The Infected (Book 1): Jim's First Day (11 page)

There
is gunfire coming from the airport. A National Guard station is nearby. I hope
that they do better against the infected than the police. They have big guns
and a bunch of Hummers at that base. I drove by it once on the way to a restaurant
and it looked like there were at least thirty Hummers and other transport
vehicles there. There are so many dead bodies. Between the airport and Cascade
Station there are thousands of people and if they are not dead already they are
about to be. This place is going to be crawling with the infected.

To
my right is the 205 bridge that crosses the Columbia River into Vancouver and
it is full of cars but they are still moving north and south. I scan the rest
of the field and it is clear all the way to the 205 freeway. I jump down then I
climb back into the Bronco and get it going.

“What’s
going on?” Devon’s face has begun to swell up around his black eye.

“It’s
biblical, man.” 

“Oh,”
he sits back and tries to rest.

“How
did the bridge look?” asks Sara.

“Slow,
but it’s moving,” I turn to the right and head east.

We
head for a set of train tracks. It is the tracks to the mass-transit system
that we call “The Max”. Most of the tracks are up on a raised brim of dirt, but
there is a spot a little south of the tracks that is suspended. I aim for the
suspended part and the Bronco fits under it easy. Steam is really pouring out
from under the hood now and the temp gauge rests permanently in the red. The
engine has a real nice knocking sound going. It has been a blessing while it
lasted.

“What’s
that noise?” Devon sits back up.

“We’ve
overheated. It’s probably blown the head gasket,” I tell him. In my early
twenties I owned a Mercedes-Benz. It was their starting model but it was still
a Benz. I loved that car. It had leather seats, moon roof and power everything.
At the time I didn’t have a very good job and I was not making enough money. I
could not take care of it and I would forget to change the oil or add coolant.
I would eventually overheat the engine, so I know exactly what those sounds are.

“What
does that mean?” Devon’s head is right between ours.

“We
don’t have much engine left,” says Sara.

“Really?”
his voice cracks.

“Yep,”
I concur.    

The
southbound lane of the freeway is pretty clear. A lot of people are like me. They
live in Vancouver but work in Portland. The northbound lane on the other hand
is packed. It is slower than a normal five o’clock rush hour. Vehicles are
spread across the four lanes and into the two emergency lanes. They are bumper
to bumper all the way up the bridge. It is a two-mile long bridge from Oregon
into Washington. Closer to the Oregon side is Government Island, a large
stretch of land in the middle of the Columbia River. It is covered with trees
and the only way to get to it is by boat. I have lived here all my life and I
have never set foot onto that island. I don’t know anyone with a boat and I
have never had the means to own one myself. Plus the idea of spending all day
on an island that has nothing on it but trees and no toilets doesn’t sound like
a party to me. After Government Island the bridge takes a steep climb over the
water to allow ships to pass below without needing a drawbridge. The bridge has
four lanes in both directions and a small strip down the center for people to
walk or ride bikes. There is no way this car will make it up the bridge in this
traffic without overheating and stalling out.

“What
are we gonna do?” Devon pats me on the shoulder. I pull the Bronco onto the
southbound lane and head north. Cars zip by.

“What
are you doing?” asks Sara.

“I’m
gonna drive up the wrong side of the bridge,” I punch the gas. I stay in the
emergency lane as cars race past me at over eighty miles an hour.

“This
is outrageous!” Devon yells.

“We
won’t make it otherwise.” Cars honk their horns at us as they pass. We approach
the first exit off of 205, the one you would take to get to the airport. No one
is going that way so we race past it.

We
are now on the bridge. I hug tight to the concrete wall that lines the edge of
the bridge. It is working. We are going to make it across. I sigh in relief.

