Authors: Keith Varney
“Good. Clock is ticking.”
“So I searched all the cars that were open for anything we could use.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“I found this.” He pulls a revolver out of his pocket.
“A gun? Are you nuts?”
“You’re the one who wanted weaponry.”
Sarah looks at him incredulously. “That was before! Now a gunshot could bring the entire population of the city down on us!”
“I know, but as a last resort or something?”
Her voice has an icy hardness to it. “Put it back. Get rid of it. Nothing good can come from that thing.”
Chris puts the gun back in his pocket and starts to walk away. Sarah puts her hand on his shoulder and stops him.
“I’m sorry. I just-” She hesitates, searching for words. “Any scenario where we would use that is just too...”
“I don’t want to think about it either. But…” He can tell this is not the time for this discussion so he changes the subject. “Let’s try and get to sleep as soon as possible, we should head out at dawn.”
Chris starts to turn away, but Sarah stops him again. She pulls him face to face, her eyes brimming with tears. They don’t talk much about the danger they face or the distinct possibility that something could go wrong. Seriously wrong. They don’t mention that they may not make it back from one of their trips. Or worse, that only one of them might make it back. There’s no reason to point out that the most likely use for the gun is not to shoot zombies. She almost says this but from the look on his face, he clearly knows too. She decides to go with a simple “I love you Chris.”
Chris puts his hands on her cheeks and kisses her on each eye.
PART 3 – THE DEAD
Chapter 11
A bright cold sun rises over the city. Although Chris and Sarah think it is November 14th, it’s actually November 16th. Without the routine of a work week, without appointments, or a TV schedule, without Redwings games to keep track of or bills to pay, each individual day on the calendar becomes easier to miss. Sarah forgot to cross off a couple days on their calendar and never noticed. Not that it matters.
The city is supernaturally quiet. A cold wind blowing off the lake sends fallen leaves flipping and twirling down the dusty streets. A block away, the empty lot that had once served as the meeting ground of nearly the entire population of Detroit, the epicenter of the bizarre spectacle, the great circle that was the polar north of the end of humanity, is abandoned yet again.
The smell rising off the lot, were there anybody there to smell it, is overpowering. A rotting stench of death radiates in a thick cloud for almost a mile. In the mixture of mud, trash and concrete lie the remains of tens of thousands of bodies that were trampled by the circle. No longer distinguishable as individual people, what is left is just a rotting mixture of flesh and dirt that will soon be frozen into the form of an enormous ‘O’ in the center of the city. It’s as if the earth itself opened its mouth in a horrible silent scream.
In and around the lot, the ground looks as if it had been blanketed with several inches of dark black snow. But it isn’t snow. The thick dark carpeting is made up of the bodies of over a billion flies that had died during the first frost of the winter. As they dry and become lighter, they start to blow in the wind and form crunchy drifts throughout downtown.
All through the empty shell of Detroit, the dead continue to silently and aimlessly roam down every street and alley. But, some of them seem to be subtly running out of steam, moving just a tiny bit more slowly than before. Still they are everywhere. And they continue to fill the streets in staggering numbers.
***
“Come on! We have to keep moving!”
Sarah’s heart raced, not just from the hike but from a growling fear gnawing at the back of her consciousness. Mikey was slowing down. He was looking weaker, like a toy whose batteries were running out.
“I’m sleepy.” Mikey seemed to be breathing too fast, too shallowly. “My whole leg hurts.”
“Let me see.”
Sarah didn’t really want to see. She knew there was nothing she could do except to get him to a doctor as soon as possible. But she knew that she had to look. She felt that she would not be acting like a responsible adult if she wasn’t willing to see.
The wound had continued to fester. It had a greenish yellow tinge to the redness spreading out from the cut. What truly spooked her were the red streaks that emanated away from the gash. Dark lines radiated up his leg like lightning. She didn’t know that this meant the infection was spreading or about the imminent danger of sepsis, or frankly what sepsis was, but she knew this was bad. Really bad.
She put her hand on his forehead again. His fever seemed to have gotten even worse. She could see him sweating despite the early fall chill. He was burning up. Not knowing why, but working on instinct, Sarah checked his pulse. His heartbeat was a blur. It was beating faster than she thought was even possible.
