Dead Quarantine (14 page)

Zach and Les still slept with Lilly and
Emily between them. Emily still snored. The only ones awake were
herself in one corner and Jake in another. She went for the door,
walking casually while his eyes followed her.

“Where are you going?”

She put her ear against the wooden door and
listened for a while. Satisfied after hearing nothing move on the
other side, she opened the door and stuck her head out. She looked
at each side. Empty.

“Lock the door after me,” she told Jake.

She shut the door and walked to the
classroom she had found Zach and Les in. She had better not miss
any of the rooms. Behind her she, heard a door open and footfalls.
She whirled around. Jake stood, smiling.

“I'm coming with you.”

She didn't want him to, but it was difficult
convincing someone as dense as Jake and he was too big to make him
listen with force. The door. He left the door open again. He had
not learned from his mistake with Anna. Zach came stumbling out,
looking bewildered around. He sighed when he saw them and then his
face flushed with anger.

“Shut the fucking door when you leave the
room.”

She wanted to explain, but Jake robbed her
of the chance to do so. Sneering, he turned around.

“Shut the fucking door yourself and shut
that big mouth of yours or I'll shut it for you, like I did
Tommy’s.”

Anger blazed in Zach's eyes. He slammed the
door and locked it. She wasn't sure he would open it if they came
back and needed help.

The room was empty; from there, they went
from room after room. Very carefully, she walked the hallway,
keeping an eye out for the hazmat suit zombie. It should still be
near the stairs, but he wasn't. He must have fallen or something.
She was glad they didn't have to take care of it. It was harmless
on its own as long it had the suit on, but she just didn't want to
take any chances.

Each room was empty, even the ones she had
met the sophomores and the group of eight. The sophomores had
written on the whiteboard with permanent markers
Going home,
suckas
. They had not believed her that shit had gone terribly
wrong. God, did the soldiers get them or did the zombies? And where
had Mel and Vic gone?

“See. No one left but us. We better leave
soon,” Jake said.

A draft chilled her bare arms. She got
closer to the window at the end of the hall that overlooked the
schoolyard. It stood ajar. She pushed it open and was greeted by
the low moans from the zombies walking bellow. Soldiers, hazmat
men, teachers, Mr. Garlson, their biology teacher, were among them,
and students. She recognized the sophomores. Badly mangled, they
shuffled around. One was missing an arm. But, there was no Mel or
Vic. From the window, a landing led to a fire escape. The ladder
was pulled down.

“Let’s head back,” Jake said.

“Leave then,” she yelled over her
shoulder.

She got on the landing. At the end, a ladder
led up to the roof. She climbed up alone. Jake must have taken off,
like she told him to. The roof was flat and at one end stood a
square staircase access, mostly used by service people. There was
no sign of anybody on the roof.

“Vic, Mel,” she yelled.

The only answer she got was the moans from
below. She sighed. She knew it was to no avail but still she had to
call out there names, despite seeing no one was on the roof. The
fruitlessness of everything she did was getting to her.

The air was thick with a rotten smell and
smoke. She was facing the highway. The school being close to one
was one reason why the outside windows were soundproofed. Only loud
sounds in the immediate proximity of the school had any chance of
getting through. It kept the sound of the cars racing to whatever
destination they went out of the classrooms. However, today the
highway was empty.

She went around the access, facing the city
side. Her steps faltered. In a daze, she walked up to the ledge. As
far as she could see, smoke rose into the sky, joining in one
angry, dark cloud. Fires blazed in the center of the city last
night, and it seemed no one was there to stop them. The roads ahead
were littered with cars and bodies, while corpses shambled around
in their eternally sloshed way of walking.

She heard a moan behind her. Sarah whirled
around. Mel and Vic sat on the roof, their backs against the stair
access, huddled together under a blanket. She felt her heart
lighten despite the scare she had. Sure, she had seen zombies climb
stairs before, but she doubted they could open a window and climb
up a ladder; their motor skills didn't seem to allow that kind of
range of movement.

“Guys, you had me scared there.”

