Survival (7 page)

Aside from the tire tracks from the sedan, the lawn was lush and green. He stepped across the soft earth, doing his best not to call attention to himself.

He glanced at the houses around him. Caddy’s house was the last one on the street; all the remaining properties lay to his left. The McDonalds’ house was directly across the road. The garage door hung open like a trap, beckoning him inside. He could still make out the silhouette of the car in its bay.

Noah surveyed the rest of the house. The bulk of the windows were smashed; clothing was strewn across the lawn. Through the broken panes he could make out the shadows of furniture, but not much else. Without power, the interior was dark, and he imagined a plethora of creatures waiting to pounce on him inside.

According to Caddy, the McDonalds had lived there with their daughter Isabelle. At one time, the property had been well maintained, but now it resembled little more than a squat house.

Noah left the grass behind and stepped onto the street. Without the shade of the house, the sun beat down harder, and he wiped his head with his sleeve. He picked up his pace.

Should he enter through the garage or the front door? Both were open. Hopefully the McDonalds hadn’t left with the car keys on them. Maybe he could find a spare key.

He stared at the back of the hybrid, smiling at the vanity license plate. “MCDNLDZ”. In the scope of what was going on, the tag seemed irrelevant, dated. He veered onto the lawn and headed for the garage. He’d check the vehicle first, just in case. Maybe the keys had been left in it.

In contrast to the rest of the neighborhood, the driveway was new and unmarked. He wondered if it had just been redone. He could envision the family planning their lives there, oblivious to the chaos that was soon to follow. As far as he could tell, the neighborhood was nice.

In different circumstances, Noah wouldn’t have minded living in it.

He stalked up the driveway and entered the one-car garage. The building was just wide enough for one vehicle, but there were a few garden tools on either side. He shuffled past them, doing his best not to disturb the quiet.

The vehicle’s windows were tinted. He pointed the rifle at the car and did his best to peer inside. The seats were spotless. There was no one hiding inside that he could see.

He tried the driver’s side door handle. It was locked. A quick pull on the other doors yielded the same result.

So much for things being easy.

He glared at the door leading into the house. Like the front door, it was ajar, but he could make out little of the house’s interior. He made his way around the car until he’d reached it.

Before entering, he paused, listening for signs of danger. The house was silent. He slipped through the doorway, leading with his rifle.

The first room was the kitchen. He was immediately greeted by a diorama of pots and pans. Kitchenware was strewn across the counters, as if someone had torn through the room when the infection hit. Was the mess from the residents or the intruders?

It was possible the clutter was the result of the looters Caddy had mentioned.

He scanned the counters for a set of keys, hoping they’d be within reach. Stacks of paperwork and bills were littered across the floor. He kicked them aside but found nothing of interest.

A thought struck him.

If the keys had been out in the open, the looters would’ve snatched them. The more likely scenario was that they were hidden. Noah decided to switch tactics, starting with the more out-of-reach places. He gave the open drawers a cursory glance, then switched focus to the cabinets.

Neither yielded the keys.

After a fruitless search, he moved on to the dining room. The remainder of the property was in no better shape than the kitchen. Noah stepped over broken furniture and debris, half-expecting to find dead bodies on the floor or a stray animal that had wandered in from outside.

To his relief, he found neither.

After exhausting the ground floor, he moved on to the upstairs. If he couldn’t find the keys, he’d cut his losses and leave. There were other vehicles on the street. Even as damaged as they were, one of them was bound to be drivable.

He took the stairs a step at a time, leading with his rifle. The wooden steps groaned. He shuddered at the sound. He reminded himself that Caddy was keeping watch outside, that if something were to follow after him, she’d surely call his name.

At the same time, he was out of sight.

He needed to be careful.

When he’d reached the landing, he looked left and right, getting a feel for the layout. There were two doors to his left—a bathroom and a master bedroom. To the right were two others. One looked like an office, the other a child’s bedroom. He took a left, heading for the master.

