36 Hours (46 page)

“When we’re safe.”

“But we’ll never be safe! Can’t you see that? I say we stay here and wait it out!”

“Wait it out? There
is
no waiting it out! Can’t you see
that
?”

“These are organisms, Mr. Shelley. Living, breathing organisms. They eat. Do you understand that? They eat to do what? To
survive
. What happens when they get hungry? They eat each other! Remember the airport? They two women
ate
each other
. They are driven by a need for survival because they
have
to survive. They aren’t invincible mortals. How long does it take someone to die of hunger? Anyone know?”

“A person dies of hunger because of fatigue,” Hannah said. “These guys don’t fatigue.”

“No doubt there. But they are organic.”

“You said that.”

“They eat for the nutrients, right? When they don’t get the nutrients, their
organic
bodies will begin to deteriorate. Their brains – soft tissue – will
deteriorate
. The brains deteriorate, and they die! I’m simply suggesting that we lay low, remain silent, spread out our eating and drinking, just try to
survive
. I think – I’m sure – that eventually these things, when their supply of living flesh runs out, will turn to each other. Civil war. They will weed themselves out. Those that survive the longest will run out of food, the brains will deteriorate, and they’ll die. And we’ll be alive.”

“That could take weeks,” Starbucks said. “Months. We can’t survive months here. If we were in a grocery store…”

Hannah shot me a look.

“What you’re saying,” Shelley says, “sounds good in paper. But this place isn’t secure. There’s a dead body in the next room!”

“At least it’s staying dead.”

Hannah said, “That’s a pretty good point.”

“It’s not secure.”

“How do we know?” I lashed out. Ignorance! “How do we know?”

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

286

A thumping sound in the room we came through. A shadow danced over the wall and one of them peeped around the hallway.

“
That’s
how,” Shelley muttered, grabbing a beer bottle. The infected shrieked. More behind him.

I raced around the island, holding the glass shard in my hand. Hannah pulled herself on top of the kitchen island, rolled over, landed down on the other side. She grabbed a beer bottle and smashed it on the counter. A splinter of glass cut her finger, drawing blood. She grunted and took the broken bottle, the edges slashed and jagged. Stale beer dripped over her hand, reeking of bitter alcohol. Starbucks did the same – I had a glass ember, and the other three held broken beer bottles.

The infected at the end of the hallway ran after us, bouncing off the walls. They entered the kitchen, throwing themselves over the counter. Shelley drove his bottle into one of their faces, slashing at the cheek. The creature shrieked, not falling. It pressed on him and he fell against the counter. More jumped over the island, swiping and biting at us. I drilled the glass up into one of their eyes, drew it back; the body col apsed on the floor. One leaned in after Hannah; the glass cut up through the base of the skull; it howled and fell, dragging the glass with it; the edges sliced my palm. I gripped them tight, blood seeping through. Starbucks gripped the hair of an infected and shoved the glass into its throat, turning the bottle as he went. The flesh opened and blood sprayed all over him. The infected kept biting. “The head!” I yelled. “Pierce the brain!” He drew the bottle out, turned it, and drove it through the temple; the reanimate shuddered a bit and went limp in his hands.

The wooden boards quaked, dust falling from the loose screws.

“They’ve heard us,” Hannah said. “I don’t think we can stay here.”

Shelley shoved a body off of him. He was panting hard and sweating. Bodies littered the kitchen. Six in all.

“The window is open,” Starbucks gasped. “They’l realize it soon. They aren’t genius, but they aren’t stupid. They learn.” Evolve. One of the boards splintered; hands pushed through, weaving back and forth. I opened my hand, the burn stinging with the flexing muscles. It was a very deep cut. I still have the scar.

Shelley fell against the counter, gripping his wrist. “Oh God… Oh God…”

The worker said, “We need to go upstairs. To the roof. There are helicopters everywhere, it could land…”

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36 Hours

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Shelley wasn’t listening. He was shaking his head. “Oh God…”

Hannah looked at him, fear sparkling in her eyes. A morbid sparkle. “Mr. Shelley?”

“Oh God… Oh God…”

“Mr. Shelley?” she asked again.

