LZR-1143: Infection (6 page)

The engine was protesting too much, stammering when given gas; steam rose faintly from the crumpled front end, ghosting past the front window in a modest but constant trail of condensation. No-Name was crouched bravely against the now limp airbag, having distanced himself manfully from the conflict behind him. Fred was petrified, flattened against his door, simply staring at Erica and at me, as I futilely tried to prolong the inevitable.

“I’m going to head for the Expressway,” Kate threw back, as she turned the final corner into a straight away ending in the exit. “It was where the Head was told to go when they evac’d the facility; apparently the police had set up a safehouse of sorts in the Merchant Marine Academy and they were directing traffic to take the expressway to the academy for the time being,” she explained. “How is she?” She glanced back and grimaced, her medical training likely answering her own question before I could respond.

I had little experience with gushing neck wounds. Real ones, at least. In my movies, people could come back from anything. A shot to the forehead with a twelve gauge could be a flesh wound, the victim reappearing in the final act with a band aid and a margarita.

Unfortunately for Erica, this wasn’t one of those times.

“I’m no authority, but this isn’t looking good.” I replied. In fact, it was over. I looked at Erica’s face and cursed silently.

Roll the credits; turn up the lights.

The flow of blood had slowed to a trickle, and her eyes were closed. There was no pulse under my red fingers, sticky with her blood. I moved my hand away from the wound, and had to repress a gag reflex-a massive parcel of flesh was missing from her neck, and a thin green detritus, most likely a gift of her attacker, ringed the bite mark like algae on a stagnant pond.

I looked up from her wound as the car passed the final speed bump in the garage and slowed to a stop at the exit doors. Kate pressed a button on the access device in the front seat; the little white box taped to the windshield signaled to the automated gate device, and the rolled sheet metal gate hummed in response, chains set in motion by the electronics whining in compliance as twilight appeared in the crack between door and cement. Shadows cast by figures waiting on the other side extended into the garage as the gate rose.

“Well that just figures,” I muttered.

“If there are seat belts back there… you might consider using them,” was the response from the front seat. I felt her foot slam against the floor board as the accelerator was flattened against its housing, and the sedan moved forward as fast as it’s fuel-efficient four cylinder allowed. The garage sat below ground, and we were met by a steep incline and five creatures, all having been called to the opening door as it opened.

She swerved to the right, where resistance was slight, clipping an outstretched arm and shuffling hip in the process. The creature spun off the hood against the retaining wall as the small vehicle took the second pedestrian in the torso. It lay flat against the hood, torn, bloody, bearded face upturned in vacant malice, mouth moving silently and eyes locked on Kate’s face as the car crested the top of the incline, and she yanked the wheel to the right. Our hitchhiker slid off the left side of the hood, making a final grasp for the car but seizing only air as it was dashed to the macadam roadway.

We were on a narrow driveway, most likely originally designed for horse-drawn buggies, and were passing by poorly kept hedges to our right. Zombies-I supposed I should come to grips with what we were dealing with here-wandered aimlessly through the open campus to the left. From the distance, the sporadic popping of what sounded like gunfire was a welcome signal that we were not alone. Twilight was rapidly passing to night, and Kate switched on the lights, only one of which was apparently still functional. The solitary path illuminated before us made the dwindling daylight around the car a miasma of shadows.

Several times before we reached the main gate, which we luckily found open, the car was forced abruptly to one side or another by a creature in the road. The car performed like a champ, engine continuing to run, imploded front and all.

As we got closer to the tree-lined street running perpendicular to the entrance, we encountered them more frequently, individually and in mindless, roving packs. Once, across the gardens that until today had been tended by those inmates well enough to do so, we caught sight of a one-sided chase, as an elderly man fleeing slowly from a pack of creatures on foot was overtaken. He stumbled in apparent exhaustion, or perhaps succumbing to an injury, and a group of perhaps twenty fell on him in ravenous victory, arms moving quickly up and down as if pummeling the unlucky victim. As the gruesome scene disappeared behind a storage shed as the car moved onward, I suddenly remembered the news reports. And A-team. Fuck.

