Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (27 page)

We’d reached the outskirts of Detroit and made it as far south as Indianapolis. GPS being nonexistent, we went traditional, relying on road maps taken from the vacant gas stations we found along the way, choosing routes that led us from one city to the next.

Vehicles, supplies, and road maps weren’t all we picked up, though. In a comforting sign that humanity wasn’t entirely lost, we gathered survivors and hauled them back to the reformatory with us. Most were barely alive, and all were starved and struggling, some so weary that moving them was a risk, one they always preferred to take. In freeing them, Harrison used his now proven tactic of cat and mouse with the Infected outside each stronghold to lead them away so the survivors could be loaded up. Each time I saw him racing out to begin his loop back to us, a mass of dirty, hungry Infected trailing him, I was overcome with terror which steadily grew, manifesting as a searing poker in my abdomen and didn’t begin to subside until Harrison was safely back in his vehicle. From there, it took several hours to unwind the twisted knots in my stomach. I’m not sure if he knew what he was doing to me, I never mentioned it, but he would inevitably seek out my vehicle before punching the gas of his own and heading out. It seemed our momentary separation had as much impact on him as it did on me.

The days were harrowing and our destinations made them that much harder. Each town we came to looked virtually the same…deserted, windows dark, streets empty of everything but abandoned vehicles and stray wildlife. Then the first Infected appeared and before long the entire horde would emerge. They weren’t limited to just towns, either. We came across them on the roads, multitudes of them sprinting out from the shadows of the woods or over the shallow hills lining the interstate, or meeting them head on when they’d force us off road and through the trees. Our geological maps came in handy then.

The day when everything changed was the first time the cold weather truly broke, a warm, fresh breeze pushing the chill farther north. The sky was a hazy blue and filled with birds leaving on their morning hunt. The ground was hardening, offering the strands of lush grass blades a foundation to grow. There was a sweet, fresh scent in the air that reminded me of Harrison and of the last time I nuzzled into the curve of his neck.

Oatmeal, produced from bags found in the kitchen pantry and boiled water from the stream beyond the east wall, filled our stomachs as we climbed into our vehicles. Doc was running late so we sat in our lineup waiting. Harrison took that free moment to step out of his truck and approach my Humvee. I caught sight of him in my side mirror, strolling cautiously up to and past the bumper. Then he was there at my window, his eyes searching my face for any sign of leniency. He knew better than to ask for complete forgiveness. Regardless of how I felt, my stomach still lit up with nerves at him being so close to me, especially when we hadn’t been less than ten feet from each other since I’d left the lab.

Harrison’s thumb carefully touched the edge of my eye where I’d hit the woman’s shoulder in the truck bed, but he moved it away quickly, as if he didn’t want to cross a line. “Does it hurt?”

It did, the purplish-blue color having so far warped into a hideous green and now bringing an aching throb that increased with my pulse. I shrugged it off. It hurt worse to have him touch me and be unable, or unwilling, to touch him back.

“We’re going into Detroit today,” he said, although we’d already uniformly agreed to our destination at breakfast. “Do you have all your ammo?”

I brushed aside my jacket to expose the magazine cartridges in pouches along my belt.

He nodded.

Both of us knew I had.

“Where’s your radio?”

I pushed the other side of my jacket behind my hip to expose the two-way radios we’d found.

“Okay.”

He stared at me a moment longer, opened his mouth, and then Doc came out the door and leapt down the steps.

“Ready,” he said, heading for his truck.

Harrison’s mouth remained open, set to deliver whatever it was he had planned to say. His hand, the one that had made contact with my temple and sent my pulse into chaos, rose to the window’s edge. He looked like he wanted to climb in.

“Be careful,” he said.

You too
, I thought to myself, but my tongue couldn’t manage to get it out.

Then he was gone.

I watched him return to his vehicle, climb in and harness up. As he pulled forward, into first position, he didn’t look my way. That stung.

We drove for several hours but it was slow moving, which was typical. More and more Infected were drifting onto the interstate now, and there were a greater number of them visible in the trees alongside the roads. It looked like they were accumulating.

Strangely, while their bodies deteriorated, their energy never did. They moved with the same unsteady gait in no particular direction until they heard or saw us approaching. Then everything they preserved for the moments when they spotted us kicked in. Their focus narrowed, their speed increased, and their excitement soared. And it became a painfully clear reminder that we were their entire reason for existing. We were rock stars and they were sick, obsessed fans who wanted a tasty piece from their icons.

A brief spat of static crackled at my waist, followed by Doc’s voice blaring from the radio. “We’re only a few miles out. Should be seeing traffic anytime.”

Right
, I thought,
it was morning rush hour when the virus hit.

I peeled my attention from the roadway to find downtown Detroit’s skyline looming ahead like a cluster of grey generals huddled to survey their desolate landscape. They appeared untainted from what was happening on the ground at their base, which made me wonder if there was anyone alive inside.

We had taken I-96 East to cut down our travel time, which took us onto the I-696, down the Lodge and headlong into the city. Given this, we expected a certain amount of congestion, but what we hadn’t accounted for was the construction. I mean, who thinks about freeway renovation unless you live in the city and are forced to endure it daily?

I’d been to Detroit a total of three times—for a Tigers game, for shopping and a flaming cheese dish in Greektown called Saganaki, and to pick up a custom rifle my dad had bought—and none of those trips were during morning rush hour.

“Think we can get around it?” Doc asked, his voice filling the cab again.

Static followed just before Beverly’s spiteful voice cut in. “Sure, if you can shimmy that crane to the right a few feet. Get to it, big boy.”

I imagined Doc rolling his eyes.

Harrison’s voice broke from my hip, jarring me. “We knew this was likely. Follow the plan.”