A moan rose from the two and they
stirred.

“Come on. This is not the time to play
games.”

They stood up, swaying. Out of Vic's hand a
medicine bottle fell. Sarah stared in horror at the empty bottle
bouncing on the roof.

“No, no, no, no, not you guys!”

Their pale hands reached out to her. Slowly,
the sheet slid down to reveal their dead eyes looking through her.
She covered her mouth to muffle a scream, biting her hand to make
sure this was not a nasty dream. She hoped it was; it couldn't be
real. Last time she saw them, they were alive, together, and in
love. Her teeth cut through her skin, drawing blood. It hurt. It
was real, not a nightmare. They were getting closer. She stepped
back. Her feet were on the edge. They burst forward; two pair of
hands grabbed her; two mouths to tear her flesh apart. She
sidestepped and shoved them as they tried to grab her. They fell
over the ledge. She watched them tumble and smash on the concrete
yard. Their skulls fractured, their limbs twisted, and they lay
side by side, with their hands touching, on a bed of their
congealed blood.

She tore herself away from the sight and sat
down where she had found them. Together, they had sat in that spot,
looking at the world as it crumbling before their eyes. Sarah let
her tears flow freely. She sobbed hard. Was it hopeless? Was it all
utterly hopeless? Had Vic and Mel made the right choice? A choice
she should also take?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ralph remembered the bus trip had been a straight stretch on an
interstate, which one he had no idea; he just knew that once he got
closer to home, he would be able to find his way back. The road
looked like every other road he had been on, a long slab of asphalt
stretching to the horizon. There was nothing to see at his left or
his right. He had been driving for hours now. The line of buses had
stopped eventually, every single bus a charred wreck of torn
metal.

The military had been rigorous in getting
every last one of them. However, they had not killed everything. He
saw stragglers walking but he had not stopped to ask them if they
were still breathing. At fifty miles out, he saw an upturned school
bus. Not all had made it to their destination. Surrounding the bus,
a crowd idled around without a sign of life among them. The farther
he went, he saw more stranded buses. Two hundred miles later, he
stopped seeing them.

He passed some signs but none meant much to
him. He kept driving once he got to the roadblock; he would know
where to go from there. Or did he? The roadblock he saw that cut
off his city was before they got on the interstate. It was the same
for the other roadblocks he saw. None were on the interstate
themselves. He had better pay attention before he missed the exit
he had to take. The trip to the pit had taken about half a day. He
had been driving for about four hours, but he was going much faster
than he had in the bus. He should be close.

A spec appeared on the road running parallel
to the one he drove on. It was growing fast. A sedan drove past; he
barely saw more than a blur speed past him. Ralph honked and
whooped, jumping up and down in his seat. There was still life
around. The car kept speeding, now only a smudge in his rearview
mirror. Far off he saw buildings loom up. First a haze, a mirage of
his wishes, one he hoped was not just a specter of his imagination,
but real. After each mile the truck ate, the haze slowly got more
detailed and he recognized the buildings.

Taking the interstate exit, he slowed down.
The roadblock was ahead and might still be manned by soldiers. They
might not allow him to pass. He saw the raised barbwire blocking
his way. And if the barbed wire didn't make it clear enough, a
large
closed road
sign did. However, no soldier was in
sight. Slowly, he rolled the truck. Ralph honked. It clamored in
the utter silence, deafening load, even able to disturb the dead.
The sound echoed away. One soldier in combat fatigues, body armor
strapped on, helmet square on his head, appeared on the other side
of the barbed wire. He held his rifle loosely in his hand. Ralph
stopped fifteen feet away and got out. He approached the
soldier.

“Sir, can I get through?”

The soldier didn't answer; he kept walking
in a straight line toward Ralph. A few feet away, he pounced
forward into the barbed wire. The razor cut him open wherever he
was not armored. He kept moving forward until he was completely
stuck. Letting go of the rifle, he reached his hand to claw at
Ralph. Ralph froze, not believing what he saw. The soldier started
thrashing violently. His helmet fell off. A dead face stared at
Ralph, teeth snapping at him. A hand reached out to grab him. Ralph
recoiled and hurried back into his truck.

