Endemic Rise of the Plague (37 page)

Dave studied the roads and the infected as they made their way toward the old Post Office.

“There’s access to the storm drain system at the back of the building. From there it’s a straight shot out of town. Exactly three miles will bring us up—in an irrigation tunnel, out in the orchards of Bayberry Hollow,” Dave explained.

“
Bayberry Hollow is good—I know people there,” Shotgun said out the window. “But hang on a sec, you want me to walk three miles in the sewer?”

“Unless you have a better idea?
You’re lucky we didn’t just leave your ass back there after what your boss and buddies pulled,” Dave exploded.

“Dave, I was with these guys. My team sent me out to get them. I didn’t know what they were doing. I never even met that girl with the immunity. I do know where they’re going. I really like Kate, she is a brave kid. I will take you to her. I give you my word,” Shotgun replied.

“Sure, the word of a traitor. You are telling me that you would turn your back on them, for us? I don’t think so. If you knew nothing about her, then how’d you know she was immune?” Dave seethed.

“Who was immune?
Immune to what?” Joe looked up at Dave.

“Boots and I were in radio contact. I gave him status updates. He told me that the girl was immune and that she might be able to save Walker. He was one of ours that
got bit, not that you give a shit. It’s not about turning my back on anyone. It’s about getting that kid back with her dad. So stop busting my balls about it. I’m trying to help,” Shotgun shifted in his seat, glaring out the back window at Dave.

So much had gone wrong at the hands of Randy and his goons,
now, Dave had little faith in what Shotgun had to say. Only time now would tell if Shotgun would end up becoming an asset or an enemy, but for now, Dave knew that he needed to chill. Shotgun was their only link to Angora, where Kate is captive, and their only lead at the moment.

Although Dave made a solid attempt to calm himself, guilt crept through his mind, snaking its way through his entire body.
I never should’ve left her on that roof
. Deep down, Dave blamed himself for Roxy not being in the back of the truck with them. She had been the only reason that he stuck around, and didn’t bolt out of town as soon as the sun came up. With her, he felt like he belonged somewhere again, like his life had direction…purpose.
To go through the hell we went through together, just to lose her… I will find her sister. Back at Lynn’s house, I gave Roxy my word that I would find her family. And now that they’re split up, I will reunite them…for Roxy.

“Roxy was immune to the infection—well not quite immune,” Dave began, turning his attention to Joe. “She was
injected with the virus or whatever it’s called—at a flu shot clinic and then she was bitten by one of the infected. She didn’t change into one of them; instead it made her stronger. She could heal very quickly. Her hearing and eye sight were better…”

“Wait! Did you say she was immune even after a bite?” Joe inquired.

“Yeah,” Dave looked seriously at Joe. “I forgot what Mara called it back at the lab. Roxy isn’t immune, well—wasn’t immune. Instead, that shot made her stronger—which is what it was supposed to do.”

“You
mean that flu shot she got yesterday—it caused all this?” Joe shook his head.

“Yeah, it did this to all the others that had the shot,” Dave said
, waving his hand at the infected following the truck. “It’s an experimental performance enhancer, according to Mara. All signs pointed to it working like it was supposed to on Roxy.”

“You said healing faster, what did you mean
by that?” Joe massaged his temple as though he were on information overload.

“Well, when she was bit, there was a big gash in her shoulder. After a few hours, there was barely a scab. It was really amazing,” Dave shook his head.

“So if she can heal that miraculously, how do we know for sure that she was really dead back there? Are you sure that she wouldn’t be able to heal from that?” Joe asked.

“Joe, I wish that Roxy was still alive too. I know I didn’t know her that long, but I really cared about her. There is just no coming back from the damage she took on. She wasn’t
breathing and had no pulse. She’s gone,” Dave said, furrowing his brow and looking away.

Dave wished more than anything that Roxy could have survived the shooting.
Four bullets to the chest and abdomen can’t compare to a bite on the shoulder. She was gone. The dead don’t just come back to life, well, not unless they are infected.

Feet shuffled across the wet asphalt, grimy sneakers, tattered loafers, bare feet, and one red pump hobbling alongside a filthy, shoeless foot. All
appeared fuzzy at first, but there seemed like an endless army of them. Trying to get her bearings, Roxy blinked her eyes in an attempt to focus on the street beneath her. A shiver crept up her spine, as she laid soaked in water and blood on the ground. She lifted her head, pressing her palms to the cold, saturated pavement and pulling her knees in. As she did so, a clanking echoed on the ground beneath her. Her eyes were drawn to two expended bullets on the ground. They were smashed like they had hit something. Roxy cupped the bullets in her hands and remembered being shot. She pressed her hand to her torso frantically rubbing her chest, back and stomach in a circular motion. There was nothing, not even a scab. Finally, she let out a sigh of relief.

