The city hadn’t been looted as extensively as
the suburbs. The entire area had certainly seen better days, but
the suburbs had been picked clean by looters through the past
twenty years. This area had been largely avoided, and I could see
that there were several buildings still intact, which might be our
saving grace.
Annie seemed to have a plan, and I followed
dutifully behind, simply happy to still be alive. The events that
led to us getting out from under that bridge were a mystery to me.
I remembered her lighting the fuse on the bomb, but how she’d known
to light it and toss it out of the window so quickly was a mystery
that I’d have to ask her about some day.
We were moving down a street that ran along a
diagonal path compared to the rest of the streets, and Annie kept
us near the buildings, away from the road. We both knew that we
were sitting ducks here, and that every minute we spent out in the
open was a minute longer that the horde hiding here would have to
see us. Night was fast approaching, and we needed to get somewhere
safe as soon as possible.
An apartment building was beside us, and
Annie started to try and open the doors to the three-story complex.
I noticed that the doors bore the symbols that the military had
painted on them at the onset of the apocalypse. The first few doors
that she tried were locked, but then we came upon one that was
partially open. Someone had broken in here years earlier. This
wasn’t a good place to try and hide, since it had more than likely
already been looted and could be housing zombies for all we knew,
but we didn’t have much of a choice.
She motioned for me to follow her inside, and
then clicked on the light that was attached to her rifle’s barrel.
We walked carefully into the dark, carpeted hall, and the signs of
death were all around us. The walls bore scratches that ran their
length and the floor was browned with old, dried blood, revealing
that an awful battle had been fought here. The hall was thin, and a
staircase rose on our right. Annie was smart not to trust going up,
and we stuck to the main floor to start our search. Far too many
survivors met their end by heading upstairs in a building like this
before clearing the bottom floor. Once you’re chased up, there’s
usually no way back down again.
The ringing in my right ear was getting
progressively louder, but the left was still offering only a faint
murmur. It was becoming clear to me that I’d become at least
partially deaf. Annie said something that was lost to me, but at
least it meant she could hear. I was thankful for that.
I tapped her shoulder and then pointed at my
ear as I shook my head. I mouthed, ‘I can’t hear.’ She nodded in
understanding and then pointed at a nearby door to our left. She
let her rifle droop by its strap and set two fingers over the palm
of her other hand and made them move back and forth. I realized she
was motioning to me that a Grey was walking around in the room to
our left. She took her knife off her belt, and I realized she was
planning on trying to quietly kill whatever was in there.
I wanted to stop her and offer to clear the
room myself, but she moved too fast. She opened the door and then
stepped back, allowing the occupant to come to her instead of
charging blindly into a room that might be filled with Greys. This
was a girl that had lived the majority of her life surviving in a
world that wanted her dead. She knew how to use her surroundings to
her benefit, and where other inexperienced survivors might’ve tried
to run into the room and catch the creature by surprise, Annie
recognized that she could gain the advantage by limiting the space
her enemies could get to her from.
When the zombie did appear, Annie was quick
to silence it. The Grey was short and spindly, appearing to have
been an older woman when she turned. Annie slammed her knife down
into the top of the woman’s head and let the zombie fall. She
didn’t try to retract the blade, but instead stood sentry at the
door. She held her rifle and shined the light inside, waiting for
something to come out at us.
I kept an eye on the exit, convinced that a
horde was about to come charging in at us at any minute. Daylight
was growing scarce, and the street outside was getting darker every
second.
Annie retrieved her knife and then took my
arm to pull me into the apartment. She pushed the body of the Grey
out into the hall and then closed the door. To my shock, I heard
the door click as she locked it.
“Annie,” I said more for my benefit than
hers.
She pinched me and then put her finger to her
lips, shushing me. She tried to say something, but she was speaking
too quietly for me to hear. I tapped my ear and shook my head, to
which she nodded in sympathetic understanding.
