she was talking about.

“Who’s LeBlanc?” Cender asked.

“Someone who didn’t make it,” Mathias told him.  His tone of voice suggested they shouldn’t ask about it.

“So how do we get them to explode?” Abby asked.

“Why explode them?” Danny wondered.  “Just spray it over the wall and light it on fire.  They run to fire, remember Alec?”

“It’s true, the zombies do seem drawn by fire,” Alec agreed.

“Well, we don’t want to be in the area when it goes up.”  Riley found the small gas cans and handed them to Mathias.  Although cans seemed like the wrong word.  They were more like squeeze bottles.

Misha couldn’t help but be in awe of how prepared these people were.  They had so much stuff.  He didn’t even have a shirt.

“Molotovs,” Misha said,  “make Molotovs and sling shot them with something.”

“That could work,” Mathias nodded.  “We make three Molotovs and our fastest runners launch them and make a mad dash to the others.”

“We should do some recon,” Alec suggested.  “Everyone should split up and search the place.  Decide where the best place to hit is and what our best routes are.”

“I agree,” Mathias nodded.  “Everyone else in agreement?”

Everyone in the cell nodded.

“Then let’s go.”  Mathias grabbed his pack.  “Bring your stuff.  We don’t want to risk anyone pilfering it, but we’ll meet back here in, say, twenty?”

Everyone nodded again and grabbed their bags.  Except for Misha, of course, who didn’t have one.

“Rifle, go with Misha,” Alec told his dog.

Misha gave the man a confused look.

“It’s obvious he likes you,” Alec laughed,  “and besides, you look like you could use the company.”

Alec rolled off the other way.  He had clearly missed his dog desperately the way he kept stroking his fur as they planned, but he was willing to keep leaving him in Misha’s care.  Misha was touched on a deep level.  Someone was willing to trust him so completely on a first meeting even though he had no trust for them.  Maybe he could alter that somewhat.

He walked off through the prison, Rifle in tow.  He also seemed to be followed by the dog Shoes.  Apparently the little, short-legged thing liked him, or Rifle, enough to wander off with a stranger.  Misha didn’t mind as long as he kept pace.  In fact, he felt safer having both dogs with him.  He had no weapon, but dogs could be intimidating.  Although it’s not like anyone would attack him.  He had nothing to steal.

As he searched the prison, looking out through every window he came across, he did his best to avoid the mercenaries.  He didn’t know if any of them would recognize him so he tried to avert his face, and blend in with the other people whenever one showed up.

Misha couldn’t find anything of use.  He didn’t even really know what he was looking for.  He had suggested the Molotovs on a whim; he didn’t actually think they would go for it.  He was about to give up and head back when a bird flew by the window he was looking through.  His eyes followed its path up to a section of the roof.  Then his jaw literally dropped.  There, up on the roof of another section of the prison, was a goddamn helicopter.

* * *

When everyone gathered back in the cell, Misha told them all about what he had found.  The grin on his face stretched ear to ear from excitement.  It took a few tries for him to get it out because, in his elation and haste, he kept slipping into Russian.  Finally though, he managed to get it all out and fill them in.  He had even found the staircase that led up to the roof, although it was being guarded.

“That’s great,” Mathias grinned.  “Although there’s one problem.  Can anyone here fly a helicopter?”

“I can.”  Riley raised her hand.  “Although I haven’t flown in a long time and am probably rusty.  It would be best if I had some sort of co-pilot.”

Everyone looked around hoping someone would say something.  No one did.  Well, almost no one did.

“I can do it.”  Everyone turned and looked at Danny.

The kid was clearly not even old enough to drive a car, let alone a helicopter.

“I’ve wanted to be a chopper pilot for a few years now,” Danny explained.  “I did a lot of online research.  I was hoping to go for my license as soon as I was old enough.  I’ve never actually flown one, but I think I know enough to co-pilot.”

No one said anything.  No one knew what to say.  They didn’t really have any other options.

“You sure, Danny?” Mathias asked him.

“Yeah,” Danny nodded.  “Also, it’s probably that prototype from Keystone you told me about.  The Ostra class one.  Remember how you got those files for me?  The ones you weren’t supposed to have?  I have those things memorized.”

“Apparently your thievery paid off.”  Riley looked at Mathias.  “I have a co-pilot.”

“This is a dumb idea,” Alec sighed,  “but then again, most of what I’ve done in the past thirty or so hours have probably been dumb ideas.”

“So we don’t need to use the Molotovs then,” Abby smiled.

“No.  We still need them,” Mathias told her.  “We can take out the guard, sure, but they’ll be bound to notice when the chopper blades start up.  We still need to throw the Molotovs to distract them.  Also, maybe it’ll get these people realizing that this place isn’t as safe as they keep saying it is.  Might give James a hand if he does plan on moving these people out eventually.”

“All right,” Riley nodded.  “Let’s work out a bombing route then.”

* * *

Everyone discussed what they had learned about the layout of the prison.  Misha had taken out his map, which was apparently Riley’s map, and they used the back of the paper to sketch out what they could crudely.  Abby seemed to have perfectly memorized all the parts of the prison she had covered, which was useful because she had been checking out the area around the guard tower.  It was also at this time that Misha learned he had been heading toward the same place everyone else here had been going.  Apparently they were all going to Riley’s brother’s and then from there to Riley’s family cabin.

In the end, they decided that fire bombing the tower was the best idea.  The smoke would help protect them from any gunfire the tower would aim in their direction.

The runners were decided as Mathias, Tobias, and Misha.  Riley had argued that she could probably outrun at least one of them, but Mathias wouldn’t let her.  She was the most valuable member of their group; they couldn’t risk her being taken down.  She knew better than anyone did where they were going, she knew how to survive, and she was the pilot.  She needed to have the blades whirling before the runners even reached the helicopter.  She also needed to be prepared to leave someone behind if they weren’t faster than the guards.  Misha thought she seemed to be cold enough for that job.

The first thing they had to do was take out the guard.  Mathias handled that quite well.  He walked up to the guard, pretending to be one of them, and the moment he was close enough, he slugged the guy.  There was a brief scuffle, but the element of surprise allowed Mathias several good shots to the man’s head.  The man was either unconscious or dead when they found a closet to stuff him into.  They tied him up first though, just in case.

Alec started to make his painful way up the stairs with Abby and Danny’s help.  Mathias had first given Danny a big hug, saying it was just in case.  Riley dragged up the chair loaded down with Mathias’s, LeBlanc’s, and Tobias’s bags.  None of the Keystone guns was among the equipment she hauled; they had given those to some very confused but thankful people.  Cender brought up the rear with his crutches and his own bag.  Shoes waddled up one step at a time, chuffing along.  The old dog looked exhausted but he was still pushing on.  Rifle whined at the bottom of the steps and looked at Misha.

“Don’t worry, bratishka, I’ll be up there with you soon enough.”  Misha kissed the dog’s head, right between his ears.  “Go follow your master now.  He looks like he could use the help.”

Rifle trotted up to the first landing, dragging Alec’s bag behind him.  They had tied it to the big dog’s harness with some rope.  He then looked back at Misha.  Squeezing his skunk toy once, which he carried in his mouth again, he headed up after the others.

The three runners made their way to where they needed to be.  Mathias carried the prepared Molotovs wrapped up in Misha’s firefighter jacket so no one would notice.  Misha’s scrawny torso didn’t actually stand out in this place.  There were quite a few people in odd attire, either mismatched, partly missing, or inappropriate.  They passed a whole group of teenage girls in pyjamas.  Misha figured they must have been having a slumber party or something when they were forced to flee.  Some folks were like the rest of his group, with large packs filled with stuff, while others were like Misha, having barely more than a pair of shorts.

They reached their target window and opened it up.  A few windows had already been opened because the place was rather stuffy and with no AC, it was starting to get really hot as well.

Tobias and Misha kept an eye out for guards while Mathias used a pair of small wire cutters to cut free the mesh that covered the outside of the window.  It was hard work and Misha heard a lot of cursing spew forth from Mathias.  A few times, they had to stop as a guard walked by.  They could never be sure if it was one that worked with James or not.  Even if it was, they still couldn’t be sure they could trust James.  They could only hope that none of them noticed that the guard from the stairwell was missing.

“Okay, we’re good,” Mathias told them.

The guys gathered around and picked their Molotovs.  Although the gas had originally been kept in plastic bottles, they had found two empty beer bottles and an empty wine bottle to pour it into.  Apparently, either some guard or some refugees had been drinking.  The glass should shatter nicely.  Misha and Tobias picked the beer bottles, leaving the larger bottle to Mathias.

Each of them had a lighter, Misha using the crusty one from the car, and the others using the ones they had gotten from Riley.  She was like a human Swiss army knife, it seemed.

“You guys ready?”  Mathias looked both Tobias and Misha in the eyes.

Tobias nodded.

“I think I’m about to piss my shorts, but yeah,” Misha agreed.  He hoped these weren’t the last two people he ever saw.  His mind raced through everything that could go wrong, including accidentally igniting himself.

