36 Hours (47 page)

“That helps us,” Starbucks yelled from across the roof. “That helps us a lot!”

“That’s where we need to go!”

“We can’t!” Starbucks yel ed, walking towards me. “There’s no way over!

We’re on a rooftop with nowhere to go! Trapped!” He spun around, gripping at his hair. “Oh God, it can’t end like this! It can’t!”

Hannah’s voice was quiet: “It is.”

9:00 a.m.

Convoy

Abandoned

Black out

Red pallor, smoke drenched with blood, rose between all the buildings.
Incense
carries the prayers of the Saints to God.
I watched the smoke curling into the sparkling morning sky, clear and blue, the sun rising over the mountains, its orange glow illuminating the wrecked shells of suburban San Francisco. One of the skyscrapers was being eaten alive by fare, the flames surrounding the base and licking upwards, a mouth, a cave, teeth dancing in embers and sparks. Hannah just stared out at that skyscraper being engulfed. “We’ve come so far.”

We’ve come so far.

It didn’t feel right. Coming so far, journeying through such peril, only to be brought down, wrenched to our knees, upon a rooftop in some god-forsaken state I’d never been in before, completely alone and cut-off, in a world that could be borne only from the minds of an incessant freak. It was just so
wrong
. We had survived this far – I knew I wasn’t, but part of me thought I was special.
I
was special because
I’d
survived so well. Clearcreek was a death-trap. We got out. Missouri harbored the jaws of death. We’d escaped there, too. And now we Anthony Barnhart

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were in San Francisco, and salvation – the ocean, the green cold water of the Pacific – was a mile away. A mile teeming with jaws of death and bloodlust. It didn’t sit well in my gut. I wanted to vomit. I bent over and stared at the pitted roof. Puke.

Starbucks meandered over to the skylight and peered down. Infected were gathered together, jumping and clawing at the smooth walls, trying to get on the roof. He backed away, refusing to do anything. He walked over to us, told us the news. We didn’t say anything, not really. A mumble or two, but that was all. Starbucks watched the ripe smoke and ash. “So this is it?”

“This is it,” Hannah said.

“They’re going to get up here sooner or later.”

“Yeah,” I said under my breath. “This isn’t right. It’s not supposed to end this way.”

“I don’t think we have much a choice.”

“Who says we can’t choose our destiny?”

Starbucks breathed, “Fate. That’s who.”

“I deny fate. I hate it. I don’t believe in fate.”

Hannah: “Then you believe in luck. That’s worse. Luck runs out. We’ve been lucky. Knock on wood.”

I spun around on the roof. A Huey rushed overhead, bringing acrid smoke breathing over the rooftop, swirling around our legs, filling our lungs like bitter gall. “No. No, I refuse. Nope. Not happening.” I walked over to the edge, peering down, driven mad. “Sixty-five feet. It’s a long drop.”

“Don’t,” Starbucks says. “There’s no honor in-“

“Honor?” I spat, spinning. “Where’s your precious ‘honor’ now? What do I have to be honorable for? Killing two of my best friends? Allowing my sister to be shot? Killing my own father and watching my mom shoot herself in our downstairs basement? Tell me, what do I have to be honorable? What about me makes me such an honorable guy?”

Hannah answered first. “You didn’t abandon me. You didn’t abandon Les. You didn’t abandon Ashlie.”

“Where are they now, Hannah? They’re
dead
.”

“They were taken. You didn’t abandon them.”

“I abandoned Ashlie.”

“For me, Austin. For
me
. You haven’t been in it for your own skin since the beginning. It’s always been for
us
. That’s how it’s always been.”

Anthony Barnhart

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Starbucks: “Maybe that’s why you’re still alive.”

Shot him a glare. “Why?”

“Do you believe in God?”

“I don’t know.”

Hannah gawked at me. How
could
she?

Starbucks said, “You’re the one who isn’t selfish. Maybe God is saving you for that reason.”

“Saving me. And letting my friends and family die. Great. I love God. I
really
love him!”

