LZR-1143: Evolution (17 page)

The door was shut, but it wasn’t locked. Kate poked at it softly with her foot, as I stood back, glancing behind us every second for movement or unusual noise. It was a hard job, considering the wind lashing against the walls and the rain coming in infrequent pelts against the metal roof.

The door swung slowly inward as Kate pressed it further with her foot. I inched closer to the relative safety of the restroom, eager to abandon the open, exposed area outside.

The room inside was dark, but a small bit of light made it through the narrow horizontal windows set high in the walls. Despite the storm outside, a small amount of moonlight filtered through the clouds and helped provide a meager portion of lighting for the otherwise pitch black room.

Kate stepped one foot inside, cautiously.

Then another.

I followed, catching the closing door with my foot and backing in to the room behind her. As she made it into the dark, tile room, her footsteps echoed slightly and I quickly let the door shut behind us, anxious about the sound of our footfalls giving us away to anyone or anything that was still around.

“Looks okay ...” she started to whisper, but then suddenly grunted.

A body was falling forward from a janitor’s closet to the right of the doorway. It had been hidden behind a corner in the wall, and the door had come open suddenly as she spoke, the edge slamming into her forehead.

It was the large, fetid corpse of a woman, with lacerations on both wrists. Blood covered the arms and thighs of the creature, evidence of a self-inflicted death.

The head lashed forward toward Kate as she struggled to raise her rifle. Her arms flew up, abandoning the gun as she pushed the thing backward as hard as she could. I raised my pistol but cursed, knowing that I couldn’t risk a shot until it had distance from her, and they were both turned away, with Kate’s body blocking my path. I moved forward to drag the thing away, but stumbled as Kate fell backward.

Her push had driven the zombie back nearly ten feet, slamming the body into the wall of the toilet stall and crumpling the aluminum side inward. The thing staggered once, and then focused again, coming forward quickly.

Kate looked over her shoulder at me once, grinning like a child with a new toy. Before I could react, she pulled the pistol from her belt and flipped it in the air so that she was holding it by the barrel like a club.

Then she shot forward like a cannonball.

She hit the corpse like a linebacker, driving it into the stall again. Her shoulder took it in the chest and her lowered head canted away from the thing’s mouth. Before it could recover, she had stepped back, one arm pinning it to the aluminum wall, the other flashing forward with the pistol clenched firmly in hand.

The sound of metal on skull reached me quickly through the empty space, and then it was metal on brain. Repeatedly, the gun came down against fleshy resistance. I heard Kate swearing as I rushed forward, certain that the thing was down. She had stopped and was now leaning forward against the wall. The pistol dropped from her hand as her body started to shake silently.
The corpse behind her slid to the floor silently, its ruined head flopping to the side.

I slowed and placed my hand on her back, gently. She turned quickly and hugged me tightly, burying her face in my shoulder, her body shaking. After so much running and suppressing, she wept silently and fiercely into my shoulder. Kate’s tears soaked through my flight suit, but I stood still, arms tight around her slender frame as she released, finally, the weeks of pent-up anxiety and fear. My hand moved to her head, and I placed my palm against the back of her thick hair, cradling her head firmly but gently.

She cried for at least two minutes as we stood, alone, in the middle of the rest stop bathroom. The wind shrieked outside, and the rain made millions of small footsteps on the metal roof. Leaves scratched against the windows and branches groaned in the force of the wind.

After a while, I felt her head move under my hand, and her crying slowed. She tilted her head back slightly and looked up at me. I simply returned the look. There was nothing to be said.

Our friend had just died. Her daughter was on the other side of the country. Our families were all likely dead, and our world was falling down around us.

We both knew these things. We both mourned these losses.

But as I stood there, with her rich, dark eyes looking up at me, none of that seemed to matter.

I moved my hand to her forehead, brushing away hair from her eyes. She smiled slightly, and I leaned forward slowly, pressing my lips against hers in a gesture I had imagined thousands of times in the short time since we met. I could feel her smile underneath the kiss, and we simply stood there.

