The Infected (Book 1): Jim's First Day (19 page)

“What
about the rest of them?” Sara has a new nail in her mouth and she works it to
the quick. There is a noise at the window. One of them made it up to the door.
It reaches through the window.

“There’s
only a couple left. We’ll deal with them out there.”

“Almost
done,” Frank flips the clips over and works on the last one.

I
jog over to door on the far wall and press my ear to it. A few good taps
against it and I do not hear anything. I pop the door open and look around. It
is a hallway. The lights are out but it is clear.

“You
guys ready?” Frank pops his clip back into the rifle. I prop the door open in
case we have to run back this way.

The
hallways are lined with
papier-mâché
projects and colorful construction paper, flowers
and trees mostly. Their names scribbled down on the works of art. Ashley,
Kristin, Zack, Gunner, Heather, so many little boys and girls that never had a
chance. We pass a series of classrooms and get to a wide, empty hall. It is the
main entrance into the school. The outside glass doors are spattered in blood.
There are still a handful of them out by the buses.

“Look,”
Devon points outside. The inside of the buses are what caught his eye. Little
hands paw at the windows. Both buses are full. Every seat has a dead child in
it. I try the next door to let us into the backend of the school. It is locked.

“Crap.
We’ll have to go this way,” I point at the main doors. “We’ll take down the
ones right outside and head for the apartment.”

“Yeah,”
Frank agrees. I push open the first of two doors that go outside.

“Save
your ammo. We can take them.” I push open the last door. The door clicks and
screeches, it lets them know exactly where we are. They charge straight for us
and the three of us hammer the little infected and remaining staff. Frank hangs
back to make sure we do not get surrounded. We are down to the last couple
infected. A few more swings and this is over.

BOOM!

The
gunshot did not come from Frank. Devon is on the ground. Blood seeps from his
leg. The shot came from a man on the other side of the parking lot with a large
revolver in his hand. He is covered in blood.

“Stop
killing them!” the man pleads. Frank has his gun up and trained on the man’s
chest.

“We
have to! If they bite you you’ll turn!” I yell back at him as I move to Devon’s
side. Sara takes down the last infected child. The man runs across the parking
lot and aims at Sara.

BOOM!

He
misses.

“Hold
your fire!” I put pressure on Devon’s leg.

“They’re
dead!” Sara yells as she ducks down.

“My
baby’s here. Don’t kill them!” his voice cracks. Tears and snot run down his
face. He has lost his shit. I lift up Devon’s leg the round passed through.
Everything I know about gunshot wounds I learned from TV and movies. I can’t
tell if it is better that it passed through or not. He has two holes in his leg
but at least I will not have to dig around for the bullet. The man looks up at
a bus and he falls to his knees.

“Oh,
God no!” he found who he was looking for.

“AM
I GONNA DIE?!” Devon grabs me.

“No,
you’re not! You’re gonna go into shock, but you won’t die! I promise.”

The
man is on the ground, screaming at the top of his lungs.

“What
should we do?” Frank keeps his gun aimed at the man. 

He
gets up from the asphalt and heads for the back of the bus. “Teagan!” he grabs
the release lever on the emergency door and pulls it down.

“What
are you doing?!” I look up from Devon.

“My
baby!” he swings the door open and they pour out onto him. Frank fires and
downs a couple but it is too late. They have him. Their little mouths and hands
tear into his flesh. Frank fires off a few more rounds and then his gun stops
firing.

“It’s
jammed,” Frank works the bolt on the SKS, but it is not clearing the casing.
The bus is packed with kids and they tumble through the rear emergency exit.
There must be forty blood thirsty infected kids. The man is smothered in
bodies. His screams become thick gargles as the infected tear out his throat.
The rest of them have set their sights on us. Frank works at his gun. Sara
pulls on my backpack for us to leave. Devon tries to keep me close and I do not
know what to do. I can’t leave Devon. I won’t leave him. I can see my actual
apartment. H7. Is right there. So Goddamn close.

Frank
lets go of his SKS and the shoulder strap swings it back under his arm. He
pulls both Berettas out and takes down the first bunch of infected. More and
more dead children fall from the back of the bus. They land hard on the ground.
Some of them break their limbs as they fall. Their little forearms bend backwards
as they tumble to the ground. I grab Devon’s wrists and pull him to his feet.
He makes a hell of a lot of racket as I move him. He dances around on his good
leg until I get my shoulder down in his mid section and toss him up into a fireman’s
carry. Thank God he is skinny.

