Fracked (16 page)

John glanced at the open driver-side door and his weapon lying on the seat.

Greg pointed the shotgun at John and frowned.

“John, I’m going to need your vehicle,” Greg said with shame in his voice.

John looked at him with a sullen expression. He narrowed his eyes.

“Are you kidding me?! I stopped for you Greg… I could’ve kept going but I stopped!” John shouted, angry.

“I know, and I’m grateful you did, but that still doesn’t change the fact that I need your vehicle,” Greg said.

“Goddammit!” John shouted, face reddening. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“We are friends. Tell your wife to put her gun down,” Greg said without taking his eyes off of John. “I’d hate to have Reba shoot her.”

John glanced over at Rebecca and saw that she had her rifle pointed at Greg, but Reba was standing in front of the vehicle with a hunting rifle sighted in on Rebecca.

Behind Reba, two frightened little girls were holding their backpacks against their chest tightly.

John’s facial expression changed as soon as he saw the two little girls.

“Becky… Go on and put it down,” John told Rebecca.

Rebecca hesitated but tossed the rifle on the floorboard.

Reba walked to the passenger-side and opened the door.

“Get out!” Reba said as she grabbed Rebecca’s arm and yanked her out of the vehicle.

Rebecca fell on her hands and knees on the concrete.

“Leave her alone!” John shouted.

Greg pushed the barrel of the shotgun against John’s chest.

“Don’t even think about moving,” Greg said.

“I swear, if you fucking hurt her, I’ll kill you!” John shouted, spewing spit.

“We don’t want to hurt anyone. Y’all just behave,” Greg said with his finger around the trigger. “Reba, send her over this way.”

Reba stepped back and kept the hunting rifle pointed at Rebecca.

“You heard him,” Reba said. “Get!”

Rebecca scurried to her feet and hobbled towards John.

John embraced her tightly and narrowed his eyes as he glared at Greg.

“Girls, get inside the vehicle,” Greg said as he kept the shotgun leveled at John.

The two little girls made their way to the vehicle and crawled into the backseat.

Reba sat down in the passenger seat and closed the door.

Greg started to walk backwards towards the vehicle while keeping his weapon pointed at John and Rebecca.

“So this is your plan!?” John asked furiously. “You’re just going to leave us out here to die? You’re a goddamn coward!”

“Don’t move,” Greg said as he backed away.

“At least give us our weapons back!” John shouted. “Give us some chance to survive! You owe us that much!”

“I’m sorry,” Greg said. He quickly hopped up into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.

John ran towards the vehicle.

The armored vehicle sped away before John even got close.

“You’re a piece of shit!” John screamed. He picked up a rock and hurled it towards the vehicle.

About a quarter of a mile away, Greg opened the driver-side door and tossed one of the M-16s out onto the street. He slammed the door shut and sped off towards the charred remnants of downtown.

“You never should’ve stopped…” Rebecca said weakly, forehead covered with sweat. “I told you, John… I told you…”

He held up his hand and shook his head.

“Yeah… I know, but I can’t really change that now, can I?” John replied lowly, disgusted at himself. He started pacing in circles.

“Well… What do we do now…?” Rebecca asked as she held her hands out at her side.

John looked over at her and sighed.

“We start walking.”

John and Rebecca trudged their way down the middle of the desolate highway towards the edge of town.

Most of the buildings were gutted by flames and the hospital was completely leveled. Multiple small fires were still burning throughout the town. Disabled vehicles had melted into the asphalt amongst hundreds of charred, skeletal corpses. Everything in sight was burnt to a crisp and grey ash blew through the town like dirty snow.

John held the M-16 close against his chest, ready, but he already knew that he didn’t have enough ammunition to do any real damage if they encountered resistance; all of the extra magazines were still inside the vehicle.

Luckily the streets appeared to be deserted.

Rebecca was walking behind him with her arms wrapped around her stomach. She was pale, sweaty, and barely spoke.

John glanced down at his watch.

“We have about thirty minutes to get out of the area,” he said. “I don’t know how far the blast radius will be, but I think it’d be best if we clear as much distance between us and the town.”

Rebecca fell onto her hands and knees and vomited.

John turned and ran towards her. He held her arm and tried to help her onto her feet.

“Becky! What’s the matter?!” he asked in a panic.

She wiped the dribbling strains of bile from her mouth and batted his arm off of her. Moving slowly, she got back on her feet, legs shaking.

“Nothing,” she replied hoarsely without looking into his eyes. “I’m fine…”

John studied her face and shook his head.

“No, don’t give me that bull!” he said. “You’ve been acting funny ever since we left the house. What’s the matter?”

Rebecca didn’t say anything.

