Scarlet Memories (Book 1) (6 page)

‘Make yourself comfortable and I’ll be right back.’ Sam nodded. She turned quickly on her heel and headed towards the kitchen. Which also happened to be next to her room.

‘Jaime.’ She whispered as she entered the room. She saw his head pop up, his eyes were bloodshot.

‘Who is that lady? She looks sick.’ He said chewing on his index finger nail.

‘She is our neighbor from downstairs. She is very old and I think she might be a little sick. So, I want you to stay in here until I call you out. Ok?’ She asked Jaime. Her eyes widening with each word. She definitely didn’t want her meeting Jaime after seeing her now. She had to think of a way to get her out.

Sam kept on trying to rap Ruth’s appearance around her mind. Something was wrong with her.
Maybe it was her leg?
Sam thought. It probably was from the blood that she saw earlier. Maybe she had a deep infection of some sort. It certainly stank quite badly. The lady needed medical attention. Sam went into her room and shut the door. She looked passed her bed and saw that  Jaime was still waiting at the edge. His eyes were wide and seemed very worried about the woman in the living room.

‘SShhh.’ Sam spoke softly. She raised a finger to her lips.

‘I’m going to make a phonecall. She needs medical attention. She is very sick.’

Sam emphasized once more to be quiet. She opened grabbed her cell phone from the bed and placed a call to 911. Surely, they would know what to do with her. And perhaps get her out of this apartment. The phone rang for a good long while. Sam completely lost hope for an answer. Eventually, a cool and collected voice chimed in on the other line.

‘
THIS IS THE POLICE DEPARTMENT’S HOTLINE FOR EMERGENCIES AND LIFE
THREATENING EVENTS ONLY. ALL AGENTS ARE WITH SOMEONE ON THE OTHERLINE. PLEASE HOLD ON THIS LINE UNTIL SOMEONE CAN ASSIST YOU WITH YOUR CALL, ACCORDING TO THE ORDER IN WHICH IT WAS RECEIVED
.’

Sam listened to the message thoroughly once more. The line stayed busy for a few more moments. She knew that she couldn’t stay in her room much longer. Ruth might start to wonder what she was doing. Sam dropped the phone on to her bed once more and told Jaime she would be back in a few minutes to check on him. Walking back in the kitchen sam noticed the awful smell once again.

‘Ruth can I get you something to drink?’ She asked the old woman.

She walked into the living room to check on her. Ruth’s head was slumped down over her chest. Her breathing seemed quite labored. Her head bobbing up and down like a cork in the water.

‘Ruth…are you awake?’ She asked, walking a little closer to her.

Ruth’s body was very stiff even through the breathing.

‘Ruth….’ She asked once more.

Sam thought that she heard the old lady say something. But, it was so faint that she couldn’t make it out.

‘Ruth, are you alright?’ She asked tightly squeezing her fist.

Ruth raised her head suddenly. Sam allowed relief to wash over her. She didn’t give herself time to realize that something was wrong with Ruth’s eyes. They were a brown color. Now, they are a bright yellow color and extremely blood shot. Sam turned her gaze back to the old woman. She could see that she had begun to foam at the mouth. This was not looking good. She had gotten progressively worse in just the short time that she had left the room. And that had only taken her five minutes. What was wrong with her? Could she be having a seizure? So many questions were running through her mind at the moment.

Sam walked over to her and pressed a hand to her forhead. Ruth grunted at her ominously as her hand made contact. She was burning up! Her skin was also extremely clamy too.

‘Ruth, I am going to get some cool rags to try and bring down that fever you have. Stay here ok.’

Even if she managed to pick herself up off of the couch, Sam doubted she would be able to walk. It was a mere miracle that she even made it up to her room. Sam walked back to her room and into her bathroom. She gathered a few rags and a small pan to put water into.

As she ran cold water into the pan, Sam heard a  loud thud coming from the living room.
Ruth must have fell off of the couch.
She thought, setting down the supplies and rushing to the bedroom door. She could hear more sounds coming from the living room now. She placed her ear to the surface of the door. It felt cool to the touch. She heard movement coming from the kitchen this time. Did she dare crack the door to sneak a peek? She was afraid to. But, she had to do it. She had the boy to take care of.

Sam slowly and quietly opened the bedroom door. She could barely make out a short figure standing in her kitchen at the fridge. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out that it was Ruth. She seemed to have so much more enerdy. 
What is going on with this woman?
Sam asked herself. She shut the door silently and spun around to face Jaime.