“We have to slow down,” I said, already levering Erica’s body against the door so gravity would take her away from the car without much effort on my part. “She’s dead, and if the news reports are true, we don’t have much time until she… comes back.” I couldn’t believe I was fucking saying that.

Kate nodded, and the car slowed to a jogging pace as I reached the handle and pulled it toward me. The door came open and I pushed the body out of the car, Erica’s buttocks sliding jerkily across the cheap fabric, and her head flopping messily to the side. The body fell heavily to the ground, and I quickly pulled the thin metal door closed. Her blood, already drying to the upholstery, was all that remained of her membership in our small group. I turned, watching her get smaller in the distance. I saw her arm move against her body, whether the body settling to the ground or already reanimated I couldn’t tell, as her form became indistinguishable in the murky dark. I shuddered, and faced front.

We reached the street outside the facility, passing between the twin sentinels of stone that housed a now open but normally locked ten foot wrought-iron gate. A car sped by, too fast for the narrow space, risking collision with dozens of those things as it braked hard and hurtled away through the wooded area to the North.

Two helicopters flew by, low and fast, lights blurring in the sky, rotors thumping the air; in the dark, there was no telling if they were military or civilian. Row houses lined the street, parked cars intermittently abandoned beside overgrown hedges and a narrow, cracked sidewalk. Several houses’ doors smiled emptily onto the now dark avenue, a front of civility standing before leafless trees, branches swaying slightly in the dark air. Several corpses - could I still call them that? - alerted to our presence, moaned and turned toward our location. The street lights remained dark, a testament to our new world, as Kate pulled the car into the center of the street and took us toward the expressway.

Chapter 6

The Asylum was bordered on the East and North by Long Island Sound. Housing developments and neighborhoods were located to the South, and a small wooded area to the West, directly behind the row houses outside the entrance to the hospital. Recent development had encroached upon the trees, but most remained, guardians of a wilderness that had lost its battle of supremacy with the modern world.

Passing through the developed area immediately outside the institute, we turned South and drove slowly, keeping to the center of the road when possible. The hospital was far enough away from extremely populated areas to afford relative ease of movement, but as we had witnessed before, wherever there were people, there were zombies. The Park had, in the not so distant past, been somewhat isolated from the rest of King’s Point, but a shortage of land on Long Island had pushed development closer and closer, apparently resulting in the encroachment of row houses and McMansions, all occupied by the suburban elite.

Well, not any more.

It was probably a nice place to live; quiet and green, far enough from the city to be suburban, close enough to be a livable commute. Maria and I had a house not too far from here before. Now it was probably, like me, property of the state. It was a nice place too, on the beach, overlooking the ocean. All the bare necessities: four fireplaces, a bathroom you could play tennis in, and a kitchen the size of Lincoln Center. Even a boat. What a life.

And it’s all gone twice over, I thought, staring at the otherworldly dark outside the car.

Kate drove slowly, guided by the singular headlight, which illuminated living and dead alike. We dared not stop, even if we were inclined to do so, as we moved steadily toward the Expressway. There were so many people, some alive, most dead-all ambulatory. Too many to slow. It was our speed and momentum that kept us alive. To slow or to stop would be a death sentence. Creatures swarmed the few living we encountered. They streaked past the car, to the front and to the rear, in more numbers than I could count.

One young man-one of the few survivors we saw escape-dragged a duffel bag behind him. He had the headphones of some sort of music player hanging from his ears, and actually jogged beside the car for several paces before being diverted by three oncoming zombies, all wearing the uniforms of a high school baseball team. He sprinted off to the row of homes to the right, hurdling a fence and abandoning his duffel in the process.

I still have nightmares about the faces we passed in that time. It felt like each person we left behind was another soul we had personally condemned. It was a heavy burden to drag through the coming days.

We passed a used bookstore, windows full of gently used books that no one would ever read again. Ironically, the name placard showing the name “Read It Again” hung from one tattered chain, swinging fitfully in the wind. A small creature, probably female, crouched almost forlornly on the ground over a half-eaten carcass in front of the store, staring into the distance. A red smear on the cement in front of the store led deeper into the dark inside. Shadows moved within, slowly and deliberately.

