Torn Apart (Book 1): Terror In Texas (5 page)

“We’ll try to find her, but right now we have to go. Give me the bag.” Matt wiped the brown goo from his hand to his pants leg and passed the bag to Larry. He motioned for the girl to stand up. When she got to her feet, he grabbed her under the arms still clutching her sister and lifted her over the edge of the dumpster.

Jake caught the child and set her on her feet, careful not to disturb the squirming bundle in her arms. “Go with him, sweetie.” He whispered as he pointed toward Larry as he hurried toward them. Jake turned back to help Matt stumble over the edge to the ground.

Matt stood staring at the alley entrance, his face mirrored his horror. “Thought it was a dream....”

“In the Humvee now!” Jake called out as several shambling forms had taken notice of the activity and turned into the entrance of the alleyway. The infected shambled steadily closer as they headed for the Humvee in front of the dumpster.

Larry grabbed the bag and the child’s hand to hurry her to the vehicle, but she dug in her heels and balked.

“My mom will be coming for us. We can’t leave. She won’t know where to find us.”

Larry grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the vehicle. “Kid, you don’t have a choice.”

He opened the door, set her inside and pulled a seat belt over her lap, careful to avoid the baby in her arms. He dropped the bag at her feet. “Don’t move kid.”

Amy gave a quick nod then looked around searching for a glimpse of her mother. She didn’t want to leave. “My mommy is coming. She’ll be worried.”

She knew the soldiers would protect her and Claire but how would her mother find them? How would they find her daddy? Tears filled her eyes and quietly slid down her cheeks as she resigned herself to staying with the soldiers.

Larry jumped behind the wheel of the Humvee and the machine roared to life. Matt stumbled into the back seat next to Amy scarcely able to control the bile at the back of his throat. Jake slammed the back door closed then jerked the passenger door opened.

Jake slid into the front seat and pulled at the door, but an infected had wrapped its fingers over the top and reaching toward him. The blood-covered soldier’s vice-like grip forced the door back open. The barrier became the prize in a tug of war with Jake wrestled against the infected soldier’s steely grip.

“Drive, damn it!” Jake yelled.

Larry jammed the vehicle in gear and stomped the gas despite the open door. A blossom of black appeared on the infected soldier’s forehead. The soldier’s grip relaxed, his body slid down against the door leaving his fingers still hooked over the door. He was shot.

“What the fuck?” Jake looked at Larry and saw he had both hands wrapped around the steering wheel, no gun in hand. He glanced over his shoulder at Matt who was barely sitting upright. “Who fired?”

“Damned if I know!” Larry answered. “Close the fucking door!”

Jake pulled the door shut severing off two finger tips still clinging to it. The infected disappeared down the side of the vehicle just as another shot echoed in the distance.

Larry slammed his foot into the accelerator and raced over another fallen infected toward the entrance of the alley. They rolled over three more newly felled bodies as they spilled into the morning glare.

“We had help but beats me who in the hell they are.” Matt looked out the window just in time to see a rifle barrel disappear from a nearby roof top.

Liz pulled herself to her feet and ran. She could hear the infected getting closer. They were stumbling down the embankment all around her. She heard moaning and faltering steps following her, but she was focused on escaping the infected in front of her. She didn’t have time to look over her shoulder.

Tears slid down her face as she dodged around outstretched arms. She prayed sending her girls through the fence would keep them safe. With her they had no chance, they would have died. She could only pray Amy would find a safe place to hide.

“Run Amy” She called out. “Hide! I WILL find you!”

Twenty minutes later, Liz was exhausted and could barely stay ahead of the infected still following her. She had no choice but to keep running away from her daughters if she wanted to survive. Even though she was leading a growing crowd of infected away from her daughters, she was also moving farther and farther away from them herself.

Her sides ached, her breath grated in her throat, but she kept moving and dodging around the blood-covered, creatures. Their reaction to her passing was slow and confused. By the time the infected grabbed for her, she was out of their reach. She just had to keep moving and not let them close in around her.

Liz’s mind fought to make sense of the horror movie come to life. What could cause people to turn on each other and tear flesh from their victims? Liz was terrified for her husband and daughters. She prayed they would stay safe.

She passed three vehicles and noticed a van parked at the side of the street with a side door open. She had outpaced the closest infected and dodged around the stalled cars. She knew she could not continue at her current pace, so she duck-walked around the car nearest the van keeping low enough the infected could not see her. She eased up to the van and peeked inside. When she saw no movement, she slipped inside and slowly slid the door closed as quietly as she could.

