36 Hours (24 page)

What a place to get trapped in. No food, no water, no light… You’ll rot and die and never be found…

A cool breeze hit me; bumped into concrete. I felt towards the breeze; it came from above, it was the breeze of night air. The infected scurried at the other end of the house; I had no idea what was above me, but I pressed my ear against what felt to be a grill, and heard nothing close save for the wind and the rustling of tickling cobwebs in my ear.
Where was I
? I grabbed the grill and pushed it away, not really thinking, just wanting to get out of that suffocating prison.
Should’ve tried upstairs…

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

149

I wiggled into the darkness, having no clue where I was. Then it came back to me.

The garage
.

Dad had cut a hole for wiring a long time ago and covered it with a grill. I had been in sixth grade back then; it had completely slipped my mind. Bare light bled into the garage, reflecting dully off the hides of the van and truck. The door leading to the outside world was open, a graveyard of empty death smiling back at me. The trees swayed back and forth in the wind; the rain had stopped for a few moments, but lightning fell, sparkling through grim, rolling clouds, vomitblack and putrid-green, coiling about within the sky. The burst of light wafted through the garage, and I saw I was alone; the infected had gone into the house, which by now wasn’t much brighter. I heard their frantic poundings and surging within the house; the others were still holed up.
Rescue them.
How
?

Creeping forward, close to the door to the lawn, I picked up the axe. Now it was light. I went around the front of the truck towards the doorway.
Kill them
all. Kill every last one of them. You’re a Braveheart – a William Wallace, a
Maximus Meridious…
Wait. I turned and looked at the truck, the insectsplattered grill speaking volumes. I excitedly raced around to the door, hoping beyond all odds – it was unlocked. I opened the door and threw the axe in the back. It resounded with a large
clang!
I slammed the door shut –
wham!
– and pulled down on the sun visor. A clip fell out; I caught it midair with the spare key. I threw it into the ignition and turned. The engine sputtered. Light fell over me from the dashboard; the gas gauge went to ¾ of a gallon full. I locked both the doors and threw it into reverse. “Eureka!” I exclaimed jovially, looking out the back window. I just had to open the-The entire front of the truck pitched forward; I whipped around to see an infected man on the truck, shirtless, revealing deep lacerations on his chest. Blood sprinkled from the half-decayed wounds onto the hood of the truck; he raised his fist and hammered it into the windshield. It webbed outwards, shatterproof; the bones on the man’s hands shattered, erupting in a spout of blood and bruise, but he hit again. The windshield webbed even deeper, blood dribbling in the cracks from his broken hand.

I slammed on the gas, forgetting it was in reverse, wanting to drive him into the wall; the wheels screeched and I lurched forward, forehead smashing onto Anthony Barnhart

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the windshield. The back end of the truck bashed the garage door; I flew back into the seat. The man had fallen to the ground when I revved backwards, and tried to stand. More infected entered from both doors at the sound of the engine. Could the others hear me? Could others hear the faint whisper (lie): hope?

I put it in drive and pummeled the gas. The wheels spun over the infected’s body, breaking bone and squashing organs; the sides of his body burst, spraying the wheels with guts and blood. Infected threw themselves onto the sides of the truck, pounding and screaming; they couldn’t get in. They tried the door handles, but they were locked. How did they know about handles? Inquisitive?

Curious? Smart? Or was the brain’s subconscious showing through? Was the disease a revival of the unconscious – or primitive, unheralded lusts forgotten since the cave man?

Reverse roared; the garage door caved inwards. I ran over someone’s foot as I went forward; going back again, the garage door began to shred apart. I drove up close to the wall, put it in reverse, and slashed my foot on the pedal as hard as I could. Infected tore off the sides of the truck as the back end barreled through the garage door; paint tore and withered; screeching metal filled the air; the side mirrors were torn off; but I peeled into the driveway, into the night, leaving the infected jumping through the hole in the garage door. I pulled out into the road, put it in drive, and ramped the curve, going into the grass, underneath Ashlie’s room. The window was open and the three of them stood there. I revved the engine, calling unto them as deep calls to deep. The zombies rushed from the garage towards the truck. Shadows down the street beckoned more to join.

