“I can’t get through,” says Danielle. She scans the road ahead but with all the smoke we can’t see more than a hundred feet in any direction.
“There’s a cemetery on the left.” I point to the wrought iron sign above the entryway. “We’ll cut through there.”
Danielle steers the cruiser through the open cemetery gates. I hop out and scan the area while Quentin drives the Mercedes through the entrance. He hurries over to help me pull the gates closed. I kick down an iron post on the fence that locks into a recess in the ground, then step back as the first corpse lunges at us from the other side of the barricade. It reaches through the bars, clawing at the air in front of my face. More of the dead converge on the entrance from the street. Even the ones that are burnt to a crisp just keep coming. They press their smoking bodies against the gates, filleting their charred flesh off on the iron bars. The smell of singed human hair and skin wafts through the air. I cover my mouth and nose with my hand and retreat from the smell.
“I don’t know how much farther we can get,” I tell Quentin. “It’s even worse out here than I was afraid it would be.”
“Maybe we should check out the office,” suggests Quentin. “See if we can lay low here a while.”
I looked around a minute, thinking it over. For a second, I wonder about the dead people in the ground, but I decide it doesn’t matter. Dead or not, they aren’t going anywhere. “These fences will keep them out, and all this open space makes it easy to see anything coming.” I shade my eyes and look towards the office. It sits at the far side of the grounds halfway up the hill. I spot a single corpse, his body swaying in the shadow of a tree.
“We might as well have a look around,” I agree.
“I hate cemeteries,” Dom shudders. She peers over her shoulder at the countless rows of tombstones. “I hated them even before all this. They freak me out.”
Quentin cups a hand to the glass door to try and see inside the lobby of the office. “Looks clear,” he reports as his hand closes around the handle. He holds open the door and waits while we pass inside.
Afternoon sunlight slants across the room from elongated windows that span the top of the two-story entry. Even though there isn’t much more than a few wooden platform benches, the quiet, empty lobby is a welcome sight. I cross the tile floor to a pair of service windows and peer into the darkened office beyond.
“Oh thank God,” Danielle exults. “Bathrooms.” She ushers the young girl over to the bench where Dom is fishing a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. Dom flashes a sardonic smile to express her displeasure at having to keep an eye on the kid.
“Hang on,” Quentin whispers. “Everyone keep quiet until we make sure it’s clear.” He moves over to the restroom door and listens for a moment. Quentin leans his shoulder against the door to nudge it open and slips inside. A moment later Quentin returns and gives Danielle the nod and holds the door to the restroom for her, and then he eases the door closed.
“Blake,” he points a finger at a door on the adjacent wall of the lobby. I nod and then he proceeds to check the other restroom.
The door across the lobby sits below an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign. I check the handle, and I’m relieved to discover it’s locked. The long hallway on the other side appears dark and empty when I peer through the glass.
I return to a stack of brochures about the cemetery on the service counter. I open one up and examine the map of the cemetery grounds inside. The office building is much larger than I expected, connecting to a chapel and a number of other administrative rooms. There are several other entrances we’ll have to secure, too.
Quentin returns from checking the bathroom and I wave him over to the service counter and hand him the map. He studies it a moment and grazes his hand over the stubble of the trim goatee on his chin.
“This place is pretty big,” I point out.
“I can see that.” He throws me a sidelong glance to let me know he doesn’t need me to point out the obvious.
The problem with hearing how smart I am all the time is that it makes it hard to remember everyone else isn’t a complete moron. It’s not like I try to be condescending, but I guess I come off that way, sometimes.
“Of all the places we could possibly go, you guys take us to a cemetery,” Dom complains. “A cemetery… When dead people are attacking everyone.”
“At least, all the ones around here are in the ground,” says Joey. He rummages through a plastic bag of provisions taken from the gas station.
“We can’t be so sure about that yet,” Quentin reminds him. “If we are going to be here awhile, we better check out the rest of the building,” he says.
“If we bust open that door and those damn things are back there, we won’t be able to keep them out,” Dom counters.
Quentin sighs in frustration and looks to me to back him up.
“She’s has a point,” I concede. “But I still think we need to check it out. We don’t want any surprises.”
“Why don’t you break one of those teller windows and climb through that way?” Dom says. She points a lit cigarette at the service counter. “That way those things won’t be able to walk right in here.”