“Okay,” Mathias nodded,  “light ’em up.”

v:

Survival Instinct

Forrest was a pilot for Air Canada and had been at Toronto Person International airport when it hit.  With its close proximity to Leighton, Toronto’s major outbreak occurred not much later than theirs did.  Forrest had gotten stuck on the tarmac with no place to go.  He had already dropped off his passengers and was supposed to taxi to another gate to pick up more.  Chaos had broken out all over the airport and he and his co-pilot could only sit and listen over the radio as the tower was attacked.  In the end, the co-pilot and the rest of the crew had gotten off, thinking that either it was the best option or else to go find their families.  Forrest didn’t have a family to check on.  He had stayed on the 747, eating the in-flight meals.  If he needed more food, he could go raid the other planes.  Sitting on the airfield meant he had a clear view all around him.  Any zombies that had noticed him and had tried to harass the plane had eventually run off in pursuit of a rabbit or deer that was unfortunate enough to find itself on the runway.

Roger lived not far from Leighton.  He had always been a recluse and ran his own cheap radio broadcast.  His equipment had managed to pick up Chant’s warning, and he had recorded the whole thing.  After debating whether it was false or not for a whole day, he had decided that it wasn’t.  He put it on the internet and began playing it over his own station, urging everyone else who picked it up to do the same.

In New York City, things had gotten really bad, really fast.  The information relay that had been taking place reached them too late.  Chaos had ensued everywhere.  David had managed to escape by getting on a boat in the harbour.  With five others, including his older brother, they had set their sights south.

In Russia, the outbreak had first gotten out of control in Moscow.  The Russian officials had tried to quarantine the city but it hadn’t worked.  In the end, they had set off a nuclear bomb on their own soil.  It had greatly slowed the rate of infection, but it had been too late.  It had already begun spreading everywhere else.

China had shut down quickly, urging all its citizens to take precautions and look for signs.  With its high population though, it hadn’t taken much to start an infectious flood.

New Zealand had also shut down quickly.  They had begun screening everyone for the disease and quarantining everyone found infected.  There had been a few cases, but the population had been well informed and had kept vigilant.  Everybody had watched their neighbours carefully, sometimes too carefully.  More people had been killed on suspicion of infection rather than from the infection itself.

When the outbreak hit Australia, the Australians had stormed the Marble Keystone facility there.  Many of the guards who were supposed to be protecting it were nowhere to be found.  Although it had been too late for many in the city, they had burned the place to the ground anyway, killing whatever employees they had found.  Hugh, who had joined those attacking the building, made sure to spit on the rubble before fleeing to the deep outback.

Peterson had been on an expedition in the Congo when the outbreak occurred.  He had absolutely no idea what had happened.  When his team had tried contacting their outside sources via satellite radio, they had gotten nothing.  Having reached their expected pickup point on time, they were confused when no one had come.  The tribe they had been staying with took them in, sending out one of their own to see what might have happened.  He had not brought back good news.  Peterson and his team had decided to stay with the locals.  He didn’t see that he had any other option.

Nedly had watched everything from above.  Once the outbreak was public knowledge, many nations had tried to bring back their astronauts, but their own central control was already gone.  He and the crew had decided to try a re-entry on their own.  They had known they would run out of food, water, and air soon enough.  Nedly had prayed to every God that he could think of as he strapped himself in.

Section 6:

Arrival

41:

Riley Bishop

Alec was out of his chair and lying on the rooftop.  His sniper rifle was in hand and pointed at the section of building where the other guys were preparing their Molotovs.  Riley sat by his shoulder, looking over at the other side of the prison with him.  Although she knew that’s where the other guys were supposed to be, she couldn’t make them out.  The building was basically T-shaped.  They were sitting on the helicopter pad on one of the short ends of the T, the guys were in the long end a few stories down.  Alec could see them easily through the scope of his gun.  On his other side was Abby.  She had Tobias’s camera in her hands and was fully zoomed in and recording.  Tobias would want that, but the camera had another use: Abby was acting as Alec’s spotter.

“They got the wire mesh off.”  Alec’s voice was cold and emotionless.  He relayed things to Riley in monotone.  “They’re getting ready.”

Riley quickly scooted around to Abby’s side.  She wanted to watch with Abby on the camera.  Although she wouldn’t be able to watch for long, she could at least witness the firebombing.

On the little LCD screen was a dirty window through which you could make out the fuzzy forms of Misha, Mathias, and Tobias.  It was surprisingly easy to tell them apart by their frames alone.  Misha was a small scrawny kid, Mathias was quite broad, and Tobias stood a good few inches taller than both of them.  She watched as tiny, pixel-wide flashes occurred; the lighters being flicked.  Two bright flares lit up as the cloth caught fire.  The cloth was actually the lower, torn up sections of Riley’s shorts.  She could no longer make pants out of them, but that didn’t matter.

“Looks like Misha is having trouble with his lighter,” Alec relayed.  “Never mind, there it goes.”

On the screen, a third flare-up bloomed to life.  Then the three fireballs were chucked out the window, one right after the other.  Part of the building was in the way of Riley seeing the actual flames, but the black smoke rose quickly enough.

As the boys turned to run, Misha seemed to grab Mathias’s arm and pull.  Mathias shifted sideways from the tug, and then got knocked flat on his back.

“What happened?”  Abby looked and sounded slightly panicked.

Alec didn’t answer.  His rifle did.  The force of the shot rocked him back slightly and tried to pull up the muzzle, but he recovered quickly.  An expert.  He locked a new round into the chamber.

“They okay?”  Riley tried to keep the worry out of her own voice.

“They’re fine,” Alec told her.  “Mathias took one in the vest, but he’s back up.  I took down the shooter.  Abby, track the path ahead of them.  Tell me if you see any more guards.”

“Okay,” Abby nodded, trying to be brave and do her job.

The rifle cracked again as Alec fired off another shot.  “There’s panic now.  Riley, get the bird started up.”

Riley nodded even though he couldn’t see her.  She ran over to the helicopter.

As she went by the rear door, she glanced into the back compartment.  Cender was back there with the two dogs.  Everyone else was calling him Josh, or Joshua by now but it was taking much longer for Riley to pick up the name.  It looked like he had managed to stow the gear as best he could and was dealing with the furry companions.  The German shepherd, Rifle, was actually in one of the seats with the harness belts strapped around him, and hooked into his own harness.  He looked extremely goofy, especially with the skunk toy hanging from his mouth.  Shoes, on the other hand, was much too small to stick in a seat.  Cender was currently tying his rope leash tightly to the side of the cabin.

Riley kept going to the closed-off cockpit and hopped into her seat.  When they had first gotten up there, she had nearly panicked because she hadn’t been able to find the key, but it turned out the thing didn’t use one.  Danny informed Riley that military helicopters never used keys.  This particular model had a push button ignition.  Thank god for military equipment.

Danny was already sitting in the co-pilot’s seat.  Ever since they had gotten up to the roof, he had been sitting in the cockpit trying to familiarize himself with everything.  He had swapped his oversized army helmet for an oversized pilot’s helmet with a built-in headset.  Riley grabbed the other helmet and pulled it over her head.  She adjusted the mic and tightened the chinstrap.

“You ready?”  Riley turned to Danny.

Danny looked at her.  He was very pale.  He nodded though.

“You get the honours, fire her up.”  Riley gestured to the large red button.

Danny hesitated a moment, then jammed on it hard.  The engine came to life with a hum and the instrument panel lit up.  Riley looked at all the buttons and controls.  This chopper was a lot more complex than the little one she had gotten her license on.  She didn’t tell anyone, but the last time she had flown a helicopter was when she was twenty-two.  That had been ten years ago.  Most of the main controls seemed to be the same though.  She would just try to avoid touching all the others.  She started the rotor blades turning.

Danny leaned forward and flicked a switch, which nearly gave Riley a heart attack.  He looked at her with large, apologetic eyes.

“Headsets.”  He tapped the side of his head, his voice coming through the speaker pressed tightly against Riley’s ear.

She nodded.  “Just tell me what you’re doing before you do it next time.”

Danny nodded.

Riley then leaned sideways and shut her door.  She looked out through the side window to watch as Abby got to her feet.  Alec handed her his rifle and she ran with it and the camera to the chopper cabin.  Riley knew, without seeing, that she handed the objects to Cender who would find a place for them.  Abby then reappeared and ran back to Alec, who had already started crawling to the helicopter using only his arms.  She looped her arms under his and started to drag him.  It was clearly hard work.

Riley found herself constantly looking toward the door to the stairs.  She was praying that when it opened, it would be the guys and not Keystone soldiers.

Suddenly, there was a pinging on the windshield and Riley instinctively ducked her head.  This was unnecessary though.  Apparently, not all the soldiers knew that the windshield was made of the newest type of bulletproof glass.  Their rifles, especially at a distance, wouldn’t be able to break it.  Still, Riley worried about a bullet finding its way into the motor, or through the open door on the side.

The stairwell door burst open and Tobias and Misha came through half propping up Mathias between them.  Riley shook her head.  The idiot had gotten himself shot again.  Hopefully it wasn’t too bad as she wouldn’t be able to check on him this time.  Of course, Cender would be back there with him.

Tobias helped Mathias get into the cabin while Misha went to help Abby with Alec.  With his help, they managed to get Alec inside.

Riley had no way of knowing if the door was shut.  She took a deep breath and hoped that it was.  She pulled back on the stick, causing the chopper to lift itself up into the air.  It lifted a lot faster than she expected; the controls were very sensitive.  She glanced over her shoulder, at the prison roof, praying no one fell out.  It didn’t look like anyone did.

