Haven (The Breadwinner Trilogy) (8 page)

V

The corner store had already been cleared of any real necessities by the neighborhood inhabitants.  Michelle grabbed several plastic bags and began filling them with whatever was left that could be useful to the small group.  Zach nervously cleaned his glasses on his shirt and kept watch at the door.  Every so often he would duck down as a random person would run by screaming.  Sirens wailed in the streets and the sounds of breaking glass and screeching tires were nonstop.  Lulu followed Michelle around the tiny store like a puppy, whimpering and trembling.  There was almost nothing of nutritional value left in the store but Michelle kept searching.  She grabbed packs of batteries and shoved them into the bag regardless of type.  Matchbooks and lighters, candy and gum, cigarettes and Tylenol; whatever she could get her hands on she took from the shelves.

“Hey.”  Lulu quietly called out to Michelle as they made their way through the last corner of the store.  “Look at all this spray paint.”

Michelle turned to her and made a face.  “What do we need spray paint for?”

“Windows.”  Lulu picked up a can with each hand and shook them gently.  “We can paint all the windows.  Those psychos won’t be able to see through the paint.”

A smile crept across Michelle’s face.  She couldn’t help but feel a sense of overwhelming joy that Lulu had proven herself useful after how hysterical she’d been.  “That’s my girl.”  She winked at Lulu and tossed her some plastic bags.  “Fill ‘em up and let’s get the hell outta here.”

The two women grabbed their corner store treasures and headed for the door.  Zach was crouched beside the entrance, he put a hand up, motioning for them to stop and get down.  Lulu and Michelle ducked into the aisles opposite from one another.  Zach peered out the door to see if the monster was still lurking around Michelle’s red Toyota.  There was a man who looked as if he had been almost beaten to death staring curiously at the car.  Blood ran down his face and chest, staining his white t-shirt.  His hands were mangled horribly, as if someone or something had been chewing on them.  Wheezing grunts floated on the air from the man, he cocked his head a few times left and right like he was trying to understand a puzzle.  From somewhere in the distance horrendous screams could be heard, the man by the car shot up straight and took off full speed in the direction of the screams.

Zach let his breath out in a whoosh, he’d been holding it the entire time.  He looked over at his cousin and her roommate and nodded toward the car.  “We’re clear.”  Michelle gathered up her bags and stood up, noticing now what she did not see before.  On a shelf in front of her were packs of solar powered garden lights of various sizes, but all had the same solid metal stakes on the ends of them.  She grabbed as many as she could fit into her already overflowing shopping bags and decided that it was an extremely useful find.

Outside, Lulu scanned the area, trembling in fear of being noticed by an eater as Zach packed up the trunk.  Michelle jogged over to the car, arms outstretched and he took the rest of the bags from her.  She pulled a pack of garden lights out and opened them up as he slammed the trunk closed.  She nonchalantly threw the trash behind her and admired the heavy, shiny object she held in her hand.  The end of the stake wasn’t sharp enough to cut, but would be useful to her in other ways.  “Perfect.”  She said to herself as they piled into the Camry and drove off toward Emerald Park.

Michelle tried avoiding main roads, sticking to the narrow side streets lined with vacation homes and small shops as they got closer to the center of the tourist mecca of Haven.  She thanked her lucky stars that the city was already in its off season, otherwise their nightmare would have been unimaginably worse.  She swallowed hard as she pulled onto the last cluster of side streets she’d be able to navigate before being forced to take the main strip that lined the Gulf Coast to enter Emerald Park.  She nearly choked as Lulu screamed and Zach yelled out for her to stop.  Michelle slammed her foot down hard on the brakes, everyone rocked forward as the car came to a halt just inches before plowing into a pregnant woman who had run out into the street.

“Holy shit.”  Michelle panted as she stared at the disheveled looking woman.  Her big belly jutted out from her small frame, she looked like she was ready to pop.  The woman had one arm outstretched toward them, the other held her stomach tightly.  She was sobbing and covered from head to toe in blood and what looked like a dozen other substances.

“We have to help her.”  Zach adjusted his glasses on his face and pushed his matted black hair back from his forehead, the day proved unfortunately humid and he was drenched in sweat.  The pregnant woman lost her balance and braced herself on the hood of the car with a thump.  Zach threw open the car door and ran to her side.  Lulu said nothing, her eyes were filled with tears and her hands were over her mouth.  She looked back forth from Michelle to the woman on the hood.

