Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (16 page)

In a lot of respects, they reminded Danielle
of many of the elders from her village who had grown up during the
harder times in the past. Those elders grew up before electricity
or indoor plumbing had arrived in most of the villages. They were
people who subsistence hunted for real and didn’t just call what
they did subsistence hunting because they could. Those elders
watched loved ones succumb to common ailments and infections,
unheard of in this day and age.

When Danielle looked at them she could see
the same mix of defiance and loss in their eyes. She thought of her
grandfather, as ancient as the rivers and the trees even when she
was a very young girl. He told her stories of the Old Ones and
their struggles to survive the legendary winters of the past.
Danielle wondered what kind of horrific tales these folks could
relate to her from their experiences in the heart of the tempest
that had ravaged their world. In a twisted,
can’t-turn-your-eyes-away-from-the-traffic-accident sort of way,
Danielle wanted to ask them for all the gritty details but she
lacked the courage to bring up those questions.

Neil broke her train of thought when he
again pointed to the kitchen door and asked, “Have you already gone
through the kitchen? Is there any food in there still?”

William shook his head, distracted by the
sounds outside. Curious now, Neil worried aloud, “Have you swept
this place for any more zekes?”

This last question raised alarms with
everyone. Gus had climbed behind the bar and was inventorying the
liquor bottles, but leapt away from the door in question, his
clumsy hop over the bar knocking over a pair of empty bottles.
Everyone cringed as the bottles rattled to the floor with a crash
but did not shatter.

Easily shifting into her role, Emma swung
around on her feet and pulled a pistol from a holster under her
arm. Danielle jumped back and found a spot in which to hide behind
William’s huge frame. She looked at Emma and doubted she could ever
be as strong and sure as her.

Danielle watched as Neil, Jerry, and Emma
went to work. They each went into the swinging kitchen door, one
after the other. Danielle wasn’t sure who went in first, but the
fact that they did so blindly into the darkness amazed her.

From the other side of the door, Danielle
heard the rattle and clank of metal pots and pans and some other
moving about but none of the sounds of battle. Jerry reemerged with
a smile on his face and cans and boxes of food in his hand.
Danielle was struck with the pleasant charm in his face and the
strength in his eyes. She turned away with the blush glowing in her
cheeks, thinking to herself that this was neither the time nor the
place.

The woman and two little girls reacted quite
differently to Jerry and his bounty. The three of them nearly
floated across the floor to the food in the young man’s arms. There
was corn, chili, baked beans, evaporated milk, chips, cookies, and
even a bag of Nestlé’s semi-sweet chocolate chips.

From behind Jerry, first Emma and then Neil
appeared through the door similarly encumbered. Each unloaded his
or her armload onto the bar and stepped back. There was likely more
food than they would be able to carry, but each had sworn not to
leave a single morsel unless it just wouldn’t fit.

The little girl named Jules said with
wonder, “That’s more food than I ever seen. That’ll last
forever.”

Even the stern-faced William cracked a
smile.

“I think we should pack up whatever we can
carry and maybe hide the rest so we can come back to it later,”
Neil suggested.

Carefully placing full bottle after full
bottle into his own bag, Gus asked, “And then?”

Emma answered that one. “And then we get our
asses outta this deathtrap.”

William cast a protective look toward
Danielle. “Food isn’t all we came looking for. We need...”

“Insulin,” Danielle said. “I need
insulin.”

“Diabetic?” Neil asked.

Danielle nodded and sighed.

Looking from Danielle to William and back
again, Neil asked, “Where do you think we might find insulin in
Whittier?”

“We were headed to the store next door when
you guys showed up. I hoped that maybe I’d be able to find some
over there.”

Jerry asked, “Is it a drugstore?”

Danielle shook her head and knew what to
expect next.

Jerry looked over at Neil with a doubtful,
reproaching eye and shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good
idea.” William started to interrupt, but Jerry said, “The Public
Safety Office is across the street. We’d be more likely to find it
there than at the store. We need to get across the street.”

