Deathly Contagious (11 page)

“Sure,” I said. I wasn’t scared of haunted houses, but I didn’t feel like weaving my way through the maze the house was surely set up in. I shined the light on the door. “Uh oh,” I said.

“What is it?”

“There’s no handle. I can’t open the door,” I told her as I pried at the edges.

“What are we going to do?”

“Go through the house.”

She shook her head, making a whimpering noise of fear and protest.

“It’ll be fine. We’ll just go straight through.”

She extended her hand. “Can I hold your hand?”

I rolled my eyes, thankful the dark prevented her from seeing and took her hand, which was sweating already. I kicked a plastic skeleton out of the way. I slowly slid the light over the room; there were two doorways on each side of the graveyard. We were closer to the one on the left. I guided Olivia through it.

We entered a hallway. Strips of rags, stained with fake blood, hung down, brushing against our faces as we walked. I put my hand out, feeling what was in front of me. The hallway gradually got narrower, finally so narrow Olivia couldn’t walk next to me.

Then the ceiling dropped. I wasn’t scared of haunted houses at all, but the trapped feeling made my heart race. Crouching down, I rushed through the shrinking hall, not being careful with the light. I smacked into a wall; Olivia smacked into me.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“Nothing, we just went too far.” I scanned the area with the flashlight. “There,” I pointed to a hole in the wall. “We have to crawl through.”

“No, I don’t want to,” she cried, clutching my arm.

“Olivia, we have to.”

“I know, but I still don’t want to.”

“I’ll go first.” I slipped through the hole, turning to help Olivia. We were in another room; this one was supposed to look like an evil doctor’s office. Fake brains and hearts in jars lined a shelf that also housed medieval style surgical instruments. The blood stained gurney had been knocked over.

We stepped over it, and I pushed aside the plastic curtain that hung in the doorway of yet another narrow hall. We had to go up a few stairs before we emerged into another room. This one was the biggest yet, and was filled with glass panels and mirrors.

“Seriously?” I said under my breath. We stepped into the maze. And something moved behind us.

The metal scrapping on concrete instantly terrified me. I whipped around, right hand curling into a fist. The stethoscope still hung around his neck, but he was worse than an evil doctor: he was a zombie. I thrust the flashlight in Olivia’s hands, not wanting to risk breaking it by using it as a weapon. Her shaking hands couldn’t get a grip and she dropped it.

I jumped out of the maze, took my stance and kicked him in the face. His jaw broke and he staggered back from the impact. I had practiced the 360 style kicks relentlessly but was never allowed or able to actually kick someone in the face that way. With a smile on my face, I jumped up and around, my foot making contact with the zombie doctor’s skull.

In the end of the S2 phase, his skull easily broke. When he hit the floor, I drove the hell of my boot down into his head. Brains spattered and a putrid smell filled the room, much like cracking open a rotten egg.

“Alright, carry on,” I said with a wicked smile. Olivia’s mouth was open and her eyes were wide. She didn’t move when I walked past. I had to grab her hand and pull her out of whatever the hell kind of reverie she was stuck in.

Shining the light as we walked helped me know what was ahead of us; it reflected off the mirrors and the glass like I expected. But it didn’t stop us from making a wrong turn and end up at a dead end. Twice we ended up at the same spot, having to turn around and chose another path. Finally, we took the correct turn and moved further forward.

And then we realized we weren’t alone.

 The smell hit us first. I grabbed the flashlight and covered it with my hand, shushing Olivia. I couldn’t see them so I had no idea how many were in here with us. But the echoing death rattles and the shuffling and dragging of zombie feet let me know there were many—too many for me to single handedly take on.

If I released the light, they’d be more apt to get us. And we’d never get out of this fucking maze. And they already knew we were here…I uncapped the light and raced forward. Olivia’s breath came out in sharp, loud gasps. She was hyperventilating.

“Keep it together, I’m gonna get us out of this,” I promised and gave her the flashlight so she would feel like she had some control over the situation. We slammed into a glass wall. Olivia screamed.

“There’s one on the other side! We’re going to die!” she cried.

