The Infected (Book 2): Karen's First Day (12 page)

The four creatures at the door would not give up. They
hammered at the entrance. There was another loud crack after a really hard hit.
The cheap apartment door would not hold up. If she couldn’t get them to leave
they were going to smash it down.

The old infected bodies had begun to flood into the
parking lot.

Karen stepped away from the window and walked back to the
front door.

CRACK!

Every time they hit the door in unison the wood let out
another horrible sound. Karen pointed the gun at the door.

CRACK!

Each impact made her jump. She clicked off the safety.

CRACK!

Karen aimed at what would be head height.

CRACK!

The door didn’t have much left.

BOOM!

She let a round fly. It smacked the door and left a
little puncture under the peephole. A moment later, a body dropped. 

“Mama!”

“I’m fine, baby. I’m taking care of the bad people!”

BOOM!

Another puncture and another body dropped. Karen felt a
fire burn within her.

These motherfuckers killed that sweet old man.

They want to kill my girls!

They want to kill me!

Fuck them!

BOOM!

One more hole and one more dead infected.

Fuck them!

BOOM!

The last body hit the ground and everything went quiet.
Hot tears ran down Karen’s cheeks. The worst day of her life and it was not
even one o’clock.

Cliff and Tina watched from their window as the old
bodies drifted towards the sound of gunfire. There were so many turned people
heading for their corner of the complex. They didn’t have near enough ammo to
put them all down.

“And the nightmare continues!” Tina rubbed her temples.

“This is ridiculous,” Cliff said as he looked at his
wife. The two of them shared a moment of complete despair. Tina shut the window
and pulled down the curtain.

In less than a minute the parking lot had over a hundred
infected old bodies shuffling around, investigating the sounds and searching
for food. Their hearing aids must have been working well because they quickly
zeroed in on Karen’s front door.

Karen holstered the gun and walked back into her bedroom.
Both girls wanted to be picked up right away. She lifted one up into each arm.
Their little heads dropped down onto their Mama’s shoulders.

“It’s okay,” Karen comforted them. She was trying to
convince herself and the little ones. “Mama took care of the bad people.”

“What was that noise?” Valerie pulled in tight.

“It was Mama’s gun.”

“So loud.” Robin pointed to her ears.

“It was loud. I’m sorry,” Karen said as she delivered a
barrage of kisses to both girls.

There was a loud thump at the front door. The noise made
the little girls tremble in their mother’s arms.

“Are the bad people back?” Valerie groaned.

A wet hand whacked at the bedroom window. It sounded like
a squeegee sliding across a windshield. Karen tried to hush the girl’s screams.
 

Karen carried the girls from the bedroom into the
walk-in-closet. She felt claustrophobic as soon as she pulled the door shut. She
found the pull string that connected to the light above. Karen gave it a yank
and the sixty-watt bulb filled the space with a soft yellow glow.

As a child, Karen had a deep fear of bedroom closets
and the space under the bed. Between the ages of six and fourteen she had
developed a routine of checking both spots before going to bed, once in the
middle of the night and the second she woke up in the morning. Not once was
there a dark creature from another dimension waiting to eat her soul, but it
never stopped her from checking. As an adult she made sure that both spots were
impossible for an evil spirit to lurk around in.

The closet door was always left open and had never
been shut the two years they lived in the apartment. For the bed they used an
old queen box as the frame and set the new box on top of that. It worked great
and kept her feeling safe in the bedroom. As she got older the irrational fear
of monsters hiding in the dark corners of her room drifted away and were
replaced with real fears, like how will we pay this bill and did we get enough
food to last the month. When Karen got to her mid-thirties she felt like she finally
understood how the world worked and what really needed to be feared.

Then the world flipped upside down and there were
real monsters. They were not hiding under your bed or in your closet. They were
out in the parking lot in the middle of the day and their only goal was to tear
her family apart.

Karen could feel the sweat on the back of the girls’
necks. It was so warm in the apartment. They were absolutely trembling in her
arms. Karen needed to turn this around and make it a game.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. There was barely enough
room to move and put her children down. Karen slid the hung clothes to the side
and positioned the girls against the back wall. She just remembered there was an
extra case of ammo for the gun hidden up on the top shelf of the closet. Karen
reached up, pulled down the small box and took a knee in front of the girls.

“We’re playing hide and seek. Okay?”

There was another thump at the window. The thin
closet door muffled the sound. Karen’s hands moved fast to open the box. She
pulled her gun, popped the magazine from the bottom and worked to refill the
spent rounds.