The van smelled of insecticides and chemicals. The smell was so overpowering she had to fight to keep from gaging. She looked around and noticed one of the sprayers had been tipped over and chemicals were still dripping on the floor of the van. She righted the sprayer and used a rag to mop up the liquid and dropped the cloth out the window. With the chemical smell saturating her sinuses, she couldn’t tell if it helped much.

She squatted behind the front seat near the open window and balled up a wad of her white sun-dress skirt and covered her mouth and nose. She took shallow breaths while she listened to the infected stumbling past the van still looking for prey.

An hour later, she got up enough nerve to peek out the window from behind the seat. She crawled to the back of the van and looked out the back window. Nothing was moving on the sidewalks or street behind the van. She made her way to the front seat and looked over the seat through the windshield. A few of the infected stood before a door half a block away but otherwise the street was clear. She figured it was as good as it was going to get. It was time to get back to her girls.

Liz slowly slid open the van door glad to finally escape the chemical smell. Her head felt light and her stomach rolled in protest. She stepped out into the night air and took a deep breath to clear her throbbing head but instead was forced to her knees by a gnawing pain in her stomach. She vomited. Again and again, she was unable to move with the insecticide leaving her so violently ill.

After several minutes, she had nothing left to throw up and her stomach began to calm. Terrified she had been noticed, she got to her feet, ready to run.  She looked from side to side, ahead and behind. If any of the infected had taken notice, she would have died.

She took a steadying breath and stepped around the side of the truck and made her way to a darkened doorway. Her heart pounded as she ran out of the shadows and hurried along the side of the building to the next doorway. She fought against fits of returning nausea as she made her way down the block, doorway by doorway, building by building. She came to the first cross street and stopped to catch her breath.

When her pulse slowed from the exertion and the sound of blood pulsing in her ears silenced, she could hear growls and slurping nearby. She imagined a starving animal would make such sounds after a fresh kill. She forced herself to look around the corner and her breath caught.

Three infected soldiers huddled over a body laying a few car-lengths down the street. They leaned over a body pulling at the flesh and stuffing it into their mouths.

She had to get across the juncture without being noticed if she intended to get back to her girls. She cursed under her breath. With the light brush of a breeze her skirt billowed around her as if a white flag of defeat.

Liz gathered the unruly skirt in her fist and took slow deliberate steps across the intersection. All the while, she watched the feeding trio. At least her sandals made little noise on the pavement. Every breath she took was slow and measured for fear the infected would hear her.

She spent the next three hours working her way down one street to the next, detouring around one gathering of infected after another only to return to the path again. One detour was several blocks out of the way because the surrounding infected were all heading toward the street in front of a balcony. A man sat on a deck chair, gulping Jack Daniels and hurling curses and bottles at the assemblage below.

Despite the detours, she was steadily making her way back to the small strip center where she hoped her girls were hidden and safe.

Just thinking of the monsters with their hands on her children made her tremble with fear. Liz’s breath caught.
They had to be alive. They had to be safe.

She came to the corner of the fence surrounding the retail buildings at the side of the freeway. She saw the brown UPS truck on the freeway overhead in the distance and realized she was within blocks of where she had put the girls through the wire fencing behind the buildings.

When she looked from the alley to the freeway above the shopping center, dozens of infected milled around the cars. She looked back to the street and saw even more of the creatures in front of the row of buildings. She would have to make her way past a herd of monsters to get to her daughters.

She crouched low and hurried to the end of the block where she used an outstretched hand to catch the corner post of the hurricane fencing. Being so close, all Liz could think about was getting to the girls. She stepped around the corner.
So close...so close
.

She stopped at the side of the building, ready to slip across the open street to the next building. She peeked around the brick corner and her breath caught. Two infected men were on the street stumbling in her direction. She stepped back into the shadows and watched as they stopped and milled around near a body lying on the street.

The monsters tilted their heads upwards.  Liz could hear them snuffle at the air. They sniffed left then right then back in her direction again. She realized they could smell her and began to slink back deeper into from the street when a sudden scream in the distance distracted the dead focused on her.

The monsters turned and headed toward a side street where the moans and growls of several infected announced they had spotted prey. The two monsters disappeared into a side street to join their brethren.

Liz hurried toward the neon sign at the end of the next block. She was so close. Yet she felt the distance between her and her girls was still so far with the infected ahead in the middle of the street. She stopped and looked around the corner.

She groaned in frustration. The street was chaos, cluttered with cars and wandering infected attacking anything that still moved. Doors hung open on some of the vehicles while windows were shattered on others. Writhing torn bodies remained belted in their seats moaning and reached through the windows.