“Stop being so dramatic. We didn’t get this far just to die. Come on!” I yanked her forward. My heart hammered and I couldn’t get my breathing to slow. I too, was scared. Though I wasn’t going to let Olivia know it.

We slowly made our way through another section of the maze. I squeezed Olivia’s hand to keep from shaking. A zombie crashed into a glass panel. We both jumped. With trembling hands, Olivia shined the light on her.

Her lips hand been torn off and the tip of her nose was missing. One eye dangled out of the socket. She groaned, dragging her nails on the glass.

“Can she break through?” Olivia asked.

“No,” I said, putting my hand on the panel to taunt the zombie. “This is Plexiglas, not real glass.” Real glass would have been too easy. I could have easily broken it and walked in a straight line to the opposite end of the room. “But she—and the others—can catch up.”

We staggered into a fork in the road of the maze. We circled around, unsure of which way to go. Behind us, the herd groaned. Well, that eliminated one direction. Suddenly remembering I had a lighter, I reached into the jacket to pull it out.

A fast S2 raced up behind us and grabbed me around the waist. His teeth tried to sink into my shoulder but the leather stopped him. Instinctively, I easily flipped him over my head and kicked him in the face. Before I could pull my foot back and end his after life, Olivia raised her foot and stomped on the zombie’s head.

She cracked the skull and then slipped and fell back on her butt. I extended a hand and pulled her back to her feet.

“Good job,” I complimented. We sprinted forward, getting stuck at another dead end. It wouldn’t be long before a zombie or two caught up to us. I could only hope they were having as much—if not more since they couldn’t think logically—trouble with the maze as we were.

“This way!” I shouted, a few feet ahead of Olivia. We rounded a corner and slammed into a wall. I turned and was face to face with a mirror, which was situated in the center of the exit. We went around it and stumbled into another narrow hall. A door with a red X painted on it loomed ahead.
Please be the way out
, I thought. Without hesitation, I opened it.

We were in a large, open room. Maybe it was an empty, unused room. Olivia took my hand again, the flashlight shakily casting a cone of yellow light around the room.

“Don’t move,” I said. I took the light from her and illuminated my field of vision. Large, multi colored spots had been painted all over the floor and the walls. Oh, shit. I knew what we were in, the one I despised the most in any haunted house. I heard him growl just as the rotting smell made me gag.

A zombie clown limped over, his spotted outfit camouflaging him with the spotted walls. His red nose was crusted with blood and drainage from the festering wounds cracked and peeled the white makeup he was wearing. The rainbow wig was matted into a pus-covered sore on his forehead.

Olivia went into a stage of shocked horror. She started shaking uncontrollably. I rushed forward and kicked the son of a bitch in the chest. He was big, and, having no sense of pain, didn’t react as optimally to my efforts. He clawed at the air, lips pulled back in a snarl.

Fucking clowns,
I swore to myself. I dropped to the ground, extended my leg and knocked his feet out from under him. The heels on my boots came in useful yet again when I drove it into his eye socket. Something hung from the ceiling, wrapped in a rainbow striped material. I pulled Olivia along and right as we walked past it, the thing wiggled to life, laughing an evil, harrowing laugh. She screamed and my heart skipped a beat.

It was a motion activated battery powered, life-sized doll. Nevertheless, I punched it and ended the wiggling. I cast the light around the room until we found the door. With no time to second guess it, we fled through it and into another room; this one filled with giant spiders and rubber snakes.

Stepping on the props, we hurried through the room and crawled through another narrow hallway until we were thrust into a room that was set up like an old fashioned insane asylum. It oddly reminded me of Hayden, since the first safe house I stayed at with him was in an old mental hospital.

Something crashed into the fake jail bars, causing Olivia to scream again. She covered her mouth and whimpered. Still dressed in the strait jacket, the zombie looked fittingly insane. I didn’t know if the bars would hold. We continued on, hearts racing and hands shaking. We went through one more room—this one set up like a demonic sacrifice—before we bolted into the fading daylight.

I kept running, wanting to put more distance between us and the literal hell house as possible. When Olivia couldn’t go any further, we stopped for air.

“I…used…to…like…Halloween,” she panted.

