The Living Dead (Book 1): Contagion (14 page)

            “Here. Have an Altoid.” Virginia offered the tin.

            “You’re kidding! Nothing? Both drug stores were cleaned out. Not even a bottle of aspirin.”

            Virginia took one of the bottles of insulin out of her pocket and held it out. Gabriella’s face lit up.

            “Gracias.”

            “De nada.” That pretty much exhausted Virginia’s Spanish vocabulary. She lifted Daniel up and then she and Carson climbed inside the SUV. The heat on full blast spread luxurious warmth. The radio was set to scan for stations but only static played. They sat in silence for a few minutes, hoping to hear a human voice that would let them know that somewhere, civilization was alive. Nothing broke through the radio noise.

             Gabriella’s apartment was on the way to Carson’s mother-in-law’s trailer. They decided to go ahead in the Sequoyah while Virginia said she needed to gas up the Explorer and would follow. Daniel elected to ride with her. The old vehicle started easily this time and she backed out of the parking lot and drove to the gas station on the corner. The snow on the street was turning to slush.

            She ran her credit card through the reader at the pump but the screen kept showing “Error.” Great. Telling Daniel to stay put and grabbing her shotgun, she approached the store. It looked deserted. Once inside she went behind the counter and eventually turned all the pumps off, then back on again, hoping this would clear whatever caused the error. The shelf under the cash register was full of boxes of granola bars. Starving, she crammed them in her pockets and ate one on the way back to the pump. Daniel said he didn’t like “nola” bars.  She slid her card through the reader. “Authorizing” flashed on the screen.

            While she waited, she cleaned the windshield with the squeegee from above the pump. The glare was incredible with all the snow and sunshine.

            “Virginia?” Daniel tapped on the window to get her attention.

            “What baby?”

            “The snow is moving.”

            She looked around. Snow still covered most of the ground. There were odd little humps here and there, almost the height of tombstones and they- were moving. Snow fell off one to reveal a noiseless, eyeless horror dragging itself toward them, raising one arm and moaning. Now a chorus of moans began. There were at least twenty infected crawling in their direction. One rose to its feet and limped eagerly through the snow. He looked newly dead; the shredded skin hanging from his abdomen glistened red. The pump clicked and gas began to flow. She shouldered the shotgun and took aim at the walker, taking him down in two shots. Three more stood up and she shot again but missed every time. She reached for shells to reload and found herself trying to stuff a granola bar into the chamber. Her hands shook. Get hold of yourself Virginia, this is how you die if you’re not careful. The gas pump continued to click. The moaning grew louder as seven or eight more infected lurched around the corner of the building.

            She was encircled but took down two more. She shot the lower jaw off one but it kept coming and reached her just as the gas reached the top of the tank and shut off. She pulled the handle out but couldn’t get the cap on before the infected woman gnawed at her arm with her upper jaw and pulled her to the ground. Black, fetid clumps fell from the hole in her face, splattering on Virginia as she fought her off. Finally, she slammed the woman to the pavement and got to her feet, found the shotgun and smashed the thing’s head. It twitched and lay still but two more were on her already. She fought free and ran to the passenger side of the Explorer, climbed across into the driver’s seat and backed out of the parking lot. Rolling over her pursuers felt like hitting a speed bump.

            Everything looked quiet at the Willow Trace Apartment complex. Gabriella lived in the last set of buildings near the clubhouse and Virginia drove through the complex, finding the Toyota parked next to a truck. She stopped and screwed the cap back on the gas tank while she looked around. Odd items were scattered around the parking lot: chairs, a computer monitor, toys, a large framed painting, items people probably wanted to take with them before commonsense kicked in. No dead roamed.  She and Daniel followed the footprints in the snow and knocked on the door.

            The apartment was cold and dark inside. No electricity but the windows and doors were intact.

            “All tanked up?” Charles asked.

            “Yeah but it got interesting.” Virginia told them of the dead lurking under the snow.

            “I shouldn‘t have left you alone. I’m sorry. I’m making mistakes. It may be lack of food or sleep. But you got out. Who knew the gorgeous Virginia Dare would turn out to be such a crack zombie killer?” He smiled and Virginia saw a trace of the old flirtatious Charles. He went on. “So maybe they stop moving around without external stimuli and just wait until prey shows up?”

            “Possibly. Or they’re decomposing enough that they’re having trouble keeping going. They have to break down sometime, don’t they?”

            “I don’t think we know enough yet to make that determination.”

