Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days (5 page)

Things were knocked down, whoever or whatever it was continued to run into things. Sporadic pauses were included in its run. For a moment everything went silent and I couldn’t hear anything else run. That’s when the screams began again, and, the sporadic running returned with it, in complete madness. I didn’t want to head downstairs and come across whatever crazy thing made all these noises but I needed go to the car and get the hell out of the house. On the plus side, there was no choice to be made since I was obligated to go through the house to get to the car in the first place. I was destined to find out what it was.

I took my time when I went down the stairs, my heart raced and my hand tightly wrapped around the bat, sweat made it hard to keep a nice grip. I gradually walked closer to the source of the unexplainable sound that came from downstairs. Every time running start up again I would stop and panic, it would stop and I’d move again, green light, red light, green light, red light? I reached the bottom of the stairs and the madness continued in the living room. Sporadically it stopped and started over and over again. I walked through the hallway ready to attack anything that moved with the baseball bat. I took short steps to the living room, still in the same panic. A shadow ran through the shadows. Something slightly hunched over is all I could make out. I freaked out and backed up into a lamp in the hallway - knocking it down. Almost instantly, the thing in the shadows dashed in my direction. I ran away from it, on the way I knocked down random junk I came across in the hallway to the kitchen. Once in the kitchen, I turned and readied the baseball bat when I realized the infected girl I took down earlier was no longer in the kitchen. She’s what ran around the living room and caused all the commotion in the first floor.

All the infected prior to this one walked at a slow steady pace and could barely moan. Before I could finish my thought, the girl shot out of the darkness with her arms stretched out, reaching for me. I was still in complete panic and swung the bat. I landed one hit on the right side of her head and one on her left ribs. This knocked her back a few feet but didn’t slow her down in the least. She lunged at me and I backed away from her with no idea what to do next. The infected girl slashed her clawed hands as she tried to scratch me or grab a hold of me; I deflected to the best of my ability, but the girl was just too strong. She wouldn’t show any signs of exhaustion or of slowing down. She just kept on with attack after attack. Filled with failure she became frustrated and tried to bite me.

The girl foamed at the mouth, grabbed my wrist and tried to go in for the bite. I dropped the lantern intentionally this time, and using my now free arm, I jabbed at her head with the handle of the baseball bat and caused enough damage to become free and dodge her next attempt. I kicked her away, stood up, grabbed the lantern and ran around the dinner table, the infected girl still after me. I ran into the hallway that led to the living room, jumped over the couch, and knocked down a TV and the stand that it was on to cause the girl to trip over one of the two, and land on the floor. It worked but she stood back up as fast she went down and continued her chase. The girl was hot on my tail. She tripped and bumped into everything on her quest to keep up, which she was successfully doing.

Down three steps, the door that led to the garage stood. I ran down the steps and opened the door. To my surprise, the door opened and gave me no trouble. I ran in, pushed the door behind me but didn’t shut it fully because of the infected girl’s arms which she tried to squeeze in through the small open space between the door and the doorframe. I leaned my whole body on the door, and applied more pressure to give myself time to think of a way to get into the car, open the garage door, and leave safely. Seconds later, her arms retracted back into the living room. The door shut and silence overcame the house.

Why she went silent all of a sudden was more than I could understand, but I didn’t plan to discover the secret behind the silence. In the garage, an extremely old, first generation car, neatly parked awaited me to crank it and drive it the hell out of the town. Again, how sad.

On top of everything else that took place inside and outside of the house, the car wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to start. There was an instructional manual left on the hood of the car which was just convenient in an odd kind of way considering how inconvenient everything else was. I went as follows: I set the emergency brake and made sure the car was set to a neutral shift. Raised a spark lever and lowered the throttle lever enough for the gas pedal to ready up. I adjusted the car’s settings to match the conditions it was going to be driven in, located something the manual called a choke which I struggled to find but noticed in smaller print the manual explain that it should be connected to some wire that I can pull and I found it and located the wire. Then came the insertion of the crank to the front of the car, a carefully placed grip for safety and the cranking began, slowly but surely. Now I needed to let go of the wire and set on the ignition so the car would start and it did, which surprised me because the manual continued to stress how dangerous it was to start a car of this type.