“Sarah?” Mikey’s eyes seemed to have glazed over. “What are we doing out in the woods?”
Panic set in. She dropped her backpack and picked Mikey up piggy-back style. He was heavy, but her fear made him seem as light as a rag doll. She got about a quarter of a mile before Mikey lost consciousness and his arms dropped to his sides. He could no longer hold on to her.
Sarah screamed for help until her voice was raw. Nobody heard her. Tears streamed down her face as she picked him up and threw him over her shoulder like she had seen firemen carry people on TV. He was intensely heavy now. He was completely limp and felt like he was filled with lead. She knew what limp weight was called but didn’t want to think about it. But of course, the name kept creeping into her mind: dead weight.
The pathway which had seemed so bright and friendly, so beautiful and natural when they walked down it six days ago now seemed horrible. She felt alone and isolated, even claustrophobic. The trees and bushes seemed to be closing in on her. They seemed to be menacing, laughing at her, trying to claw at her arms and trip up her feet.
Why did I go out here where nobody could help us? What the fuck was I thinking? What the fuck were Mom and Dad thinking?! I’m not ready for this. What have I done!? Oh Mikey, I’m sorry!
Eventually all of her thoughts disappeared into a single-minded determination to get them out of the woods. She had to get him out of the fucking wilderness. She had to get him to help. To a hospital. To an adult.
About a mile away from the edge of the woods, his body convulsed and she felt a spreading wet sensation down her back. He had vomited without regaining consciousness.
She carried him for three miles before she emerged at the entrance of the nature preserve. When she saw the first glint of sunlight shining off her car’s windshield, she almost collapsed with relief and exhaustion. But she reminded herself that out of the woods, did not mean ‘out of the woods’.
She put the unconscious Mikey in her car and drove down the narrow winding dirt road searching for civilization. She didn’t know where the hospital was. She didn’t have a cellphone, so she had no way to call for help. After a mile of frantic driving she saw a house and swerved into its driveway, her tires skidding a short rain of pebbles into the yard. After what seemed like an hour of shouting and pounding on the paint-flecked door of the weathered cottage, an old woman emerged. She had been sleeping and Sarah had to explain what was happening three times before the woman called an ambulance. Sarah was left with nothing to do but sit on the porch with Mikey’s head in her lap. She stroked his hair slowly while sobbing harder than she thought possible. Feeling completely helpless, she frantically prayed for the sound of sirens.
“Ma’am?”
Somewhere in the haze of her desperate fear she had lost time. She had just laid Mikey down and immediately there was an EMT standing in front of her. Her mind was clouded, confused.
“Mikey’s sick. He needs help.” Her voice came out in a flat monotone. She felt such urgency, but her body seemed to be incapable of conveying it.
The EMT was a tall Indian man in his mid-forties. He looked down at Sarah with sad eyes. He was moving towards her deliberately.
She was confused by his calm demeanor. “What are you waiting for? Hurry!”
“Of course Ma’m. I’m going to do everything I can.”
The EMT frowned grimly and knelt down to check Mikey’s pulse. He looked back at the second EMT who was pulling a stretcher out of the rig.
“What’s your name?”
“Huh?”
“Your name.”
She felt as if she had disconnected from the world. It took her a moment to remember her name. “Sarah.”
“OK Sarah. My name is Sajeev. How long have you been waiting for us?”
“I don’t know.”
The old woman who owned the house spoke from behind her. Sarah had forgotten she was there.
“We’ve been waiting about forty-five minutes. Took a while to find us out in the boonies huh?”
“Yes Ma’am.”
Sarah shook her head. “What are you talking about? We just sat down.”
Sajeev put his hand on her wrist, checking her pulse and shined a flashlight in her eyes. “Sarah, do you feel lightheaded at all?”
“What? Who cares? What the fuck are you doing? Take care of Mikey!”
The second EMT, who looked all of nineteen, arrived with the stretcher and looked nervously to Sajeev for guidance. Sajeev knelt down and took Sarah’s hand.