He lifted his arm. Blood covered his hand. A round bite mark was embedded in the flesh of his wrist. “He was too heavy, I couldn’t-“

Fear rippled through me.
Oh God… Oh God…

The infected smashed open more of the boarded window. Shelley took deep breaths. “Guys. Just go. Just go.”

“Mr. Shelley…”

“Bite is a death sentence, right? Dirty sons of-“ His voice trailed off. More curses. “It shouldn’t end like this. I’ve done too much. I don’t deserve this.”

More swearing. “The rooftop, right? Helicopter? Great idea. You guys go. I’ll hold them off. Yes. I’ll give you time. Then I’ll kill myself. Yes. I don’t want to be like them. No way. No salvation for me. God, they’re ugly.”

All three of us glanced at each other. Starbucks said, “We can’t let you come.”

“Are you deaf? I’m staying here. Go! Go!”

Starbucks said, “Thanks for helping us out. I’m glad Brittany let you in.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” Another plank fell on top of the dusty card table. “Could you just go already?”

He nodded and raced for the door to the apartment. Hannah turned her eyes and ran.

I told Shelley, “You’re a cooler guy than I thought. None of us liked you. We were wrong.”

He smiled, growing weak. “Thanks. But why are you still here?”

I raced after the others. Starbucks had already opened the door and disappeared into the foyer. The door to the apartment locked from the inside; you had to have a key to get in. Dusty windows high up reflected grim morning light. A cryptic stairwell meandered upwards, spiraling five or six stories. He led the way, followed by Hannah, then me. We climbed up the stairwell, ignoring our faltering breath. Down below there were snarls and screams, thrashing about. I could imagine Shelley duking it out, never giving in, fighting them off. I never saw him again. I didn’t hear his screams. His own determination was his cry of death.

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

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We reached the next foyer. All the doors were locked tight. The next landing. One was open. Shadows dancing over the walls. Someone moving inside. We kept going.

Down below, infected came out of the ground floor apartment. They heard our running feet and ran up the stairwell.

We all heard them coming. Starbucks: “We’re almost there.”

They were much faster. Exhaustion, fatigue, worn-out, we moved our legs like molten lead.

Finally we hit the sixth floor. Both doors were locked. There was no door to the roof.

“No roof,” I muttered.

“Not here,” Starbucks said.

The infected huddled at the other end of the stairwell beneath us. Their yellow eyes stared at us. We had nothing to protect ourselves with. Blood dripped from their jaws.
Shelley’s blood.

Starbucks kicked in a door. The infected screeched and raced upwards. We poured inside the apartment; Starbucks tried to slam the door, but an infected thrust his hands in, then his head, biting and snapping. Blood and grime traveled down the contours of his face. He swiped at Starbucks. I ran into a room, grabbed a lamp, ripped it from the wall, ran out and smashed it into the infected’s face. The infected reeled backwards; the door locked shut; Starbucks slid the double bolt down. The doorknob lock didn’t work.

He stepped back. The infected thundered across the door. Hannah backed down the hallway. A sudden voice: “You kids are crazy!”

Hannah spun and gazed into a room. Her face went pale. I joined her, then –

warily – so did Starbucks.

A man and his wife, stark naked, stood in the shower. They were at least fifty years, and the man carried a beer gut that covered less extensive parts of his body. The bathtub was full and the shower was on. Water dribbled down their bodies. A generator beside the bathtub was chugging on a battery; the man held a pair of clips in his hand; water droplets sizzled and sparked on the prongs. His wife was smiling, but her chest was shaking – fear lacerated every pore. The infected hit the door. The man said, “You kids are running from fate. The youth of today. They just can’t accept it. They can’t accept things that aren’t pleasing. You can’t keep running forever. You won’t survive. You think you’re Anthony Barnhart

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different because you’ve gotten so far. But can you hear them at the door? You have nowhere to go! You are stranded! I suggest you come in here with us. Step inside. Fear nothing but fear itself, that great man once said. I fear nothing but becoming like them. And I won’t. So the end is here. I can deal with it. You kids can’t.”

The wife kissed the man on the cheek.