I opened the door to the car and went inside. By now my eyes were long adjusted to the dark and it was okay to turn the lantern off, but it wasn’t going to happen just yet. Not until I was clear of the house and the town. I looked around the car to make sure I didn’t get in for a ride with another one of the infected. I couldn’t help but be paranoid under conditions like these. After all, you never know when there is an infected zombie like person in the back seat of your neighbor’s car, counting the seconds till it could bite your head off. The car looked pretty standard with the exception of all the bits and pieces that modern cars contained that were not present, but it had everything I needed; a steering wheel, a gas pedal and it was covered in protective metals that were even stronger than that of modern cars.

The infected outside gathered behind the garage door; they moaned hungrily while they scratched and beat on it. They weren’t particularly good when it came to being sneaky. I prepped the car by adjusting the mirrors and the seat, there was no seatbelt. I was going to ram through the door, run over the infected on the other side and head for The Hills. At exactly that moment, the door back into the house flew open and the girl rushed into the garage. She banged on the car. I put it on drive, took a deep breath, hit the gas and began to move. The car broke through the garage door and several thumps followed as I reached the street. Through the back window, the infected still standing marched behind the car led by the girl, but in moments they were no longer visible through the mirror. Like I said “a relevant car”.

The wreckage of vehicles of all types stretched out regardless of how long or how far I drove. I kept going for an hour or so in search of a place that might have some sort of road map that I could use, but that plan didn’t turn out too well, the infected were everywhere, so there was no safe place to stop and search. I spent the whole time that I drove avoiding large groups of infected. I eventually had to stop so that I could at least fill up on gas and continue my aimless drive. My best bet for survival and to locate a safe gas station was to jump onto the highway and go to one of the more secluded gas stations. The low population in those forest filled areas made them ideal for tasks like the one I needed to accomplish. Before I finished the thought, a sign that told of a highway came into view. I turned where it said.

Highway: Route 440

T
he illumination came only from the moon that shined over the street. Street signs were especially difficult to see covered in shadow, because of the lack of power. After a few minutes of searching, I found the interstate and route signs that directed me to the highway. The signs demanded a left turn followed by staying to the left, then to follow the street onto a U turn and stick to the right afterwards till I entered the highway.

Such a jumbled mess of instructions on street signs, but everything else that day was in its entirety a jumbled mess too. “Route 440 Ahead” read the sign to the right of the street. Up ahead was the motionless highway. Everything was still and dead. Not a soul could be seen, although many soulless infected people actively moved around until I drove by them. By then they would be in an epic chase after me at amazing turtle speeds.

For the next few miles there would be nothing but forest to the sides and road straight ahead. Pile ups and car accidents every few miles. Large empty areas would come up every so often, the road would be clear for miles at a time, maybe one or two cars in the middle of the street or in the emergency lane, but aside from that, it was vast, empty, and free of infected mobs. The street was mine to drive however I wanted when I came across these gaps. The one issue that remained and would not lift was the endless darkness that covered the road. At some point down the highway road I drove by a pack of wolves and some of the infected that attempted to eat them but failed. I drove slowly pass the scene. I realized the infected felt no sort of pain. They didn’t scream or fight, they just continued to try to eat the wolves while being eaten themselves, tanks made of flesh. As scary as it was to admit; the infected were in fact zombies. Emotionless, slow, senseless, and worst of all, they were hungry. I drove around the feast the wolves enjoyed and kept my journey through the dark street going.

Over the night, I progressively became more tired and exhausted. I decided to find a safe place to sleep and continue my trip for a gas station in the morning, but I couldn’t stay in the car if I wanted to live till the morning. I didn’t know if I was going to be attacked by one of the infected if I fell asleep in the car. I was going to need quick access to the car but somewhere much more sheltered, safe, and in range.

I reached one of the highway gas stations that looked clear from the distance. No cars were crashed or stopped in front of this gas station and as I made it closer I noticed it looked empty on the inside too. Well, at least empty of life. I parked the car on the highway, took the lantern out of the passenger seat and turned the car off. I went to the gas station. It didn’t even seem at all touched by the apocalypse that took place around it. I couldn’t figure out how it went so well ignored, but I was definitely glad it was. What’s important is that there was a safe place to rest and gas up.