‘Whatever you hear, do not open this door. I want you to lock it a soon as I step out.’ She told him.

She walked over to the supplies she had been preparing. She gathered everything up and made sure to include a large pair of scissors. She walked over to the door and nodded to Jaime. He watched her intently as she slowly opened the bedroom door and walked out. He shut the door and locked it.

Outside the door in the kitchen, the two of them stood together. Ruth’s back was to Sam. Her body still quivering nervously.

‘Ruth….’ Sam managed to splurt out.

She was terrified of what might turn around. She had a feeling that she was right in her assumption.  Ruth spun around at the sound of Sam’s voice. Her jaw opened wide, foam streaming down the sides. She had foam all down her shirt. It covered the kitties down the front. And her eyes were a deeper shade of yellow now, there was no white left in them. Some of the foam had blood mixed in with it. A closer glance and Sam could see that it was from Ruth biting down on the sides of her lips. She had bitten clean through in one area.

‘Oh god Ruth!’ Sam cried.

She had dropped the medical supplies onto the floor in front of her. She was not expecting this. But, she was pretty darn sure that Ruth had turned into one of those things that were downstairs
. But, how?
Sam thought. She racked her brain trying to think if she saw anything wrong with her earlier. And then it hit her, She had that wound on her leg
. I bet one of those things bit or scratched her. That would explain the smell.
Sam snapped back to Ruth’s scary figure in front of her. What would she do?

At that moment, Sam watched as Ruth let out a gut wrenching screech. So loud that it broke one of her glasses on her kitchen counter. Sam raised her hands up over her ears. But, nothing would help. The sound was abnormally loud. Then, Ruth began to sprint towards Sam. The foam trailing down her face and out behind her. Sam felt an overwhelming sense of fear rush over her. She tried to let out a scream. But, nothing would come out. She had never been so scared in her life. The only thing that she could think of to do, was hold out the scissors that she had in the medical kit. She had no time for anything else.

Chapter Four: Horde

Ian tried to brace himself for the impact. He didn’t really have much time at all to prepare. As they smashed into the tree, Ian and the others all slammed forward. They would all hit what ever was in front of them with their foreheads. Ian’s head hit the dash of the truck with a loud crack. It immediately pulsed with pain. After a long moment he was able to open his eyes. The pain was seering now throughout his body. At first he didn’t feel anything but his head. Now, his back and arms hurt too.

As he opened his eyes, Ian saw Susan crumpled over the steering wheel. Her body had cuts all over it. As he kept looking her over Ian noticed the windshield had been shattered to pieces. The glass must have scraped her as it fell.

‘Susan? ‘ Ian croaked.

It hurt his throat when he tried to speak. He realized that he was quite thirsty and desperately needed water. Ian watched as Susan slowly began to move. Her head lifted first and then the rest of her body followed suit. She was wiping the blood out of her eyes when on of those
things
showed up next to her window. Susan screeched with fear. The guys in the back heard her and jolted up. They all looked very groggy.

‘Susan!’ Ian screamed.

He realized that her window hadn’t been broken. But, her side of the windshield was caved in more from the wreck. That
thing
outside her window could get to her soon if he didn’t do something. It was already pawing at Susan from the outside. It’s jaws expanding far more than the average human. It wasn’t human anymore though. And what ever these things were when they turned; they don’t care about mutilating the host’s body to mutate their dna.

Ian grabbed at her seatbelt and pressed hard on the harnesses button. It immediately released her belt and Susan broke free. She quickly scooted next to Ian. The guys in the back were all scampering around trying to figure out what to do.

Having to think light on his feet, Ian pushed open his door and stepped out. He traced his surroundings with his green eyes. The only undead that he saw was at Susan’s window. He rushed over to it swiftly. First, he made sure that the thing hadn’t noticed him and searched the ground for anything that he could use to take it down. The first
thing
he saw of use was the mirror  of the side mirror of the truck. It had broken off in the crash. It now had a more jagged edging to it and could be used to create a blunt force.

Ian swooped down and grabbed the mirror on the ground next to the
thing
. He nearly lost his footing as he did so, because, the
thing
noticed him and charge at him. Ian barely made it several feet away before the
thing
was able to reach for him. It seemed quite slow. Where as, Allison was much quicker.
Maybe this thing had been around longer than Allison. Before she turned…
He thought.

