Текст книги "Vaccination"

Автор книги: Phillip Tomasso

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter Thirty-One

The rain had stopped as we started south on the main road. I learned two things. The zombies definitely hate the rain, and two, they were not just dying off on their own.

Despite the darkness of a fall evening, the creatures spilled onto the streets. The variety of monster attire was mildly humorous. Business suits to sweat pants and a tank-top, to evening gowns, and bathrobes with slippers. Sanitation workers in green jumpsuits to fast food employees in striped Polo's with cargo pants and complete with a big M on the brim of their cap.

“You okay,” Allison said. Her voice shattered the peaceful silence that until she spoke, I had not realized I’d been enjoying.

“I am just trying to get my hands around all of this. The world is no more. I mean, I always thought we’d have a big war. Nuclear or something. That would change life as we knew it, you know. There’d be warnings. Irate third world countries threatening attacks. We’d suspect it was coming. But this? No one could have seen this coming. Or, no one outside of maybe the CDC. It’s just, it’s hard to accept it. There ain’t no other choice though. This is life now.” I sailed my hand from one end of the Lexus windshield to the other. “This is what we are stuck with.”

She put her hand on mine. Squeezed. “We’re going to get through all of this. Find somewhere safe. Find somewhere to live on some isolated island, and just forget about the world.”

The pipe dream sounded wonderful, I was afraid to admit that even to myself. I knew I was smiling though. Felt the muscles I hadn’t used in a few days stretch. “I just want to get my kids, Alley. Me, them, and you. It’s all I want.”

She leaned over, rested her head onto my shoulder. “I want that, too.”

It’s weird what we wanted. Before this, I wanted my kids for longer than a weekend. I wanted to see them on Halloween in their costumes. I wanted to beat the fuck out of my ex-wife – well, I did that. Now . . . now it was all different. I wanted survival, and supplies, and a safe haven to sneak off and hide behind. And I did want Allison with me. By my side. I did realize that.

“I need you,” I said.

She lifted her head, stared at me. I took my eyes off the road. There was an actual tear on her cheek. Not a rolling raindrop that dripped from her hair onto her face. “You need me? You really need me?”

And then we crashed.

Through it all, as it unfolded in that cinematic way of slow-motion, the horn blared – long, loud, constant, a Brrrrrrraaaaaaaaa that reverberated loose inside my skull.

I thought Allison had a seat belt on. She didn’t. Her body flew forward. Her head smashed into the windshield. It didn’t break. It shattered.

Brrrrrrraaaaaaaaa!

That was all I saw, or remembered as my head slammed into the steering wheel. The seat belt snapped me back against the seat. I felt the burn of the material against my neck and chest. And then, and then the fucking airbag ballooned into my face. Fucking Donald. I could blame Lexus, but I don’t. I blame him, my ex’s husband.

At least my nose didn’t get broken by the bag.

Brrrrrrraaaaaaaaa!

What was I doing?

Sitting in the car. Thinking about the air bag.

My door was pulled open. “Chase?”

Josh looked panicked. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. I didn’t feel anything. “We hit that car,” I said.

Josh moved away, went to the front of the car. The hood was busted into a triangle. He raised it.

Brrrrrrraaaaaaaaa!

The black Malibu was in the middle of the intersection. We t-boned the shit out of it.

The horn stopped. I think it did. My head still heard it. Wasn’t sure if the sound was actually being picked up from my ears though.

“We have to get you out of this,” Josh said.

“Where’s Allison?”

“Dave’s helping her to the BMW.” Josh reached in. “Can you undue your seat belt?”

I nodded. My hands fumbled for the release. “It’s stuck.”

Josh fell back, out of the car.

A zombie had him by the shoulders. It had been a woman once. She wore jeans and a blue blouse. Could have been a teenager. Might have been a woman in her forties. Her face was so decayed, I couldn’t tell. “Josh,” I said. “Joshua!”