“Goddamnit.  Fine.”  Michelle unbuckled her seatbelt and exited the car to help Zach.  She narrowed her eyes in disgust once she got a better look at the pregnant woman.  Blood dripped down her legs from an obvious miscarriage and several wounds could be seen all down her side through the holes of her blue nightgown.

“Were you attacked?”  Zach put his arm under the woman and held her up.  He tried to get a better look at the woman’s wounds.  “I think she’s been stabbed.”  He looked at Michelle but she shook her head.

“Those aren’t stab wounds, Zach.”

He examined them more closely and realized she was right.  They were clearly bite marks and they were deep.  Chunks of her flesh were missing and she was bleeding very badly.  He noticed another gaping wound nearer to her protruding belly and his heart quietly broke for her.

“We need to get her into the car.  Come on, we need to get out of here.”  Michelle helped the two of them along, putting her arm under the woman on the side opposite Zach.  They stumbled as her feet gave out from underneath her.  She had stopped sobbing now and was quietly moaning in pain.  “You got her?”  Michelle asked Zach and he nodded.  She opened the door to the backseat and ran around to the driver’s side as Zach gently placed the woman into the car.

Lulu unbuckled herself and turned around to take a look at their new passenger.  “Oh my god.”  She was crying now.  “Is she dying?”  She looked at Michelle with terrified eyes.  “Is her baby dead?”  Michelle said nothing and put the car in drive as soon as Zach’s door slammed shut
.  I know I’m going to fucking regret this,
Michelle thought to herself as she sped down the empty streets.

“Do you think we’ll be able to find her a doctor?”  Lulu asked Zach who was trying to keep the woman upright in the backseat.  He shook his head solemnly at his cousin and she continued to sob quietly to herself.  The woman’s limp body kept falling over onto Zach, he was now covered in both her blood and whoever else’s was all over her.  Michelle kept glancing in the rearview mirror at the near dead woman in her back seat.  She tucked a stray curl back behind her ear and watched as the woman’s eyes rolled into the back of her head.  Michelle’s grip tightened on the wheel as the woman began gurgling and going into convulsions.

“Shit, I think we’re losing her.”  Zach tried his best to hold her still but her body rocked in his arms.  Lulu whipped back around and quickly buckled herself back in, covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut.  As soon as the convulsions had started though, the woman had fallen still once more.  Zach’s chest heaved up and down as he stared down at the dead woman in the backseat with him.  Flecks of blood smeared across his glasses and he squinted through them at her lifeless face.  He bent down and put his ear to her mouth but felt no air and heard no sound.  He lingered there for a moment, devastated by the fact that someone had just died in his arms.  He quietly announced to Lulu and Michelle that she was gone and didn’t realize that her eyes had already glazed over and reopened anew.  It was too late for him as the once dead pregnant woman tore Zach’s ear off.  Zach began screaming and Lulu joined in as she realized what was happening to her cousin.

Michelle swerved as one of Zach’s flailing arms hit her in the head.  The pregnant woman’s death grip was holding his head in place and her teeth were tearing into his face.  Blood sprayed out and splattered onto the windows, the seats, Michelle, Lulu, and even as far as the windshield.

“She’s killing him!  Michelle stop the car!  She’s killing him!”  Lulu pleaded and screamed.  Michelle unintentionally pushed her foot down on the accelerator and lost control of the car as Lulu grabbed one of her arms.  At the last second Michelle was able to regain control and hit the brakes but unfortunately smashed into an abandoned vehicle.  The airbags didn’t deploy but Zach’s body was thrown into the front seat and he lay dying and choking on his own blood in Lulu’s lap.  Lulu continued to scream uncontrollably as the dead woman in the backseat continued to devour Zach’s flesh.  Michelle’s head had hit the driver’s side window hard, there was a ringing in her ears that seemed to drown out the tumultuous sounds in the car.  She couldn’t believe the sight before her.  Zach’s dying eyes locked with hers and she realized in that very moment exactly what had happened and what needed to be done.  One of his hands gripped the garden light in her lap and thrust it toward her.

Michelle jumped out of the car and in one swift motion opened the door to the backseat, dragged the flailing, screaming body of the undead pregnant woman out of the car and proceeded to beat her over the head with the heavy garden light until all movement ceased.  She kicked the body to the side and slammed the door shut on her way to Lulu’s side of the car.  Michelle’s movements were quiet and robotic.  Lulu protested as Michelle attempted to grab hold of Zach’s body.  Michelle said nothing as she slapped Lulu across the face and hoisted Zach’s half eaten body out of the car and slammed it onto the asphalt.