“Not a bad idea,” admits Quentin. He casually picks up the metal garbage can and hurls it through the glass. Pieces of shattered glass plink against the tile floor of the lobby. Quentin snatches up the duffel bag, drops it on the counter and unzips it. After a minute of digging through the duffel, he locates a flashlight and uses it to clear away the shards that remain in the window frame. Quentin climbs through the opening and waits on the other side. “I ain’t doing this by myself,” he gripes.
I wait a moment, hoping someone else will volunteer. With a grunt of exhaustion, I pull out the gun and hand it to Joey. I grab another flashlight and one of the two-way radios from the duffel bag on the counter, then toss the other to Joey.
Quentin clicks on his flashlight and scans the back office while I lift myself over the counter. I drop down on the other side and follow him to a door at the back of the room. The office door opens to a dark hallway with several closed doors on each side. Through the doorway at the end of the hall, faint sunlight reflects off the tile floor in the corridor that runs along the back of the chapel.
“Hello?” I call out. Quentin swivels back around and puts a finger to his mouth. I am not sure if announcing our arrival is a good idea or not. It’s a crapshoot, just like everything now.
We work our way down the hall and find nothing behind the closed doors except a couple of offices and a closet full of cleaning supplies. The corridor behind the chapel is empty and silent. I cross to the door and shine the beam of the flashlight into the chapel through the small rectangular panes of glass. Rows of empty pews sit before an altar in darkness.
Quentin points the beam of his flashlight at a nondescript black double door at one end of the hall. In the opposite direction, a smidgen of sunlight infiltrates the darkness through the slim glass panels of the exit doors. Checking the outer doors is a priority, so I head toward that end of the hallway first. The handle doesn’t budge when I try to pull it open. So I head back to the opposite end of the hall.
"Any idea what's in there?" I ask Quentin.
"You can do the honors," he says. He steps back from the black metal doors. "I'll cover you."
We head to the opposite end of the hall, and I put my ear to the surface of the black metal door. The only sound I hear is the hard pumping of my heart. I press the handle down and push it open. The inside of the room is coffin-dark. The beam of my flashlight passes over the tiled walls, several rolling tables, then lands on a coffin lying on its side on the floor. The sight of the open coffin causes me to panic immediately. I sweep the flashlight quickly across the room. The light sweeps over a corpse with blood dribbled down the front of his suit and necktie coming toward us. Before I can fix the light back on him, Quentin fires a couple of shots into the darkness. I adjust the light back on the corpse and Quentin fires off a round that snaps the head of the thing back and sends it crashing into a steel table.
A second later the radio squawks. “Everything alright?” Joey asks.
“We’re fine,” I respond. I use the flashlight to scan the darkness again to be sure there aren’t anymore. Quentin lowers his gun and steps out of the room. I almost head out behind him, but then a thought occurs to me. Training the flashlight on the body, I stare at the blood-soaked hands.
“Wait,” I whisper to Quentin.
“What?” he says.
“That guy had blood on him. He wasn’t alone in here.”
We look again around the empty room. “Where did other one get to then?” says Quentin. “I haven’t seen one open any doors yet.”
“We must have missed it somehow. We better check out the chapel,” I suggest.
The light inside the small chapel comes in through a giant mosaic window near the rafters. When we open the door, I hear a quiet groan. We crouch down and take cover behind the back row of pews.
“Shit,” sighs Quentin.
“Did you see where it is?” I ask.
Quentin shakes his head. We listen to the silence for a few moments. I elevate myself enough to see over the tops of the seats. At first glance, nothing seems out of place. We duck along the center aisle towards the altar. As we approach the front row, I spot a bloody handprint on the edge of the pew to our left. A pool of slick blood seeps out into the aisle. Quentin raises the gun, and I realize I am holding the flashlight still, but gripping it more like a weapon now. On the floor, an elderly man lies unmoving in a black suit. Bloodstains cover his white collared shirt. There is a bite on his right hand and another bite on his other forearm that appears much worse. Out of the corner of my eye I see Quentin raise the gun.
“Wait,” I blurt. I push Quentin’s arm, so the gun isn’t pointing at the body. The chest of the unconscious man appears to rise slightly. “I think he’s breathing.”
Quentin nudges the leg of the man on the ground a couple of times. The man remains unresponsive. Quentin notices me watching him expectantly. “Well, I ain’t checking him for a pulse,” he says.
