Pandora 2: Death is not an Option (6 page)

“I used to enjoy a lot of things,” responded Max. “Before Pandora came and then the Pandora 2 Mutation, this was a really great life. When I finally packed it in and retired here with my wife, Roberta, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. We swam every day in the pool, met new friends, and went out to dinner almost every night. Took up golf. Man, I thought I had it made.” Max looked down and smiled longingly in his drink. “Then Pandora came. I remember when that comet hit Mars, and everyone got really scared. Bobi and I went up to the roof with the Rosens and the Biermans to watch the dazzling sunsets. You remember that, Steve? I saw you and Luke up there too. You had those two blondes you two were seeing back then. Those sunsets were gorgeous, and I recall thinking that this is going to be the best time of our life.”

Max rubbed his nose and blinked a few times. He sighed heavily and then continued, “
Then
people started getting sick. Bobi did too. It hit quite a few people in this building. But then everyone got better and we thought, ‘What the hell, a passing flu. Nothing to worry about.’ Ha, nothing to worry about my ass. Next thing you know, I’m in Good Samaritan Medical Center holding my Bobi as she dies in my arms in their goddamn waiting room.” Tears were in Max’s eyes now. “I’m sitting there, crying and yelling for a doctor, when the emergency room doors open and this big orderly comes barrelling out with two zombies attached to him like leeches. He’s swearing and yelling, all the while trying to grab these two ghouls off his back. I didn’t know what they were then. I just thought they were some kind of crazed drug addicts. I didn’t even know when a nurse came staggering out with her whole throat ripped open. She collapsed in the doorway, holding both doors open, and we could see the havoc going on inside. People fighting, running back and forth, biting each other. It still didn’t sink in. Not even…not even when my wife woke up.” Max shook his head and looked away. He took a gulp of scotch and sat back with his hand over his mouth, silently looking out the window.

Everyone sat there quietly. Luke was fidgeting with his watch. Eventually, he looked at Max and then at Steve. He cleared his throat and then took a small sip of the Dalmore. “When the Pandora 2 Mutation started to hit, I was invited by a friend and customer to his boat. It was docked in the marina, and he was going to take an overnight to Miami. He and his wife had just recovered from the first Pandora, and he wanted to celebrate their newfound good health. I was sick of sitting in the bar of my restaurants every night, staring at empty tables and watching my business head into the dumper. It seemed like half of the population had the sickness and the other half stayed home, afraid they’d catch it. So I called Jackie. She was the blonde you saw me with,” Luke added, looking at Max, “and the next day we went aboard Ralph’s boat. Two days of fun and merry mischief.

“When Jackie and I arrived there, Ralph and his wife looked ill. He apologized profusely and suggested that we just anchor in the waters off the marina and party. Maybe if they started to feel better, we’d head down to Miami.

“It was okay at first. Ralph and his wife Dee are nothing if not game partiers. But as the day went on and turned into night, they got sicker and sicker. Dee threw up over the rail, and she and her pale-looking husband retired to bed early. Jackie and I sat topside and finished the wine. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, we decided to go to sleep and leave early in the morning. It was clear that they were in no shape to do anything. On the way to the cabin, I could hear somebody getting sick in the head.

“Middle of the night, Jackie wakes up. She hears banging around on deck. I’m a little hung over and just want to sleep, so she goes topside herself to see what all the ruckus is about. I’m just falling back to sleep when I hear her give out this blood-curdling scream. Christ, I jump up, hit my head, and almost piss myself. I ran up the stairs onto the deck,
and I see Ralph and Dee attacking my girlfriend in the galley. She is wrestling Ralph while it looks like Dee has her teeth locked around Jackie’s bicep. The first thing I do is grab Ralph and throw him off her. He goes sailing over a table, and then I grabbed Dee. While I have Dee around the waist, Jackie yanks her arm back. I swear to God, she pulls her arm back and half of her fucking bicep rips off, still locked in Dee’s teeth. Jackie’s staring at her arm, screaming, and Dee turns her head around and looks me right in the eyes. I swear, at that moment, I did pee myself. Her eyes were milky white and just dead looking. I’d never seen skin that pale. She looked like one of those geisha girls. And all the while, though it was probably only a few seconds, she was chewing on her hunk of Jackie’s arm and swallowing the pieces.