I was obviously not going to just stroll in and assume it was as safe as it looked inside from the car’s point of view. I took my time when I walked to the gas station; the parking lot and pumps were nice and neat, so I approached the glass door into the convenience store and raised the lantern so that its light could reach further inside. I didn’t see anything I would call a threat (which in this case was a good thing). The front door was locked which was also great. It looked much safer upon closer inspection. I worked my way around the gas station and looked for a window of some sort or a backdoor. The backdoor was closed but the window over it wasn’t. I moved a trashcan in front of it and used it as a boost to reach the window and squeezed my body through the small space.

As I suspected there wasn’t a comfortable bed on the other side of the window awaiting my brutal landing. In fact, there was extremely solid floor that someone just left there to beat me up as soon as I reached it. So it did. I landed on my shoulder; a shock ran down my spine out of the pain of impact. I stood up and ignored it while I walked around to find a dream inside of a nightmare. The best thing to happen the whole day; I found a gas station and convenience store, safely locked up with food inside. The isles were stacked with random things to eat.

I stuffed my face with Slim Jims and drank bottled iced tea before I headed to the tiny storage room by the bathroom, and locked myself in there. After I broke some of the boxes in the storage room and turned them into an alright pillow by stacking them on top of each other, I took some of the hung up uniform jumpsuits and placed them over me like warm fuzzy quilts and drifted off into dreamland; a dreamland inside of a gas station.

Day 2

The Rescue

T
he dark, the quiet, and the peacefulness the daylight missed came to me all at once. It Overwhelmed me. Who would have known the best sleep I would have ever experienced would happen during the end of the world? No dreams took place, no thoughts were… thought. Just the knowledge that I was safe in my little storage room was good enough for me to sleep like a baby.

I didn’t sleep for long before glass broke inside the store. I laid there for an hour and I managed to sleep for a bit over the course of that hour which led me into the early morning, I guessed somewhere around one. Not the time I wanted to wake up, but hopes of a full night’s rest or even a peaceful night’s rest was a lot to ask for the circumstance. The sound of glass breaking made sure I was up, alert, and ready to take action to stay alive.

I briefly weighed my options before I acted on anything. The choices were either I stay in the storage room and ignore the risk that the store might fill up with infected, and try to exit at a later time, which would probably result in my untimely death, or waste no time and just get out in the middle of the night. I had to leave.

I opened the door, just a crack; it was too dark in the store without help from the lantern. Once I established it was clear I turned back to look for the bat before I realized I never took it out of the passenger seat in the car. My method of defense was left behind. Panic overcame me and my muscles tightened in stress, my brain forced a flashback from the day before. It was a flashback of Melissa and me when we picked out our weapons after she laid them out on the dinner table. I remembered that I placed a knife on my belt hooks before we left the apartment, but I didn’t take it out of there. I slept on it. How I didn’t feel the knife while I was asleep was as much a mystery to me as the origins of the infected were, but I was glad it didn’t bother me and ruin such a peaceful (and short) rest.

I reached behind me and took the knife. It was clear behind the door as far as I could tell so I pushed it open all the way. The moonlight shined through the store windows and provided a bit of illumination but not enough to distinguish far away figures or objects. This is where the lantern became most useful. With the lantern in one hand and the knife in the other, I made my way around the store to find the source of the noise.

Initially I found nothing that could have created the sound, but I did manage to find where whatever was inside came in through. One of the store’s windows was shattered on the floor. This assured me that something broke in and it was possibly still there.

Footsteps came from inside. Something stepped over potato chip bags. My first reaction was to run out the way it came in, but I hesitated once I looked outside and notice two of the infected stood in the front, next to the gas pumps. I lowered the lantern and crept away. I backed up till I bumped into the register counter, turned around and jumped over to hide behind it. Nothing was on my side of the counter so I peeked over the edge, two zombie wannabes stood outside and did nothing. More footsteps inside of the store gave me a jolt and reminded me the infected outside weren’t the only ones to worry about. There were multiple threats to deal with.