As he stepped a little further back, Ian glared at the mirror. He was trying to find the jagged edging. After a second, he found it and held out the mirror facing with the jagged edge directly up front. As the
thing
approached him, Ian  reared back the arm holding the mirror and  slammed it into the
thing
’s head. Dead center between it’s eyes. A loud cracking noise sounded as the mirror collided with it’s skull. The sound made Ian’s skin crawl. He never wanted to have to do that in real life. Acting just came natural to him. But, this, this was something entirely else.

The
thing
fell to the ground with a loud thud. All of the weight it had was dead weight. The landing was in no way graceful. As it fell, you could distinctly hear several bones break in either it’s back or leg areas. Ian flinched when he heard this. He turned away from the body just intime to catch his breathe before seeing another one on it’s way. In fact, there were many more coming.
It was an entire horde of them
!

Ian peered out into the vast amount of bodies heading towards him. They all had crazy expressions about their faces. Every single one smeared with blood. Many different types and shapes of people were in the group. He even noticed a few were missing arms and sometimes a leg. But, even if they had to crawl, they would still come. Nothing would stop them. They may not be as fast as the average human but, they are diligent. And will continue to come at you through any obsticle. Even if it meant getting injury to the body.

Ian held his breath and ran around to the other side of the car. He quickly opened the doors to the cab of the truck. He had to get them out of there. Or it would be like throwing chum into the ocean for Great White sharks to come and feed at the side of a boat. There would be no escape. Susan and the others jumped out swiftly. There would be no need to shut the cab doors. They would be abandoning this vehicle. All five of them watched as the horde got closer and closer. Susan looked at Ian. Her eye’s seemed to ask him
what to do
? And he wasn’t even sure if he could answer her. His body was just as  frozen as hers. He was just as scared. He had no idea how to get out of this situation.

As the terrifying swell of the undead moved closer to them, Ian pulled out  one of his weapons from his bag inside of the truck. It was a make-shift melee weapon he made from taking the metal camera stands and tapping them together. He basically made a very hard metal staff out of it. If he could put some distance between those
things
and himself, he would be happy. The closer they were, the less he felt safe. And what he needed right now was to feel safe.

One of the undead made it to the group before the others. He came  through the bushes next to the tree where the truck had crashed. It was a good thing that Ian had gone back to retrieve his weapon or they might never have noticed it coming. Ian pressed his back foot firmer into the ground and held his staff out in front of him. He held it sideways so that he could spin it easily if he needed too. He remembered playing with cane poles as a kid. How he would pretend he was a sith from Star Wars, weilding a giant double sided laser staff. He practiced every day so, he felt comfortable in using this homemade weapon.

Ian quickly snapped the rods of metal towards the undead’s head. As the two collided, there was a very loud and cringe worthy snap. The undead hit the ground. It’s dirty face was laying down in the dirt but, you didn’t have to see it’s face to notice the giant crater missing from it’s forehead. Globs of congealed blood had already started ozzing out of the side of it’s head.

Ian snapped the end of his staff to clean the blood off of it. He did this as he noticed another
thing
stumbeling towards him. He ran up to it using the rods as a javelin. Although he never let go of the giant rod. He did use it to hit the
thing
directly in between the eyesd and push it to the ground. Close enough for him to take out his pocket knife. He jammed it betwixed it’s eyes. Holding it there until it stopped moving beneath him.

‘Ian look out!’ Susan cried at him.

She was pointing in front of Ian. He hadn’t noticed because he was too busy with the thing beneath him. Susan ran up with one of those anti-theft steering wheel lockers in her right hand. She thrust it at the undead with all of her might. It did not take the undead down though, to Susan’s demise. You could see the fear rushing over her face as she again swung at the undead. The second swing did more damage this time. Susan watched as the undead stumbled onto the ground. It’s hands were still out stretched towards her. She placed her foot onto it’s neck and buried the weapon into it’s thick skull.

Just as Ian picked himself up off of the ground to attack another
thing
headed towards Susan, he immediately saw the rest of the group pull up next to them.  Jeremy and the people in his van got out and started to get them into the vehicle. They were not taking any chances with taking on this horde. And for good reason. There were way too many of them. If we could just leave them behind we might have a fighting chance.