Perhaps the keys were in there.

He eased into the hallway. As he proceeded, he couldn’t help but picture the people who had once walked the same path—both the family that resided here, and the intruders who had come after. Knowing he was walking the same rooms was enough to give him chills.

The house felt like a prop, a cardboard cutout, and he couldn’t imagine people living in it.

The master bedroom was disheveled but in slightly better shape than the downstairs. Noah figured the owners had been elsewhere when the infection hit; perhaps the looters hadn’t come this far.

Noah noticed a pair of jeans sticking out from the far side of the bed. They were long and skinny, and looked like they belonged to a woman. Were they Mrs. McDonald’s? He bent down and scooped them up.

Something rattled inside one of the pockets.
The keys
, he thought.

He patted the pants until he found the source of the noise, then fished out a keychain. He recognized the Toyota emblem on the largest key and felt his heart skip a beat.

He’d found it.

He let the pants fall to the floor and stuck the keychain in his pocket. Feeling accomplished, he turned toward the doorway.

A bang sounded from across the hall.

The noise seemed to come out of nowhere—a series of intermittent raps. He froze in place, hands shaking on the rifle. He stared through the open door of the master bedroom into the darkened hall.

The noise stopped.

There were two doors across the hallway, the office and the child’s bedroom. In neither did he see what could have caused the disturbance.

He stared for a full minute, but the noise didn’t repeat.

Maybe he’d been hearing things. His nerves were on edge, after all. Over the past few days, his life had become a series of traumas, each more gruesome than the next. Perhaps his senses were finally failing him.

He took a tentative step toward the doorway, making his way around the bed. The rifle felt like rubber in his hands. Even though he’d fired the weapon several times, he still wasn’t confident in his aim. The three bullets inside were hardly enough to make him feel secure.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and took another step. Even though the noise had stopped, he found himself trying to recreate the sound. Where had it originated? Had it been in his head? He didn’t know which scenario was worse. If the attacker was real, at least he had an idea what he was up against, but if he’d lost his grip…

The
bang
repeated. One loud knock followed by two smaller ones.

It was coming from the child’s bedroom. Inside he could see stuffed animals and dolls on a bureau, a poster of a pop star. The door was twenty feet away. His glance leapt to the stairwell, which was only half the distance.

If he could reach it quietly, he could get out. He had no idea what might be lurking in the bedroom, but he had no desire to find out. He must’ve made too much noise in the kitchen.

Dammit.

He took a few harried steps into the hallway. The banging resumed. It was almost as if whatever was in that room was aware of what he was doing and was trying to stop him. But they were too late.

He’d already reached the stairwell, and he clopped down the stairs, no longer concerned about making noise. The house was already making him feel trapped and claustrophobic, and his only thought was to get out.

He was stopped by a whimper.

The banging had been replaced by a soft mewling. The noise floated down the staircase like a siren song, beckoning him backward. A thought struck him. What if there was a survivor upstairs?

What if Isabelle had survived?

He clutched the rifle, torn by a new dilemma. He tried to remember what Caddy had said about the family. He was certain she’d said they were all infected, but what if she’d been mistaken? What if the young girl was hiding in her room, alone and scared?

What if the knock had been a cry for help?

Noah aimed the rifle up the stairs, heart thundering. Out of nowhere, he pictured his own family. For all he knew, Mom and Dad and Ricky were still alive. But Isabelle’s family had been stripped away. If he didn’t save her, who would?

His mind screamed at him to turn around, to run out of the house, but his conscience pulled him backward. Before he knew it, he was climbing the stairs. He needed to be certain.

The whimper came again. This time there was no mistaking the sound. It was from a little girl.

Noah reached the landing and stared through the half-open doorway into the child’s bedroom. From this angle, he could see a bedpost and the corner of the bureau, but no signs of Isabelle. He took one step. Then two.