            Although they tried to talk her into going with them, Gabriella refused to leave her apartment. Virginia didn’t blame her. If I had my children with me, I would stay here too, she thought. The apartment was on the second floor with a sturdy metal door and the windows were not accessible from the ground. The truck in the parking lot belonged to Gabriella’s brother, whereabouts unknown, but she had keys for it. With enough food, I might be able to ride it out. 

            This time Carson drove the Toyota. Charles and Virginia, along with Daniel, followed in the Explorer. The road grew narrow and steep as they got closer to Carson’s mother in law’s place. Dark green fir and hemlock trees, branches sagging with the weight of the snow, lined the drive. They didn’t see anyone, living or dead, until they pulled up in front of the trailer.

            Littered with toys and spare car parts, the front yard also had a clothesline holding some limp jeans. A tall, heavyset, older woman stood by the clothesline. They turned the engine off; the trailer door opened and a younger woman looked out. That had to be Debi. Carson bounded out of the vehicle, just as the woman by the clothesline turned. Virginia noticed for the first time that she wasn’t wearing shoes and then saw the front of her turtleneck was stained dark red. Her mouth opened, a bloody, stained rictus of hunger, and she stumbled in Carson’s direction.

            The young woman standing in the door screamed. The infected woman stopped, mouth agape, swaying in the snow, then turned toward the trailer. Charles already had his shotgun out and he fired. The woman went down, moist, black fragments of her head splattering the hanging jeans.

            “You killed my mama! How could you shoot her? She’s my-” Debi broke down in sobs of anguish mixed with rage. Carson cautiously put his arms around his furious, hysterical wife (or ex wife). Two curious little faces looked out from a window and Virginia saw one of them begin to cry.

            Debi withdrew into the trailer and Carson followed, motioning for the rest of them to come in. Daniel didn’t want to walk by the dead woman. Charles picked him up and carried him up the concrete block step.

            The little doublewide was dank and cold but spotlessly clean. A puzzle was under construction on the kitchen table near two untouched glasses of milk.

            The little boy and girl climbed into their chairs, and sat, hands in laps, shivering in the cold. They were solemn and quiet; maybe not unusual for children who had just seen their grandmother gunned down.

            Debi continued to alternately cry and curse while Carson tried to comfort her.

            “She was dead, baby. Already dead. Charles didn’t do nothin’ but put her to her rightful rest. Once the snow melts, we’ll give her a proper burial and all.”

            “What if there’s a cure? You know they gotta be working on a cure.”

            “Debi, we don’t know if “they” even exist anymore. The world is a different place now. What if she had gotten in and hurt one of the children?” Debi blanched visibly at that but still glared at Charles. Carson continued to talk to her soothingly.

            Something was not right. Virginia caught a whiff of something fetid underneath the smell of glass cleaner and furniture polish. Charles moved down the tiny hallway.

            Debi stood. “Don’t go back there, Brandon’s asleep and he don‘t need nobody waking him.” In the short silence that followed, a soft moan came from the end of the hall.

            Carson stiffened. “Is Brandon sick? I got medicine. It‘s the chewable pills.”

            “It’s just a cold, maybe a virus. We’ll look in on him later. I been trapped here with Mama sick like she was. I couldn’t let her in the house anymore but I couldn’t leave her.”

            “Was she around the children?” Virginia asked.

            “Of course she was. She was takin’ care of ‘em right up ‘til she couldn‘t no more. Carson knows how much she loves those babies. Don’t she Carson? Carson?”

            Carson stood up and moved down the hall, fishing in his coat pocket for the antibiotics from the grocery. He opened a door at the end of the hallway and disappeared inside.

            A groan came down the hallway. Debi put her head in her hands and wept. Virginia went down the hall but stopped outside the door.

            Carson knelt beside a crib decorated with lambs frolicking among clouds. Inside, fourteen-month-old Brandon, hands tied to the rails, eyes gone white, lunged at his father. His gray mouth snapped, revealing two tiny baby teeth in his lower gums. A chunk of flesh, just the size of an adult mouth, was gone from his plump little leg. The wound still oozed black pus. Debi had gotten him away from his grandmother, but not quickly enough. The pain in Carson’s face shook her to her soul.

            He stood up and left the room, coming back with the police issue shotgun. His thin, tired, face was resolute as he stepped inside. The lock clicked. Debi ran down the hall screaming, and pounded the door. A shot rang out. Then another. Debi collapsed against the door.

Chapter 16

            Have pity upon us miserable sinners, that now are visited with great sickness and mortality, that like as thou didst then command thy angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesu Christ our Lord.

                                                            -The Book of Common Prayer

            Charles and Virginia took Carson’s body out into the back yard, rolling him and Debi’s mother up in a tarp before placing them in a storage shed. Debi wrapped Brandon lovingly in his lamb print crib blanket. She held the tiny bundle for a long time before she finally allowed them to place him with his father and grandmother.