I struggled with the belt, pressing, and pulling. I kept my eyes on Josh, though. He spun on the woman, breaking her hold on his shoulders. He delivered a solid right cross, and then another. She staggered sideways from the blows.

Dave came out of nowhere. Dropped to the pavement and swept the leg. The zombie went down hard. Josh pulled his hand shovels and pummeled the face and head of the zombie until it stopped crying out in that sickening moan and all was silent.

“Nice,” I said.

“He’s stuck,” Josh told Dave. “The seat belt.”

“We got more coming. Sound of the crash called ‘em, I’m guessing. That horn.”

“We need to get Chase out of the car,” Josh said.

“Never seen so many.” Dave spun slowly around in a circle. I just watched him. Josh was across my lap. He tugged on the seat belt.

“Dave. I need help,” Josh said.

“We gotta move, Josh. We gotta get out of here.”

Dave was crisp in my line of vision. Clear. Behind and all around him was fuzzy. Out of focus. If those were zombies, those fuzzy images staggering forward, then we were in trouble.

I grabbed Josh by the arm. “Get Allison out of here. She knows where I live. Go save my kids. Okay? Go save my kids.”

“We are getting you out, buddy. Dave!”

Dave pulled Josh out of the car. He grabbed onto the seat belt, set his feet onto the door frame, so that he was standing on and inside the car, and yanked.

His face went red. He didn’t look like he was breathing. He didn’t grunt. Or groan. Or yell. The pretensioner gave just after the latch exploded out of the latch plate. I was free. And floating. Dave hoisted me out of the car and over his shoulder in a single swoop. “Drive the car, Josh,” Dave said.

“That was close. That was close,” Allison said.

“You okay?” Dave dropped me into the back seat next to my girlfriend. “Are you all right?”

“My head hurts.” Blood wasn’t pouring out of the cut across her forehead, but she was bleeding. I reached for her. Lowered her head into my lap. I combed my fingers through her hair.

“Josh,” Dave said. “Drive.”

Josh threw up an arm over Dave’s seat, checked behind us as he backed away from the totaled Lexus and Malibu. He dropped it into drive and side-swiped two zombies as we continued on south toward my apartment. “We need to get back over to Mt. Read?”

“Might be easiest,” I said. “I live off Stone, at the Ridge. Behind that Rite Aid.”

“I know the complex.”

He maneuvered the BMW onto the sidewalk. The street packed with disabled vehicles, bodies and zombies made it impossible to navigate safely.

“I hate to say this,” Josh said.

“Then maybe now isn’t the time,” I said.

“Things are bad.”

“You hate to say that? That ‘things are bad’? Sorry I’d interjected. Say away,” I said.

“No. I mean bad. Like . . . Jason was the last living person we’ve seen in a while. You guys and Jason. That’s three other people,” he said.

“Most people were vaccinated,” I said. “They pushed that shot at every grocery store and doctor’s office. I know where we work they almost demanded you get it. It’s what made me positive I wouldn’t. Now look at us. Now look where we are.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Look at us. This is life, our life now.”

“You think getting the shot would have been the right thing?” Josh said.

“Sure as shit would have been the easier thing, don’t you think? I mean, seriously. How long are we supposed to go on like this? Let’s say we do make it to Mexico. You and I talked about this. There might not be an un-infected area in the US. In the world. Who knows,” I said.

“I said things were bad. I didn’t say hopeless. I didn’t mean to imply giving up. I’m just apprehensive about moving forward,” Josh said.

“What the fuck are you talking about, moving forward?”

“Mexico, or Canada. Surviving in the elements. Looking for food. Hunting for food. I’m used to cell phones and movies. Driving cars and going out to eat. I never had money, but life wasn’t so bad.”

“We’re going to be okay,” Dave said. He clapped a hand onto his brother’s shoulder.

Dave smiled. “I know we will. Guess I’m just thinking out loud.”

“That’s a fire,” I said.