“We’re good!”  Cender’s voice came over her headset.  There must have been another one plugged in, in the back.

More shots pinged off the hull, but as Riley turned them to face the right direction and lifted higher, they lessened.  Danny held Alec’s GPS in his hands.  They weren’t sure they would be able to use the chopper’s, so they were using his.  He held it out where Riley could see it.

“Door’s closed,” Cender updated her.  “Everyone is present and accounted for.  Although I think, Rifle may have peed on the seat.  It stinks.”

“That’s just an added bonus,” Riley started laughing.  She couldn’t help it, she was so happy.  “You know they’re going to track this thing down eventually and I love the idea that there’s going to be some dog pee with it.”

Next to her, Danny was all smiles.

* * *

The rest of the flight was actually rather uneventful.  The chopper flew smoothly and easily, the forest below whipping by in a green blur.  At one point, Riley even took them up high and let Danny take the controls.  He was a little wobbly and didn’t know exactly what level was.  He kept tilting the chopper so that it kept getting higher.  Riley instructed him carefully though, and even took her hands off the stick.  Danny’s eyes really bugged out of his head when that happened.

Soon enough though she took control back.  Danny’s hands quickly released the stick, glad not to be in control anymore.  Although he looked like he was enjoying himself immensely, he wasn’t quite ready for the responsibility of flight.

As their destination got ever closer on the GPS, Riley started to use her eyes rather than rely on it.  She slowed the chopper down some and began looking for landmarks.  Although she wasn’t a pilot very often, she had been in the air more than enough times.

Up ahead, she picked out her brother’s place.  He had his own small airfield cutting through the trees.  Her brother worked as a pilot for his own tourist flight company, and his little runway also served as an emergency landing field for other planes.

Riley circled the field several times, having to check the area visually.  Not even Danny knew how to change the radio frequency.  Apparently, that was part of a different set of instructions.  Riley was worried.  Her brother usually monitored all stations and he’d be on extra alert with what was happening.  In fact, he should have heard the helicopter circling and tried to contact them.  Maybe they were on an encrypted channel.  Then he would have come out to see with his own eyes.  And he was home.  His large plane could be seen peeking out of the massive hanger and his truck was in the driveway.  Maybe the zombies had managed to get this far already.

“Hold on to your asses,” Riley told everyone who had headphones.  “We might have a few infected on our hands when we land.  That, and I can’t guarantee a good landing.  I hope you all bought flight insurance.”

Riley realized that Mathias and LeBlanc had managed to rub off on her when she said that last line, making jokes when the stress levels were high.  Actually, Cender was like that too.  The assholes.

* * *

The ride down was bumpy, and not because of rough air.  Riley still wasn’t completely used to the sensitivity of the chopper’s controls.  She would go too fast, then too slow, then too fast again.  They were going a little fast near the ground and hit hard.  The impact jarred Riley somewhat, which caused the stick to move a little and they drifted sideways.  The skids made an awful noise as they scraped along gravel and hard packed dirt.  She grabbed the stick, spewing a string of curses at it.  She managed to get it under control and steady.  Danny leaned forward once more and quickly hit the kill switch.  Riley didn’t reprimand him for it this time.

Once the blades had slowed to the point of nearly stopping, Riley remembered to breathe.

“Okay guys, we’re down,” she spoke over the headset.  There was no reply, not even static.

“I shut the whole thing down.”  Danny looked at her sheepishly.

“That’s fine.”  Riley took off the helmet, opened her door, and hopped out.  She walked up to the rear door and slapped a hand against it.  “You can come out now!”

Riley backed up a few steps and the door slid open.  Misha and Tobias were the first to come tumbling out.

“Remind me never to fly with you again.”  Tobias wobbled over to the side and collapsed with his head between his knees.

“Pansy!” Mathias called over to him as he unstrapped and climbed out.

“You okay?” Riley frowned at him.  “I heard you took another bullet.”

Mathias lifted up his shirt to show the lead buried in the vest.  It was at the bottom of his ribs, just to the left of centre.

“I’m going to get another bruise, aren’t I?”  Mathias grinned.  In fact, there was a chance the top of his new bruise would reach the bottom of his day old one.  “Although I might be dead if it weren’t for this guy right here.”  He threw his arms around Misha’s shoulders, who looked uncomfortable with the sudden expression of gratitude and closeness.  “It was a damn good thing he spotted that guy taking out his gun.  I might have been shot in the arm or side where there’s no protection, but Misha here got me facing forward so I could take it in the belly.”

“I knew he had a vest on,” Misha said defensively.

“A little help here.”  Abby had dragged a heavy bag to the edge of the chopper.  Mathias turned to help her off-load.

Danny walked over from the cockpit and helped by standing lookout for everyone.  Although everybody kept an eye out anyway, it was nice to have one set of eyes looking solely for zombies.

“You all right, Cender?”  Riley poked her head into the dark cabin.

Cender was unbuckling Rifle.  “I’ve got my face about a foot away from dog pee right now, how do you think I am?”

“I think you’re right at home,” Riley grinned and pulled her head back out.

When Rifle was free, he shot out of the chopper like a rocket.  He then turned and gave it a good barking before sulking over next to Tobias.  Shoes seemed rather well with the ride and the bumpy landing.  The hound waddled to the exit with a large yawn.  Mathias treated him like he did the bags.  He scooped the dog up and placed him on top of the pile of packs.  Shoes just walked down them like a staircase.

“Time for the cripple.  And you too, Alec.”  Riley pulled out Alec’s wheelchair while Mathias offered a hand to help Abby out.

“Ha ha.”  Cender gathered up his crutches and rolled his eyes.  He hopped out, landing on his uninjured leg and trying to get his crutches under him before he fell.  He would have fallen too, except Riley quickly grabbed his shoulder and righted him.

His ears turned red as he hobbled out of the way for Alec.

Once Alec was out and in his chair, everybody picked up their respective bags with Misha grabbing LeBlanc’s.  Mathias closed the chopper door and they turned toward the little house at the end of the runway.  There still had been no movement from inside the house.  Riley started to get really worried.

“Everyone, keep your guns ready,” she told the group.

Everybody gripped their respective weapons.  Since the Keystone firearms had been ditched, Mathias borrowed Alec’s pistol while Alec carried his sniper rifle.  Misha was the only one who didn’t have a gun, but he seemed perfectly comfortable with the machete that Tobias handed him.

Riley took up Shoes’s leash and led the way up the runway.  Her ears strained for any source of noise from the house, but the only thing she heard was the wind in the trees and flapping from the nearby windsock.  She had walked this runway many times before, but it never seemed to take this long.

* * *

As they neared the house, Shoes began to bark.  Riley looked at Alec, wondering if it was his signal.

“He’ll lie down if it is.”  Alec had read her look.

Riley nodded, and then faced the house again.  Shoes pulled on his rope toward the door.  He pawed at the screen door, barking in his low voice.  Rifle wandered around and through the group, nervous.  He was either set off by Shoes’s barking, or possibly by whatever it was Shoes was barking at.

Riley reached forward and grabbed the handle of the door.  The screen door was never locked and opened with a screech.  Beyond it was a wooden door, which she also found unlocked.  That was more unusual.

Mathias suddenly stepped up beside her.  “Let me go first,” he whispered.  “What’s your brother’s name?”

“Connor,” Riley whispered back,  “Connor Bishop.”

Mathias nodded once, then pushed through the door.  Riley and everyone else followed after him.  They entered Connor’s pleasant but dirty kitchen.  The group waited in it with Riley, while Mathias went to clear the house.  They could hear him calling out as he went.

“Connor?  Connor Bishop, are you here?  My name is Mathias Cole.  I’m here with your sister Riley Bishop.  If you can hear me, please respond.  We’re not infected.  Riley wouldn’t lead us here if we were.”

This message was repeated three times as he swept the first floor and then headed up to the second.

Riley waited with baited breath.  Perhaps Connor was out on a hike, or even a hunt.  Sometimes he hunted the area around his airfield instead of taking his truck somewhere.  But then why was the back door unlocked?

Mathias came clopping down the stairs and back into the kitchen.  He looked at Riley and shook his head.  Riley read his face.  He wasn’t shaking his head because Connor wasn’t here, he was shaking it because he was and something was wrong.

“No.”  Riley shook her head.  “No!”

She dropped both her gun and the dog leash, and tried to run past Mathias to get to the stairs.  Mathias grabbed hold of her, bear hugging her to him, not letting her go.

“Let me go!” Riley wailed.  “I have to see him!”

“No.”  She felt him shake his head again against her shoulder.  “No, you don’t.”

Now that Shoes was free, he dashed up the stairs, barking as he went.  Riley could hear him continuing to bark upstairs.  She could picture him lying down.

“How?”  Riley relaxed, and looked at Mathias as tears sprang to her eyes.  She never thought she needed to worry about her family’s safety, especially Connor’s.  “Was it…?”

“It looks like he did it himself.”  Mathias pulled no punches.  Still, hearing that was better than learning he had been torn apart.  “I found this nearby.”

Mathias put a letter in her hands.  He then disappeared upstairs, calling after Shoes.