Hannah: “Austin, listen to-“

“Hannah! I’m tired. I’m sick of running, of being scared, of not being able to sleep or eat. I’m tired of this. I just want to wake up and it all to be some big, bad dream. That’s all I want. I want this to be a dream so I can walk up to you and tell you how much I love you. How I’ve loved you since I saw you the first time you walked in those doors at church. How I’ve loved you even deeper since you kissed me at the party. How I’ve loved you and
wanted
you. So I could tell you now that I am selfish – I abandoned Ashlie because I would rather have you. I abandoned my sister so I could have some sleazy night in bed, some false security from you holding onto my arm, so I could pretend that you love me like I love you. I wish it were a dream so I could just take you and kiss you and just suspend that moment forever, and then not have to worry about what you think because you don’t really hear me, because you’re dreaming about some boy you took to the movies. I wish it were a dream so that I could have just a sliver of paradise, just a glimpse of what Heaven tastes like, as I taste you. I want to wake up and not worry. But this
isn’t
a dream, Hannah! People are dying! My best friends are gone! My family is gone! I can’t take you up in my arms! I can’t tell you how much I love you because reality doesn’t work that way, and really, what would it matter? We’re all going to be dead in ten minutes anyways, right?”

Hannah just stared at me. Starbucks didn’t move, suddenly feeling awkward. The red smoke passed between us, and she looked away. I turned and walked over to the roof’s edge, sitting down, dangling my legs, just looking down at wrecked cars and blood on the sidewalk. The infected moved farther down the street, drawn to a bookstore, crowding at the windows. Survivors inside. I really thought about jumping. Not to die. But to live. To awake from the dream. To fall and fall and then to wake up, to rise in my bed and it be Friday Anthony Barnhart

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morning. To go to school, to go through that boring, drama-less existence. That is paradise. I wanted to have it again. I’d never appreciated it. I felt cheated. Jumping. So beautiful.

Hannah stood behind me, but said nothing. She took in a breath, ready to speak, when Starbucks yelled.

“Do you hear that?”

He pointed down the road. Through the putrid, billowing fog a Humvee appeared, then another, and another, then two trucks, and two more Humvees. Soldiers were sitting in the .50 cals, rotating back and forth, preparing to fire. Behind them, in the fog, was jumbled movement. The infected were chasing, but weren’t getting close to the guns.

Learning. Evolving.

“They’re going to the ocean,” Starbucks said, pity and plea in his voice.

“Armored convoy.”

They passed underneath us. I just said, “So am I,” and pushed off the edge. Hannah and Starbucks yelled.

The wind buffeted me and I hit a canvas awning, slowed, slid off the edge, hit another awning, slowed, hit another awning, and was propelled outwards. One of the canvas-covered trucks was driving beneath me and I landed on the canvas. It bulged and bundled beneath me, and I almost rolled off the edge. Starbucks and Hannah exchanged glances and rolled off, so cautious, and landed beside one of the Humvees, clattering against a smoldering car. The soldiers in the .50 cals hollered, “Get in the back of one of the trucks!”

I rolled off the truck and fell into the dirt. An infected in the shadows rushed at me. There was an echo of gunfire and the creature’s head burst apart; the body fell against me and slid onto the curb. The soldier behind the smoking .50

cal hissed, “Truck, with your friends, okay?” I smiled, gave a thumbs-up, ran around the side of the truck. Soldiers helped me in and pushed me towards the back.

Hannah and Starbucks huddled with a dozen or so other survivors. Everyone was shell-shocked. The trucks kept going. The Humvee behind us spat fire every once and a while as we drove through the ruddy district. We all pressed together, joining for comfort.

A soldier hobbled up and demanded to know if anyone was bitten: “If you lie, we execute one of you.” To prevent the halt of disease, right? None of us had been. The soldier explained, “We don’t know how it happened. One minute Anthony Barnhart

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things were under control, then the city was burning and they were all over the place. Just like all the other cities. All over the coast, this is happening. We should’ve reserved all our efforts for one city. And started loading survivors in boats, and do it fast. The infected won’t go into the water.”

“So we’re going to the ocean?” Starbucks asked.

The soldier nodded. “There are small sailboats everywhere. A cruiser is just offshore picking up anyone in lifeboats, sailboats, whatever. They inspect for bites, and if anyone is bitten-“

“We know,” Hannah said. “Thank you.”

The soldier wiped sweat from his chin. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Where did all the infected go?” I asked.

“They’re near the docks. That’s where the survivors went.”

“There are survivors on the rooftops all over the place,” I said. “Can’t you get Blackhawks in?”