“Grab
his spear!” I bark at Sara. She clobbers an infected ten year old with her
blade bat and then grabs the spear.

We
race. The final sprint home. After hours of running scared I will finally be
home. We are minutes from walking through my front door. There is a field of
grass that separates the school from my apartment complex and a fence separates
the two. No way I can climb it with Devon so we have to run to the end. Of
course the end of the fence sits at the far corner of the field. It is three
football fields long. I need a break. An hour or two on my couch would feel
great. To rest, breathe easy and try to forget today. If I sit down, I will not
get back up. I will fall asleep. I can’t wait to hold my girls. All three of
them. If it was possible I would never let them go. I love to hold them in my
arms and feel the skin of their cheeks against my neck. Their little hands
wrapped around my fingers. When I see my wife I am going to give her a good
long kiss. Usually when I get home from work we give each other a peck to say
hello. This time I am going in for a long one. Maybe try and turn it French. I
know I am filthy and stink to high heaven, but I bet I can make it happen. I
think she loves me enough to kiss this filth.

Devon
is heavy on my shoulder and he throws off how I run. Instead of being light and
running on the balls of my feet, I run flatfooted and my joints scream in pain.
Devon’s gunshot wound pours blood. The back of his green camo pants has turned
dark purple. If he bleeds out and dies while he is on my shoulder he might try
and bite me. With every step my anxiety builds. My brain plays out awful
scenarios over and over again. I am too late. They are not there waiting for
me. Something terrible has happened. All these thoughts are repeated over and
over again. Plus, the horde of hungry infected preteens does not help. They
chase after us like it is a game. The most horrifying game of tag ever. I look
back as I cross from the parking lot to the field. Sara is behind me. Frank is
not far behind her. He holsters one of his Berettas so he can change out the
clip as he runs. He gets both clips changed out for fresh ones and whips around
and opens fire. He takes down another ten. His aim is off. He got the horde of
kids down to about thirty. It is still too many to fight out in the open. They
will surround us and we will be goners. We are halfway across the field.

There
is a gate in the fence at the corner of the field. It is unlocked and wide
open. Frank has caught back up with me.

“Sara,
get the gate!” It takes everything I have to get the words out of my mouth.
Devon’s weight on my shoulder crushes my lungs. She takes off and in a matter
of seconds she is way ahead of us.

She
gets through the gate and drops her weapons. It is rusty so she works it back
and forth until she is able to get it to shut. Frank gets there first and I am
right behind him. As soon as we are clear she has the gate shut and lever down,
locking it. I lay Devon down on a patch of grass. His face has gone white. His
eyelids flutter.

“Don’t
go to sleep!” I give him a little punch in the arm. The infected are at the
fence, but they can’t get over it.

“Okay.”
Devon nods at me.

“I
need a knife,” Frank gasps. I pull one from my hip and hand it to him. I pull
my belt off and wrap it around Devon’s leg. My extra knives and machete fall to
the ground. I get the belt tight around his leg.

“Get
the medkit out of my pack.”

Sara
steps behind me and unzips the pack. She finds it, pops it open and finds a
couple large bandages and some gauze. We get bandages on both wounds and wrap it
as tight as we can. I use my belt to hold everything in place.

“There
we go!” Frank has worked out the jammed casing. He slides the bolt back and
forth and his rifle is ready to rock. He empties the last of his clip into the
monsters on the other side of the fence. Frank flips the banana clip around and
takes care of the rest.

“Come
on buddy. You’re doing good. We’re almost there. Take a drink of water,” I help
him get his water line into his mouth.

“Can
you toss the knives and machetes into my pack with the medkit?” I ask Sara. She
tucks it and the knives into the bag. Frank picks up the machete and slides it
onto his belt.

“I’m
tapped out and need to reload everything,” Frank swings the SKS onto his back
and picks up Devon’s spear. I take a look around the parking lot. My wife’s green
PT Cruiser is in her spot.