Still, and unafraid in our embrace.

Finally feeling like human beings.

Finally, for a brief moment, feeling happy.

Chapter 17

The storm lasted another two hours. Enjoying the fresh air, we simply sat underneath the metal roof and enjoyed the peace. The vending machines were a cache of unhealthy loot. Potato chips, cookies, and timeless pastries were free for the taking—after one very careful shattering of the machine’s plate glass.

We munched silently, keeping our eyes trained on the surrounding forest and ears perked for unusual sound. But we sat in a small nook overlooking the parking lot, with only one avenue of approach, so we were certain that we’d have warning before being in real danger.

I had detached the highway map from the display case and between nacho chips was trying to determine our location and our best avenue to cross the state and make way for D.C.. Delaware was a small state, and the peninsula was only about 70 miles across between the Chesapeake and the Delaware bays. We were near Dover, a narrower portion of the state than the Southern end, where the beach resorts were, so we only had to travel across roughly 70 miles of farmland to reach the bridge to the mainland.

Internally, I grimaced at the thought of crossing the Bay Bridge. If it still stood, assuming no incursions with aircraft carriers or cruise missiles, it was about 4 miles long. It was actually two bridges, one Eastbound and one Westbound; both were fairly narrow and, through likely zombie crowding, promised to be quite a long trip. If you got cornered in the middle of one of those, there weren’t that many places to hide.

But I was encouraged by my memories of the hellish drives to the beach resorts when we lived in D.C.. Between the bridge and the resorts, there weren’t many people. It was mostly farmland, with some tract housing and small towns scattered every five or ten miles. If we could avoid the hordes of zombies, which we could try to do by avoiding likely congregation points, we should be able to get across the state with little effort. Might even be able to find an abandoned rural grocery store somewhere.

I took a long swig from one of the few bottles of water that was left in the machine as I turned back to Kate. Her eyes were staring at the tree line, fingers absently tapping on the barrel of her rifle.

“So should we talk about what happened in there?” I asked softly, offering her a drink. She had finished two bottles in the time that it had taken me to go through half of one of mine. No wonder she had to pee so badly before.

“What exactly are you referring to?” she asked, voice soft and quiet. I thought I detected a hint of a grin.

I chuckled. “Well, as much as I’d like to relive certain portions of our recent past, I’m actually thinking about the ease with which you took that bitch apart with your hands.”

I was quick to qualify the comment. “And let’s be clear, it’s not just you. Remember that barbell on the ship? I also shredded one of those things on the top of the Humvee when we were bolting from the base. Something’s up.”

She nodded slowly, still looking toward the forest.

“My best guess is that it’s related to the vaccine. Whatever is making us regenerate faster is boosting our muscle conditioning rate and adrenalin functions way past our normal limits. You couldn’t bend that screwdriver in the Humvee, right?”

I nodded, somewhat ashamed.

“Probably because it wasn’t lusting for your man flesh. No adrenalin. The last two times you busted out the Superman act, your life was in danger, right? Same with me.”

It made sense, but I flashed back to the ship.

“Why not when we were pinned down to the beds? Or for that matter, I’ve had this stuff coursing through my veins for months now. In prison, in King’s Park. Why didn’t any of this materialize until now? It didn’t take that long for you.”

She shrugged.

“I’m not sure. Maybe there’s a proximity necessity. Maybe it’s triggered by metabolism, and the neuroleptics you were on counteracted the effects, suppressed them for a while. Maybe you hadn’t been exposed to the right type or amount of radiation to trigger the full effects. But regardless, it can’t be good for our systems. Adrenaline surges like that are fine when they’re infrequent, but consistent surges like that have an effect on blood pressure, on heart function. The whole works.”

I knew there had to be a dark cloud in front of the silver lining.

I polished off the water and stood up. The rain had stopped and the wind was softer now, pushing the tree limbs rather than whipping them from side to side. It was still dark, but there was a hint of light cresting over the Eastern sky. It was time to move.