His heart bobbed in his chest as he fought
with the ignition. The wheels screeched as he backed away and again
when he suddenly stopped. He gripped the steering wheel until his
knuckles turned white. He winked the sweat out of his eyes,
breathed in deeply, and stepped on the gas pedal. The truck spurted
forward, tires squealing, and rocketed hard against the barbed
wire, smashing the zombie soldier as it plowed through. The car
skidded on the road as the tires blew, punctured by the razors it
drove over. It crashed against the curb and toppled sideways.

Ralph touched his body all over. No
bleeding. No injury. Though lots of pain. He quickly released his
seatbelt. Grunting, he climbed out the passenger's side, suffering
his bruises for every move he made. On the truck, he had a great
vantage point over the destruction he caused and beyond. Barbwire
was strewn everywhere; the sign was run over and split in two. The
zombie soldier’s torso lay several feet away from its legs. Its
head was smashed flat, brains coming out of the cracks. What
worried him was the crowd slowly advancing on his location.

He jumped out and ran to the zombies severed
legs. The belt was still attached to the pants and so was the
holster. He removed the Beretta m9 from the holster and a spare
clip. He checked if the safety was on and tucked the gun in his
belt. He pocketed the clip. He had wasted enough time. Looking up,
he saw the mob was closer now. They sure had his scent now; there
seemed some intent in the way they moved in his direction. He
sprinted away and kept running until he couldn't see the zombies
anymore.

He didn't know this neighborhood. It was an
upscale part of the city that he had not visited before, with
well-maintained townhouses. The parking spots were crammed with
expensive cars. All the front doors had a yellow X mark, the date
(yesterday), and a number spray painted on them. Had they also
received the bus treatment? The occupants were now a cinderblock in
some remote landscape? Or had they actually been evacuated to
safety?

The next street he walked down was the same.
He took an alley, hoping to get a change of scenery and to see some
signs of life to dispel the horror that the whole city had been
evacuated to their demise. Just the thought that Ginny would be
torn from her bed and taken away chocked him up. He walked for half
an hour, passing yellow-sprayed doors after yellow-sprayed doors,
until he came to a street with no paint on the doors. It was still
empty. All curtains were drawn closed. At the end of the road, a
pamphlet taped on a streetlight read that the area was to be
quarantined and everybody had to stay inside, to pull the curtains
and lock the doors, by order of the federal government.

It took him another thirty minutes to come
upon the first living human being. A couple was loading their
station wagon with boxes filled with canned food. They had surgical
masks on. The man couldn't be more than forty; however, the bald
head made him look older than his face would suggest. The woman was
in her twenties with long, dark hair, an olive complexion, and a
little plump around the hips. They stopped loading when the saw him
approach. Their eyes fell on his gun. Alarm passed on their faces
and their bodies tensed only to then relax. They looked at each
other and smiled.

Ralph didn't know if he should get closer or
keep walking.

“Hey,” the man called out, “what's the gun
for?

As if it wasn't obvious why one should be
armed. “It's dangerous outside.”

“Well, we mean you no harm.”

They indeed looked harmless, but he would
rather keep his wits about him, just in case his perception was
wrong.

“And don't stay in the middle of the road,”
the woman said.

Ralph looked up and down the road. No car
was going to come anytime soon. They didn't look like they were out
to harm him, but neither did Norm when he pushed him in the path of
two zombies. However, they didn't look like Norm and he could use
some information about where he was and what had happened while he
was gone.

He kept his distance from them.

“I'm John and this is Mary.”

John stuck his hand out in greeting.
Reluctantly, so as not to be rude, Ralph closed the distance to
shake his hand. “I'm Ralph.”

“How you doing, Ralph?” Mary asked.

How to answer that without shocking them,
not that he was particularly joyful to begin with. “Could be
better.” John and Mary sighed. An awkward silence fell between
them, which compelled Ralph to say something. “Could you tell me
where I am? I think I'm lost.”