“HOLY
FUCK!” cries Sara. I try and see what she is looking at. It is another jumbo
jet and it is headed right for the bridge. It drops out of the sky at three
hundred miles an hour. The plane hits the bridge square on. Its left wing has
dipped lower than the bridge so it cuts deep into the east side of 205. Then
its body slams down onto the asphalt. It crushes all of the cars across all
eight lanes. For a few terrible seconds time slows down. The plane explodes in
a colossal fireball that engulfs everything in a fifty-yard radius. We are only
a hundred yards away. The sound of the crash and the explosion is deafening.
Even through the windshield I can feel the extreme heat. I slam down on the brakes.
A car drives out of the fireball. Its front right tire has blown out and the
driver loses control. The car is going to hit us head on. I swerve out onto the
freeway to avoid it. The car hits us and the Bronco spins. A truck hits our
front end; we spin back around and start to roll. We smash around inside. My
face is peppered with broken glass. My spear smacks around between the two
front seats. Metal crushing, tires screeching and a hundred tons of concrete
crumbling under the weight of the plane. I have never heard anything like it.
This is it. We are dead. I know it. My head hits the steering wheel and
everything goes black.

I
jerk awake. I am upside down in the Bronco. Devon lies on the ceiling knocked
out. Sara is unconscious next to me in the passengers seat. I reach up and feel
the gash on my forehead. I thought my head hurt before, now it is killing me.
Between my broken nose, my neck injury from my first car crash, the back of my
head smacking into the car during the fight with the blonde guy and now this
deep cut on my forehead, I feel like quitting. There are screams in the
distance outside of the Bronco. The reality of what happened and where I am
sets in.

I
have got to get out of here. We need to keep moving. I fight to get my seat
belt undone, but I can’t get the button to release. I pull the knife from my
hip and cut the safety belt. I fall down onto my head. Ouch. My hair mops up the
blood on the ceiling as I fall on my neck and shoulder. My neck and ear grind
into the glass shards. I twist and pivot and I get to my butt and sit upright.
I take a drag of water from my pack then reach out and shake Devon.

“Wake
up!”

His
eyes pop open. Waking up Devon reminds me of when my Dad would wake me and my
brother up to get ready for school. I was ten at the time so Don would have
been eight. It would be early in the morning, dark outside and Dad would open
our bedroom door and turn on the light. “Get up!” is all he would say. It
worked every time. 

“What
happened?” Devon sits up quickly and then feels how much his body hurts. He
lets out a groan that wakes up Sara. She screams right away.

“You’re
okay. Calm down,” I tell her. I hold her as I undo her seat belt. It releases
and she falls down into my arms and I help her get upright. Devon makes his way
to the busted out back window. I let Sara go first and she follows him. I find
my spear but the blade is buried deep into the dash. I have to work it back and
forth to get it free. I slide out the back of the Bronco and get to my feet.

When
I get upright I give my body a good once over to see if anything is broken. I
pull the blood soaked napkins from my nose and toss them to the ground. I look
around. The bridge is gone. The plane crashed south of Government Island and
took out a hundred and fifty foot chunk. The full width of the bridge is gone.
I walk out to the edge and Devon and Sara follow me. We stand about ten feet
from the crumbling asphalt and concrete. We are thirty feet in the air and
there is no way across. The plane sticks partially out of the water of the Columbia
River. I pull my phone from my pocket, kick it on and realized we were knocked
out for a couple minutes.

“What
should we do?” asks Devon.

“I
don’t know,” I answer grimly.

“Should
we try and get a boat?” asks Sara. I look back down the bridge into Portland.
There is a massive horde about a thousand strong, moving quickly up the 205
freeway killing everyone, and adding to their numbers. I swipe my phone on and
dial Karen. It rings a few times before she picks up.

“Jim,
thank God! Are you okay? Where are you?” she is panicked. I have never heard
her like this before. I don’t want to make it worse so I have to choose my
words carefully.

“Karen,
I’m fine. I’m on the 205 bridge. Are you and the girls safe?”

“Yes.
We are okay.” I hear it in her voice. She chooses her words to not upset me. We
do this when I know my paycheck is going to be light or if she has spent too
much money that month. We try and dance around it so that we don’t scare each
other.

“Jim,
bro!” Devon gets his spear ready to fight the growing horde.

“Baby,
I’m coming home. You kiss those girls for me and tell them that Dad’s on his
way,” tears build up in my eyes.

“I
will. Jim, please hurry home. People are going...nuts.” The infected are only
fifty feet away and moving fast. Devon and Sara are freaked out and want me off
the phone.