Cracking a slight grin
, she raised her head. Her grin gave way to a look of horror. She found herself surrounded by infected, shuffling about aimlessly. Trying to stay as still as possible on her hands and knees, she dropped her head and watched as a couple of them passed by her. Their soiled and tattered clothing drifted by so closely that it nearly touched her face. The smell of their decomposing flesh invaded her senses as they shuffled by snorting and grumbling. Slowly reaching around her body, she realized that she had no gun or any other type of weapon. As seconds passed, she waited patiently, making her best attempt at remaining as still as possible. She saw an opening in the crowd. Figuring that she could use her strength to fight them off, she rose to her feet, poised to run.

To her surprise, none of them came at her. One looked at her then quickly looked away. Another headed straight for her. The aging man in caked coveralls looked at her and aft
er looking away, he circled out—away from her. She stood there for a few moments in bewilderment. A surge of confidence or madness, she wasn’t sure which one really, charged through her. She walked toward another infected man dressed as a police officer, who reacted in the same manner, moving out of her path.

They can see me, but they keep turning away
. It’s almost like…they’re afraid of me. Can they tell I am immune? No…It’s not that. I’m not immune. They know…I’m infected—a carrier.

With a renewed sense of strength, she gently pushed one of them. The man stumbled back,
then changed direction. She tried twice more, with the same result. Feeling her fear of the crowd around her rinse away, Roxy spun around to get her bearings.

That’s when she found Gypsy. She looked down at her friend. The dog
lay peacefully on the pavement with the street lamp’s glow casting a shimmer on the wet ground all around her. Her grey fur was soaked from the falling hydrant water. Roxy knelt down to her and stroked her chin a few times. Kissing her on the head, Roxy scooped up her beloved dog in her arms. Spotting a pile of infected, ravenously growling and grunting near the curb, Roxy knew what was obscured by the mound of monsters. They were dismantling Mattie and Lynn and devouring their flesh. Turning away from the gruesome attack, she shook the sight of the scene from her head. Quickly making her way through the crowd toward the alley, she found the car was gone. Junior’s body had been left on the ground, with a similar cluster of starved beasts surrounding his carcass.

Something on the ground caught her eye,
a piece of cork, like from a bottle of wine. It had a three inch chain on one end like it had been attached to something and broke off. For some reason, it looked familiar to her. Carefully, she bent down with her pooch in her arms and fished it off the ground. She didn’t have time to take a good look at it right now, but something told her to take it.

Opening the alley entrance to the video store, she called out, but there was no answer. Hoisting Gypsy onto the counter, she immediately went to work, looking for something to wrap her Pit Bull in.
Finding nothing usable in the lobby or office area, she moved on to the stock room. There, she discovered a thick, clear box liner contained inside an empty box and a backpack on the floor containing a black hoodie inside, probably left behind by one of the employees, she guessed.

She removed a red, heart-shaped, m
etal dog tag from Gypsy’s bloody collar. Looking at it for a moment in her hand, she could see GYSPY etched into the metal and her phone number below. Wiping away a droplet of blood that had splattered onto the surface, Roxy put the tag in her pocket, alongside the cork, before retying the tee shirt around the dog’s neck. Reaching for the hoodie, she pulled it onto the dog and tightened the hood strings. She slid Gypsy into the plastic liner and folded the end over. Roxy wiped the tears dripping down her nose and chin as she gently placed Gypsy into the backpack and zipped it up.

She went back into the manager’s office and viewed the town map on the wall. She tried to think of where to go, when something crept into her mind, a memory. She tried to focus on it.

It had something to do with Randy. Or Rhino. Yeah, it was Rhino. He said something important before I passed out. What was it?

She closed her eyes and tried to think.
Okay, Randy shoved me into the truck, Gypsy came out distracted him… He shot my dog! I was shot…who shot me? Randy? No, Rhino. I remember, Rhino shot me. He passed me, and said something to Randy—but Randy was dead… What did he say? He said… We’ve got to go…before…they take out the town at midnight. That’s it! That’s what he said. They’re going to take out the town at midnight. What? They’re going to take out the town at midnight?

And the good news keeps coming.

Roxy looked up at the clock on the wall, quarter after eleven. She had forty five minutes to get out of Port Steward. The bottleneck would surely be jammed up with those trying to leave.

“I need to get out of town, without using the interstate, in now, forty-four minutes,” she said sarcastically aloud.
“Sure, no problem.”

Hank parked the truck behind the old post office, driving through an open gate marked with a rusted sign,
Authorized Employees Only
. A few meandering infected could be spotted on the street, not far from the entrance gate.