The glutton spoke once more. “The problem, you see, isn’t chemical or biological. It’s psychological. Spontaneous combustion of pent up rage fueled by frustration over a pressurized society. You kids are the slave drivers of this society. You and your new shoes, your shopping malls, your nice cars and fancy clothes. Look what’s it brought. You’re to blame. I hope it’s painful. I really do. I hope you suffer. Both of us do.” The wife nodded, so calm. “You brought this on us. We’re innocent. I worked fifty years at a sweatshop for this? No! You complain about fast food and grocery stores. Spoiled brats.” The door shook.

“Suffer. Bleed. This problem, this snapped postal worker on a national lever, is your doing, and there’s no undoing, no rewinding the clock.”

His hand relaxed. The chord dropped; the prongs entered the bathwater with a splash. Electricity surged through the water, up into their wet bodies. They screamed and shrieked, suddenly rigid and bursting. The man’s nose spit fire and his ears melted. His eyes popped out, landing against the shower wall, and his flesh bubbled and boiled. His wife fell against him, screaming. Their bowels released and they were thrown back and forth through the water. Sparks shot from the generator and suddenly the electrocution stopped; the bodies slumped forward, landing on the carpet. Water dribbled from their steaming bodies. Starbucks rubbed a hand across his forehead. “People are going insane.”

The door burst open, splinters flying. We ran into another room, shutting the door. It was a room with a television, fake fireplace, a coffee table with
Reader’s Digest
. Starbucks locked the double dead bolt. The infected threw themselves against it and tried to bust through.

“They never stop,” he muttered.

“There’s nowhere to go,” Hannah said, wheeling around. “We could go up the fireplace…”

“It’s fake,” I said. “Upper floors don’t have fireplaces. Old ones, do, but this one’s just grimy.”

Hannah ran to a window, opened it wide. A warm breeze fluttered inside. The clearing below was littered with infected; they had been standing there earlier; Anthony Barnhart

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the buildings all around them were crawling with those poisoned by the disease. Infected skittered back and forth through the narrow alleys. The infected saw her and entered through the broken window downstairs. Hannah spied a bolted rain gutter leading to the roof six feet above the window frame.

“Guys!” she yelled. “Will this work? A rain gutter!”

Starbucks was staring at the door. It shifted, bulged. The hinges squeaked.

“It’d better. Is it rusted?”

“No.”

“Go first?”

Hannah crawled out the window, grabbed the rain gutter, and shimmied upwards. The infected beneath spat unintelligible profanities. I ducked out the window, looked at them. Starbucks told me to hurry up. I started climbing, feeling dizzy and insecure as I scurried sixty-five feet above the ground. Hannah grabbed my hand and pulled me up. I flopped onto the roof. Starbucks was climbing out of the window when the door burst open and the infected fell inside. They immediately rushed the window. He kicked at them as he climbed, and gathered himself on the roof.

The infected grabbed at the rain gut er.

“They’ll climb,” Hannah said.

“You were wrong,” Starbucks said, kicking at the rain gutter. It twisted and fell; one of the infected on it gave a cry and fell sixty-five feet, splattering on the ground. She moved her head, the neck snapped. The other infected pounced on her, swallowing her up. “It
was
rusted.”

The roof was flat and bare, littered with a few air conditioning pumps and a skylight with broken glass and twisted frames. We were cast in the shadow of a skyscraper. Buildings all over were burning, and a red smoke lifted off from the streets, wrapping the buildings in a foreign smog. I could distantly make out other figures on other rooftops, having the same idea. They would wave their hands in the air as the helicopter rumbled overhead. Napalm lit up a street downtown and the fire spread over the infected, torching them alive. Car wheels melted and the frames burnt to a fine polish. Building windows busted and the fire ate away at the structures. Chicago fire.

A Blackhawk slowly came towards us. Hope! I waved my hands. So did Hannah and Starbucks. The helicopter flew so close our clothes were ripped and tugged back and forth. The soldiers at the miniguns and inside the seats just looked at us with pity and continued on between two skyscrapers. Anthony Barnhart

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Hannah wailed, “Where are they going? Didn’t they see us?”

“They saw us,” Starbucks mumbled.

I ran to the edge of the roof. “The ocean. Didn’t the news say the things couldn’t swim? Swimming isn’t instinctive; it’s learned!”

“So is walking. They do that pretty well.”

“Maybe they’re scared of the water. But the news said they didn’t go there. That’s where the helicopters are going!”