Jeremy almost had everyone into the vehicle when he noticed that they were missing Ricky from the Make up dept. He peered around looking for Ricky’s thin profile. He almost gave up when he finally spotted him. He was standing in the middle of the horde. His face wore a blank expression. As Jeremy moved closer he understood why. One of the undead had a fist through his heart. Blood was running down his chest as the
thing
pulled his hand through. It exposed a complete hole where his heart should have been. The swarm caved in on him suddenly. They started ripping him apart limb by limb. They started on his arms first. They pulled those out from the sockets. Ricky fell to the ground and then there was nothing. You could no longer see his body because, there were too many of them on top of him. Eventually, you could no longer see that there had been a center to the horde at all. There were so many of them trying to get to Ricky.

Jeremy looked away. There were tears in his eyes. That was so horrible. And it happened on his watch.
Why the hell did that kid get so far over there anyway?
Jeremy jumped inside the van and slammed the door shut as fast as he could. More of them were coming. It seems it did not take them that long to ravage Ricky’s body. Many of them were covered in pales of blood. In this Texas weather, it had already began to dry.

‘Let’s go!’ Jeremy cried swirling his finger around above his head.

The van took off. As Ian looked back he noticed that the rest of the group had followed Jeremy instead of pushing on. This whole motion of never stopping was literal just as much as it was medaphorical. They had no time to mourn for Ricky. He was just gone. And they couldn’t allow themselves to stop and wonder what could have been. They had to push on.

‘I need to find my son still.’ Susan said to Jeremy as he stepped back inside of the vehicle.

‘I still intend on giving you guys another vehicle. We are going to give you Dan’s from Editing. It’s not that much compared to the truck that you had before…but, it’ll get you a few more miles down the road and back.’ He told Susan. Jeremy looked around at Ian’s group. They all looked distraught. Blood covered their clothes from the crash.

‘You might want to clean up too.’ Jeremy told Ian.

He pointed to his shirt. Blood from his head wound was dripping onto it.

‘I think they can smell the blood.’ Jeremy said as he handed Ian a baby wipe that he had found in the car.

‘Use this to wipe it off and I’ll get you another shirt unless you have one.’

‘No, thanks. I have one.’ Ian told Jeremy as he pulled out a clean shirt from his bag.

He motioned for the others to change too. They drove a little further and then parked to let the other’s out. It was time to switch vehicles with Dan. Everyone with Dan would go with Jeremy. It would be tight. But, they were down the road from the school and wouldn’t have to drive to long cramped up.

They loaded up in Dan’s car. It was a little Honda Accord and a later model. It would be enough now that there was only four of them. Sadly, if Ricky were still here there wouldn’t be enough room for Jaime. Dan came around to Susan’s window and handed her the keys.

‘Take good care of her. I have had her for 15 years.’ Dan said glumly.

‘We will!’ Ian said from the passenger side of the vehicle.

‘She’ll come back in one piece. Scouts honor!’ Ian told him. Crossing his two fingers over his heart. There really was no way to tell this guy that he wasn’t exactly sure what would happen to his car. But, honestly the car wasn’t his main priority. Jaime was right now. And once he got Jaime back to the school, he would be focusing on getting back to New York. Anything to keep his mind off of the craziness of the world now.

Susan took off onto their path once more. The others turned off to the left of the highway heading towards the school. If you squinted, you could see it down at the end of the road. There were many trees covering the its path. Atleast, once they got to the school they would be able to get some shade from this heat. It had to be atleast a 100 degrees. You could cook on the sidewalk it’s so hot outside. But, they had a fair amount of water on them and food as well. So, Ian felt confident that they would be ok if they ran into trouble.

The group passed by Ian’s as they drove off. Everyone looked relieved from what Ian could tell as he looked through his side mirror. He was extremely glad that his friends were going to a safe place. Now, they would embark on another journey. And hopefully save this kid so that he could be safe too.

They drove passed a convenience store located directly off of a nearby exit. It was a truck stop gas station. So, it would have plenty of gas for them to grab extra for the rest of the group to have for generators. Or anything that needed gas. Ian made note of the exit it was at so, they would stop by on the way back to the school. It only took a few more minutes to make it to their main exit for the Hotel. It was a rather large hotel so, you could see it off of the highway. It’s outside was a golden yellow, with finely polished windows. And a very elegant miniature garden out front. Many of the bushes and flowers had begun to wilt though. The summer heat was butal today. In fact, it may just be the hottest day of all so far. Ian knew that they would have to scrounge more water up before leaving the hotel. Usually, hotels had large water containers for the water dispenser. He would make sure to check.