The rear side of the old postal office had a haunting feel to it. Discarded mailboxes and sorting tables were huddled together within
a small, fenced-off area near the mail truck parking area. A dock area at the backside of the building had graffiti scribbled on the walls and roll up door. Debris and trash from chip bags, soda cans and liquor bottles littered the dock and collected along the fence line. Dave remembered when this place was in full use—with mail carts being whisked along to the trucks, small-town employees that always wore a smile and the mail carriers that didn’t hesitate to throw out a wave. Now it had become a ghost of what it had once been.

Joe
continued to sulk in slow motion mode. Dave had tried to engage him. W
hat do you say to someone who just lost their family in a span of a few minutes?

Dave jumped out of the back of the truck and came around to the passenger door, Shotgun had already opened it. As the truck engine rumbled, Dave pushed in the cigarette lighter, then pulled out the holey plank from the truck bed and used it to brace Shotgun’s leg. Taking a moment to see where Hank went, Dave located him at the driveway. Hank was closing the gate and securing it with a chain
and a carabiner from his key set.

Dave let his eyes fall to Shotgun’s injured leg. He’d lost quite a bit of blood, but the wound had been wr
apped up pretty tight. The saturated shirt looked like it had stopped most of the bleeding. Lacing the box strapping through one of Shotgun’s belt loops, then through the holes in the board and around the leg from top to bottom, Dave made sure there was no slack, then tied it tightly in the front, near the ankle. The cigarette lighter popped out, and he pressed it against the plastic strapping. It melted together, the strap securing the holey peg board to the back of Shotgun’s leg.

“This is as good as it’ll get,” Dave said tight lipped, offering his hand to Shotgun.

Shotgun nodded, taking Dave’s hand. He grunted as he slid off the passenger seat and stood.

“I think it’ll have to do.”

Shotgun wrapped his arm around the back of Dave’s neck. Joe joined them on Shotgun’s other side, shouldering some of Shotgun’s weight. They staggered thirty feet, to a rectangular metal grate in the ground. Dave ducked out from under Shotgun’s shoulder and reached for the grate. As he hoisted on the rusty grate, Hank’s weathered hands appeared at the other end.

H
ank smiled at Dave, offering quick nod. Both men heaved and were barely able to get the five by three foot steel out of its resting place. They shoved the corroded drain cover back, until the gap was big enough for them to fit through the opening.

The shimmering moon’s illumination revealed the ground at the bottom of the empty
, drain access was wet, but there wasn’t much water down there. It was summer after all—there hadn’t been any rain in several weeks. A steel access ladder bolted to the concrete wall went down about ten feet to the floor of the drain.

“Okay Joe, you first,” Dave said
, taking his place back under Shotgun’s shoulder. “You go down, then we’ll hand Rogue to you. Then you can help us from below to get Shotgun down there.”

Without a word, Joe dejectedly walked over to the squared hole in the asphalt and began to descend into the abyss. Rogue whined getting close to the hole, backing up,
then moving closer again.

“It’s pretty dark in here. You have a flashlight in the truck Hank?” Joe called out.

“Yeah, give me a minute,” Hank replied, jogging over to the truck. He quickly returned with two black, metal flashlights. Pocketing the smaller one, Hank passed down the larger flashlight to Joe.

Joe gave the tunnel a few passes with the light before turning it off and setting it on the ground. He climbed back up about three rungs on the access ladder to receive Rogue. Hank carefully lifted the Pit Bull at the ribcage, when she began to groan and squirm. Panicking, Hank put her back down, shaking his head.

“You want to trade places?” Dave offered.

Hank eagerly nodded and came to Shotgun’s side, relieving Dave from his position. Kneeling down near the access, Dave called Rogue over. She hesitated at first, but then bashfully came
to him. Dave approached her from the side, wrapping his arms around her chest and rear, lifting her, then handing her down to Joe.

Joe could only grab her with one hand
. She began thrashing as soon as he wrapped his arm around her ribs. He held on and descended the ladder quickly, setting her on the ground.

One tricky one down, and one to go, Dave thought
, eyeing at Shotgun.

Clanking sounded
from behind them. Dave wiped sweat beads accumulating on his forehead from the sticky night, and turned to see about eight infected at the fence. They pressed up against the gate, leaning on it and hissing. They could only be roamers by their lack of intensity. A very tall woman in a black tank top skulked behind the fence. She looked a little like Roxy, but taller by at least a foot. Her head turned toward Dave, snarling, as drool crept from the side of her mouth. She snapped her teeth at the chain link fence, before backing up and running into it. She stalked Dave from fence as her blackened eyes cast a feeling of doom over him.

Dave looked at the
aged, cyclone fence, it wouldn’t hold for long. Reaching out for Shotgun’s arm, Dave hoped that more infected wouldn’t come. That woman could rile up the others or attract more roamers or worse—runners. Runners, as Dave had come to call them, thanks to Hank’s explanation of their names on their way to the post office, not only ran at speeds that nearly defied the capabilities of humans, but their strength and adrenaline were unmatched. Other than wailers—that call out to nearby infected—runners were the worst.