Les yelled for the others and he jumped; he fell and landed hard in the back of the truck. He picked up the axe; Ashlie jumped, landing next to him. An infected came around the side of the house, leaping onto the truck; Les drilled the axe blade into the infected’s arm, chopping it off. Blood stained the paint. Hannah jumped, toppling Les. Infected appeared at Ashlie’s window, furious, howling. I ramped the gas and spawned forward.

Someone hit the glass. I glanced into the mirror. Les pointed back, face pale. Ashlie was getting to her feet. Infected were nearly on her. I tried to open the door, numb.

Les jumped out with the axe, racing after her.

Hannah mouthed,
Reverse!
through the back window. Anthony Barnhart

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I did so, and zoomed up to them. Les helped Ashlie into the back of the truck and swung the axe wild; the infected that were upon them stepped back to avoid the blade. He threw the axe into the bed and grabbed onto the back, yelling,

“Go! Go! Go!” The infected reached after him; he held on for nothing else and the truck sped through the soft earth, spewing mud all over the zombies. The truck shuddered as it went over a curb; Hannah bumped into the window and fell on top of Ashlie; Ashlie got up, crawled over to the back end of the truck, grabbed Les’ hand, and pulled him up.

I threw on the brights. The eyes of several zombies at the intersection caught the beams and they scattered into the shadows.

8:00 p.m.

Leaving Tamarack

Cross-Roads

Whispers in the Rain

Tires squealed as the truck whipped around the corner, fishtailing on the slick asphalt. The trio in the back collapsed to the bed of the truck and stayed there, daring not to stand. The lights swept over the houses as I turned, then onto the road. Pools of water and tiny rivulets coursing like rivers in the jungle reflected sharply in the windshield; the wiper thwacked back and forth. The LCD display on the dashboard glowed neon green and read
8:00 PM
. 8:00. An infected ran across the street; I hardly noticed, bearing allegiance to a thought in my head:
I’d be
getting off work right now. Ah, only if times were so good and gracious…
That almost made me laugh. I’d never thought I’d salivate to go into Homer’s Grocery and bag for five hours.

The darkness peeled against the truck, and I could only see my reflection out either rain-slicked side window. It felt as if I were driving in a cave, blindly; the only things I saw were those the headlights rushed over, and the scenes were not so comforting. The boyhood suburbs I’d known only 24 hours before had been completely dismantled. Vehicles were parked solemnly against the road; some were overturned, burning, up on the curb, in the grass; one or two had smashed into trees, another had collided into a house’s window, caving in at the inside stairwell. Most houses were ghostly silhouettes; many doors had been broken apart, and windows smashed open. One or two had completely burnt to the Anthony Barnhart

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ground, smoldering in the past whispers of rain. But most of the houses, I now noticed, were reasonably unscathed. Quiet. Desolate. Maybe abandoned? But I knew there
had
to be survivors; there
had
to be families, individuals, maybe even ten-or fifteen-strong societies cleaving for hope within the shallow cesspools of human innovation. Tamarack Neighborhood. How many homes would fall before night lifted? How many lives snatched away – or altered, however you looked at it?

I shook my head. How could this have come? The same thoughts that had come through so many times came once more. My eyes gawked at the devastation as I turned onto Evergreen. An accident had piled up, and a body hung from one of the crunched cars. Many of the car windows were smashed apart, laced with blood; imagining the infected breaking through the windows, biting and tearing and clawing at screaming little children and frantic mothers and mortified businessmen made my stomach cringe – but not as much as knowing those children, mothers and businessmen were prowling the suburbs. Yet I hadn’t seen too many. Ever since we escaped home, the only ones I had seen were few and far between. They had darted out of the intersection. And one or two had crossed the road. But the neighborhood was a ghost town. Where were they? Sleeping? Did they sleep? How could I know? Never-theless, I didn’t care. The less of them, the happier I-
Oh No!