Riley slumped to the floor, holding the letter.  The others quietly left, disappearing into the living room so she could read it in peace.

The letter broke her heart and confirmed what Mathias had said.  He did do it himself.  He wasn’t even sure he was infected, but a small part of him thought he might be.  More so, he couldn’t live knowing what was happening.  He couldn’t take the pressure.  He couldn’t do as he was trained.  Riley remembered the surreal feeling herself.  If she hadn’t met up with Mathias and LeBlanc, would that feeling have gotten worse?  Would it have just kept growing and growing until she arrived at the same thought her brother had?

Riley didn’t know she was crying until the drops hit the page.  She read the letter several times, committing it to memory.  She had always thought of Connor as strong.  Her strong, big brother who ran his own business and lived alone in the wilderness.  She had looked up to him, and he had made living with her parents easier.  He would sometimes help her cheat to pass their dad’s tests, like when he stashed some supplies in a cave for her the night she had to spend alone in the woods.  He thought of the tests as games.  Maybe that was the problem.

“Umm, Riley?”  Abby stood sheepishly in the doorway to the living room.

Riley sniffed and wiped clear her eyes.  “What is it?”

“There’s another letter.”  Abby held out another envelope.  “This one was found in the door.”

Riley stood and took the letter.  Whereas the last one had been addressed to the family, this one was addressed specifically to her.  She followed Abby into the living room, hoping that it wasn’t more bad news.

This new letter was actually from her parents, and Riley read it aloud.  They had probably missed each other by only a few hours.  The letter told them that Riley’s parents, and her other brother, had already been on the way here for a visit when all hell broke loose.  They had found Connor as he was and begged Riley not to go look.  They apologized for not being there, but her sister had called them.  She needed their help getting out.  Riley explained to the others that she lived in Sudbury.  Her parents and brother were going, but they told Riley to take the plane.  They would meet her at the cabin, and they would bring the dogs if possible.

“Dogs?” Mathias frowned.  He had returned from upstairs and was standing with Shoes in his arms.

“My parents run a dog sledding business with my other brother,” Riley told him and everyone else.  “They breed and train champions.”

“Wait.”  Tobias held up a hand.  “Does this mean you’re flying?  Again?”

That managed to bring a touch of a smile to Riley’s lips.  “It does.”

Tobias groaned loudly.

“Don’t worry, I’ve flown this plane many times,” Riley assured him.

“I’m more worried about the landing, myself.”  Cender crutched toward the kitchen and rear door.  “Let’s get this show on the road then, shall we?”

Riley nodded, doing her best to shove her worries into the back of her mind.  They weren’t at the cabin yet.

* * *

Everybody walked over to the big hanger in which Connor’s DHC-3 Otter plane sat.  It was a twelve seater and would be able to fit them all, plus their gear.  When Connor used the plane for tours, he would land on lakes and let his passengers do a little fishing off the floats.  Riley had taken the key from inside and now opened the door.  While Cender helped Danny load the packs into the plane, Mathias, Abby, Misha, and Tobias made trips to and from the house.  They gathered up any extra supplies that would also fit into the plane.  While they did this, Riley herself walked around the plane, checking everything out and making sure it was good to fly.  Alec watched over all of them with his long-range rifle.  Once the plane was ready to go, Mathias and Tobias carried Alec up into it.  It was a difficult task.  The plane’s floats held it a considerable distance off the ground.  Eventually, Riley and Abby had to step in and assist a bit.  Alec grumbled about all the manhandling, but there was no way he could do it on his own.  Cender also needed some assistance getting in.

Getting Rifle to get into the plane was the hardest.  Shoes they just passed up the ladder, no problem, but Rifle had learned from the helicopter.  He kept away from the plane and anybody near it.  Finally though, Misha managed to convince the dog to come close to him by using his skunk toy and a treat from Alec’s pocket as bait.  He was able to grab Rifle’s harness, and with Mathias’s help, they hauled the dog up into the plane.

Danny opted not to be co-pilot this time and so Mathias took his place.  With all the stuff they had packed in, it was for the best having the largest guy up front.  Misha tied Shoes’s collar and Rifle’s harness up between his seat and Alec’s.

“You ever flown a plane before?” Riley asked as she started up the engine and did a systems check.  She put her headphones on and handed a pair to Mathias.

“Nope,” Mathias told her.  “In fact, I haven’t even flown in them all that often.  I drove whenever I could.”

“Then don’t touch anything.”  Riley gave him a stern look to make sure he knew she meant it.

Mathias held his hands up in an innocent gesture.  He wouldn’t touch a thing.

As Riley was about to direct the large plane out of the hanger, a figure appeared at the other end of the runway.

“Who’s that?”  Mathias spotted him first.

Riley looked, squinting, but she couldn’t tell.  The distance was too far.

“Alec, hand me your scope!” Mathias called over his shoulder.  Shortly enough, the sniper scope was placed in his hand.  He held it up to one eye and looked at the figure.

“And?” Riley wondered.

“Missing half a face,” Mathias told her.  “I say punch it.”

Riley nodded and got the plane moving.  As it inched out of the hanger, another figure appeared beside the first.  This one didn’t stop and stare though, it ran straight for them.  More kept appearing out of the woods.

Riley did her best to ignore them.  As she got the plane up to speed, she looked only at the instruments.  She did her best to ignore the thumps and unusual vibrations coming from the floats.  It seemed some of the hoard had made it this far after all.  She tried not to think about her brother’s defenceless and unburied body.

The plane lifted up into the air, rising faster than it normally should but still within a safe range.  Once up, Riley finally looked out the window.  Nothing but clear blue sky.  There wasn’t even any blood on the windshield like she had feared, although the height of the plane pretty much assured this.  She looked over at Mathias who gave her a warm smile and a thumbs up.  She actually gave him a smile back.

* * *

The further north they flew, the happier Riley became.  She didn’t know why, either.  Her brother had killed himself, her sister was in danger, and her parents and other brother were MIA.  She was heading into harsh lands with a plane full of nearly complete strangers.  Yet she was totally happy with that.

Maybe it was because the thing she had been training for had finally come.  There was no longer this pressure to survive hanging over her head.  She had done it, she had escaped the zombies.  Zombies of all things!  She had thought an inland tsunami was more likely, but here they were.

Although she had a compass and map, Riley barely used them.  She knew all the aerial markers by heart.  Every year they came up here, Riley and her sister took turns being the co-pilot.  Usually their brother would get lazy partway and let them be in full command of the plane.

During the trip, everybody ate and drank as much as they wanted.  Although rationing was still something that would need to be adhered to, Riley let it slip for now.  Whenever she looked back, they all looked as happy as she felt.  She kept catching Mathias watching her and he made sure she got food and drink as well.  He even offered to take the wheel if she needed her hands, but Riley wasn’t going to let that happen.  He would probably send them straight into the ground.

It took a long time.  The sun would set in just a few more hours, but finally Riley saw the lake.  The bright sunshine glittered off the water; it was a welcome sight.  The lake was to be their landing strip with the cabin nestled in the woods next to it.  She started to circle the area, going through her head exactly how her brother did it.

“To those who have seat belts I suggest putting them on,” Riley gave fair warning.

Mathias looked at her, frowning, confused.

“Usually my brother makes the water landing,” she admitted,  “it’s not an easy one.”

Mathias didn’t say anything; he just looked forward again and double-checked his restraints.

Riley finally decided on her angle of approach and began the descent.  The tree line and the water began to rush up to meet them.

“Trees.”  Mathias tensed up, looking at the tree line.  “Trees.  You’re going to hit the trees!”

One of the floats lightly brushed the top of a tall pine, but they, in no way, hit them.  The water came up and the floats lightly touched down on it, spraying up plumes on either side.

Mathias relaxed, but Riley did not.  She knew that the first tree line was not the only issue.  The other issue was the second tree line and the shore of the lake.  They were skidding over the water toward it, Riley doing all that she could to slow the plane safely.  The lake had always been just a little too short for water landings, but that was one of the reasons her family liked it.  It meant no one else was stupid enough to try landing there.

Riley noticed, out of the corner of her eye, as Mathias tensed again.  He stayed silent this time, but he involuntarily pressed himself further into his seat.  Riley assumed she had lost another fan to her flying skills.

The plane finally slowed to a stop and gently rocked forward a bit.  Riley turned and smiled at Mathias.  He just looked at her with wide eyes.

Riley turned the plane around and headed toward a sandy shore.  Her family hadn’t built a dock because it might draw attention, but they did alter the shore so that the plane could be safely pulled up onto it.  The floats crunched into the soft sand and Riley turned off the engine.

“We’re here!” Riley turned and told the cabin enthusiastically.

Tobias was pale again, nearly green, but the others seemed cheery.  Even Rifle seemed to pick up on the mood of the people and thumped his tail on the floor.  Of course, he might have just been happy that they stopped.

The door was opened and everyone but Cender, Alec, and the dogs got out.  They had to walk down one of the floats to get to shore.  Once there, they worked together to pull the plane all the way up out of the water and to tie it off to a pair of large trees.

As the others went to help unload everything, Riley turned and looked at the cabin.  She could just make out part of the deck and a bit of a wall through the trees.  Riley Bishop, Mathias Cole, Danny Cole, Tobias Mackenzie, Alec McGregor, Misha Jovovich, Abby Walker, and Joshua Cender, plus Shoes the Basset Hound, and Rifle the German shepherd.  What an interesting group of survivors.