His view became clearer, but the right half of the room was still obstructed. He noticed a closet in the far left corner. Would she be hiding there? Or would she be out in the open?

He slipped through the opening, holding the rifle at chest level. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her, but he didn’t want to take any chances, either.

In contrast to the rest of the house, the room was clean. There were a few dolls and toys on the floor, but the place didn’t appear to have been ransacked. Perhaps the looters—as unconscionable as they were—had decided to give the child’s room a pass. Either that or there was nothing of value inside.

Did anything even
have
value anymore?

He’d just taken another step when he saw an outfit lying on the bed: a child-sized skirt, complete with leggings and shoes.

Had Isabelle been hiding here all along? Was she too frightened to leave? He envisioned her tidying her room and playing with her things, trying to recreate some semblance of normalcy in a world that’d gone haywire.
What if she’d been alive the entire time, waiting for her parents to return?

He needed to find her. He needed to get her out of here.

He moved deeper into the room. There was no one in plain sight. That left two hiding spots: the girl was either in the closet or under the bed. He bent down until his face was level with the floor. A white bed skirt surrounded the mattress. He reached out with his hand, thought better of it, and used the barrel of his rifle instead.

The underside of the bed was a myriad of shadows. He scanned from left to right, searching the dark corners. His eyes landed on a shoebox, a stuffed animal, and a pile of clothes, but there was no one underneath.

Until there was.

Noah jumped back as something moved under the bed.

“Isabelle?” he hissed.

The room was silent.

He crept back over, keeping a safe distance from the mattress. The girl must be afraid. He couldn’t blame her. If he were in her shoes, he couldn’t be dragged out of hiding, either.

He lifted the bed skirt again, hoping to coax her out. Before he could locate her, something darted out at him. Noah fumbled for the rifle and struggled to take aim.

It wasn’t the girl, but a gerbil.

The animal skirted past him, frantic. He watched as it scurried out of sight and disappeared into the hallway. Noah looked across the room. An empty cage was sitting next to the bureau, the door open. Inside it was a vacant exercise wheel.

Someone must have let the gerbil out.

Noah’s pulse still roared behind his ears. He shook his head. At least he wasn’t hearing things. He might be crazy, but his senses were intact.

He got to his feet, doing his best to dust off the fear that had plagued him since entering the house.

The closet door crashed open, revealing the snarling visage of Isabelle.

T
he infected girl was on him before he could fire a shot. She tackled him to the ground with unbelievable strength. It was as if the virus had supplied her with superhuman capabilities, giving her the brute force of someone twice her size. Noah fought to keep her at bay, recoiling as her teeth grew near.

He still had a grip on the rifle, but the weapon was sideways. Unable to fire it, he attempted to use it as a blockade, a last-ditch barrier between him and the ravenous little girl.

He stared into her eyes—two black marbles without reflection or emotion. Her skin was gray and wrinkled, as if ready to peel off her and reveal a new person underneath.

He pushed the rifle away from him, hoping to throw the little girl off, but Isabelle kept her deadly grip on the stock and barrel. She snapped at him over the top, doing her best to gnaw his flesh.

Noah turned his head. If the girl got ahold of him, it’d be over. Once she took the first bite, she’d keep tearing and clawing until he was dead. He needed to get out from underneath her. He needed to break free.

A second later he got his opening.

He thrust his knee upward, catching her in the stomach. The girl let out a screech and released her grasp on the gun.

Noah shoved the rifle upwards, connecting with her jaw, and sent the little girl reeling onto the floor. Then he scampered to his feet. He raised the gun, intending to fire off a round, but Isabelle had already pounced.

Noah fell backward against the bed. The frame slid across the floor a few inches; the clothes tumbled off and onto the carpet. Isabelle flailed at the bed, tearing at the bed sheets in an attempt to get at him. He could see the door out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t dare make a run for it.

The second his back was turned, she’d shred him.