“Me too.” Though, I mostly liked the excuse to wear slutty costumes. I shook my hands and put them on my head, trying to open up my airway as much as possible. I walked in a slow circle, willing my body to go back to normal.

As soon as Olivia caught her breath, we walked down the road. After half an hour or so, a traffic jam came into view. There were no cars in the ditches, no bodies scattered along the ground and no stench of death in the air. And, best of all, there wasn’t snow anymore.

“Help me check the cars,” I told Olivia.

“What am I looking for?”

“Keys. Or tools.”

“Ok,” she nodded and hesitantly strode off on her own. If people were fleeing for their lives, they might leave the keys, right? I hoped so. I pulled on the door of a BMW. Of course, it was locked. We wasted precious daylight checking the rest of the cars with no luck.

Sighing, I leaned against a new Chevy truck. I nervously scanned the stores that lined the road. When I read the sign, I excitedly gasped.

“Olivia! Come here!”

She raced over, looking scared shitless.

“Nothing bad, look,” I said, pointing.

“Yea?”

“It’s a pawn shop, a pretty big one by the looks of it.”

“Uh, I don’t get it.”

I shook my head. “Right, you probably wouldn’t. Pawn shops usually have weapons.” I smiled and took off in the direction of the store, Olivia trailing behind. I had to climb up on a dumpster and break in through a window to get inside.

Olivia scrambled in after me, falling as she jumped in from the windowsill. She got up right away and shook herself off, nodding to let me know she was ok. Behind the register was a display of guns. I picked up a twelve gauge.

“I don’t know if there are bullets here,” I mumbled. I strapped a nice, ivory handled Glock to my thigh.

“There are a lot of knives over here,” Olivia called.

Setting down an antique revolver, I went over to the display and used the rifle to break the glass.

“Are you sure it’s ok to just take things?” she innocently asked.

“Yea. Who else is gonna use this? Everything belongs to everyone,” I rationalized.

“Oh, if you say so.” She looked around and excitement slightly sparkled in her eyes.

“Hah,” I said, picking up a device. “I always wanted one of these.” I buckled it around my wrist, and, with a flick of my arm, a knife shot out of the little box.

“I changed my mind,” Olivia stated, speaking more confidently than ever. “Instead of kinda scary you are
really
scary. And I am glad.”

I smiled and shrugged. “You have to be in order to make it in this world.”

She nodded and pocketed a hunting knife. I was able to find ammo for the rifle and the Glock. But what Olivia found was even better. Hanging up on a labeled bulletin board in the office were four sets of keys. She selected the keys under the “Mustang” label, smiled and tossed them to me.

We slipped back out the window. I looked around for zombies, almost disappointed when I didn’t see any. I wanted to test out the new weapons. I unlocked the black Mustang and fired up the engine. We let it run for a good fifteen minutes this time before getting in. I cut apart a hose and filled up the tank with siphoned gas from parked cars. Olivia looked over the map as I drove.

Once we were on our way, Olivia messed with the MP3 player that was hooked up in the car. She flipped through songs, eventually deciding upon a Taylor Swift album. We were hungry and thirsty but didn’t dare to stop. In just hours, I’d be home.

I imagined Raeya’s face when she would see me walk through the doors. And then I thought of Hayden and what his reaction would be. I felt so horrible for what my friends must be going through, especially Hayden thinking he took a bullet for me only to die a few days later, getting supplies for him.

“What are you thinking about?” Olivia asked, turning down the radio.

“Nothing,” I said automatically.

“You’re smiling.”

“No I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were,” she said, a hint of laughter in her voice. “Were you thinking about your friends?”

“Yea. I’m excited to see them.”

“I bet. I’m excited to meet everyone. You’re one of the soldiers, right?”

“Sure.”

“Sure?” she questioned.

“It’s a long story,” I said, although it really wasn’t. I just didn’t feel like explaining it. “You’ll like it there, though, after what you’ve been through, anything would be nice. And I know someone who would be a good friend to you,” I said, thinking of Sonja. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

My stomach churned. It would be tempting to get my trusted A1 friends, load up a truck with weapons and drive back to Iowa.

“Who are you excited to see?”