Riley was going over in her head what she would have to teach everyone.  There would be a period of mourning, for sure, which was likely to start that night.  In fact, Riley had to do some of that herself.  There was a lot she needed to figure out, like how the rationing was going to work, but then there was a tap on her shoulder.  She turned to find Mathias standing with her.  Before she could ask what he wanted, he placed one hand on her neck and the other on the side of her face.  He leaned in and kissed her hard on the mouth.

His lips were warm, dry, and chapped.  They were also wonderful.

When he finally pulled away, Riley felt all the blood rush to her face.  She was at a total loss for words.  She didn’t even notice Cender in the distance giving Mathias a foul look.

It was going to be one hell of a winter.

The End

Copyright © 2013 by Kristal Stittle

For my mom, Barbara Stittle.

You’re always there for me when I need it, even when I don’t realize it.

I love you.

Read on for a free sample of “The Longest Road” the latest zombie novel from www.severedpress.com

The Feast

November 25, 2008

1013 hours

Steve Brason crept slowly through the forest, careful not to make any unnecessary noise. His older cousin, Collin Jacobs, moved behind him, scanning the perimeter. The slightest snapped twig or broken piece of bark beneath their boots, and it could be all over. The last thing they wanted to do was to give away their position.

The morning sunlight struggled to breach the thick, leaf-filled branches of the blue spruce pines and northern catalpa trees. With every passing minute, the light layer of fog surrounding them slowly burned away.

Suddenly, Steve and Collin halted, hearing the not-too-distant sound of a cracked branch.

“Where did that come from?” Collin whispered.

Steve closed his eyes and diverted all his attention to his ears. He listened carefully as another snapping sound came seconds after the first. He narrowed down the direction and pointed northeast. “Over there,” he said, finally exhaling a long overdue breath.

Collin unscrewed the top of his metal thermos. “What do you want to do, Steve? Go for it, or wait for it to come to us?”

“Let’s go check it out. Last thing we want to do is lose it. Then we would for sure be screwed”

Slowly, the two men navigated around fallen trees and the densely-packed, decomposing forest. They stuck as closely as possible to the trees, since the protruding roots offered the most stable ground.

“Watch your step here,” Steve whispered as he pulled himself up and over a fallen tree. One side of the log had been taken over by a large section of slick, green moss.

Collin nodded and followed Steve’s exact footsteps. As the two cousins pressed on, they kept a watchful eye on their footing, careful not to slip on the dew-covered earth. With each step closer, the faint noises grew stronger and greater in number.

Steve pointed to a hill twenty feet away; the location offered the best vantage point. As quietly as they could, Steve and Collin reached the top and lay stomach down. Their camouflage gear mimicked the forest, making them almost invisible. Through their rifles’ scopes, the two cousins scouted the area. Directly across and beneath them sat a partially dried riverbed. A combination of small boulders and medium sized stones filled in the banks. Rain from the previous evening filled the river with ankle-high water moving no faster than five miles per hour.

Steve spotted it as it lingered near the water on the opposite side. “Eleven o’clock,” he said, keeping his eye pressed against the scope.

“Damn, that’s massive. You think there’s more?” Collin asked, staring down at the beast.

Steve rotated a knob on the right side of his lens. “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Normally they stick together, but we’ve never gone out this far, so who knows.”

“You better make sure you hit it, ’cause if you don’t—”

“Yeah, I know. It’s game over,” Steve said, cutting him off. “Don’t want to warn the others, wherever they are.”

“Whenever you’re ready, Steve-O.”

Steve lined up his shot. He couldn’t help but feel sorry. It wasn’t the beast’s fault; it was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Deep inside, something tugged at Steve; he felt it at a cellular level, at a moral level. He never got used to taking lives. He tolerated it, but never got used to it.

“It’s now or never,” Collin declared as the beast began to move.

Steve blinked and relined the shot, then licked his lips and breathed in deeply. As he exhaled, the warm breath met the cold forest air and turned into steam, which surrounded his face and scope. Unlike Collin, Steve did not prefer to wear a face cover. The black material Collin wore covered up his mouth and neck. It helped keep the cold air off the skin and to muffle sounds, but Steve felt it was too constricting and unnecessary.

Just as Collin began to further press the matter, Steve made his decision. His right index finger slowly squeezed the trigger. The gunshot rang through the forest, and every living thing went silent. The scratching sounds of squirrels stopped. Birds took off flapping their wings as fast as they could. Every other animal still in the area fled into hiding.

The .30-06 bullet tore through a tree trunk a half inch above the beast’s head.

A miss.

The massive six-point elk froze for a split second, staring up the hill directly at Steve and Collin. It seemed to know it should have died. Emerging from behind a bush a few yards away, a female and two bucks joined the massive beast, and the family scurried away, following the river downstream.

The look that his cousin gave him told Steve that Collin knew he had missed on purpose. Before either could say a word, a strong voice called through on their radio earpieces. “What’s the SitRep?”

Steve clicked the transmit button on his mic. “Nothing, Dad. Had one in sight, but it just got away.”

“Got away, huh?” the strong voice said after a long pause. “Rendezvous at camp in ten. I’m calling it a day.”

From behind, Billy Wilde and Alex Forest, two of their other cousins, trekked toward them.

“We’re over here,” Collin said, standing up and signaling their position. He looked back down at Steve. “Well, you heard your dad. Time to head back.”

Steve lay still on his stomach, wrapping his mind around his decision. He knew he had the shot, too, but couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it. Picking up the expelled casing, he rose to his feet. Be with your family, he thought as he brushed the dirt from his nylon clothing.

“How’d you miss it, Steve?” Alex asked, inconspicuously taking a sip from a flask as if someone was going to report him for drinking in public.

“Yeah, man, you never miss. And you always win. What gives?” Billy said, taking back his flask.

“I don’t know, guys, guess not this time. Plus it’s about time for someone else to take over, I think,” Steve joked.

1043 hours

Back at camp, a massive RV was parked next to a kindling fire. The RV’s all-terrain tires allowed them to take a “secret” path away from Greene County National Forest’s public parking zone. Over the years, the free parking near the lodge had grown too crowded, and the adjacent lands had been over-hunted by amateurs and professionals alike. This family preferred prime, untouched hunting grounds. Inside the RV, Steve’s father, Tom, folded up a letter and put it back in his bag. “Oh, Steve,” he sighed. Shaking a disappointed look from his face, he walked out from the side door to greet his son and nephews.

“Good, you’re back and just in time!” he exclaimed, raising a bottle of whiskey. “Unpack your things. It’s time to crown the king.”

Every year on Thanksgiving Day, Tom took his two sons and his older male nephews on a weekend hunting expedition. Each morning, shortly after sunrise, they divided into groups of two and scoured the forest for elk and deer.

On the last day of the trip, the person with the trip’s biggest kill was crowned King of the Hunt. Since the first hunt eight years ago, Steve had been crowned a dominating five times, with Collin winning twice, and Alex once. One year, Tom had called a tie between Alex and Steve, but being the modest person he was, Steve had let Alex have the title. Billy and Mike had yet to receive the honor.

The rules were simple. Everyone was allowed one kill, as per state law, and Tom played judge. The winner and newly-crowned king would receive a bottle of expensive whiskey from Tom, a sum of cash the cousins pooled together, and a year’s worth of bragging rights. To outsiders, the game seemed dull, but to those involved, it was a deeply rooted, respectful tradition. Upon their return on Sunday, Tom would have the entire extended family over for a massive, albeit belated, Thanksgiving feast to celebrate the king.

Tom was raised a hunter and loved the outdoors. Mike, his oldest son, couldn’t have cared less. He went mainly because Tom asked. Billy and Alex didn’t care much about hunting either. If anyone other than Tom had asked them, they would have said that they were just out to shoot guns and drink. Of course, if Tom asked, they looked forward to it every year. Collin, on the other hand, was very much like his Uncle Tom. He genuinely liked getting away and being outdoors. Steve also loved it, but mainly because it gave him a chance to hang out with his cousins, something that became less and less common as they got older.

Even now, the cousins were more like brothers. They grew up together, played sports together, got into trouble together, and went to school together, at least early on. They truly enjoyed the yearly bonding experience and the touch of competition added to the excitement.

Now that they were back at camp, Collin, Billy, Steve, and Alex had changed out of their dirty gear and into more comfortable clothes before gathering back outside. Mike, Steve’s older brother, knelt next to the fire trying to get the coals started again with a combination of crumpled-up newspaper and dried pieces of bark.

“What’s up, guys? Heard someone missed the shot,” Mike said, pausing from blowing gently at the embers.

Steve reached into the ice chest and pulled out a bottle of water. “Yup, just barely missed it,” he responded, covering up his lie with a drink of water.

“So the golden boy’s streak comes to an end this year,” Mike said jokingly.

“Maybe, one of these years, you should try winning,” Steve quipped.

“Not really my thing,” Mike said, tossing in a final log. Suddenly, he pulled his hand back and sucked on his index finger. “Damn! Fucking splinter!”

“Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it, cuz,” Alex said, smiling at his cousin’s agony.