“I see it,” Josh said. “If it was daytime, we’d of seen the smoke all the way from your ex’s, I’m thinking.”

Allison sat up. “That all from the houses over on Mt. Read. We must be a few miles south still. Has it been burning all this time?”

“No one to put it out. Houses are close together,” I said.

“The rain? That shoulda helped,” Dave said.

“It should have, but–”

A tire blew. Sounded like a gun shot, or an explosion. I knew it was the tire when Josh gripped the steering wheel with both hands and fought for control of the car, turning into the skid as we careened back onto the road, and slammed into, of all things, a black Navigator.

Chapter-Thirty-Three

Josh swore before he climbed out of the car. “I’ll change it. Spare’s gotta be in the trunk.”

There was never a good time for a flat tire. This just seemed like the worst. Allison more than likely had a concussion. If we couldn’t manage the flat, we’d be walking again. She needed rest. Not to be walking. I needed the rest, too. I did not have a concussion, but no point in lying. I felt messed up. My muscles were sore already. I dreaded thinking about the pain my body would feel in the morning. Stiff neck, aching back for sure. The last few days has been nothing but car accidents. Injuries and accidents.

“I’ll help,” I said, and then realized I was right and I was right. The tire had blown. And it had been a gunshot. I realized it when Josh climbed out of the car. I heard it again. That distinct pop. Only, instead of a tire blowing, Josh crumbled to the pavement, his hands over his stomach.

Dave screamed. “Josh!”

“Hold on, Dave,” I said. I jumped up and grabbed his shoulder. He had been about to get out of the car. I held him back. “Someone is out there with a gun. If you get out, you get shot.”

“I gotta get Josh!”

“We’re gonna. Get on your belly. Lay across the front seat. I’m gonna do the same back here. We’ll open our doors and see who’s closer, and we’ll pull him back into the car. Stay low, okay?” I said.

Dave seemed to think over what I’d said. Took a bit longer than I expected. Then he nodded, and did as instructed.

“Stay low,” I reminded him. “You too, Allison.”

She was low. Hidden from view.

I squatted. I pushed open the back door.

I saw Josh’s legs. “I have his feet at my end,” I said.

And they were gone. “Josh,” Dave said.

I looked between the bucket seats.

“He was shot,” Dave said.

He was dead. The bullet must have hit him right in the heart. The pool of blood soaked his shirt, but was thickest, wettest, all around the left chest area. I sat back some, and looked out the window. “Some one’s out there with a gun.”

“We’re not safe just sitting here,” Allison said.

As if to punctuate her statement, another shot was fired. My side window spayed rounded pellets of shattered glass all over me. . . I was not cut. I brushed away the pellets. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Allison said.

“They killed my brother,” Dave said. His face pressed in the space between the front seats. “Josh is dead.”

“You need to drive the car, Dave.”

“We have a flat tire. We have a flat tire and Josh is dead. I’m going to kill those motherfuckers!”

I reached for Dave’s arm again, an attempt to stop him. It didn’t work. He shrugged my hand away. He kicked open his door.

I heard a gunshot. Dave dropped to the ground. I screamed, “No!”

The door was still open. “They didn’t get me,” Dave said.

“Get back in the car,” I said. “We need to get out of here!”

“How many of them are there?”

“I don’t know where they are,” I said, but suspected they were closing in on us. I had to assume there was more than one person out there. I also had to assume they did not have the best intentions. If they had, they wouldn’t be shooting at people passing by in cars. We obviously weren’t the infected, the diseased, the zombies. They didn’t want the BMW, or they wouldn’t have taken out a tire. They wanted us, or they wanted whatever it was they thought we had with us.

The car was expensive. Maybe they thought the occupants would be wealthy.

That was lame, because right now – possible for a long while, money was not going to be worth shit as currency. Bottled water. Canned foods. Cartons of cigarettes. That’s where the gold would come from. Based on everything, I had no idea why someone would shoot at the car, kill Josh, and shoot at Dave, unless it was for bad intentions. I looked at Allison.