“Mama, I scared,” Robin danced like she had to pee.

“Bubba, do you have to pee?”

“Yeah,” she nodded her little ginger head. Of
course she had to pee right now. That’s how kids work. When is the most
inconvenient time for you Mama, because that’s when I have to go.

“Can you hold it?”

“No!” she danced faster. Karen looked around the
closet for something to help. Old towels sat in a rack unit above them. Karen
pulled down a ratty towel and laid it out on the floor. She worked to get the
little pants down off Robin.

Karen held the girl in her arms and aimed the baby
biscuits directly at the folded square towel, “Okay, pee on the towel.”

She did not have to ask her twice. Urine flowed
with no problem once she was given permission.

“What do the bad people want, Mama? Do they want to
bite us?” Valerie rubbed a tear from her eye and smiled a little at Robin
peeing on a towel in the closet.

Karen waited for the drips to stop before finishing
the job with a hand towel. She used the time to think about her response.

What should she say?

What do you tell a five-year-old so she would
understand?

Do you lie and hope for the best?

Sometimes raising children feels like you’re
doing a lot of fibbing and hoping for the best.

She got Robin on her feet, dried and pants fastened.
The closet smelled of piss, sweat, tears and fear. There was an even louder
thud at the front door, more monsters were trying to bust it down.

“They want to grab you, but Mama won’t let them,
okay? I promise to keep you girls safe. Nobody is going to bite you, so don’t
even worry about it. I need you to be quiet. Very quiet.” Karen looked her
children right in their sweet little brown eyes and she nodded at them. It was
difficult to tell how much they understood. This was not the kind of game she
normally played with them. Karen snapped the magazine back into the butt of the
gun.

There was a CRACK at the bedroom window. The glass
pane was about to give. The last thing Karen wanted to do was step out of the
closet, but she couldn’t stay in here and let the infected smash down the
doors. The instinct to save her children was taking over. She didn’t have a
plan. How could she plan for this?

Couldn’t someone else fight the stupid old
bastards?

She reached out and took hold of both children’s
hands and gave them a little squeeze, “I have to go tell the bad people to get
the heck out of here. You stay put and don’t make a peep,” she said as she gave
them a wink. Karen stood up and racked the slide on her gun.

“Mama, please don’t go,” Valerie attempted to
whisper and would not let go of Karen’s hand.

“I have to, baby. Please let go.” Karen pulled her
hand away from her oldest and stepped out of the closet.

“Mama?!” Valerie and Robin reached out for her
through the hanging clothes. Karen stole one last glance before closing the
door. The flimsy cardboard door clicked shut. The children did just as they
were told and stayed quiet.

Karen yanked one of the knives from the sheetrock
next to the bedroom doorway.  Another heavy hand hit the window and it
gave off a loud CRACK. Karen felt like she was standing at the precipice of a
deep abyss, staring down into the mouth of hell with her toes curling over the
crumbling edge.

Should she jump and end it?

Was it even remotely possible to survive this?

The front door popped with a familiar CRACK! Another
set of hands crashed into the back sliding glass door. All three entries were
about to be breached. In the next minute the infected would march into the
apartment. Even with perfect aim she could only take down twenty of them.

Maybe she could clear a path to the car, but how
would she carry the girls out of here? And if she made it to the car and got on
the road, then what?

Where would she go without Jim?

Her body ached from the adrenaline charges. Dead fingers
tapped at the window. The sound sparked a memory in Karen’s mind. When she was
eighteen years old Jim would tap at her bedroom window. She would sneak out of
her parent’s house and the two of them would make out for hours in the back of
Jim’s old convertible Volkswagen Rabbit. The quick trip down memory lane gave
her the start of a smile.

She raised the gun shoulder level and aimed it at the
window.

Come get some motherfucker
.

She squeezed on the trigger and the hammer started
to pull back. A hurricane of thoughts were slamming around in her head. It was
enough to make her want to pass out. The final thought she landed on was by far
the most horrifying concept she had ever seriously contemplated.

Does she make sure that she saves the last three
shots for her and the girls?

Vomit formed at the back of her throat after conceiving
the horror.

Watch a monster strip your child’s flesh or pull
the trigger?

Why were they the only options to choose from?

Outside in the parking lot she heard the sound of a
car horn, tires screeching and an engine revving. The noise had caught the
attention of the infected at the window and it turned away from the glass to
investigate. Karen did not allow herself to relax. She kept the gun pointed at
the window as she stepped forward. The vehicle got closer to her side of the
complex.