Plastic beach chairs were circled around the fire pit, and the family all sat and relaxed as the bark snapped and popped. Tom poured six glasses of scotch and everyone followed Tom’s lead as he raised his glass for a toast.

“I just want to say that, as always, I have a great time out here with all of you. I hope that after all these years, you too, have as much fun as I do.”

“Thank you, Uncle Tom,” Alex said. “I’m not going to lie; you really outdid yourself this year.”

“Yeah, Uncle T. These new radios, our outfits, all these others goodies—you’re awesome,” Billy added, raising his glass toward Tom.

“You are very welcome, boys. It’s my pleasure to do it. What can I say? I like the best. On a more formal note, it looks like there’s been a regime change.” He paused and shot a quick but unmistakable look of disappointment at Steve. “I’m proud to announce Collin as this year’s king. Give it up to him, boys!”

While everyone cheered and drank to Collin’s success, Tom fired up a portable barbecue and threw on a 12-pack of Italian sausages. As the appetizers cooked, the cousins messed around, showcasing their adolescent side. Billy and Alex filled a wine bottle with water, re-corked it and placed it in the fire. Within minutes the pressure from the boiling water shot the cork out fifty feet in the air. Mike watched and laughed, leaning back in a chair pounding a beer.

Collin stood off to the side, laughing at the sight. He was the one who had shown them how to do that more than fifteen years ago. After his laughter had died down, he turned and faced Steve. “So are you going to tell me why you missed?”

Steve stood silent, watching a pair of squirrels chase after each other. He finished his beer and tossed it over to the portable trash bin. “I’m just tired of always being the apple of his eye, you know? His perfect child. And he just doesn’t get it.”

“I wish I could tell you that I understand, but I won’t, ’cause I don’t. My dad’s an asshole and doesn’t give two shits about me. What doesn’t your dad get?”

“That I’m not his perfect little soldier and that I’m going to do what makes me happy. I’m not going to join, Collin. I just don’t know how to tell him.”

Collin and Steve stood there for quiet minute, gazing into the forest. “You know he knows you missed, right? I’m pretty sure everyone knows,” Collin said, chuckling. “I mean, come on, you never miss.” His last words were interrupted by Tom’s shouts that food was ready. Collin swung his arm around Steve. “Don’t sweat it, man. Take it in stride and enjoy the present.”

“Mr. Philosophical,” Steve joked as they walked back to the RV.

Inside, Tom and his family feasted on the sausages, potato and pasta salads, and an excess of other camp foods until they were bloated.

Life was great.

1705 hours

It was late in the afternoon when the RV pulled into Tom Brason’s driveway. After his wife, Barbara, had passed away, Tom had sold his old house in western Connecticut and moved. His new residence sat on top of a hill overlooking Fullertown, a medium-sized town in southeastern New York. The house was 4,200 square feet, had two stories, and was connected to over two acres of undeveloped hillside land. Only a few other houses occupied the cul-de-sac, leaving the neighborhood fairly quiet. Cell phone service was almost nonexistent, so most knew to just turn off their phones when they came.

The garage looked like a small outdoors shop, a true outdoor enthusiast’s wet dream. Across from Tom’s fully restored 1955 T-Bird and 2008 Yukon Denali sat an endless sea of cupboards and drawers. They were filled with clothing, backpacking supplies, camping equipment, and other hiking and climbing paraphernalia. As if that wasn’t enough, Tom also had a section dedicated to weapons and ammo. Throughout his military career, Tom had the opportunity to collect and purchase a variety of weapons. Some weren’t technically legal by New York law, but he got around that through military privilege. He owned a variety of handguns in every caliber, preferring .45’s over most. His stainless steel gun racks also held various rifles and shotguns. Beneath the guns, Tom always kept a surplus of ammo stocked. Steve and Mike used to joke that he wasn’t at war anymore. His nieces didn’t care about “gun stuff,” but his older nephews always admired his collection, asking if he had anything new to show.

The other relatives would be arriving in roughly an hour, which left the guys enough time to break down equipment and prepare for the party. It took Steve, Alex, Billy, Collin, Mike, and Tom no time to clear out the RV from their hunting trip to Greene County National Forest. As a military man, Tom was very organized and particular, so packing and unpacking was relatively effortless.

After they finished, Tom asked for their help loading a few pallets of inventory into the RV. Most of the cardboard boxes were filled with various calibers of handgun and rifle ammo. Others were filled with miscellaneous merchandise, including Tom’s Beef, a new line of beef jerky that Tom cut, smoked, and packaged himself. He needed the product at his first and most profitable store in up-state New York. He was going to drive it up the following day.

They all agreed without protest, knowing that Tom took such good care of them. It was the least they could do. It took them ten minutes to load the shipment into the RV. Afterwards, everyone dispersed to their own activities. Mike, Collin, Billy, and Alex left to shower and get dressed; they wanted a little time to themselves to relax.

Steve stayed behind in the RV, cleaning his rifle; the satellite TV next to him was on, but muted. On the seat next to him sat his journal. Tom entered, setting down some supplies. Steve could tell something was on his dad’s mind, but didn’t want to ask, fearing he already knew the question.

“Another great trip, huh?” Tom asked, taking out a bottle of water from the fridge.

“Yeah, I think the guys had a really good time. The new radios and stuff were a hit,” Steve replied, not looking up.

Tom picked up the rifle from Steve’s hands and cycled the chamber. “You remember when I got this for you? You were so excited.”

“Yeah, Dad, it was right after I took first at national championships two years ago.”

Tom set the weapon down and pulled a letter from his pocket. He tossed the folded paper in front of his son. Steve didn’t have to open the letter to know what it was. He saw the symbol on the corner and knew immediately. It was his letter of acceptance from the University of Southern California graduate school, including words of excitement from the head of the English department.

Before Steve could explain, Tom spoke. “So, when were you going to tell me about this?”

“We talked about it, Dad. You, me, and Mom.”

“We talked about undergrad. As much as I wanted you to enlist out of high school, I knew your mom would never allow it, so I agreed to you getting your undergrad, then go through officer school.”

“Come on, Dad, that’s your dream! I don’t want to be in the military.”

“My dream? What do you think we’ve been doing all these years? Shooting competitions, trainings, Marine base visits—I was trying to get you ahead of the competition. To be elite!”

“What do you want me to say?”

“That you’ll be a Marine, damnit!”

“Well, I won’t, Dad. I want to write,” Steve argued, reaching down to retrieve his journal.

“What is this writing pussy-shit? You are a Brason. You are a warrior!” Tom said, snatching the leather-bound journal from his son’s hand and tossing it against the wall. The pages flickered open as the book landed back on the seat. Something slid halfway out.

Steve may not have been a soldier, but he had his dad’s attitude and temper. He rose and stood strong in his father’s face. “Then what about Mike, huh? Your oldest son. Why isn't he your Marine? Why does it have to be me?”

“Your brother is a lost cause. I tried with him, but he just doesn’t care about anything. Only surfing and smoking his pot—yes, I know he does. It’s no secret. Now stop changing the subject.”

Steve slammed his fist against the wall. “That’s so fucked, Dad! I hate how you won’t let me be my own person. Mom would have supported me no matter what!”

Emotions and anger escalated to a boiling point. Their voices rang throughout the RV, into the yard and house. Hearing the exchange from outside, Collin came over and knocked on the wide open side door.

“Guys, everything okay in here?” he asked timidly.

“Everything is fine, Collin,” Tom said, breathing heavily and staring daggers at his son.

Some of the extended family began arriving early for the party. “We’ll finish this talk later. At least there’s one person in this family who has the balls to serve his country!” he said, storming off back into the house.

Taking out his aggression, Steve began to scrub the barrel of his rifle incredibly hard.

Collin stepped inside and sat down across from him. “You know he doesn’t mean that. Any of it.”

“I know. It’s just that I don’t get it. Why is it so hard for him to understand that I don’t want to be a soldier? I want to be a writer.”

“He will. I mean, Mike’s...lost right now, and he just thought that he had a chance with you.”

“I know, but it’s not fair.”

“I know, cuz. I’ll talk to him about it. But you should probably get ready. The fam is getting here. I’ll talk to you later on, okay?”

Collin left Steve to his thoughts and greeted his family. Steve stayed behind and finished cleaning and re-assembling the rifle. He looked down at his journal. He noticed the picture slightly protruding from the pages. It was a copy of their family portrait from a few years before. Steve slid it gently back in his journal as a bookmark. I miss you so much, Mom, he thought. He took a shower, staying in until the hot water ran out.

As he showered, the TV switched away from its normal programming to show a breaking news headline. All around New York City and neighboring counties, what seemed to be riots were occurring.

It was only a matter of time.

1805 hours

The streetlights came on as the last of the family arrived. The pleasant hum of chatter and excitement ran through the house and backyard. Most of those invited had been able to make it, and almost fifty were present.

Tom came from a decent-sized family, with two brothers and one sister. Each of his siblings had a few children. The real numbers came from Barbara’s side of the family. She had been the oldest of five and each of her siblings had anywhere from two to six children of their own. Since Barbara’s passing from breast cancer, the family had grown closer. “Time’s short,” they would say. “We should do as much as we can together.”

If they only knew how true that was.