            Daniel was quiet as they drove down the mountain. They left the Toyota with Debi. She would need transportation eventually but was staying put for now. The trailer was isolated and that was a plus. They also left a handgun with her. She didn’t want the shotgun.

            “So what’s the plan? You’re the only one of us who hasn’t mentioned where you’re going. I plan to take this up and over 531 but we need to find another vehicle for you first. What do you think? Should we hit a car dealership?”

            “Honestly Virginia, I don’t have a plan. No family to find. I’ll stick with the two of you for now. How about you, little guy? Feel like a road trip?” He looked back to see tears pouring down Daniel’s face. He was crying so hard he couldn’t speak at first then gulped and said, “My mom and dad are monsters now, aren’t they? Like that dead lady and that baby. We can’t look for them because they’re bad now.” His thin shoulders shook with sobs.

            Virginia stopped the SUV and climbed into the back seat, taking him in her arms. Charles slid over and took the wheel.

            “Sweetheart, a lot of people are sick right now. It’s not their fault and they don’t mean to be bad. It’s going to get better, I promise. Charles and I are going to take care of you until we find out more about your mom and dad. I’m so glad you’re with us. You’re the one who saved us back at the gas station, remember? I don‘t know what we‘d do without you.”

            He nodded and she held him close, rocking back and forth. The sobs turned into hiccups and eventually he fell asleep but she stayed where she was, holding him. She watched the alpine scenery slide by as they drove down the steep road back into town.

              Back at Broad, the dead still wandered the street but not in overwhelming numbers. They had no need to stop yet and got through the crowd without incident.  They reached the 531 overpass and took the exit right onto the highway. Here the scenery was especially breathtaking. No buildings or road signs marred the trees and hillsides lushly draped in white. Daniel slept on in the backseat. Virginia climbed into the front.

            “I wish we had a car seat. A child his size should still be in one. Although I suppose zombies won‘t wait while we get him in and out. Child car safety doesn‘t appear to concern them much.”

            Charles laughed. “I promise not to write you a citation for it.”

            “Thanks. Want a granola bar? I found some in the gas station.”

            “Of course.” Charles grabbed the bar from her hand. “Food is about to become a serious issue. I’m starving and you’re looking pretty peaked.”

            “There are a couple of gas stations between here and Springfield. We’ll need to refuel at some point. Maybe they weren’t looted.”

            Virginia lapsed into silence. She tried not to think about Carson and Brandon, two more casualties of this nightmare that wouldn’t end. Instead, she focused on the fact that she was finally on her way up 531. The snow on the road was mostly slush now and there was no other traffic.

            She fiddled with the heat controls. “I can’t get the heat to blow. I think it’s broken.”

            “As long as this thing gets us there, I’m not complaining.”

            Digging through her backpack, she found the dried fruit from home. She passed some to Charles who made a face but ate the whole bag anyway. Bill’s papers, a little rumpled and damp, were in the bottom of the pack. She sorted through and found some she hadn’t seen yet and started to read.

            “What’d you find?”

            “More of my neighbor’s research. You read some of it in that email attachment.”

            “Yeah, that was just weird. Read it aloud?”

            “Sure.”

            She went back to the beginning.

             
The narrative below is part of the original Journal of the Plague Year published in 1722 but was not included in subsequent editions. It had been largely suppressed possibly because of plain old ghoulishness. Although like the rest of the Journal, it doesn’t claim to be anything other than fiction; it does provide an interesting twist on the version more commonly known.

“A Journal of the/Plague Year/Being Observations or Memorials/of the most Remarkable Occurences, as/well Publick as Private, which/happened in London during/the last Great Visitation in 1665/Written by a Citizen who continued all the/while in London. Never made publick before.”

            Some said it came from the Orient, others Candia. However it came about, it was generally agreed that the plague had indeed returned to London. I resolved to cast myself onto the bosom of the Lord and to remain in town and not flee to the countryside as so many, including my brother and his family, had done. I had a stout door and lock on my house and no meager supply of stored goods to see me through. From May 9 through the 16
^th,
I continued within my house but observed the street daily and saw a good many people, wagons filled with household goods and attended by servants and spare horses, filling the streets as they fled the city. The numbers slackened as the days went by and I, admittedly curious to see how the town progressed, left my lodging to stroll about the streets in spite of the fact that I had no business there. At about 9:00 as I went along Shoreditch, I observed people gathered in front of a large and handsome house set back from the street by a small garden. This house had been shut up in the usual way, with a large red cross in the middle of the door with the words “Lord, have mercy upon us” writ large.