“I said I’m fine,” she protested weakly. “My stomach is just bothering me, that’s all.”

He pressed the back of his hand against her forehead.

She quickly pulled away.

“Christ, Becky! You’re burning up!” he exclaimed.

Rebecca remained silent and kept her eyes on the ground.

“I just… didn’t want you to worry about me. I don’t want to be a burden,” she paused. “I’ll manage.”

John ran his hands through his hair and started pacing, shaking his head in disbelief. He spun towards her with his hands extended.

He was crying.

“When did you plan on telling me? Were you going to wait till you turn and try to kill me?!”

Rebecca looked up at him and narrowed her eyes.

“I’m not infected,” she said.

John wiped away his tears and looked at her with red eyes.

“Baby… if you have… whatever this is, then what’s the fucking point of pressing onward…?” he asked in an exasperated tone. “How can I just ‘go on’ if you’re…?”

He stopped and started to sob again.

“I already told you that I’m not infected,” she insisted.

John looked at her and held out his hands.

“No?” he asked as tears ran down his cheeks. “Tell me then… What am I supposed to believe?”

Rebecca sighed, reached down to her left leg, and rolled up her pants.

The back of her left leg had a large swollen pustule on it just above her ankle. The wound was bright red and had a pinhole-sized hole in the center of it.

John looked at it and stepped back shaking his head.

“When did you get bit?” he asked.

Rebecca covered her leg and stood back up.

“When we were running in the field I think,” she said as she wiped the sweat off of her forehead. “The symptoms snuck up on me. My leg hurts, my muscles are stiff, I’m dizzy, and my stomach feels like it’s in knots.”

“Do you know what kind it was?” he asked.

“No… It was a bad one, whatever it was. Hopefully it wasn’t a brown recluse,” she said with a sigh.

John thought for a moment and looked at her.

“Will you be alright?” he asked with concern.

“I’ve been bitten by spiders before,” she said with defiance. “I’ll be fine.”

He stared at her, frowning…

Rebecca frowned and looked away, embarrassed.

“See? This is why I didn’t want to say anything… I didn’t want you treating me like a wounded animal and I didn’t want to become a distraction. I’ll be fine, John, I promise,” she said.

She looked at him and gave him a reassuring smile.

“There… Now that you know I’m not going to die on you, can we please get out of here before they incinerate us?” she asked.

John nodded.

“Alright, babe, alright,” he said. “Let’s keep going. Once we get through town, it’ll just be a short trip to the truck stop. I bet we can find a working vehicle there.” He paused and looked at her again. “If you need to stop to rest, let me know.”

She waved her hand with a thin smile.

“I’ll rest once we’re in Austin,” she said. “Let’s go.”

John led the way down Tres Rios’ main street. The pavement was covered with burnt corpses.

Rebecca limped behind him, falling further and further behind as she struggled to walk. She was soaked in sweat and shivering uncontrollably.

They passed by a police van that had its rear doors cracked open. It was badly burnt and sunk about an inch into the asphalt. Numerous skeletal corpses wearing charred riot gear lay strewn around the van alongside melted Plexiglas shields.

John walked carefully around the van and the mummified-looking corpses. As he walked he couldn’t help but wonder if anybody would able to contain the outbreak.

By the time they got to Austin, would it even still be there, or would it be a burning graveyard with its skyscrapers standing as monolithic steel tombstones?

He pushed the thought out of his mind; he couldn’t afford to think that way.

Behind him, Rebecca gasped and fell to her knees.

“What’s wrong?” John asked as he turned towards her, frowning.

She shook her head and tried to stand.

“I’m fine,” she weakly protested.

She fell down again and sat down on the pavement, struggling to catch her breath.

John ran towards her and held her hand.

“Come on, baby, you have to get up,” he said. “We’re almost through this.”

She sighed.

“John,” she interrupted, closing her eyes. “I can’t… My legs… They’re so heavy… I can’t even stand.” She paused as she started to sob. She covered her mouth with her fist and furiously shook her head. “I’m sorry… Just go… Please… Just go on. If you wait for me, I’ll end up killing us both.”

“No!” John protested, shaking his head. “I’m not going to leave you behind!”

He struggled to think of something, anything…

He scanned the smoldering storefronts and spotted the old hardware store.

An idea occurred to him.

“I’ll be right back, okay?”

“John…” she said weakly.

Before she could protest, John hurried past the police van towards the hardware store. The front of the store was in ruins.

He readied his rifle and stepped through the dilapidated entryway…

The ceiling was sagging and the aisles were full of toppled shelves and ashes. Badly charred merchandise littered the floor while exposed wires and lighting fixtures hung from the damaged ceiling.