The party was roaring, and everyone was having a great time, some more than others. Tom’s sister, Patty, and Barbara’s youngest and wildest sister, Mary, started off the night with three tequila shots. After the last one, they sucked on limes and switched to their infamous Patty-coladas and Mary-garitas. No one really knew what was in either drink, just that when these two women partied together, it was like Mardi-Gras.

The youngest cousins ran all over the house, building forts and living in their own imaginary worlds. At a whim, Cowboys and Indians would change into Astronauts and Aliens. The kids loved the size of Tom’s new house.

The older cousins stayed outside with the adults, drinking and answering all sorts of questions. How was the trip? Who bagged the biggest? What’s new? Their throats hurt from talking so much.

Tom had set up tables and chairs outside to accommodate everyone. As soon as he rang the dinner bell, everyone rushed over and filled their plates. It was a true feast. Along with a variety of grilled meats, there were mashed potatoes, salads, breads, and what seemed like a million other dishes. Tom’s specialty was his prime rib, a juicy, marinated meat-lover’s delight.

At the end of the table, Alex’s older sister, Krissy, sat next to Steve, waiting for an opportunity to open her mouth. She was one of those people who loved their own voice. During her parents’ divorce, she had played both parties for money, ultimately ending up in Southern California with her mom. She always defended herself, saying, “It’s not about the money, it’s about the emotional anguish I’ve had to go through. You just don’t get it.” And most didn’t, until three totaled convertible Mustangs later. That ended any pity they had for her. They loved her, but everyone agreed she was a pretentious bitch.

Krissy dropped out of UCLA in her sophomore year to pursue acting, but didn’t get any attention until she coerced her mom into paying for her breast augmentation. The incriminating adulterous photos she used as leverage never found their way to Alex’s dad. The procedure upped her confidence and her bust, all the way to a 34DD.

“So, Steve, why don’t you move to California?” Krissy asked. “It’d be, like, so much fun. We could, like, live together. And I could, like, hook you up with some of my actor friends. It would be so cool!”

“Yeah, maybe,” Steve said, trying to keep that topic unheard.

David Forest, Krissy’s dad, sat across from Steve, stuffing his mouth with thick slices of prime rib and mashed potatoes.

“Yeah, Steve, what are you going to do after graduation?” he said, spitting out bits of potato as he talked.

Steve looked over at his dad, then quickly back to David. “Not too sure yet, Uncle Dave. Keeping my options open,” he replied, desperate to avoid a potential fight.

Collin stepped in and started asking David and Krissy some random questions to deflect the conversation. It worked. Steve lipped a “thanks” to Collin, who nodded. The rest of the meal passed without another word of Steve’s future.

1833 hours

One by one, people left and the dinner-table crowd grew thin. Some went for seconds or dessert, while others slumped on the couch in a food coma. It was a typical Brason party. As Tom finished his plate, intent on another helping of tri-tip steak, a group of his younger nieces and nephews ran over.

“Uncle Tom,” Collin’s little sister, Alexandria, said. “Why aren’t the TVs working?”

“I’m not sure, honey. Before I left I was switching over to satellite TV. It was supposed to be finished before we got back.”

David cut in. “What? No Sunday Night Football?” he whined.

“Sorry, Dave, doesn’t look like it,” Tom said. He looked down at Alexandria, who was giving him an innocent look of sadness. “I’ll tell you what. Steve keeps a million DVDs in the TV room. Why don’t you guys go pick out a few movies, and grab some candy and dessert? I’ll be in in a few minutes to set it up for you. How does that sound?”

Alexandria’s frown turned upside down, and she and the others ran into the house toward the TV room, making a quick stop at the dessert tray.

After everyone was finally done gorging, the remaining food was packaged in to-go Tupperware containers. Like clockwork, the party split. The adults stayed outside for drinks and desserts. The younger cousins and girls played around the house, waiting for Tom to set up the movie. Collin, Billy, Alex, Steve, and Mike headed upstairs to relax.

Inside the bonus room, the cousins sprawled out. The room was riddled with a variety of outdoors pictures, equipment, and guns. A black, L-shaped couch sat in the middle of the room. On one side was a computer, and on the other was a gun collection and desk. In the front, near the door, a huge plasma TV was mounted to the wall.

Billy and Alex took over the couch and played video games. They started with Grand Turismo, Alex’s favorite. After losing five consecutive races, Billy threw the PlayStation controller at the console, accidentally freezing the system.

“Fuck, my bad. I got it,” Billy said, crawling toward the PS3. “Why can I never get away from electrical work?”

“Karma. Just watch, you’ll be doing it forever!” Alex called out jokingly.

Mike sat on the La-Z-Boy adjacent to the couch. A small joint rested between his lips. He had the window cracked open to blow the smoke out, careful not to stink up the room. In his lap, he manicured a tiny little pot plant, petting it and talking to it like it was a baby.

Billy got the system working again, and both he and Alex took a quick drag from Mike’s joint and went back to playing. Alex didn’t notice until the game was loaded that Billy had switched the game to his favorite, Call of Duty.

Collin and Steve sat in the corner of the room with the guns. Steve had his Sig on the table, disassembled but clean. Collin took Tom’s Magnum from the mantle and cycled the rounds.

“He just doesn’t get it. He’s so damn stubborn,” Steve said.

“I talked with him for a little. He loves you. You know that. He just really wants you to serve. He just wanted to keep the tradition going, ya know.”

“I know, but he needs to understand I just want to be me.”

“I think his main concern is just that you didn’t even tell him you were applying to grad school. He said he knew before we left for the hunt. He got the mail when you were out and opened it.”

“Of all the days it had to come.”

From the town of Fullertown below, the distant sounds of gunfire drifted towards the house, sounding like fireworks and partying. Outside, the adults were too occupied with booze, loud music and chatter to notice.

1947 hours

Many hours and multiple cocktails later, the party continued to rage on. Patty and Mary brought out a few bottles of tequila and lined up shot glasses, convincing everyone, even the designated drivers, to do a shot.

“Looks like that’s my cue,” Tom said, avoiding the pressure to do a shot. He saw the trashcans filling with plates and cans and went to take them out. On his way to the side, David stopped him.

“Tom, I got that, man. You have done way too much.”

“Thanks, Dave.”

David grabbed the bags and took off. “And the kids have a problem with the DVD player. Sorry to do you like that.”

“And here I am, thinking you’re being genuine. Gotta love family.” Tom said, walking into the house.

David could hear the sounds of ambulances and police sirens, but paid no attention. As he walked around the pool to the side yard, a cat jumped out of the bushes, startling him. He dropped the bags and cursed. After collecting the bags once more, he continued to the trash area. He lifted the bins and tossed the bags in. As he turned back, he noticed someone running down the street toward him. He thought the person’s outstretched hands were a signal or something; the person, whoever it was, was making guttural sounds that seemed like muffled pleas.

“Is everything okay?” David asked wearily. “If it’s the music, I’m sorry. When I get back, I’ll have Tom turn it down.”

Through the gradually-thickening evening fog, David couldn’t make out the neighbor’s appearance. They said nothing, but kept approaching.

David was unsure of how to respond. “I’m going to get Tom,” he said, turning heel back to the party.

The unknown neighbor picked up his speed and lunged at David, tackling him into the bins. The neighbor’s jaws clasped tightly around David’s neck. David swung the infected man around, and the force released the man, but took off a chunk of his neck in the process.

“What the fuck, man?” David screamed, pressing his hand against his blood-spurting neck.

David stumbled back against the wall and watched the man, or whatever it was, pull itself up. He saw the open wound on its face and multiple gashes on its shirtless body. David slammed the gate closed, leaving the shirtless attacker locked inside the garbage area.

David made it around the pool but collapsed on the wooden patio. Alarmed and unsure of what had happened, a few of the other adults ran toward him, but it was too late. Within twenty seconds, David died from blood loss.

Patty, a registered nurse, tried to administer CPR. As she leaned in to check for a pulse, David’s eyes opened, and he clamped down hard on her neck, creating the same kind of wound, but worse. The carotid artery pulled and snapped like a rubber-band, instantly sending Patty to the ground.

The man from the street had escaped the bin area and now made his way over the gate and attacked Billy’s mom, Mary. Tom heard the screams and ran out to the back. What he saw was more horrifying than any war zone he had ever been deployed to. Everyone ran around, shocked and confused. Panic turned into pure chaos. Family members were dying, waking up, and attacking the living. And not just attacking, but eating.

“What the hell?” Tom muttered, before jumping back.

Tom’s brother-in-law, John, broke through the sliding glass door. Tom used his military training and put John down with hand to hand maneuvers. Using an arm bar, Tom tried to talk him down, but John was unresponsive.

“Damnit, John, don’t make me break your arm!” Tom yelled. Tom twisted John’s arm so far that his shoulder snapped, but John didn’t even wince. What the hell? Tom thought. There was no way any human could endure the pain he administered. Tom knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what. He kicked John away and finally noticed his eyes. Slowly, Tom backed up next to the fireplace and picked up a poker, waiving it at his deranged brother-in-law. “John, damnit! I don’t want to, but I will hurt you if you don’t stop!”

The threat had no effect and John dove at him. In self-defense, Tom jammed the poker through his brother-in-law’s eye, dropping him instantly. Tom ran to the alarm panel near the wall and pushed the emergency button, calling for emergency services and screeching an ear-piercing sound throughout the residence.