“I
love you so much. I’ll see you soon.”

“I
love you too.” I hang up the phone and slide it back into my pocket. 

I
take off and sprint as hard as I can. Like I said I hate heights and the only
thing worse than being up on something high is jumping off of it. This is much
higher than the jump we did onto the van. As I approach the broken edge of the
bridge all of my fear and anxiety about heights bubbles up into my brain. It
tries so hard to talk me out of this. It lists everything that can go wrong.
Broken bones and drowning are the top two that my brain keeps repeating.

I
jump, holding my spear tight as I brace for the impact of the water. It feels
like forever. My body wants to shit itself. I am not sure about the best way to
land. I keep my legs aiming straight down. I know I don’t want to land on my
back or my face. I clench every hole I have. Then I hit the water. It is much
colder than I thought it would be. I hit so hard that my sinuses are blasted
with what feels like five gallons of liquid. I swim for the surface. Being
fully dressed with a backpack on and a spear in one hand, I start to panic. I
am not a strong swimmer. This climb to the surface pushes me to the breaking
point. It takes forever for me to breach, I am going to run out of air.

I
gasp a lungful when my head breaks the surface. Seconds later Devon and Sara
hit the water next to me. I swim for Government Island. Sara and Devon have surfaced
and they follow me to the island. The current in the Columbia River is strong.
It pulls me quickly to the west. I live on the east side of Vancouver. I have
to get to this island. If I miss it then it will be a very long swim across the
river. At the rate the water carries me I might end up miles downriver and have
to walk back that much farther. So I fight and push myself across. It takes
everything I have to keep going. My nose kills me every time I take a breath
in. My legs and arms feel numb. This water is less than sixty degrees and it is
murky. You can’t see more than two feet into it.

“Damn,
this water is movin’ fast,” Devon fights hard to make it.

A
wave smacks Sara in the face. “I hate this river,” she coughs and spits.

The
thought occurs to me that if someone drowned on the plane they will turn and
come back as an infected. When I was a kid swimming at a lake called Round
Butte, I had the fear that something was going to grab my leg and pull me down
under the water. I think I saw it in one of the
Friday The 13th
movies. Jason
reaches up from the water and pulls his victim to their death. It is all I can
think about. A hundred Jasons grabbing my ankle and pulling me under. I also
have an irrational fear of freshwater sharks so this is the most nightmarish
swim of my life. I am halfway to the island when I hear it. I look back at the
bridge and the infected are falling from the edge. My nightmare has come true;
the monsters are in the water. I don’t see any of them surface, but they don’t
need air. I push hard until I get my feet to solid ground.

I
climb out of the water and up onto the small sandy beach. We are a couple
hundred yards down the river from the bridge, but we made it. The island is
shaped like a giant joint if you looked down on it from a plane. We landed at
one tip of the joint. We need to walk to the other tip before climbing back
into the water. If we don’t we will end up miles away from my family. Our
apartment sits east about four miles from the 205 freeway we jumped from. I lay
on the sand trying to catch my breath. The only thing worse than running is
running soaking wet. Even though I am drenched I take another drink of water.
Devon and Sara join me on the beach. They are zonked.

“Come
on guys. We have to keep moving,” I don’t sound very convincing when I say it.

Devon
holds up two fingers, “Two minutes bro.” My kids pull this same move when we
have to leave some place and they are having fun.

“We
don’t have two minutes. You saw them fall into the water. They could climb out
onto the beach any second. Let’s move,” I hold out my hand and help Devon up
first, then Sara. We start jogging in the sand.

“We
need to get to the north side of the island,” I say over my shoulder to them.
To get to the north side we will have to cross through the forest. I see the start
of a trail so I head in that direction.

The
infected continue to fall off the edge of the bridge, but they don’t pop back
up to the surface. They must sink straight to the bottom. Maybe they won’t be a
problem. The current is so fast I hope the river takes them all the way to the
ocean.

“When
we get to the north side, then what?” asks Devon.

“We
swim,” I huff and puff up the sandy beach.

“It’s
an even further swim to Washington,” Sara chimes in.