Near the back of the store he saw a sign dangling from the wall.

The sign read:

Aisle 18 -Gardening Supplies -Outdoor Living -Pottery

John found the aisle he needed.

He navigated his way through the decimated store towards aisle eighteen.

Outside, Rebecca sat in the middle of the street and tried massaging her swollen leg. It was painful to the touch. Sweat dribbled down her forehead and matted down her hair.

She heard a noise coming from the police van…

As she looked over at it, one of the back doors swung open all the way.

A badly burnt ghoul sat in the holding cage in the back of the van. Its skin and hair were gone and its eye sockets were oozing with the infections black bile; its sex was indistinguishable. It reached its boney hand through the cage’s iron bars and batted weakly towards her, struggling to get its prey. Chunks of flesh fell off of its arm and splattered on the ground. It tried to vomit towards her, but all that came out was a pathetic foamy substance.

Rebecca looked with horror at the monstrosity, but knew it was far too weak and injured to pose any real threat. Nevertheless, she started to drag herself further away from the back of the police van.

“John….” She called out weakly.

John walked down the middle of aisle eighteen, coughing from the ashes that hung in the air. Shattered clay pots and gardening tools covered the floor. Along the wall, he finally found what he was looking for.

A row of wheelbarrows were lined along the wall. Most of them were damaged beyond repair but a few were salvageable.

He slung his rifle over his shoulder and grabbed one of the wheelbarrows that were in better shape. Groaning, he pulled it out of the wreckage and started wheeling it down the aisle.

“JOHN!”

He started running with the wheelbarrow as soon as he heard her scream.

Rebecca stared at the ghoul with horror.

The ghoul collapsed inside the cage. It seemed to deflate as the black substance leaked out of its body.

The organic black sludge formed hundreds of beads and slipped past the bars, rolled out the back of the van, and slithered across the pavement towards the corpses of the fallen officers wearing body armor.

As it entered the officer’s corpses, the mummified corpses started to reanimate and struggle to get on their feet.

Some of the corpses were so badly burnt that their legs simply crumbled as soon as they stood.

Others couldn’t even pry their bodies off of the pavement.

In either case, the black substance simply abandoned the useless vessels and searched for something more suitable.

Within minutes a shambling group of skeletal ghouls wearing body armor surrounded Rebecca with black gore foaming out of their gaping mouths.

“John!” she screamed again, forcing herself to stand. She ran for a few feet and went tumbling back to the ground, crying out in pain.

The shuffling corpses relentlessly continued their slow advance as they surrounded her from all sides.

“Becky!” John shouted as he ran out of the hardware store. He let the wheelbarrow fall to the ground, unslung his rifle, and started firing at the ghouls.

The fragile corpses shattered like glass as soon as the bullets struck them. Their charred and compromised body armor did very little to impede the bullet’s trajectories. The gathered crowd crumbled and collapsed in the multitudes.

Rebecca was left cowering in a semi-circle of fallen corpses. She had her head covered with her hands and her eyes squeezed shut. She slowly lowered her hands and opened her hands, looking around.

John cautiously lowered his weapon and walked towards her.

“Are you okay?!” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so…” she said as her heart pounded.

The black substance started to pour out of the slain bodies and slither towards Rebecca.

“Oh shit,” John muttered as soon as he saw it. He dropped his weapon on the ground and sprinted towards her, stepping over and around the substance as it moved along the ground.

The substance lunged towards his feet and flowed easily across the ground like liquid mercury.

He swept Rebecca up into his arms just in time and turned to run away.

The substance merged together and created a liquid barrier across the ground, blocking his path.

John ran the opposite way and gave a wide berth to the substance. He carried Rebecca to the wheelbarrow and sat her inside.

Two skeletal ghouls lurched out of one of the shattered storefronts and moved stiffly towards John with foam dripping from their mouth.

John quickly picked up the rifle and pulled the trigger.

‘CLICK’

He threw the depleted rifle at the ghouls, grabbed the wheelbarrow, and ran down the street with Rebecca.

His lungs burned and his legs ached, but he knew he had to keep pushing forward no matter what.

After running for two straight miles, he was finally out of the blackened ghost town which used to be Tres Rios and started walking along the long, dark road that led to the Love’s Travel Station towards I-37.

As John pushed the wheelbarrow along the road, he kept glancing nervously over his shoulder, but nothing except impenetrable darkness surrounded him.

Nevertheless he couldn’t help but worry what might leap out at him.

Despite her earlier protests against needing assistance, Rebecca closed her eyes and lay limp in the wheelbarrow. She was pale, sweaty, and her breaths were shallow.

In the distance he saw the flickering glow of flames coming from the travel center.