“Damn it,” I mutter.
We leave the man on the floor and walk out of the chapel. We take the dark hallway and unlock the door to the lobby.
“It’s clear,” I announce. “But we found a guy in the chapel who has a bite on his arm. He’s unconscious, I think.”
“Did you shoot him?” Joey wonders.
“He’s not dead,” I say.
Danielle leaves the girl on the bench and retrieves the first aid kit from the duffel on the counter.
“Don’t be stupid. He’s probably sick,” Dom asserts. She pauses to take a long drag off her cigarette. “We can’t take any chances.”
I try to remain calm, but my skin feels hot. Dom scrutinizes my expression, and then rolls her eyes smugly and taps the ash from her cigarette.
“We don’t even know if this some kind of virus or what,” I insist. “What do you think?” I ask Danielle.
“It might be a virus, but it could be something else,” Danielle says.
“Like what?” Dom questions her.
“Like, something else,” snaps Danielle. She opens the first aid kit and examines the supplies inside. “We don’t know anything about what is causing this yet.”
“What do you think it is?” Quentin asks Danielle.
She looks at him, then me, and with a faint voice, she says, “I really don’t know.” She snaps the medical kit shut. “All I know for sure is that if I don’t get in there and help him, and he dies, then he will become one of those things.”
“Shhh.” Quentin raises a hand. “Listen.”
There is a dull thud, a rattle of something shaking, another heavy thud. It sounds like a fist pounding on solid wood. The sounds of broken glass hitting the floor and a faint moan echo down the hall.
“I told you,” Dom gloats. She smashes her skinny cigarette butt out on the armrest of a bench. She drops the filter on the floor and toes the embers before making her way to the restroom.
“It does sound like our friend is up,” sighs Quentin. He picks the gun up off the counter and heads towards the rear of the building. A minute later, we hear a gunshot. The sound startles the young girl seated mutely on the bench. Without saying a word, Quentin comes back into the room and lays his gun down on the counter.
The young girl doesn’t look up as I approach the bench and settle beside her. She stares at her pink sneakers on the floor and shivers though it is somewhat warm inside the building. I try to think of the right thing to say, something consoling, but I just watch her fingers tugging at the frayed holes the designer made in her jeans. She isn’t just some kid. This girl had parents that cared about her. They even drove an ugly Volvo, probably just because the safety ratings assured them their little girl would be safe. At least, that’s how I imagine it. I feel compelled to comfort her somehow.
My mouth suddenly feels too dry to speak, though. There are several plastic bags between the bench and the door, and I reach over and pick one up and set it down beside me. I remove a bottle of soda, and it hisses when I twist the cap off. The girl turns her head toward the familiar sound. Her tongue grazes over her lower lip and swallows dryly. I hold out the bottle to offer it to her. She wraps her fingers around the plastic without making eye contact. She takes several anxious swallows then exhales and hands the bottle back to me.
“What’s your name?” I ask the girl.
She covers her mouth with the sleeve of her varsity style jacket. “Melanie,” she utters softly.
“I’m Blake,” I tell her. “You hungry, Mel?” I reach into the bag and pull out a Twinkie and offer it to the girl. She still won’t look at me, but she shakes her head. I pull the seam of the wrapper open and take one of the yellow sponge cakes out. With one bite, I eat half of the thing. It might just be because I haven’t had any food all day, but this thing tastes more delicious than anything I can ever remember eating right now. Melanie arches her eyebrow as I eat the other half of the Twinkie and murmur ravenously.
“I haven’t had one of these since I was a kid,” I tell her.
“They’re gross,” she insists.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mel,” I taunt her.
“They’re all like, thirty years old too,” she adds.
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “So am I.” She doesn’t laugh, but it almost gets her to smile. The moment passes she seems to remember everything horrible that happened today and slumps back against the wall sullenly. It isn’t much, but, at least, she doesn’t look terrified anymore. In some ways, talking to her made me feel a little better too.
“You’re okay, Mel,” I reassure her. “Hang in there.”
According to my phone, it is almost five in the evening. The battery is also halfway dead. I return the phone to my pocket and get up to look outside. In a couple of hours, the sun will go down. With each minute that passes, I feel even further away from my old life, and it seems harder to imagine things will ever go back to the way they were before this morning. Quentin flips on the radio again and scans the stations for anything that isn’t static.