Several blocks further on, a drug store sat on a corner, windows boarded up but with the front door hanging from its hinges. An advertisement for generic shampoo and conditioner still festooned the street sign, their black block lettering illuminated sadly in the gathering darkness.

Further on, an electronics shop, windows shattered and debris strewn in front as if looters had come and gone, was a testament to the initial misunderstanding of the true seriousness of the situation.

Amazingly, one television remained illuminated, showing only electronic snow to the few passersby. A solitary zombie stood before the window, head cocked to the side, staring at the snow. Its head moved as we passed, but its attention soon reverted to the window, seemingly fascinated and transfixed by the screen.

At the corner of two small streets running through a stretch of strip malls, and after carefully detouring around a crashed station wagon blocking most lanes of the road and slowly leaking gasoline on the concrete, we saw a door flash open behind us from a small office building and a young woman emerge, running fast and carrying a small object in both arms. She had bolted out of the door to a small insurance agency three yards ahead of two young men, both of whom were clearly members of the recently deceased and reanimated. More joined the chase as she streaked along the roadway, making a beeline for our car.

We kept moving as she fled, hoping she could outdistance her pursuers but unwilling to stop. We maintained our detachment as we moved away-right up until the time we recognized the baby.

Kate was the first to realize what the woman was carrying, slamming the brakes and turning her head.

“Sonuvabitch, she’s carrying a kid!” she said in dismay and frustration, eyes glued to the rear view mirror and slamming the vehicle into reverse. I followed her eyes and confirmed what we had missed at first glance. The woman was running toward us, her burden in both arms. Her eyes were filled with terror as her legs pumped feverishly to reach the car. We stopped as we reached the slowly burning overturned station wagon, wheels facing the sky like the legs of some gigantic metal beast.

“I can’t get around that thing in reverse!” Kate slammed her hands against the wheel in frustration.

I jumped out of the car, knowing that we were surrounded; at least ten zombies were converging on our location, breathy moans barely audible over the crackle of burning paint and rubber. A window in a small convenience store broke to my left, and several creatures stumbled through the broken pane, ignoring the shards of glass that lacerated their arms and legs as they moved forward.

“Run, you’re almost there!” I gestured wildly, urging the young woman on. I moved toward her, thinking to help. From in front of the car, ten had turned to twenty, and more were shambling forward, not twenty yards from the car. I got as far as the trunk of our car before realizing that she had been cut off. Five or six zombies had emerged from a movie theater on the right, moving unknowingly between her and us. Stricken with helplessness, I froze.

Suddenly, from under a large SUV parked on the side of the street, a blistered, dirty arm snaked into her path, clutching wildly for her legs as she passed. Her foot caught in the twitching fingers and sent her sprawling to the ground. She twisted wildly in mid-air, desperate to cushion the impact for her child. I moved forward instinctively, although she was still fifty yards away. Any attempt to reach her was certain death, surrounded as she was by milling, shambling forms.

She came down hard on her back, knocking the air out her lungs. I could tell from where I stood that she was in pain. She struggled to stand, but collapsed in agony, her leg clearly injured. They were everywhere, and they moved with deliberate urgency. Hungry moans were in the air, and she knew she was doomed.

Her eyes met mine. I had nothing to give, and she knew it. We were separated by distance and circumstances, drawn together only by those last shards of humanity that had survived the initial outbreak of the disease.

A look of anger and determination crossed her eyes. Whether the anger was directed at me or at God is anyone’s guess. Her head turned slowly, taking in her fate. She was surrounded, and they were only yards away. I saw her take a deep breath as she pressed her baby to her chest, in a last protective, loving gesture. The child’s arms were moving slowly, as if weak with hunger or exhaustion. It cried once, meekly, and fell silent. As they neared her, a single tear tracked a line through the dirt on her cheek. Through a throng of undulating and shambling bodies, I could see her arms tense, as she held the child harder, its face buried in her chest. As the creatures neared her injured and desperate form, the child’s arms slowed. As they swarmed her under, covering them both with twisting, excited shapes, she sobbed once and the child’s arms stopped moving. She was weeping as they took her.