The soldier shrugged. I hated how he didn’t answer.

The truck rolled over a bump. It was actually a body, crushed under the wheels. We passed into a shadow, moving between two sky-searching skyscrapers. The lobby’s glass windows were shattered, and inside, amidst sporadic fires and trampled bodies, were figures moving back and forth, huddled in groups or going solo. They watched the convoy from the dark recesses of the buildings. When they tried to get close, the .50 cals opened fire. A few of the infected would drop and the others would retreat into the safety of the man-made honeycombs. The gunfire hurt my ears.

Hannah gripped my arm. “Did you mean all that stuff you said back there?”

I looked her in the eyes. “Would it change anything?”

“You mean whether we live or die? I don’t think so.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you mean what you said?”

The trucks grinded to a halt. The Humvee nearly rammed us. Everyone rocked back and forth.

The five or six soldiers at the back end of the truck glanced at each other. There was a roar as the front Humvees opened up in continuous fire. I grabbed one of the soldiers. “How far are we from the ocean?”

“The docks are just a quarter mile down!” he yelled over the gunfire. Anthony Barnhart

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“Why did we stop?”

“How should I know? I’m not driving!”

The rear .50 cals opened up as the infected from one of the skyscrapers gushed out, swarming the vehicles. The soldiers in the back of the truck raised their M16s and started shooting. I couldn’t see anything. Everyone shivered in fright. The gunners would stop to reload their rifles, then start shooting again. The heat was sweltering. I would later learn that the lead Humvee had hit a road block – a tanker had overturned in the road and blown up. The driver was mapping out a new path. Taking the lull, the infected had attacked. The gunners kept them off the trucks and Humvees, but the ammunition was slipping through the massive barrels like sand in a sieve. Once we got moving again, the infected scattered. We rolled around the edge of the skyscraper and I saw countless bodies strewing the marble steps of 5/3 Bank.

In the truck, the soldiers kept reiterating how they were running out of ammo.

“What happens when there’s no more bullets?” someone groaned. Someone ran a finger over their neck and went, “Cack.”

A ball hobbled in my throat. We were running the gauntlet through a city. It was the American Mogadishu. It was crazy. I clung to my hope of the water as the convoy kept taking wild twists and turns. We stopped for just a moment; two soldiers jumped out of the back and vanished. The .50 cals shot off some bullets, and then the soldiers returned with an elderly couple, helping them inside the truck. They’d been trapped inside their car, the infected trying to get in. A soldier on a Humvee had killed the infected and the elderly had been taken up under the Army’s wing.

One of the soldiers said, “You can smell the ocean so strong! I saw it between one of the buildings!”

“How close?” someone begged.

“The beach was just thirty feet beyond the surf shop!”

A noise like nothing I’ve ever heard rumbled through the air. A car had been speeding for the beach from a branching road, going fast enough to smash through any obstacles and zombies in the way. The convoy had crossed in front of it; the driver had smashed on his brakes, but his car fishtailed and rode helterskelter into the second Humvee. The gunner raised his arms and shouted as the car smashed through the heavy frame of the Humvee. There was a brilliant explosion that completely overtook the Humvee; the ammunition inside the Humvee lit up and started popping; all the soldiers inside were burned to a crisp Anthony Barnhart

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and tore apart by hundreds of rounds. The bursting magazines popped out the windows and flames reached out to swirl amongst the hood of the truck. The intense heat ignited fuel lines inside the truck and they lit up; the hood popped and fire snaked outwards. The driver opened his door to get out, his partner was already fumbling to the ground when the cab exploded; the fire smothered them both and they ran between jumbled cars, turning and swirling, ablaze and screaming. The truck lurched upwards with the explosion and everyone was thrown backwards out of the truck. The soldiers toppled to the ground; a gun accidentally went off, wounding a soldier in the arm. I was thrown against the bed of the truck. I looked up to see Hannah leaning against the Humvee. Starbucks was behind me, coughing and rolling over. Smoke gushed from the cab. The fuel tanks were under the bed of the truck. The flames were moving forward. I crawled out of the truck; people were getting up, dazed. The .50 cals started shooting; drawn by the explosion, infected popped out of every nook and cranny. All I could hear was roaring in my ears as I knelt beside Hannah; I puked all over the Humvee’s tire, stomach retching with the smoke.