“So you feel like taking this show on the road again?”

She nodded, standing up slowly and turning to me, face serious but with a hint of a smile.

“Listen, about what really happened in there ...” she began, but paused suddenly, jerking her gaze toward the woods across the parking lot.

“What was that?”

I hadn’t heard anything but turned toward the parking lot, scanning the tree line. The wind pushed the branches above our heads and they scraped against the roof.

“I didn’t ...” I began, but she waved me down with one hand, pulling her rifle over her shoulder with the other.

Commandingly, she gestured to her right as she moved to the left. We moved from the doubtful protection of the covered rest area into the parking lot. My feet pressed deep into the grass, leaving heavy foot prints in my wake. The rain had soaked the ground, and water pressed up from underneath my boots as I moved forward slowly.

She disappeared around the front of the Humvee as I moved behind, fighting the urge to just open the damn door and go inside.

Suddenly, a gunshot split the night air.

That was most definitely not the wind.

Kate screamed and I saw her sprawl forward, crawling toward the cover of a parked car, twenty yards from the Humvee. I backed up, taking cover behind the armored vehicle. Another shot pinged off the side of the vehicle as I shouted out.

“Where’s it coming from?” I yelled, not caring whether the shooter heard.

If there were any of those things within a two mile radius, they were hearing this.
No way this sounds like the wind or is covered up by the sound of the storm.
And they were most definitely on their way. Probably in a large fricking group.

“In the woods, but I can’t see it!” She yelled back, sounding more angry than scared.

I had to get to her and give her a way to get to the Humvee. She was pinned behind the car, but there was only the sound of one rifle; there was probably only one of them. All she needed was cover for the twenty yard sprint.

Suddenly, I turned, following the sound of a soft moan on the wind. I knew what I’d see and I yelled to Kate after I confirmed my suspicions.

She followed my gaze. The parking lot was on the opposite side of the rest rooms from the road. The gap between the men’s room and the women’s room was open, but for a small booth that was normally used for coffee service, but which was now abandoned. Through that vacant area, I could see at least twenty creatures shambling slowly forward. They were moving at the normal speed, but I was suddenly scared. More scared than I had been since this started.

They were acting different now. They were less ... predictable. And that was frightening. In large groups, they were always dangerous. But if their grouping or herding instinct was indicative of some evolution in communication; if they had formulated or evolved into some sort of collective instinct ... it didn’t bode well for those of us trying to find a cure and stay alive.

I had an idea. Time was running out, and those things would get to us before long. I had to get her back to the Humvee.

My life was movies. Watching them. Talking about them. Acting in them. It was all I knew. So when pressed, I resorted to what I knew. And in times of pressure, I had to go with what I knew. I figured we had five seconds max, from the time I popped out of hiding until the sniper got a bead on me.

I yelled to her to duck down so the sniper couldn’t see my hand gestures. Then I gave her the signal for five seconds, and indicated that she should get ready to sprint for the cover of the Humvee.

She turned toward the rest area, eyes noting the ten creatures moving through the gap between the rest rooms and close to the lawn. They were less than a minute from our position. She turned back toward me, squatting and preparing to sprint toward the front of the Humvee.

I moved in a crouch to the back of the Humvee and hoisted my rifle, pointing the muzzle to the sky.

Taking a deep breath, I pressed the trigger on the rifle, firing into the air to get the attention of our unknown assailant. I then emerged from behind the Humvee, clucking as loudly as I could like a deranged chicken.

Chapter 18

I think it was the flapping arms and the bobbing head that really sold it.

I sprinted for the car twenty yards away, clucking loudly and madly, straining to project deep into the woods where the shots were originating. I held my rifle strategically between my head and the trees. The loud crack of each shot as I fired into the air was painful in my ear.

It was the longest five seconds of my life. A five seconds where I could mentally picture the yokel in the woods staring, confused, at the large deranged man firing an automatic rifle in the air and clucking like an insane bird in the face of an imminent zombie attack.