Could it be Jim?

Maybe he crossed the bridge with no problem and
he was finally here!

The thought that it was Jim was all consuming. She
heaped hope upon hope that it was Jim and she would not have to fight this
nightmare alone.

BOOM!

She ducked from the fright. Someone had fired a
shotgun from the car and it was followed by the sound of bones crunching under
the weight of the car.

Maybe Jim found a gun?

The horn blasted again. Two more shots were fired
back to back.

Karen stayed low to the ground as she crept to the
window. The vehicle outside came to a halt and the engine was cut. Another shot
rang out and a moment later a body hit the ground. Karen heard footsteps race
across the asphalt. They were heading for her front door.

It must be Jim!

Another two shots were fired right outside the door
and the infected bodies fell to their second and final death. There was a hard
knock at the door and a man’s voice shouted, “Karen!”

Her heart jumped with joy. She recognized the voice
it was not Jim but it was her brother, Troy. She got up from her squat position,
ran to the door, popped off the chain and turned the lock. When she finally
opened the door her face was flooded with tears.

Troy rushed through the door and locked it behind
himself. He threw his arms around his sister and let her cry. His baseball cap
was still turned backwards on his head, but the gray fabric now had dark red
spots flicked across the part that covered his forehead. He pushed his sunglasses.
They perched on top of his cap.

It was his signature look.

He had a little extra musk to him from the sweat he
was pouring.

“It’s okay. I got you.” Troy noticed knives sticking
out of the sheetrock, holes through the front door and blood drops on the
carpet.

Where were the little ones? Where was Jim?
He
asked himself.

Karen could feel the heat coming off the barrel of
Troy’s shotgun. He sported two bandoliers full of shotgun shells. They
crisscrossed his torso and held a hundred shells total. He looked like a
freedom fighter from south of the border.   

“I hid the girls in the closet,” Karen said as she
pulled away from him and ran back to the bedroom.

“Where’s Jim?” Troy asked as he reloaded the
shotgun.

“He called and said he was crossing the 205. That
was about fifteen minutes ago.” Karen opened the closet door. The two little
ones jumped from fright. Then they rushed out from under the clothes when they
saw their Mama.

“It’s okay girls. It’s okay.” Karen knelt to
embrace them. “Look who’s here?”

They looked up as Troy entered the bedroom.

“Uncle Troy!” They said it together, let go of
their Mama to give him a squeeze. He propped his gun into the corner of the
room and picked up both girls.

“What’s this?” Valerie pointed at the bandoliers.

“It holds the shells for my gun,” he said as his
rough beard brushed against their soft cheeks as he gave each one a kiss.

“I peed on towel.” Robin gave him a big smile.

“Okay?” he looked to Karen for an explanation.

“We were hiding in the closet, so I improvised.”

“We need to go.” Troy nodded for the door.

“Where?”

“Mom’s.”

“Mom’s safe? I’ve been calling her all day.”

“I got her after I ran into a pack of those biters.
We left her work in a hurry and she forgot her phone. She’s back at home. Grab
your stuff.”

“I have to wait for Jim.”

“We don’t have a lot of-” Troy was cut off by the
sound of breaking glass. The sliding glass door at the back of the apartment
just shattered. Troy dropped the girls on the mattress and picked up his gun.

“Stay here!” Karen commanded the girls. She
followed her brother into the living room. Seven nasty infected old folks stomped
into the girls play area. The leader was an obese man topping four hundred and
fifty pounds. Globs of fat fell from his open wounds that crossed his stomach
and chest. It dripped out onto the floor with every step it took.

The shards of glass popped like peanut brittle
under their bloody shoes. Troy racked his shotgun as he stepped past the
kitchen.

BOOM!

The gun echoed loudly in the small living space. The
big man’s face was cleaned of its features. Its dead body fell on top of a toy
castle. The weight of it destroyed the pink palace. Karen joined her brother
and frantically opened fire. Her first shot exploded through an old woman’s
cheek. Her body smeared a black stain down the wall as her flailing arms pulled
down the children’s taped up artwork. 

The space filled with gun smoke. Muzzle flashes lit
up the dark apartment. The rounds ripped in and out of the soft bodies and
peppered the wall behind the infected. Black blood drained out onto the
linoleum and pooled around the new Lego set Karen and Jim bought the girls last
Christmas.

They dry fired their guns as the last body dropped
onto the pile. Karen quickly exchanged her spent magazine for the full one in
her back pocket. Troy worked another six rounds into his gun as he stepped up
to the window and checked for more of them.