If they were men coming at us, she might be in serious trouble. Worse than death. “Dave, drive the car.”

“The tire is flat, Chase.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter. Get us out of here.”

“I’m going to kill them. They killed my brother.”

“They have guns, Dave. They will kill us all. We don’t know where they are. We don’t know how many of them there are. We do know they are dangerous and deadly. Now stop thinking about yourself and drive the car,” I said.

Dave cursed at me, but he was motivated. He moved his brother’s body into the passenger seat. It took some doing, but he did it, and then he climbed over him and into the driver’s seat. “We’re not going to get very far with a flat tire.”

“We’ve got to get further away from here, at least,” I said.

Allison, at some point must have grabbed my hand. I realized it now as she squeezed it a little too tight. “I don’t like this,” she said.

Sign of the times, I wanted to say. I didn’t. It had not dawned on me until this point. I was worried about surviving the elements, not starving, getting somewhere zombie-free. Never had it crossed my mind, and it should have, holy fuck it should have, to fear other non-infected people.

There would be thieves and robbers, pirates and bandits, gangs and murderers . . . the streets would be dangerous night and day. From the living and the living dead. There would be no peace. No sanctuary from evil.

Evil would pulse like a heartbeat, thrive like its own virus. “Get us out of here, Dave.”

“I’m trying the best I can,” he said.

A bullet ricocheted off the trunk. “Try better,” I said.

Then the rear window exploded as a rain of bullets pinged and ba-chonged off the car.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The bullet that killed Josh had been a chest shot. He must have died fast. I’d wager painless. I’d never been shot, and never died, so painless is relative.

Dave did the best he could. He drove all over the place, making lefts and rights. He managed to get the three of us out of there, out of harm’s way. We wound up on Ridge Road at Fetzner. A hotel to our left, a Five Guys on the right. The mall was further west, past the Five Guys. My apartment was to the left. East of the expressway.

I was anxious to get to my apartment. I knew my kids would be there. Waiting. Scared.

Charlene had a key. Cash did too. But I knew Charlene kept house keys on a Miami Dolphins lanyard, one I’d bought for her years ago. It was our team. Cash wasn’t big on football yet. He liked baseball though. His lanyard was a New York Yankees one. He loved it. But he lost it. Regularly.

Dave stopped in the Marriott parking lot. They called it the Airport Marriott. Airport wasn’t anywhere near Greece, or Ridge Road. It was miles south off Interstate 390, but whatever.

“Dave,” Allison said. I climbed out of the back seat. I opened the passenger door. Carefully I lifted Josh out, set him on the pavement and stared at his lifeless eyes.

“Josh,” Dave said. I looked into the car. Dave had a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel. His head banged against the headrest, once, twice. The third time he slammed it back. “Get out of the car, Allison.”

“Dave, what are you doing?” I said.

“Watch my brother,” he said. “Don’t you dare leave his body here.”

“Dave,” I said.

“I’m going back. I’m going to kill those bastards. Every one of them.”

“Dave, we don’t know where they were. We don’t know where they were shooting from.” I didn’t have a good feeling. I sensed it. What was coming.

“Allison, I said get out of the car, out!”

“Come on, Alley,” I said.

She moved slow. One hand on her head. She was not well. The car accident we’d been in had shaken her up. I knew we’d both be sore in the morning. No way around that.

“Dave, if you leave, you are leaving Josh. Because Allison and I, we’re not staying here. We’re not going to wait for you to get back,” I said.

“You can’t just leave his body here,” he said. “That’s my brother.”

“Your brother would not want you to do this, David. He’d not want you to go back there and get yourself killed.”

“He’d want me to kill those fuckers.”

“I’m sure he would,” I said, “but not if he knew you’d die doing it. He wouldn’t want you to die, to get killed.”

“Put him back in the car. In the back,” Dave said.