Gnarled hands tore at the steering wheel and I ramped onto a driveway. The overturned truck had come out of nowhere, and I’d been going thirty, not enough room to slow down. Water splashed all over the windshield as the wheels leapt – bounded! – over the curb, and when we came down I lurched forward, chest connecting with the wheel. Tree limbs scraped the side of the truck; the front steps of a ranch house rose to swallow us whole; I braked and turned, only to have a van come up in my sights at the house next door. The wheel turned again, axle grinding, wheels moaning; the truck slashed through a fence, the wooden planks flinging up and over the hood, smashing into the windshield. Plants wrapped around the axle as the corner of the truck blew through a pile of debris, probably collected to be burned this evening, and the truck listed towards the middle of the yard.

A gigantic puddle lay before me, looking as a puddle would in the limelight of the lamps; but I horrifically realized it was a pool and stamped the gas harder than ever. The wheels locked, but the soft earth didn’t give way to my pleas. I Anthony Barnhart

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gave the wheel yet another hard jerk and we avoided the pool, coming to a stop right next to it.

Someone angrily banged on the back window. I leaned over and rolled it down. Les snarled, “What the heck is wrong with you!”

“I’m making this up as I go,” I responded, voice shaking. “Are you guys okay?”

“Your sister has a sprained ankle.”

“What? Sprained what?”

“Ankle. She got it when she fell from the truck.”

Sprained ankle? Matter of life and death now. “Okay, let’s-“

Hannah rose up. “Shhh! The fence!”

She pointed across the pool, to the wooden fence. Dense shapes moved beyond it, seen through the narrow cracks. They made no noise. A hand draped the top of the fence, then another, and another, and then an arm.
Climbing over
. Les hissed, “Get us out of here! Move!”

I put it in reverse and touched the gas. The engine revved, but no movement.

“Austin!”

I pressed the gas even harder. They were almost over the wall. “The axle is jammed or-“

The truck spun backwards, spewing leafy fragments all over. I spun the wheel, pulling up alongside the pool. The gears shifted. Zombies dropped over the fence, racing after the truck; Les crawled across the bed, picking up the axe with steeled fingers. I drove out the way I’d came. The infected screamed and rushed after us, running around the pool and the side of the house. I hit the road, avoiding the overturned truck, taking off down Evergreen. Four or five of them gushed from around the house, yelling and hollering. I looked into the rearview mirror for a split-second, saw them chasing; the truck shuddered; I turned around in the seat and saw a body roll off the side of the truck, landing on the pavement. Bloodied brain matter smeared the hood. The pursuers ignored the fallen comrade and didn’t give up. The three watched from the back. I knew now how desperate we were – how wherever we went, there they would be. Whatever nook and cranny we could imagine, it wouldn’t be safe. They were a walking plague; get bitten, you’re out of the game. Hannah and Ashlie were talking to each other; Hannah pointed to the left. More were coming from the sides. Ashlie bashed her hand on the back window and I took off, gunning it. Twenty. Thirty-five. Forty-seven. Sixties. Anthony Barnhart

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Seventies. Eighty! I’d never gone through the subdivision so fast, but the zombies were beyond us, lost in a confusing mass chasing the blue streak. Evergreen hit Pennyroyal and I blew past the stop sign; even though I gripped the wheels with white-hot knuckles, the truck hydroplaned, spinning; the wheels connected with soft earth on the opposite side of the road, spitting up dirt and grime. The truck bounced up and down and I tried to make sense of the spinning world before me. We were off-roading, blazing through the grass; trees swept past; the headlights flashed over a basketball court, a station wagon, a brick house. The truck blew between the basketball pole and the station wagon, the wheels thudding onto the asphalt; but we drove into the backyard, dodging trees, a swing-set, a stack of dripping-wet firewood. Slowly I depressed the brake, and the wheels ground to a stop. I sat in the cab, panting, feeling the cold sweat. My arms and hands shook.
They almost had
you.

I opened the door, and felt the bitterly cold night air. Les jumped down.

“We’re alive.”

Ignored him. Peeped into the bed of the truck. “Ash? How’s your ankle.”

She said, “It hurts.” No emotion.
Please don’t turn into one of them
. Emotion was a strictly human characteristic. Anger. Fear. Hatred. Love. They possessed none. “Except maybe hatred,” I muttered. Ashlie murmured, “What?” I shook my head.

Hannah stood up in the back, peering from where we’d come. “Austin?