She straddled his body and raised the garden light with both arms.  Zach’s eyes shot open and locked with hers once more, but they were not the same eyes she had just looked into moments before as he lay dying in her car.  His half eaten face and neck made her stomach turn but she swallowed her bile.  He growled demonically and his torso squirmed under her as she plunged the metal garden light’s stake straight through the middle of his forehead.  No more sound or movement came from Zach.  No more sound or movement would ever come from Zach.  In a matter of two minutes there was only Michelle and a catatonic Lulu left in a blood soaked Camry.  The pair silently backed up and continued on their way to Emerald Park, the front end of Michelle’s car scraped against the pavement loudly before finally falling off and leaving them in silence once more.

VI

Lulu’s eyes stung from crying.  Her head pounded and her skin felt tight.  She wished she would wake up from this nightmare she was suddenly living.  A week ago, if you had asked her how she was doing she would have responded “Never better.”  Lulu was the carefree airhead type who broke the traditional Asian stereotype by never having studied a day in her life and barely making a C in any class she took.  She immersed herself in girly things and ballet classes, cosmetology and pop music.  If it weren’t for her family’s wealth, she’d never have a dime to her name.  She was the type of girl who had been sheltered from the ugliness of the world, always getting her way and never having a real responsibility or worry thrust upon her.  That’s more than likely what had attracted her to Michelle in the first place.  Lulu didn’t usually hang around with the strong willed or intimidating type, but Michelle was like her in the ways that mattered to her:  absolutely gorgeous, always got what she wanted and never turned down a party.  But no matter how hard Lulu tried to silently hope and pray that she could turn back the clock, open her eyes and be in her oversized comfy bed, it just wasn’t possible.  This mayhem was real.  Her white tank top was stained with blood, her denim capris would never be untainted, her hair was a mess and for the first time she didn’t care how she looked.  She was alone with Michelle and no one else in the world and she was terrified.  A complete stranger had just murdered her cousin in the backseat and her roommate had then done the same to Zach.  She understood.  She desperately tried to convince herself that the pregnant woman did not come back to life and eat Zach’s face.  She replayed the events over and over a million times in her mind and still couldn’t believe Michelle had stuck a garden stake through her cousin’s forehead.

Lulu suddenly felt a wave of heat rush through her, the world spun and she felt like she was going to pass out.  “Michelle, stop the car.”  The words barely came out and Michelle didn’t respond.  “Stop the car!”  Michelle looked around and pulled into someone’s driveway.  Lulu hyperventilated and stumbled out of the car.  On her knees in the stranger’s driveway she dry heaved and spat.  Michelle rushed around to her side, crouching down and gently rubbing her back.

“You’re gonna be fine.”  Michelle whispered to her.  She didn’t like just stopping like this.  She felt exposed to attack.  Lulu was making too much noise and she had to get her back in the car.  “Come on, we need to go.”  She reached out and took Lulu’s arm.

Lulu shrugged Michelle off as she vomited.  “I’m not done.”  She continued to spit and was now crying again.

“Ok, I know that, but my car is pretty fucking disgusting right now, so it’s probably safer for you to be getting sick in there.”  She grabbed her arm again but this time with more force.  “Let’s go.  Now.”

Lulu pulled the bottom of her shirt up and wiped her mouth off, hurrying back into Michelle’s car.  She looked at Michelle curiously.  “Do you know what’s going on?”

Michelle laughed, “Yes.  We’re going to Emerald Park to lock ourselves the fuck inside and I am trying to keep us alive.  Does that make sense of things?”

“That’s not what I meant!”  Lulu shouted at her.  Michelle’s sarcastic smile disappeared and she looked solemn as she backed the car out of the driveway.  “Zach is dead.  That lady, she was alive and then she was dead and then she killed Zach.  But then you killed Zach!  I don’t know what the fuck is going on!”

“Alright, please.”  Michelle winced.  “Stop yelling at me.  Ok?  I have no idea why this is happening but I can say it’s probably a good idea to stop wondering about it.  You’ll drive yourself insane and you’ll be no good to me.”  She cracked her neck and scanned the road, she reminded Lulu of a machine.  “I’m sorry about Zach.”

“Are you?” 

“Yes.”  The women didn’t speak again until they got closer to the shopping center.  Michelle was forced back onto the main road and made her way bobbing and weaving between abandoned and wrecked cars and then finally took to driving on the wrong side of the road.  It was easier to avoid a head on collision than it was to make it through the tangled mess of cars on the westbound lane.  “I’m a little worried that all of these cars are heading in the same direction as us.”

“Most of them are empty.”  Lulu stared blankly out the window.