There were a lot of cars in the hotel parking lot. This car had flat tires. Lots of cars also meant, lots of guests. Lots of guests meant the inside of the hotel had to be crawling with zombies. I didn’t want Dave getting so excited he made a lot of noise. Attracting attention was the last thing we needed.

“Dave, if you had been shot and killed–”

“I wasn’t shot and killed!”

“Just listen to me, all right? Hear what I’m saying. If you had been shot and killed, would you want Josh to go back there and kill those guys for you, to avenge you?”

“Yes.”

I shook my head. “No you wouldn’t. You would know that if he went back, he’d get killed, too. You wouldn’t want that to happen. Him to get killed just to avenge your death in a no-win situation like this. Would you?”

“Would I what?” Dave said.

He might be confused. But he was listening. Meant a part of him was at least trying to rationalize what to do next. What would be the right next move.

“You wouldn’t want Josh going back there to die.”

“Of course I wouldn’t,” he said. “He’s my brother. I’d want him to be safe. If he went back there to kill them, he’d end up getting killed. Then we’d both be dead.”

I kept quiet. Dave was working this out in his head. I think it was all starting to make sense. He didn’t need me pushing and prodding his brain. He’d get there. He’d reach the conclusion I’d been attempting to draw for him.

Dave went silent. His head lowered so that his chin touched his chest. “What are we supposed to do now?”

Get my kids was what I wanted to say, to scream. “We find someplace special to place your brother.”

The cemetery was just kiddy-corner to where we were, go figure. Ridge Road Cemetery. It was on Ridge and Latona. We had the tools.

I never liked funerals. Burials. Today I was burying two people. People who, in the short course of time, had become friends. It was the circumstances. In a million lifetimes, our paths might never have crossed. But for the last few days, Josh was more than just a guy.

“We’ll carry him over to the cemetery,” I said.

Dave looked where I pointed. “We could do that,” he said.

“Ah, Chase,” Allison said.

I stood up. I’d been right. The hotel had a zombie infestation. Or did. Looked like they were filing out of the hotel’s automated doors.

“Are you going to be okay to run?”

Allison nodded. “I will.”

“Dave, we need to get out of here. I’m going to put Josh back into the car.”

“We’ll drive to the cemetery,” Dave said.

No point arguing. I lifted Josh by under the arms. Grunting, I positioned him so that his head went into the car. “Got to help me, Dave,” I said.

Dave leaned over. Grabbed onto his brother and pulled as I worked to get his legs into the vehicle.

“Chase,” Allison said.

“Get back in the car,” I told her. It did not seem like a safe ride. If it still drove, it would get us away faster than running. Possibly.

“We need to go, again, Dave.”

He saw them then. “They are all coming out of there? The hotel.”

“Looks that way.”

Dave shifted the car into drive, and on two flats, we limped back onto Fetzner.

“Got to do me a favor, Dave, a huge favor.”

He didn’t look at me. He kept his eyes on the road. He kept his hands on the wheel.

“I need you to get me to my apartment. It’s less than a mile. It’s right past that plaza down there. Past the Toys R Us.”

“I know where Stone Road is,” he said, “and we’ll get there, after we bury my brother.”

Allison was on her knees. She stared out the back . . . could not say window. There was no glass left. She watched as the zombies that had been converging on our car, now aimlessly milled about since we’d left.

None of them had been fast zombies. Had they of been, I don’t think this badly disabled wreck would have gotten us far before getting overpowered.

Rubber was off one of the tires completely. The sound of metal on asphalt was dangerously loud. We weren’t going to make it further than the intersection. And Dave was not making a left on Ridge. He was headed straight to where Fetzner turned into Latona.

“Dave, please.”

“Help me bury my brother,” he said. “Don’t make me do this alone. Don’t make me drive around with his body in the car. I can’t do that, man. I want to help you. I want to see you get back together with your kids. We’re going to Mexico, right? I’m in. I want to be a part of that. But, please, don’t let me bury my brother all by myself.”