“Yeah,” William said. “Let’s get that done
and head on back.” With that comment, William looked at Neil and
the others and nodded, but for a different reason.

The street immediately in front of the inn
was empty; not even the wind stirred. Neil was hopeful that perhaps
they could make it across and back quickly, though in the back of
his mind was the nagging reminder that very little had gone their
way in the recent past. They had just run from one worsening crisis
to another, leaving a trail of bodies that were once their friends
along the way.

With him were Jerry, Danielle, and William.
Emma, to her obvious chagrin, was selected to remain behind, but
she realized there wasn’t time for an argument so she consented
without a fight. Neil ran down the noisy metal stairs which ran
down the side of the building and out to the street. Each metal
step clanged out a song that he was sure echoed in the street.

“We run across the street and don’t stop
until we’re on the other side,” Neil whispered. “We don’t turn
around and lead any of those things to the others.” His tone left
no doubt that it was a specific order.

Taking a deep breath and then exhaling it
slowly, Neil stepped into the street and looked both right and
left. Still nothing. He ran hard and fast, holding his breath and
focusing his eyes on the Public Safety letters stenciled on the
side of the mint green building in front of him.

The others were tight on his hip. Their
group hustled across the street in a flash and into a nondescript
white door.

Once inside, they breathed more calmly in
the quiet darkness. They weren’t sure where they had gone; it was
the first door any of them saw and so they took it. Neil and Jerry
turned on their flashlights quickly, afraid of what might be
lurking in the darkness.

It turned out they were standing in a garage
with a secondhand ambulance parked in it. They allowed their eyes
to adjust to the darkness and their breathing to return to
normal.

Jerry asked, “Could there be any insulin in
the ambulance?”

Danielle shrugged, though she wasn’t certain
anyone could see the gesture, so she added, “I don’t know. I’ve
never been in one. Worth a look probably.” Her words came out in a
staccato stream of syllables.

They inched along until they were rounding
the back of the blue and white vehicle. Neil’s beam of light lit up
an open doorway leading deeper into the building. The air coming in
through the door was stale and reeked of rot.

Anticipating company, Neil readied his
aluminum bat and handed the flashlight to Danielle standing
immediately behind him. He took a step beyond their group but still
one step away from the doorway.

He couldn’t see much beyond the end of his
nose but suspected that they were not alone. From behind him, he
heard the ambulance’s back doors open and hoped they would find
what Danielle needed. He didn’t relish the thought of searching
through the darkened halls and rooms without knowing where to begin
looking.

Neil peeked over his shoulder and saw
William now standing behind him with the flashlight. Danielle and
Jerry were just then climbing back down out of the ambulance, both
with very satisfied smiles on their faces. Jerry had a new, very
full bag on over his shoulder.

Jerry said, “I think we’re set.”

“You found insulin?” Neil asked.

“Oh yeah, and then some.”

Not taking his eyes from the doorway, Neil
backed away. “Okay. Then let’s get while the gettin’s good. I think
we’ve just about run out our luck for today.”

As those words were leaving his lips, a
grim, spasmodic figure shuffled into the flashlight’s beam.

William backed up reflexively and uttered,
“Oh dear God.”

Luckily, it was just the one coming at them
but the closeness of the space around them helped create an
overwhelming sense of terror. The wretched ghoul groaned and
stumbled further into the room. Its eyes nearly glowed in the
darkness and reflected back the flashlight’s beam. The thing was
wearing a paramedic’s uniform though much of its right side had
been ripped and chewed to shreds, leaving the uniform nearly
unrecognizable. Its right arm, bandaged from elbow to wrist in
graying, festering strips of adhesive surgical tape, was flimsy and
partially limp.

“Shoot it!” Danielle demanded in a voice
approaching a desperate squeal.

William didn’t raise his pistol. Neil and
Jerry had other ideas in mind and since Neil was standing between
the ghoul and himself, William felt obliged to watch the other two
men work. The black man, standing almost as big as two men, sat on
the sidelines and served as the spotlight man with the
flashlight.