The counter was an L shape so it protected me from two sides, the wall behind me not included, which protected me from a third. I turned to the longer side of the counter to look around the store but I was too scared to raise the lantern.If I did whatever was in the store would definitely know I was there and a whole other problem was going to come up. Everything was hidden in the dark but it was unmistakable that there was something in there. I turned to the other side of the counter and checked on theinfectees outside of the store.They no longer stood there.They moved out of view.

With my attention drawn to the infected that vanished, I became unprotected from all other sides. This became painfully clear to me when a hand rested itself on my shoulder from behind me; the ice that traveled down my spine nearly stopped my heart. I spun around and backed into the counter. The shadow of a person stood there in front of me. I couldn’t make out who or what it was until my eyes adjusted. Short black hair and pale white skin on a tall figure, my same slender body type; it was my brother, Jason. He somehow managed to end up in the same exact gas station I was in.

Jason held a finger over his lips as a signal to stay quiet. He pointed to one of the isles in the store. I stood and looked over, one of the infected slowly shuffled through the isle and blended into the dark. Jason grabbed my wrist and stood up which caused me to stand with him and we walked around the counter towards the front broken window of the store. The infectee inside didn’t notice us while we moved silently and slowly. Over thirty of the infected were collected in the front of the gas station. The car was history; it was surrounded by infected that likely followed the loud sound of the engine all the way to the gas station. Jason let my wrist go and we changed direction to the back door to avoid the infected in the front. The infected still inside of the store was easy to sidestep and didn’t interrupt us on the way to the back.

“This way!” I told Jason. Now outside, we went around to the front to see what our chances of car recovery were. Back in the front, there was nothing left to recover. Too many of the infected were gathered around the car and we still needed to turn the thing on if we wanted to use it. If we even tried, because of how long it would take, it would be too late and we would be surrounded by infected. At the rate they attracted each other the highway would soon be overrun. Our best bet was to continue on foot.

We figured the woods would be a great shield against the infected while we came up with what to do next, but we weren’t going to put our trust in the woods because the lowered visibility affected us as much as it did the infected.

The thick darkness of the woods could be broken only by the lantern I carried, but its range was limited and illuminated only the area immediately around Jason and me. The terrain was unleveled and to grab onto my surroundings for support I put the knife back on my jeans. The last thing anyone wants is to trip like the blond girl in horror movies and die that way.

“The circle is complete; here you are.” I broke the silence.

“We tried waiting for you.” Jason said with weight in his voice. “The officer forced us to leave. We weren’t given an option, so I wrote you a note. Judging by the car back there, I think it’s safe to assume you got it.”

“I got it.” I assured him. “I’m more interested in what you were doing out here and where Daviel and mom are.”

Jason picked up his pace to walk next to me rather than behind me. “I was split from them early in the afternoon.” His voice echoed over the sound of crickets and other insects that came out to sing at night. “Our escort caravan was attacked around the same time the electricity stopped working. The cars shut off too. The group continued on foot but eventually we were attacked again and the group broke into a few smaller groups.”

“That doesn’t exactly explain why you’re here but they’re not.” I pointed out.

“Well, after we got split up, mom, Daviel and I continued on our own. We traveled a couple of hours, and we went into some backyards while we dodged infected. In one of the yards we found a bicycle hooked up with a lawnmower motor. In the same garage that we found that, we also found a motorcycle with a passenger pod thing and we combined the two so the bike could drag the pod. We decided that since it could fit a maximum of two people, that Daviel would drive mom to the quarantine zone and that I would find my own way there.

“You should have stayed with them in case they get attacked like the escort did!”

“That won’t happen. The whole purpose of splitting up was so they don’t come across any of the infected.

“What’s to stop the infected from an attack on them though? What if mom and Daviel need you right now?”

“They will be fine! I could move faster without them weighing me down and I could survive on the way there.”

“I wouldn’t have left them. We have strength in numbers. It sounds like leaving them was more because of your personal want to survive rather than theirs.”

“I disagree. Dead weight, regardless of who it might be, is still dead weight. If both their chances of surviving and mine were simultaneously increased by splitting up, then what is the big deal?”