Putting our vehicles in reverse, we backed out and turned around. Our mission today was to find the easiest route into the city, so we headed over to the I-275, the second main thoroughfare around and into Detroit. This was the lag of our excursion that had been grating me since leaving the reformatory.

I’d always hated reconnaissance, or any kind of intelligence gathering for that matter. It was monotonous, procedural, and often repetitive. Look at anything long enough and you’ll find that it has a pattern. Everything does. Once you discern it, you can find its fractures, a way in. That was our purpose today. But it was this systematic monitoring and recording that made me yawn. My dad once had me sit on a log and record everything I noticed in sight, right down to the empty can of soup someone had left against a tree root. I knew I’d failed the test when he asked me how many ounces it held, and I’d never forgotten it.

It was probably for this reason that I saw the fracture first. As the freeway curved around a block of two-story buildings, it came into view.

Detroit had a sig alert the morning the virus broke, it seemed. An eighteen wheeler had been just about to take an off-ramp into downtown when it had overturned and blocked an entire exit lane with the concrete blocks it had been carrying. They lay broken across the off-ramp as if a building had come down overhead, scattering its debris.

I pulled the radio free of its harness and hit the button. “Guys, we have a way in.”

A moment of silence followed before static buzzed from the radio.

“I think this day should be marked in history,” Doc’s fuzzy voice declared.

I pressed the button again. “Why’s that?”

“Because it has to be the first time anyone has been relieved to see an accident blocking the road.”

I smiled and laughed, my pitch sounding eager but hollow inside the empty Humvee.

“Let’s take a closer look,” Harrison suggested, his voice even more seductive. I couldn’t discern if it was because hope had replaced the last several hours of misery or because I instantly wished he was with me, in the cab, to share this simple joy.

That feeling rapidly diminished as we drove closer.

While the radios didn’t buzz again, I knew we’d all seen it…The reason the vehicle had overturned in the first place wasn’t from a blown tire or a driver cutting off the lane. Strewn in front of the truck, leading from the city to the bumper, were bodies, lots of them. Some were half-eaten, all of them were decomposing.

It was easy to envision what the driver saw and why he had swerved sharply enough to tip the truck on its side. A swarm of people, their mouths locked in a scream, blood staining their clothes, coming at you from an incline would have jarred anyone.

The radio screamed static again and Beverly said, “Well, we’re here. Might as well look around.”

This surprised me. Beverly was never one to stick her neck out and risk her life for…anything, but she was willing to go into a city likely crawling with Infected? It didn’t make sense.

Regardless, Harrison asserted, “That’s not the plan, Beverly.”

“But we have you as our human barometer, Harrison,” she countered. “You’ll tell us if bad news is coming.”

“We’ll be back tomorrow to clear the hospitals and collect supplies,” Harrison retorted, growing more agitated.

She didn’t reply.

Static spliced the air making Mei’s delicate voice that followed seem oddly contrasting. “We’re falling behind schedule.”

Beverly’s car began to move.

“BEVERLY!” Harrison snapped.

The Cayenne made its way to the front of our line, passing Harrison without stopping.

“You can’t make it across.”

I don’t think Mei understood how much Beverly would take that as a test, but the damage was already done.

The Cayenne didn’t stop at the blocks; instead it accelerated and the SUV sprang over the first row of concrete. It sank into the space between two pieces and rested there, idling, until Beverly gassed it again. It lifted, slanting under a large chunk of concrete, and climbed to its peak. Another burst of gas and the tire propelled the obstacle across the pavement, bouncing the vehicle forward. It stopped and wobbled like a bobblehead. Beverly gradually climbed the next concrete hill, gassing it enough to leap over this one too. To my complete astonishment, the Cayenne kept it up, crossing nearly fifty feet of broken concrete blocks. They were almost to the end when it bottomed out, teetering on the summit of one notably massive piece.

Beverly gunned the engine but it remained motionless, the tires spinning in vain.

I didn’t realize it until then, but I was so tense about them making it across that my shoulders were stationed near my ears. When they didn’t succeed, I felt my muscles let go in preparation for the arduous effort to find a solution to unhinge the damn thing.

Simultaneously, we exited our vehicles, quietly and with our weapons ready. Forming a single line, we made our way through the damage.

Once we were at the vehicle, Doc and Harrison bent to assess the problem. When they stood, each wore an uncertain expression. Doc muttered, “Nice going, Beverly.”

“Bite me.”

“So it looks like your Cayenne isn’t going anywhere,” Harrison said, delivering the bad news.

“Come on,” Christine sneered. “Can’t you just tip it or something?” She said this directly to Harrison.

“You can ride back with us,” he replied, ignoring her question. “We can bring boards with us tomorrow which you can use to drive it off the rubble.”

Beverly and Christina’s shoulders sank. They really were cut from the same cloth. Neither made a motion to leave.

We’d been sticking mostly to the south until we felt we had the supplies and preparedness required to enter a larger city, the closest one being Detroit. Being so exposed, the memory of the Infected’s feet echoing off the pavement in Chicago rushed back to me. But I realized fairly quickly that it was the pulse in my ears pounding away.

Slow it down, Kennedy. Breathe. From the gut.

Something about being out in the open like we were, exposed, more than fifty feet from a functioning vehicle made me extremely leery.

“You really can’t get it down?” Christina asked. “I thought you were omniscient.”

“Omnipotent,” Mei corrected.

“He’s neither,” I said and looked at Harrison for his reaction.

He was frowning, which I presumed to be coming from his impatience at being relied on. There was something steely in his focus that should have alerted me to the fact that my assumption about him was wrong. To this day I regret not picking up on it. I regret it to my core.