            The shutting up of houses was first authorized during the reign of the late and much beloved King James so precedent existed for the practice. Once a house was sequestered and locked up, a watch was set upon it for one month at the end of which time the chirurgeon made another assessment of the occupants whether they be free of any continued sign of pestilence. The state of those confined was piteous even if they survived. People thus confined made bitter lamentations and protests but the method proved most efficacious in stopping the spread of the disease.                   

            It seems the watchman appointed two days ago when this house was first shut up heard loud clamor and great crying the first even but since heard nothing. The family therein ensconced made no requests for food, medicine or any sort of assistance. No lights were seen, no smoke of cooking observed. The watchman had summoned the chirurgeon and these men knocked at the door of the house a long time without any response from within and they made to force the door with one or two neighbors willing to help (and not many were willing to help in those days). Upon request, I consented to assist with the task at hand and thus was present when the door was first breached.

            Noisome air flowed out accompanied by a nightmare figure with swollen putrid belly and black broken teeth crawling pitifully and painfully toward the watch. All drew back and covered their mouths and noses with the vinegar cloths popular for keeping away the contagion. Some indeed fled altogether and sheltered within their houses with bolted doors. The watchman gestured to the chirurgeon to take the ill creature in hand but the chirurgeon shook his head, eyes wide, and took to his heels, leaving the watchman and myself to deal with the afflicted. I knew it would be worth my life to apprehend a body so thoroughly contaminated with plague and contemplated fleeing as well when a young woman stepped forth from the doorway.

            A slender, fair creature she was and appearing as a delicate young woman of fashion despite the bloody stains on her stomacher and apron. She carried a spade under one arm and held a sword in the other. She looked at us. Our indecision and want of will must have shown for she sighed as one resigned to handling matters on her own and walked to the creature struggling on the ground, decapitating it with repeated blows of the sword. The body slumped to the ground and the head rolled a short distance. The mouth continued to work and the broken teeth gnashed until the young woman broke the skull to shards with the spade. She then removed herself a short distance away and sank to the ground as one exhausted, her skirts mingling with the dust on the cobbles and long russet hair streaming down her shoulders and back.

            Leaving her for the moment, the watchman and I made for the interior of the dwelling just breached, wondering what madness had possessed this household. We found four other bodies, three of them children, all headless and in surprisingly advanced states of decay. Two of the skulls were destroyed but the others were intact, with moving mouths and eyes rolling in their orbs. Possessed of a stout staff, the watch smashed these abominations into clotted black stains on the floor. I was glad to quit the place and head back into the sunlight.

            The young lady we had left outside gave the particulars of her story.

            Her family lived several streets away, on a goodly estate backing up to the Thames. Hearing that her old nurse, to whom she was still devoted, was sickened of the plague, and that her current employer did not wish to care for her, she made her way to Shoreditch with the intent of removing her from this family. By ill chance, just as the girl arrived, the chirurgeon and justices also arrived to shut up the house and she was locked in with the rest.

            “I could not save my dear nurse but did stay with her until the end. I had not the courage or heart to put her out of her final misery at first and she became the creature you see here.” She motioned at the remains of the creature on the ground.

            Amazed, the watchman spoke. “I have heard of this manifestation of the disease but have not seen it until today. You were already acquainted with this?”

            “Indeed, having seen it a fortnight past in my auntie’s stable lad. Aunt had to put him down with the sword.” She hefted the sword in her hand. “I knew not what I would encounter and came prepared. The family here were all infected before I arrived.  I locked myself in the strong room before their final extremity but they managed to break through the door.”

            “By law you must be examined by the chirurgeon before you can leave this house.”

            “Can’st thou find one who will not run away?” She smiled and two small pits* showed fetchingly in her cheeks. “ Quickly please. My lady Mother will be most anxious at not having heard from me.”

            A chirurgeon was found who gave the girl a bill of health and she departed with it, making for her punt she had left tied up by the quay. I offered to row her home but she smilingly refused. By good chance, the dead cart came through then and removed the bodies from inside the house. By sunlight, I was able to see what I had not before. Skin and flesh were ripped from the carcasses. One child was little more than a bloody skeleton, the meat having been torn from his small bones.

            “Had their fevers driven them to such madness that families would attack each other so?” I asked of the watchman.

            “It is worse than you know.” He walked over to the corpse of the child and with his staff, pointed to the shoulder still covered with a bit of skin. I leaned in closer, after covering my face with my cloth, and observed a perfect indentation of teeth marks. I examined the other bodies and found similar marks.