“Just then, Ralph gets back up and comes after me. I throw Dee at him and then punch him in the face. Now, I know I’m not Mike Tyson, but it didn’t even faze him. I grab a big throw pillow from one of the chairs, and I’m using that to fend off their attacks as I back up. I noticed that Jackie had stopped screaming but, truthfully, didn’t even think about it. I had just backed up as far as I could when over Ralph and Dee’s shoulders I saw Jackie walking toward us. She was covered in blood and looked just like the two in front of me. She looked…hungry. Just as she rushed over, I pushed the big pillow into them and then jumped over the side. We weren’t out far, so I easily swam to the dock. Climbing up, I looked back out and saw them snarling and reaching out for me.

“I ran back home. I was attacked twice on my way back. The first zombie I hit with a pole I found. It was near the entranceway of the marina. I think it was a gaff. Anyway, I hit him with it, and the hook stuck in his head and he went down. The second happened a block before this building. I was trying to outrun another zombie, but then a woman came out of the doorway. The zombie veered off and jumped her instead.” He paused and blew air out of his nose. “It was a dark time.”

Everyone had a story about that particular time. When the Pandora 2 Mutation happened, everybody’s life was bloodily ripped apart.

Steve sat there drinking his scotch. He didn’t want to tell his story. He didn’t want to tell anybody about having to beat his gym manager to death with a kettle ball. Or about that school bus he’d seen off the side of the road. And when he stopped his truck and went over to help, he opened the folding bus doors and dozens of little dead zombie children poured out and chased him back to his vehicle. And how it felt when the tires bounced over their small, bloodied bodies. No. No, he didn’t want to say it ever again. He hoped that someday he wouldn’t even remember.

Turning the conversation to more comfortable small talk, they finished their drinks. After sitting silently for a few minutes, Steve rose and said to the group, “No sense stalling. Let’s put the plan in front of the rest of the group and get this thing working.”

A half hour later, everyone was back and seated in Steve’s condo. He laid out the entire trip for them and then sat back and waited for their reactions. Ana, of course, was the first to speak.

“I don’t like it,” she said. “Why do we all have to take our own cars? That’s too many vehicles. We’d be like a parade out there. Shit, we might as well put a marching band at the front of it. Here comes lunch.”

“For once,” said Dan, “I think she’s right.”

“Fuck you too, Dan Roebling,” spat Ana.

“Yeah,” Mark chimed in, “what if one of us gets stuck out there? Runs over something or gets a flat?”

“That’s the idea,” answered Max.

“What?” they all said at once.

“Wait, listen to me,” said Steve. “Think about it. If we are all in, say, two cars and the same thing happens, what then? Are we going to fit ten people in one car? With all our stuff too? Impossible! What would have to happen then is that the second car would have to leave the passengers of the stuck car behind. There would be no choice.”

Cries of protest came from the group. They were all talking and gesturing at once.

“No one would do that,” shouted Ana.

“You can’t leave people to die,” seconded Gail.

“Yeah,” said Dan, “we could put them someplace. Empty out some of our belongings to make more room.”

“That’s right!” piped in Ginger.

“Really?” said Steve, standing there with his arms akimbo. “And as we all get out and start unloading, what are the zombies doing? Do think they’re just going to stand there and wait for us to figure out new seating arrangements? They’ll be swamping us. Pounding on the windows trying to get in. Are you putting five people on the roof?”

“Yeah,” agreed Luke. “Even if we could, the undead would just reach up and drag them off.”

The protests dwindled down as the rest realized their situation. Max spoke up. “With everyone driving, there is safety in numbers. First, you wouldn’t have all the zombies focusing on just one car. Nine
cars would confuse them. Scatter their ranks. Second, if one gets in trouble, he or she can run to another car with still plenty of room. Hell, if even three or four cars get stuck, that still leaves us at least five vehicles left. No one gets left behind.”

“It works,” stated Steve.

There was a little grumbling, but everyone realized the wisdom of the decision.

“Okay,” said Mark. “I guess that makes sense. Why did you pick the directions and streets you did?” He put his hands up defensively. “I’m not arguing with you, Steve, but Ginger and I have only been here for six months, and I’m curious.”

“Fair enough,” said Steve with a smile. “We picked the widest roads we could because hopefully there’d be less chance of bottlenecks on the wider streets.”

“Hopefully,” Ana grumbled.

Giving her a dirty look, Steve continued, “If there are any pileups, we have a wide road to move about in. We can dodge around the accidents and wrecks. That goes for clusters of zombies also. On the narrow two-lane side street, if we encounter even a two-car pileup, we’re likely to get stuck, hemmed in by the zombies.”