Neil used the bat like a spear, jabbing the
end of it into the zeke’s chest and forced it back a bit. With the
room he created, Neil leaned back and swung the bat above his head
like he was chopping firewood. The blow found its mark, striking
the creature on the top of its head. The entire left side of its
head crushed, the walking corpse tilted backward and fell out of
sight.

“Taking them on one at a time is pretty
easy,” Neil said, “especially if they’ve been turned for a bit. The
fresh ones are a little trickier because they move so fast, but
we’ve been running into fewer and fewer of those.”

“They move quicker when they are bunched
together,” Jerry added. “They feed off of one another. They get
more excited...more agitated. You wanna stay away from groups of
them if you can.”

“I want to stay away from all of them,
whether they’re alone or with buddies,” Danielle admitted. “They’re
just...”

“Terrifying,” Jerry finished for her.
“Probably the scariest thing you’ve ever seen. Me too.” He closed
the big rear door. “It sucks but the unfortunate reality is that
you’re destined to see a lot more than you would ever want. They’re
everywhere, and if you want to stay alive, you have to learn how to
beat them. It’s either them or us and I’ve got no interest in being
something’s dinner.”

Danielle asked, “So what do we do?”

Jerry pointed at Neil and answered, “What he
says. He’s kept us alive from the very beginning. And right now, he
says it’s time to go, so we go.”

When the foursome returned to the bar, they
were pleasantly surprised to find that all the newly pilfered
supplies had been packed into backpacks and other bags to be toted
away.

“Okay,” Emma said. “We can get on the road
now but where to?”

“First we gotta go get Allen and Sandra,”
William said.

Emma asked, “Allen and Sandra? Where are
they?”

“Sandra got bit by one of those things and
Allen stayed behind to watch out for her,” Gus explained. “They’re
in a building at the foot of the hill.”

“Bit?” Jerry said sharply. “When you say bit
what exactly do you mean?”

Danielle’s eyes followed Jerry’s as he
beamed concern to the others from his group. This was the first
they had heard about Allen and Sandra and were especially alarmed
by the fact that one of them had been bitten. They knew and
Danielle was beginning to understand as well that time was working
against them. They needed to get back to Allen and Sandra.

Something...a sound...a spied
movement...whatever, had attracted a group of the gray ghouls to
the street outside the Anchor Inn. They loitered expectantly in the
middle of the muddy, uneven pavement, hoping to sate the hunger
burning them from the inside out. Their hyper alert senses sought
any clues, any evidence to lead them to prey.

Peeking through the window blinds, William
asked, “How do we deal with this?”

“There’s a ladder on the side of the
building that looked like it led up to the roof,” Emma said. “If we
could get up there, then we could go over to the ladder and get
down to the street away from the zekes out front.”

Neil asked, “How do we get up to the
roof?”

“Is there a way up to the roof from the top
of the stairs out the side door?” Jerry asked.

Gus nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I think
we can get up there. Let me go take a look.”

Neil said, “No. Wait.” But Gus was already
opening the door widely...too widely.

Before anyone could react, a set of
yellowing teeth forced themselves into the vacant space and found
an inviting patch of flesh on Gus’ neck. The teeth sank into the
warm, salty skin and were rewarded with a gush of briny blood. The
thick red fluid spilled down the zombie’s throat like syrup,
exciting it into a frenzy.

Gus screeched and tried to pull himself free
but the snarling creature tightened its grip and drove its teeth
deeper. Danielle watched speechlessly. She wasn’t able to muster a
scream or even a peep as Gus was overwhelmed and driven down.

When Gus hit the floor, another of the gray
skinned devils climbed through, content to join the other one in
devouring the still struggling but waning Gus. When its eyes caught
sight of the others starting to evacuate the room, the beast lost
all interest in the cooling meal at his feet. It stumbled deeper
into the bar in pursuit of fresh meat. Before it moved more than a
step, another of the things was starting to press itself
inside.