“Yeah, but why?  Where did they all go?”  Her question went unanswered as they continued driving toward their destination.

They passed a bike shop on their right and Lulu perked up.  “Hey, why don’t we stop there?”  She pointed at the store and looked at Michelle.  “It would be easier to get around and we would be less noisy.  Nobody cares about cyclists, ya know?”

Michelle appreciated the thought.  “Yeah.  I can’t ride a bike.”

“Who doesn’t know how to ride a bike?”  Lulu looked perplexed but Michelle just shook her head and ignored her.  She sat back in her seat again and went back to staring at the chaos they were passing at a mere 20 miles per hour.

There was so much debris and garbage in the road it was too dangerous to go any faster.  Michelle didn’t want to risk breaking down in her already mangled vehicle or getting a flat tire and being stuck with the bike option.  Lulu couldn’t believe the amount of blood and gore she saw on practically everything they passed.  Bodies lie in the road half eaten and twitching.  The several eaters they drove by ignored the car because they were too busy feasting on the prey they already managed to kill. 

Michelle’s grip on the steering wheel grew tighter as they approached Emerald Park from the highway.  She slowed the car almost to a stop and her heart rate sped up.  An enormous crowd of the dead were stumbling aimlessly about.  Some of them running in circles, slamming into one another and then resuming their pointless actions.  Other ones stood around staring off into nothing.  The bodies were wounded in different ways, some of them actually looked normal.  Michelle crept the car along and turned off onto the delivery road so they wouldn’t be spotted.  She pulled off to the side and put the car in park.  “Fuck.”  She whispered under her breath.

“What are we going to do?”  Lulu’s hands shook and she ducked down in her seat.  The delivery road was empty and lined with thick foliage on both sides, but she was so terrified of being spotted that she tried to make herself disappear into the front seat.

Michelle shook her head from side to side, racking her brain for a plan of action.  She put the car in drive and Lulu panicked, grabbing her hand, eyes wide.  “I need to know what the back lot of our building looks like, Lu.  We can’t stay here.”  Lulu pulled her hand back and crossed her arms, hugging herself tightly.  Michelle made it down the road and slowly turned the corner into one of the back parking lots of Emerald Park.  The lot was fairly empty except for three or four cars here or there and it looked like the eaters were sticking to the main entrance near the highway for the time being.  She kept inching the car forward and then stopping, waiting for a sign that they’d been noticed, but all was well so far.  She pulled up as close as she was going to get.  They were diagonal from the back entrance to their building, right in front of a Target and across from a shoe store.  Another back row of buildings were behind them, leading to the other side of the enormous shopping center that was closer to the beach.  The lot and road in front of them was thick with eaters.  Michelle counted the few blessings she figured she had left that she’d gotten them this far.  She had no idea how she was going to get them, along with their belongings, safely into the building.  She was out of room for positive thought in her head.  She didn’t have to say anything to Lulu.  She glanced over at her and Lulu already seemed somewhere far off in her own mind. 

Michelle sighed and rested her pounding head on the steering wheel, closing her eyes and listening to the soft yet almost absent hum of the hybrid’s engine.  She felt her mind begin to fill with songs and lyrics and wished she hadn’t destroyed her phone so carelessly, she’d at least like to die with some music.  She opened her eyes and saw that Lulu rested her bloodstained shoes up on the dashboard and curled herself up in a ball.  Michelle’s car was trashed and she didn’t even care.  She absentmindedly counted the laces on Lulu’s shoes and hummed a song to herself.

She suddenly shot up and came back to reality.  “We’re getting into that building.”  Lulu slowly rolled her head to the side and looked at Michelle, tears in her eyes.  “Wipe those tears away darlin’,” Michelle fiddled with her keys, it was hard removing her store keys with the ring so close to the ignition.  She placed the salon’s key ring on her middle finger so she didn’t lose it and put her hands on Lulu’s shoulders, moving her body towards hers.  “I am gonna need you to listen to me very carefully.  I really need you to get it together and give me a hundred percent right now Lu, can you do that?  Do you trust me?”

Lulu nodded.  “What are we doing?”

“Take your shoes off.”  Michelle began removing her own shoes and pulling the laces out.  Lulu followed suit.  “Do you have your phone on you?”

“No, I have Zach’s.” 

“That’ll work.  Pull up his music player.”  Michelle fished her auxiliary cable out of the center console.

“Michelle, at least tell me what we’re doing.”

A smile danced itself across Michelle’s face that made Lulu a little uneasy.  “We’re going to crash my car into the shoe store.”