The apartment we’d broken into smelled stale
except for the lingering stench of the Grey that had been trapped
here. Our side of the door was covered in thousands of scratches
near the edge, and I knew that the woman Annie killed had been here
for several years. The Red world could often be confounding like
this. How a Grey had become trapped in this apartment was a
mystery. The Greys hadn’t reached this area for years after the
initial outbreak, so that woman wasn’t the original occupant of
this space. Perhaps someone else had trapped her in here, closing
the door and dooming her to this space like a corpse in a tomb.
This looked like a college student’s
apartment. There was sparse furniture, and college football flags
on the wall. A dartboard had been pulled off its hook, and was
lying amid a stack of red, plastic cups piled in the corner. The
front door opened to the living room, but I could see nearly every
room from this vantage. There was a tiny dining area to my right,
with only a card table and foldout chairs set in it. Beside that
was the kitchen, and dishes were still piled up in the sink, two
decades worth of rot having long since turned black. The living
room was to the left, where a couch was set in front of an
obscenely large television and two towering speakers. Compact discs
littered the floor beneath the television along with what I
recognized as a video game console.
There was a hallway in front of us with three
doors, two on the right and one on the left. Annie moved in that
direction, and checked the first door on the right to discover a
linen closet. The next room was a bathroom, and the other the
bedroom, but she seemed confident that the apartment was clear when
she returned.
We moved the couch in front of the door, and
in the process the ringing in my ear started to fade. It was
replaced with a deep, pulsing sound that I recognized as my own
heartbeat.
“Ben,” said Annie, and I actually heard
her.
I nodded instead of responding, still worried
that my voice would be louder than intended.
“You can hear?”
I wavered my hand in response, letting her
know that it was touch and go.
She came over to stand beside me and said,
“There’s more outside.” She pointed towards the glass patio door
that looked out onto the street we’d just escaped. “Keep an eye on
the door. I’m going to see if I can find anything to help clean us
up some.”
She pushed me down to the couch, forcing me
to do as she instructed as she set about searching the apartment
for anything that could be useful. I kept my rifle pointed at the
patio door just past the living room, and the pain on the left side
of my face was getting more intense every second. The adrenaline
was wearing off, and my injuries were taking the opportunity to
announce themselves.
Annie returned with a case of Coors Light and
some towels. She shrugged and said, “It was all I could find. Turn
and look the other way so I can see your…” I did as she asked and
she cringed when she saw the side of my face.
“Is it bad?” I asked.
“It’s not good.” She sounded further away as
she spoke into my deafened ear. “But you’ll live.”
“That’s more than I expected after what we
just went through.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah,” I said, not bothering to try and act
tough.
“Looks like some metal got stuck in your
cheek. I’m going to have to pull it out.”
“Go for it,” I said.
“Want a beer?” she asked, but I refused.
“Save it. I had enough to drink last
night.”
She started to pull shrapnel from my cheek,
and I did my best not to wince too much. She poured a can of beer
into one of the towels and used it to clean my wound. There wasn’t
enough alcohol in the beer to cause the wounds to sting any more
than they already did, which made me wonder how sterile it could
possibly be. We didn’t have much choice other than to use it
though. I think the apartment’s former occupant probably lived on a
steady diet of this stuff.
“We got ourselves in a hell of a mess this
time,” I said as she continued to clean my wounds.
“I’m sorry,” said Annie. “It was so stupid of
me to try and go through the city.”
“That wasn’t just your decision,” I said. “It
was mine too.”
“I pushed you into it,” said Annie. “It was a
dumb idea, and it nearly got us killed.”
“Hey, Annie, stop it. Stop blaming yourself
like that. We made a decision, and it didn’t work out. Now we’ll
pick up the pieces and do the best we can. If you go around blaming
yourself for everything that goes wrong, you’ll end up tearing
yourself apart. You’re a pretty incredible woman, Miss Conrad, stop
trying to convince yourself otherwise.”