“We have to get you down fast. We’re going to try not to hurt you, but we have to get out of here,” Dave said
, positioning Shotgun in front of the drain access.

“I know. I swear I’m going to help you guys find Kate,” Shotgun said
, lowering his bad leg onto the first ladder rung.

Hank and Dave each supported a good portion of his weight by holding him at each armpit. Shotgun slightly hopped down the rungs. After the first few, he gripped the grimy, ladder rugs tightly, alleviating some of the weight from his legs. Once he
made it down to the bottom few, Joe helped him to the ground.

More grunts and growls echoed in the distance. Turning back to the fence, Dave felt discouraged by the sight of the infected. Their numbers had easily doubled since his last look back
, and now, there were runners. At least six of them slammed their bodies into the fence, clawing and biting at it. Three runners rebounded off the fence, then raced toward it again with the same inhuman speed and intensity. A young girl, about Kate’s age, began to wail. Others joined in creating a harmony of destruction.

Hank patted Dave shoulder, giving a concerned nod and whispered, “I’m going in.”

With that, Hank climbed down the ladder quickly. As Dave began to climb down, he could see that there were dozens of infected now at the fence and even more answering the call that the little girl had started. Dave began to wonder where they all came from.
The infected must scatter when food isn’t nearby to search for people. Then, once one of them gets a whiff or hears a loud commotion, they emerge on the scene by the masses. There must be hundreds or thousands of them by now all over The Port, lurking in yards and between buildings—waiting for the call of the others.

The fence bowed in under the weight of so many pressed up against it. The Roxy-look-alike still thrash
ed into the fence and into others. More were wailing and howling, while only being temporarily held back by the flimsy fence. It looked as if it would give way any moment now.

Dave stepped down two more rungs and grasped at the metal grate. He tugged and pulled on it, but it was too heavy. He and Hank could barely move it from up top, now that he was beneath it and at an awkward angle, there was no way he could get it closed. He tugged and yanked, but the rusted metal remained unmovable.

Dave heard the crash, metal clanking and grating across the pavement. The fence had given out. He could hear victorious grunts and growls from the horde. Dave shut his eyes tightly and pulled at the grate with everything he had. Suddenly he felt something brush by his leg. He opened his eyes to see Joe shimmying up the ladder next to him.

Joe clutched the grate a few inches from Dave’s hands. They pulled, using their feet wedged into the ladder rungs as leverage. The grate began to move, slowly grinding against the asphalt up top
, as echoes of the infected drew nearer.

The men heaved again. The grate was almost in place, as they pulled
another time. Dave could see that it was only slightly ajar. As the grunts grew even louder, Dave was sure he would see the army of roamers and runners at any moment. It sounded as if the infected were mere feet from them.

Tugging on the grate one last time, they slid it into the opening. Joe let go, jumping down
, shaking his tired arms. Dave pulled his hands out, just as new fingers replaced his in the gap. The infected were above them. Dozens of fingers wiggled through the gaps in the grate.

Dave hustled down the ladder and stepped away from the grate above.
Growling fiercely at the crowd gathered above them, Rogue stood in a guarded stance at the bottom of the ladder.

“Let’s go,” Dave said out if breath, backing away from the opening.

“They’re going to get in,” Joe said, shaking his head. “They’ll make it out of the city with us.”

“No, they won’t. They don’t know to pull. I don’t know why, but it’s like there is no common sense with them. They won’t get it. We’re safe,” Dave said, wiping the sweat from his neck and chin.

“Are you sure about that?” Joe asked, raising an eyebrow.

“When Roxy wrecked her car, she had a girl that was infected in the car with her. The girl couldn’t figure out how to unbuckle her seat belt or open the car door. She just kept hitting her head on the window. Like the fence, they didn’t try to open it or climb it. It fell over because they crowded up against it. The weight of them
on it caused the fence to fall. They can lean all they want up against that grate, it doesn’t open that way. They won’t get in,” Dave said, still catching his breath.

“Alright, if you say so.
Let’s get a move on. I’d like to get out of this tunnel as soon as possible, we have less than an hour until midnight,” Joe said, looking as if he took little comfort in what Dave had said, but nodded in agreement nonetheless.

Hank started out in front,
using the big flashlight to illuminate the way. Dave took his spot under Shotgun’s arm across from Joe.

“My father used to work for the city, before he died,” Dave began, “He worked this tunnel for months after the Hughes flood. A couple times I came out on the job with him, and he’d tell me about it when I was really young. It wasn’t until years later when I really got to know the tunnels, hanging out with my buddies. We just need to follow this tunnel about a mile and a half, and then it will fork. Stay to the right of the fork, then about another mile and a half or two, we’ll come up in a field in Bayberry Hollow. We are home free after that.”