“Do you hear yourself? Who abandons those closest to them for their own survival?” I knew Jason wasn’t a bad guy, I mean he is my brother. But I didn’t agree with his coward survival tactics. “You should have stuck together.”

“I rather know they are safe and not have them weight me down.” He continued to talk about them like they were a nuisance or luggage.

“But you don’t actually know they are safe because you are here with me.” I said, in an attempt to make a point.

“So are you.” He successfully made his.

“I didn’t have a choice. You did.”

“Yeah, I did. My choice was to stay alive. Why is that a problem? They’ll be fine.”

“Whatever, what happened next?” I said when I became annoyed with the whole conversation and Jason’s overall lack of sympathy for our family.

   “Well, I saw you drive by. I was walking alongside the highway when you passed right by me, at first I didn’t know it was you but a ride is a ride and I kept on the road with hopes that I’d catch up when you stopped to camp out. I walked till I saw the car parked outside with a few of the infected out there and I went into the gas station to warn you. It’s once we came face to face that I noticed it was you.”

“So does this mean we’ve been heading the right way to The Hills?” 

“Are you telling me you didn’t know where you were going but somehow managed to be on the right track?”

“I guess so?” I said surprised that I wasn’t as lost as I thought.

“That’s the luckiest thing I’ve heard since daylight.”

“So where do we go now?” I asked.

“If we follow the highway it should drop us off at the exit that leads to The Hills. The problem is that I don’t know how long from now that is. The drive alone is a whole day’s worth. You gave the car to a mob of infected so we are walking whatever is left. ”

“So we have some extensive walking to do.”

“Yeah, tell me about it!”

To hope for some miracle similar to the motor bike that Daviel and mom took wouldn’t be the wisest way to proceed. We had to tough it out and camp out a few nights too. There was no way to know how long the trip was going to be.

“How far do you think the infection has spread?” I asked Jason.

“I’m not sure how far it spread, but I do know that within a few hours of the outbreak almost the whole state was overrun. Based on that, it’s safe to say the country has gone under,” he replied. His head tilted down while he gave it further thought.

While we walked through the woods howls tore the silence apart. Its echo rippled through the woods and into the open air where it might have reached the infected. Jason immediately stopped in his tracks and extended his arm to stop me too, his palm against my chest applied enough pressure to stop me whether I tried to walk or not. The seconds that followed took place in a realm of their own; no sound or movement existed here. All we did was wait for something to come next. Another howl, I was ready to jump into evasive action, but Jason still did nothing. He continued to listen to the call of the wolves. On the third howl the wolf was joined by another and together they sang their song in harmony. Jason turned to me and took the lantern from my hand.

“We want to find shelter soon and quietly. The wolves know where we are and they are getting a pack ready to hunt us down. That’s why they are howling. We need to leave now!” he said with a loud and clear whisper.

“How do you know?” I asked curious to know how or when he became such a wolf expert.

“The discovery channel!” he replied before he took off into the woods, in search of somewhere to stay till the pack of wolves forgot us or gave up.

I followed him with trust that he thought of some sort of a plan in case of an attack but I doubt that was ever true. As far as I knew, we expected to survive on hopes and dreams and the unlikely possibility that we’d find a safe place somewhere in the woods.

The howls stopped for a bit and the return of the silence assured us temporary safety. We kept our own silence to avoid being tracked by the wolves again as we made our way through the woods. Constantly we checked behind us in case the wolves stalked us quietly while they waited for their opportunity to attack.

I realized how cold it was when I managed to relax a bit. Winter nights weren’t the best times to decide to travel isolated forest-like woods that lined up with abandoned highways. I failed to notice the cold for most of the daylight and through most of the night. The outbreak messed with my basic functions. To forget being cold might not seem like a big thing but the cold was one of the many dangers we fought against. If hypothermia set in at any moment, without a place to warm up, death would become certain. Luckily I was dressed to survive the cold and so was Jason. It wasn’t something to worry over yet, although that sort of forgetfulness was a sign of severe stress.

Before I knew it, Jason and I made it a couple of extra miles without a pack of wolves on us, there was still no place to stop and wait for daylight.