Mike and Steve had only heard that sound one time before, as a test when it was installed. All five of the cousins upstairs sprang up and covered their ears. They tried to call out to one another, but no one knew what was going on.

“Follow me,” Steve tried yelling over the screeching. He grabbed his Sig and threw in a magazine. Collin followed, loading six rounds into the Magnum.

As they raced down the stairs, the cousins witnessed the carnage. Aunts, uncles, and cousins were running around screaming or cowering in a corner. Some were alive, others weren’t. Blood stained everything and windows were smashed, covering the ground with shards of glass. Tom cocked a shotgun and ran into the five of them at the base of the staircase. None of them had ever seen him that scared.

“Dad, what the hell is going on?” Steve asked hysterically.

“I have no idea what’s happening, but everyone is getting attacked, then getting up and attacking the others. It’s like they’re insane or something.” Tom paused to shoot, hitting their Aunt Mary in the back of the head, putting her down for good.

“Dad! You just killed Aunt Mary!” Mike yelled.

“Mom?” Billy mumbled. He tried to run toward his mother, but Tom stopped him and ordered him to stay put.

“You guys don’t get it. I saw her get tackled and literally fed on until she stopped moving. Now she’s up and running. Something happens to them once they get bit. I don’t know why, but they’ve been coming back to life, mad.”

Billy, Alex, Collin, Mike, and Steve stood in disbelief, mouths open, unable to fully comprehend what was going on.

“Good, you have some guns. Are they loaded?” Tom asked quickly.

Steve’s voice trembled as he spoke. “Yeah, but just me and Collin.”

“Okay, the rest of you, find something and use it to defend yourself. Anything. And this next part is going to be hard boys, so listen carefully. If you run into anyone who looks different, you have to put them down. Believe me, you’ll know. Do not let them attack you under any circumstances. Do you hear me?”

“Put them down?” Alex asked, confused. “Like, kill them?”

“Yes, Alex. I know it sounds terrible, but you have to do it. Now, there’s no time. Get the children from the TV room and head to RV. I’ll meet you there in five minutes. I want you to load it and then we are going to get the hell out of here. I’m going to see if there’s anyone left alive,” Tom ordered. He shoved them onward before they could protest.

Steve took the lead and the others grabbed whatever they could. Bloody handprints marked the walls on their route to the opposite end of the house. They got to the TV room and opened the double doors, but immediately wished they hadn’t. Dozens of bodies laid lifeless on the ground, while others fed on them. They didn’t know who, but someone had gotten to them.

Their little cousin, Shawna, lifted her head from Krissy’s mangled corpse. Bits of silicone-infused flesh hung from her teeth. Krissy’s body had been torn to shreds.

“Krissy,” Alex whimpered, dropping a metal statue he was using as a weapon.

“Shawna?” the others said under their breath.

All of them saw her eyes and knew immediately what Tom had meant. Her eyes were veiny and completely dilated. Her face was lifeless, but alive at the same time. Her teeth were stained with blood, and she let out a gargled cry. She jumped up and leapt over Krissy’s body, heading toward the door.

Neither Collin nor Steve was prepared to take a shot, to kill their little cousin. Steve raised his gun but couldn’t pull the trigger. As she rushed, Alex kicked her in the stomach, sending her back five feet. Billy and Mike grabbed both the door handles and slammed them shut, locking Shawna inside. There was nothing more they could do, so they left. As they marched on, the handles shook violently.

The cousins made it down the hall and almost to the door leading into the garage. Suddenly, a man came crashing through the door in front of them. It was Collin’s dad, Randy. His face was bloody, and eyes were just as black as their little cousin’s. Randy scrambled to get up, let out a throaty howl, and then rushed at the group.

“Dad! Stop!” Collin yelled.

The others joined in. “Uncle Randy. Stop, please!”

Collin raised his gun and pointed at his dad. “Dad, I don’t want to, but I will shoot you. So please, stop! Dad?”

Randy continued his sprint, screaming and hurling his body at them. Collin pulled back the hammer on the Magnum and fired.

The shot tore through Randy’s upper chest and sent him to the ground. Rather than staying down, he scrambled to his feel, let out a pained howl, and tried again. This was the last thing they ever expected. A normal bullet at that range and location would have put down a Kodiak bear. Collin squeezed the trigger again, and this time the bullet pierced the top of Randy’s skull, splattering bone and brain fragments all over the hallway.

“You guys saw that right?” Collin asked, his voice shaking as much as his hands.

It took Collin’s action for them to realize the magnitude of the situation. All hell was breaking loose. Something terrible, something sinister and completely unrealistic had turned their world upside down. Their family was killing each other. Tom had been right. These things, whatever they had become, were no longer their family. They would have to be taken out.

Billy put his hand over Collin’s, lowering the gun. “Yeah, cuz. We all saw it.”

“Guys, we have to keep moving, before more come,” Steve said, motioning toward the garage door.

The coast was clear inside the garage, giving the cousins a chance to exchange their blunt instruments for the weapons on the shelves. They grabbed a couple crates of ammo and guns and tossed them inside the RV.

“All right, guys, let’s form a perimeter. Make sure they are changed before you shoot,” Collin said, ordering the cousins to different locations.

From down the street, more infected ran toward the Brason residence. Dozens of empty shells and casings covered the ground as the cousins unloaded on the incoming threats. Besides Collin, none had ever killed another human. The firefight lasted for what felt like an eternity until, out of nowhere, Tom burst through the side door of the garage.

“Where is everyone?” he yelled.

“They’re all dead, Uncle Tom. How about you?” Collin called back. But he took Tom’s solitude and lack of an answer to mean the worst.

“Did you guys get the RV ready?”

“Yeah, we grabbed what we could, but more started coming,” Steve said. “Are we going?"

“All right, let’s pack it up. We are Oscar Mike.” The old military in Tom resurfaced. Everything about him changed.

Collin shouted for the cousins to pile into the RV, then peeled off toward the driver’s door, taking out two incoming infected. He swung the door open and turned. Behind him, Tom had gone back for something, and what Collin saw made his heart drop.

Coming through the side garage door, Alexandria staggered, white dress drenched in blood. She had not been changed, but was overwhelmed and crying hysterically.

Halfway to the RV, Tom noticed her and made his way back. He was just steps away when she was tackled and bitten from behind by her mother.

Tom skidded to a halt. “Lexi,” he said under his breath. There was nothing more he could do for her. Tom turned to run back, and Steve noticed the back door opening. It was in Tom’s blind-spot, leaving him oblivious to the threat. Steve yelled to his dad and tried to raise his gun, but his hands froze, locking in place.

David knocked Tom to the ground. Luckily, Tom used his training to spin off the impact and brace himself for the fall. On the ground, David had a half mount, clawing and snapping his jaws at the veteran. From sheer panic, Steve stayed frozen, and time slowed all around him.

Collin looked to Steve, then to Tom, then back at Steve. He ran back, grabbed Steve’s rifle, aimed it, and fired. The bullet tore through David’s skull, but it was a second too late. While trying to keep David’s mouth away from major areas, Tom sustained a bite to the wrist. The bullet woke Steve up, and he rushed toward his dad. Tom struggled to his feet and met Steve halfway.

“Dad! Are you okay?” Steve asked, staring at his arm.

“I’m fine, but he bit me on the wrist.”

Steve stepped back in disbelief.

“I need you to listen, Steve. Get in the RV with your cousins and go.”

Steve reeled, his mind working faster than his mouth.

“Don’t say anything, let me finish. Just start driving. I don’t know where you should go, but stay moving.”

“You’re coming with us, right, Dad?” Steve asked, swallowing a dry throat. Tears formed in the pits of his eyes.

“You know I can’t. Whatever this thing is, if you’re bit, you change.”

“But Dad…”

“I know it’s hard, son, but you have to go. I’m going to stay behind and see if I can save anyone else.”

“No, Dad, maybe it doesn’t happen to everyone. Come with us. Maybe we can reverse it or something.”

By now, Steve had rivers running down his cheeks. Even Tom fought back tears.

“You have to go son, and now. Before more come!”

“But, Dad,” Steve whimpered, stomach dropping with every second.

“Go now, damnit!” Tom ordered, firing at an approaching infected.

Steve threw his arms around his dad and squeezed tight. Words couldn’t do justice. Both felt the love and squeezed back tighter. All their fights over Steve’s future had been washed clean. All of their hurtful words, gone. Right now the only thing that mattered was love. Their last goodbye.

“I love you so much, Dad!”

“I love you, Stephen. I am so proud of you. I always will be. You are going to make a fantastic writer someday. Now go.”

Steve was speechless as Mike jumped from the RV and pulled him back.

“Mike, get your brother out of here.”

Mike nodded, exchanged his own “I love you,” and asked no questions. As Steve was dragged back, he didn’t blink. He saw his dad run over to the counter and grab a loaded Springfield rifle and blast at everything.

Collin shouted a lonely goodbye to his uncle and hopped in the driver’s seat. The RV peeled out of the driveway and onto the road. Steve’s eyes stayed glued to the window, until the house was out of sight.

They weren’t sure of what was happening or what to do or where to go. But onward they went, not stopping for anything.

They left a gruesome battle scene behind them.

They left their family.

They left home.

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