She considered what I’d said, and then nodded
in agreement. She gave me a weak grin that eventually turned into
an actual smile before she said, “I’ll give it a shot. But we still
need to find a way out of the city.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be a bit of a
challenge. Any ideas?”
Annie raised her brow and sighed before she
said, “Believe it or not, I think the highway’s still our best bet.
If Jerald’s men went that way, then at least we know it’s clear
enough to drive through. Maybe by morning the horde will have moved
back out into the city. And Billy’s map was in the Jeep. We’re not
going to have much luck trying to navigate the roads without that.
The highway’s a straight shot to where we need to go.”
“I agree.”
She seemed pleased that I agreed so readily,
but then said, “The trick is going to be finding a vehicle that
still runs and enough gas to get us out of here.”
“That might be easier than you think,” I said
as I took the towel from her to hold against my face. “This area’s
not nearly as looted as I would’ve thought. I bet we can find a car
dealership around here somewhere.”
“A car dealership?” asked Annie. “But those
cars have been sitting in a lot in bad weather for twenty
years.”
“Not the ones they keep inside on the
showroom. Those are usually in perfect condition, and dealerships
have gas pumps in them. Most of the stations were drained years
ago, but raiders never bother draining the tanks at dealerships.
The best cars I’ve ever found came from dealership floors.”
“Well all right then, Mr. Survivor, I’ll take
your word for it. Meanwhile, I’m going to see if I can’t find some
clothes for us to wear. I’m sick of smelling like a corpse.”
She got up to leave, but I grabbed her arm
and pulled her back towards me. I kissed her, and then said, “We
make a good team.”
“Don’t be so sure,” said Annie. “We’re not
out of the woods yet.”
Laura Conrad
“It could be stress that’s aggravating it,”
said Clyde as he sat beside me. I was on a bed in my room, with
Zack sitting in a chair that he’d pulled up beside me. Clyde had
been doting over me, although he had plenty of other things to
worry about. Jill was out of commission, laid up in another room as
she dealt with what Clyde thought was a series of intense Braxton
Hicks contractions. The other members of our group that had any
medicinal aptitude had already left to join the team that was
setting up New Vineyard. The only people left behind at the Rehab
center were the members of the Rollers that were planning on
attacking the military base at the airport, depending on Annie’s
report in a few days.
“I’ll be fine,” I lied. My gut was churning,
but instead of it causing just nausea like usual, this time I’d
been doubled over in pain when Zack found me.
“You need to take it easy,” said Zack, and I
laughed in response. He scowled and said, “I’m serious, Laura.
You’re going to kill yourself if you keep trying to fight me on
this.”
“The best thing for you now would be to
rest,” said Clyde.
Zack was quick to say, “And that’s exactly
what you’re going to get.”
“They need me at New Vineyard,” I said and
was immediately rebuffed.
“Nope,” said Zack. “They’ll do fine on their
own. All they’ve got headed out that way now are supplies.”
“Don’t fight me on this,” I said as I pushed
myself up on my elbows. I felt weak and weary, but was determined
not to show it. “I’ve been dealing with this…” I motioned at my
stomach, but was unwilling to call it cancer. That word has a way
of sucking the life out of me.
Clyde said it for me, “Cancer.”
“Whatever the fuck it is,” I said with a
grimace. “I’ve been dealing with it for a long time now. It comes
and goes. In half an hour I’ll be back to normal. The worst thing I
can do is let everyone think I’m dying. They need a leader, not an
old, sick, dying woman.”
Both of them had frowns as I sat up and set
my feet on the floor.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “Zack,
if you really want to help, then drive me to New Vineyard. I’ll get
some sleep on the road.” I knew that both of them wanted to argue
with me, so I shot them down before they started. “I’ve been
fighting for almost twenty goddamn years to set up a place where my
friends and family could be safe. There’s no fucking way I’m going
to lay here and waste away while that dream comes true. Please
don’t fight me on this.”