Nodding his head, Mark said, “I like it. It sounds well thought out to me.” He turned and smiled at his wife, and she hugged his arm. Turning back, he said, “Great work, guys.”

“I like it too,” said Dan. “The only problem I see is that nine cars mean more gas.”

“Once we’re out of the city,” Luke said, “things will be easier. When we get to Route 95 there should be more cars and fewer zombies.”

“What about you, Gail?” asked Max.

All eyes turned to her. She sat there very still and then said, “I think it will work. My only question is what about our cars? I mean, I just have a small Honda. Shouldn’t we choose some larger, sturdier SUVs from the ones left in the garage?”

Steve smiled. “Good question, Gail. We thought about that too. The problem is that we don’t really know what vehicles belong to what owners. We would basically have to break into each condo, find the keys, and then go out and try to match them up with the right cars. That in itself wouldn’t be a huge deal. The real problem stems from the fact that because we would need to break into every condo, many of which are still occupied by their now-dead owners, we would have to fight and kill every zombie trapped in this building. I can hear them moaning and stumbling around, and I know you can too. I, for one, don’t really want to spend days risking our lives by fighting zombies for a sweeter ride. It’s a nice idea but in this case unfeasible.”

“I see,” said Gail. “Again you’re right. We could wind up getting killed here before we even make it out.”

“You know, Gail,” said Ginger, “both Mark and I have Porsche Cayennes. They’re both SUVs, and you can drive mine while Mark and I go together in his.”

“Great idea, Ginger,” beamed Steve. “Thank you.”

Mark and Ginger smiled at each other and hugged. Gail reached over and, taking Ginger’s hand, smiled and thanked her.

“Good,” Steve said, “Is anybody not on board with this?”

Everyone gave Ana a sideways glance, but she said, “No, it’s good. You all thought this out. I see that. Good work.”

Max shot up. “Great, let’s start gathering our essentials, food, and water, and then we will begin siphoning gas from the remaining cars and topping off our tanks. Maybe we can find some containers to carry a little extra with us?”

At that, the meeting broke up, and everyone, talking excitedly, went off to start getting ready for the excursion. They knew it was bad out there, but they were about to find out just how bad.

8

P
ierre Bouchard looked down at the person sitting in front of him. He smiled as the man tilted his face up to meet his gaze. His left eye was blackened and his lip cut. He was drenched with sweat, but although he looked defiant, Bouchard could see the fear in his eyes.

“Are you sure?” Bouchard asked sympathetically.

“Go fuck yourself, asshole,” the prisoner spat. “I ain’t telling you anything.”

“Reeeally?” Bouchard chuckled. “You know, I thought you’d say that. But that’s okay. You don’t have to tell me what I want to know. Instead…” he said, nodding his head to the side. The gesture brought a small, mild-looking man up to stand beside him. “I’ll have you talk with my friend here. He’s really anxious to hear what you have to say.”

Glancing at the slight man with the small smile on his almost pleasant face, Vince Pasko turned to Bouchard. “If I won’t talk to you, what the fuck makes you think I’ll talk to this little scumbag?”

“Him?” Bouchard left, pointing his thumb at his companion. “Why, he’s a real people person. Has a way with getting the conversation started. I’ll leave you two to chat.”

Bouchard waved good-bye, turned, and walked with his two other thugs out the door behind him. This left just Vince and the other man looking at each other. Vince was duct-taped to a heavy wooden chair that was nailed to the floor. The only light in the room came from a small skylight set in the ceiling. Vince could only see clearly in the small circle of light around him. The rest of the room was dark.

As they stared at each other, Vince said, “You’re wasting your time, little man. I ain’t gonna say another word to you.”

Turning to the side, the man walked out of the light. As he came back into the ring of visibility, Vince could see that he was pushing a rattling cart in front of him. It was covered by a dirty and what looked like dark rust-stained cloth. The man deliberately pushed it in front of Vince. Pulling off the cloth and throwing it off to the side, he made the vast array of tools in front of him accessible. There were knives, saws, dental tools, hammers, and a number of other weirdly shaped or bladed instruments. Vince’s eyes opened with fear. He started to struggle with his bindings but couldn’t move an inch. He looked back up to that pleasant face and found only a blank, dead look. Though his eyes seemed almost to shine, they stared unblinkingly into Vince’s eyes.