“I
know it. We don’t have a ton of options,” I have to stop talking as I run or I
am going to pass out.

We
get to the opening of the trail and I slow down. My eyes adjust to the dark. If
this was a normal day and I walked through woods like this I would be fine, but
after everything I have seen today, these woods are absolutely terrifying. It is
so dark and hard to see. I lead the way, Sara follows and Devon watches our
backs.

“It’s
spooky,” Devon whispers. 

When
I was twelve we moved north of Battle Ground, Washington. It was five acres of
forest out in the middle of nowhere. We had deer in the front yard and stars in
the sky at night. “God’s country,” as my Dad called it. I lived out there for
eight years, but I would not call myself an outdoor man or a country boy. I don’t
know how to hunt nor fish, we just shopped at the local Safeway. I can’t call
this the deep woods, the city is behind me and Vancouver is peeking out from
the trees ahead.     

The
trail we jog on is worn and well kept. I can’t hear anything other than the
sound of our feet and heavy breathing. I am glad to see Devon and Sara huff and
puff as badly as I am. My sopping wet clothes seem to have added twenty pounds
to me and these top of the line boots rub my feet raw. We are close to the north
beach now. The last half of the 205 bridge is right ahead of us. It looks so
high up in the air from down here. The bridge touches down onto the island for
a quarter mile then rises up high above the Columbia River.

We
hit the beach and I have to slow down. I promised myself that I would take up
running for exercise, but I never did. Now I am paying for it.

“Hold
up guys,” I slow to a fast walk. “My nose is killing me,” I blame the nose but
it is my whole body that’s screaming “NO.” We are close to the bridge. There
are screams and commotion up on the bridge. I can’t make it out. I hear the
moan of the infected. There is a chain-link fence that separates the freeway
from the island and it wraps around all four sides of the bridge. A small horde
is smashed up against the fence. We need to keep moving, so I pick up the
pace.    

They
have spotted us and it gets them all riled up. They shuffle down the fence and
climb over the concrete barrier that lines the bridge. Their bodies fall and
tumble onto the island. One after another they fall on top of each other. A few
of them land on their feet and they move right for us. The fence dips under the
bridge. It is designed to keep people off the island. Right now it gives us a
few more seconds to get past them. The fence is topped with razor wire but they
do not try to climb over. They push and bite at the metal barrier. We run under
the bridge and are shaded from the hot sun. More and more infected pour down
onto the island. The fence is about to give. I stop and face the monsters. I
stab at them. I demolish a dead housewife’s face.

“What
are you doing?!” Sara yells.

“This
fence is gonna give! We need to take down a few of them so it will hold!” Devon
follows me and starts stabbing away with his spear. Sara pulls the machete from
Devon’s hip. Over and over we stab through the fence. The last time I saw real
human brains outside of the skull was in my sophomore biology class. Today I
have seen dozens of shattered skulls with brains leaking out of them. I am so
ready for this day to be over.

At
the east end of the bridge stands thirty monsters. Pushing against the barrier.

“Come
on!” I sprint for the other end of the fence. A big one, a full on “Walmart Mom”
as wide as she is tall falls over the concrete divider and crash-lands into the
fence. I quickly take out another five monsters, but her weight was enough to
pop the fence off its post. They spill out onto the sand under the bridge. I
take out a few more and keep running. I slash and stab at them. Blood, guts and
brains drop to the sand. Devon and Sara take down four or five each, but we can’t
kill them fast enough. They are about to surround us. We have to go now.

“RUN!”
I scream. We take off down the beach away from the bridge. There are too many.
If we stay and fight they will easily overwhelm us.     

We
get two hundred feet away from the bridge when I smell it. Cow shit. Why do I
smell cow shit out here? We run around the little bit of woods and the island
opens up to a pasture. There are a few hundred cows hanging out eating grass.
We run into the pasture and it freaks out some of the bovine. They take off and
run into each other. Someone yells at us and it is not one of the infected. It
is coming from the cows. There is a man out in the middle of the herd. He is
tending to one of the animals. As we get closer, the sea of cows parts and we
see the man in his late fifties next to a four-wheeler. It is the kind of
knobby-wheeled thing you would use on a ranch.