“Sarah. I’m terribly sorry. Mikey’s been dead for at least an hour.”
***
Chris and Sarah stand on the roof of the library between the two water towers. They have dispensed with most of their weather gear. With the sun shining, they decided that the Fred and Gingers are the bigger threat and lighter clothes would allow them more mobility. Chris carries two backpacks with emergency supplies including food and water, tarps, tools and of course, duct tape.
Sarah completes her circle checking the sky in every direction, “Today’s the day. No clouds.”
“Alright. Let’s do it.”
Chris hands a backpack to Sarah. “I kinda wish we had gone to a sporting goods store and picked up some hockey equipment or something. Armor.”
“We had no idea the Fred and Gingers were going to get bitey. Besides we lose any direct fight with more than one or two of them. If we survive, we survive on speed and stealth.”
With the front door nailed shut and not wanting to risk opening the garage’s security gate, Chris swings his leg over the edge of the roof and lowers himself onto the library’s fire escape. He helps Sarah over the ledge and they work their way down to the street level. To their left is the corpse of a middle aged woman shuffling slowly down the sidewalk. A stomach churning smell exudes from her grayish skin as if she were rotting as she walked. With an uneasy glance between them, Chris and Sarah walk away as quietly as they can and duck down an alley.
“OK. Let’s find a car. A hybrid would make less noise wouldn’t it? I wonder how long their batteries hold a charge.”
Chris is looking further down the alley. “I have an even better idea. Quieter.”
He points to a bicycle stand where an abandoned nest of bikes have been chained up. Some of them look like they have been there for years, covered in rust and missing wheels and seats, but several of them still look workable. He takes out his pair of bolt cutters from his backpack.
“Really?”
“You said speed and stealth.” He starts to cut through the locks. “Besides it will be a lot easier to maneuver through traffic.”
“I don’t know Chris. It leaves us really exposed.”
“We’re assuming they’re blind right? So they must operate by sound. This is the quietest way to go. Besides, our M1 battle tank gets terrible gas mileage.”
“Fine, fine. Let’s go.”
He selects a large grey ten-speed with a basket attached to its handlebars. “Hi-Yo Silver,” he whispers to himself.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Something from a book I read once.”
Sarah hops on a smaller red mountain bike. After confirming that the bikes were in working order, they begin to pedal through the streets, weaving between piles of clothes and abandoned cars with their eyes on a constant search for a tanker truck. They hop on and off the sidewalk avoiding drifts of fallen leaves, trash and a prodigious amount of flies. They pass zombie after zombie, sometimes solitary and sometimes in small clumps. An occasional Fred or Ginger will hear the whistle of the tires on the pavement and turn in their direction, but by the time they start moving, Chris and Sarah disappear behind a car or around the corner. They slowly bike a grid through the city for hours, but the search is fruitless.
Slightly before 3:00, they stop in front of the enormous edifice of Ford Field and lean their bikes up on a bench. “Anybody scalping Lions tickets?”
Sarah drinks from a bottle of orange Gatorade. “Probably get a decent discount. The Lions haven’t won a single game this season.”
“So what else is new?”
She looks at her watch nervously.
“It’s already afternoon. Sun starts going down at about five. We probably only have a few more hours to find a tanker in time to get back safely.”
“Yeah, we should keep moving. Here, eat. We’ll need energy.” He tosses her a Power Bar and she chews on it reluctantly. She’s not hungry, the anxiety has destroyed her appetite, but she knows that he’s right.
Returning to the search, they pedal down Brush Street between Ford Field and Comerica Park and come across a rare sight in post-zombie Detroit. A car accident. When the water went bad, most drivers found themselves stuck in traffic, so even if their cars were in motion when they were infected after taking a sip of coffee or sticking their head into the rain to investigate why traffic had stopped, they weren’t traveling at a high rate of speed. There were little fender-benders everywhere, but the SUV they see overturned on the intersection of Brush and Madison looks like it crashed doing at least seventy miles an hour. Most of the windows had blown out after it had rolled over several times, before coming to rest upside-down against a guard rail. The SUV’s roof has collapsed in the front. A cracked light pole that had fallen across the road looks like it had been the original point of impact.