In the street, the infected clustered around the body of a living person, pulling and gnawing the victim’s flesh, exposing white glistening bones covered in gore. Their final screams of terror mingled with the sound of deep-throated moans made by the undead.  More screams emanated from inside a building down the street.

Liz eased away from the corner and tip-toed her way to the side of a parked car keeping the vehicle between her and the meandering infected wandering the streets. She slowly raised her head over the hood of the SUV and saw half a dozen infected heading in her direction as if they knew she was there. Her breath caught as she looked over her shoulder. More and more of the infected were moving down the street in her direction. She ducked behind an open car door and peeked over the window then squatted back down to reach inside the car looking for a weapon. She grabbed a heavy flashlight lying at the side of the driver’s seat.

Suddenly two men bolted from a nearby building. Liz rose at the commotion to peek over the car. Still looking over his shoulder at his pursuers, the leader almost crashed into the back of an infected woman. Both men skidded to a stop and turned toward Liz. She saw the terror on their faces as the closest man changed direction and ran toward the alley across the street. The second man followed suit.

The infected in the vicinity turned at the sound of running feet. The leader slammed his fist into the face of the nearest infected. It was a bone-shattering blow. When he pulled his hand away it was covered in dark blood and gore. The strike left the infected with one eye dangling and bones caved in around the eye socket. The creature still reached out and grabbed the retreating arm.

Before the man realized it, the monster was taking its first bite. The man screamed in pain as two more attackers fell upon him. Staring at the attack on his companion, the second man stopped so suddenly he fell.  When more infected headed toward him he crab-crawled backwards into the arms of three more infected. His screams filled the night.

“God.” Liz whispered as she fought the bile building at the back of her throat. Suddenly she could hold it no more. She retched and bile spilled onto the ground.
How could she survive this? How could her children survive?

Still crouching behind the SUV, Liz jumped at the sound of a muffled moan behind her. She straightened up ready to jump to her feet and run, but a cold hand grabbed her shoulder holding her in place. She opened her mouth to scream, but her voice failed.

Frozen in fear, she waited for the pain of the monster’s teeth tearing into her flesh when suddenly she was drenched in cold sticky goo. She jerked away from the cold hand only to be grabbed again from behind.

A thick arm circled her waist as a meaty hand covered her mouth. She was pulled away from the prone infected on the sidewalk while a deep voice ordered.

“Be quiet if you want to live!”

The arm around her pulled Liz from the sidewalk into the dark recess of a cave-like entrance. Her feet left the concrete sidewalk and scraped across wood planking. Once inside, a heavy wooden door closed quietly across the opening and a bolt slid into place.

She mumbled curses and orders to let her go while clawing at the hand covering her mouth. She kicked out, but the soft sandals made little impact against the heavy boots of her captor.

The man whispered into her ear. “I’ll move my hand, but you have to be quiet. Okay?”

Desperate to be free, she made a quick nod.

The arm around her waist and the hand covering her mouth fell away and she was free. Her freedom came so quickly she fell to the floor with the loss of support.

“Sorry lady, I couldn’t take a chance you’d scream and bring the rest of the crazies down on us.” The deep voice apologized. He reached out to help her to her feet.

Liz drew a deep breath into her lungs and looked up at the bear of a man in front of her. She accepted the calloused hand and he pulled her to her feet.

As soon as was she standing, she pulled away to get a good look at her savior and his two companions.

As her eyes adjusted to the dark, relief faded. She had been saved by a trio of rough looking bikers.
From the frying pan to the fire, she thought.

Her rescuer had hair long enough to tie at the back of his neck with a length of leather. He was a big man well over six foot with the lower half of his face covered in a thick, dark brown and gray beard.

She felt diminutive when he leaned toward her. Between the mustache and beard, a gentle smile separated the unruly facial hair. His eyes mirrored his grin.

“You okay, lady?” He asked.

“You killed him,” Liz whispered as she looked down at her sundress covered in gore and her own vomit. She couldn’t tell which smelled worse.

“Yeah. They would’ve torn you apart if I hadn’t got you outta there.” He answered.

She began to tremble. “Thank you.” Slowly, Liz looked around. “My name is Liz Jameson.” She turned to the door. “But I have to leave now. I need to find my children. I put them through the fence behind a bar down the street and left them. I told my daughter to find a place to hide and stay until I came for them.”

“You can’t go back out there now.” A second voice stepped to her left and placed a hand on the door. “The town is overrun with those dead fucks.” He laughed hoarsely. “It’s a fucking Zombie Fest.” The man folded his arms over his chest.

“My name is Harry.” The bearded man stuck out his hand. “Harry Walters and this puny fella next to me is David Simon and that’s John Tilman. Look, I understand what you’re saying, but you can’t go out right now.”