“Jim!”
Frank needs my attention. I look up and it is another nightmare. We go from the
very young to the very old. The thing I feared earlier today. There is an old
folks home on the next block and it looks like every single one of them has
been turned and found this apartment complex. The one good thing about super
old infected people is that they are slow. Imagine an old person, someone in
their late eighties walking around. It takes them forever to get anywhere. Then
add being dead and chewed on, and you got a group of deadly snails blocking us
from my apartment. These poor old people are horrible to look at. Open robes
and nothing on underneath. It is amazing how many of them have colostomy bags.
It is a cruel prank Mother Nature plays on us. Seventy plus years with a normal
functioning body and then everything falls apart the last two decades.

I
pull Devon to his feet. Frank has his revolver and he puts down the first six
old people.

“H7!
Come on!” I wrap Devon’s arm over my shoulders and he hops along on his good
leg. Frank and Sara lead the way. The two of them make a path. They decimate the
retired old folks. I drag Devon. His eyes are shut.

“Don’t
go to sleep! Wake your ass up and help me!” He pops his peeper’s open and tries
to help carry more of his weight on his good leg. We get to the sidewalk outside
my home.

“You
gotta hop up!” Devon hops up onto the curb.

Each
building is made up of four apartments. There are two on the top floor and two
on the main. My place is on the first floor. The door is tucked back into the
building. A flight of stairs to the second story takes up half of the entryway.
At the top of the stairs someone has blocked up the landing with two by fours
and plywood. I have lived here almost two years and I barely know my neighbors.
There is a deaf guy across from us. A deaf neighbor is great because he does not
make any noise. Above us is a young pothead couple. At almost the same time
every night we will hear them cough like crazy on their back porch. Then the
smell of weed creeps down to our place. Kitty corner from us is a young family
like mine. Husband, wife and three kids. I can never remember their names, but
I think he works in construction. He must have built the blockage at the top of
the stairs. There is a group of bodies outside my door.

I
don’t recognize any of them. There are a few old people mixed in with a few men
in their late forties. I get to my front door and there are several bullet
holes right below the peephole. They were fired from the inside. Something else
I know from TV. Shotgun blasts are peppered across the wall next to my front
door. Someone gunned down the dead bodies. The door to my neighbor’s is wide
open. Blood covers the door, carpet and hallway leading into his place. My deaf
neighbor’s body lies on the floor. It is torn in half. His torso lies in the
hallway. He has turned. Once he sees me he drags himself toward the front door.
His intestines pull tight and the bottom half of his body pulls around the
corner into the hallway. He drags his legs behind him. Sara and Frank take down
the infected close to the entry, but there are too many out there. Soon they will
overwhelm us. I kick at the front door.

“Karen!
Open up!” I kick it a few more times. “KAREN! KAREN!” my voice is hoarse with
panic.

“HURRY
UP! THERE’S TOO MANY!” Sara and Frank back up from the infected. We need to get
inside right now. The deaf neighbor pulls himself through his doorway. He is an
ankle biter. His hands slip in the blood that coats the entryway. One of his
feet gets caught on the corner of the hallway. As he pulls himself though the
doorway his intestines unspool from his torso. 

“KAREN!”
I give it one last kick. Nothing. I am going to lose my mind! When my kids were
first born I would call home to tell Karen I was on my way. About two out of
ten times I would call and she would not answer. I would call over and over and
still no answer. My mind would go crazy with different horrible scenarios.
Mostly that she was dead and the kids are now missing. I would get home and she
would be fine. The kids were fine. They would be playing or sleeping like kids
do. Her phone would be on vibrate so she could get the kids to sleep without
worrying about it going off and waking them up. I would get myself all worked
up over nothing.

I
prop Devon up against the wall and dig into my pocket. I get my keys out. My
deaf neighbor’s hands claw at my legs. I kick them away. It feels like a
classic horror movie. The killer creeps slowly towards his victim as the young
beautiful virgin fumbles with the keys. I stomp down onto the head of the
infected. Its teeth crunch into the concrete. I didn’t kill it. I only gave it
a disgusting jagged smile. Its top teeth have snapped in half. It still tries
to grab my legs. I get the right key and the door pops open. I grab Devon and
push him in.

“COME
ON!” I call to the others. I whip around and slash at the infected on the
ground. My spear finishes the job and my poor, deaf neighbor is put to rest.
Frank and Sara follow me into my place and I slam the door shut, lock it.

I
drop my spear and push passed my guests to get to my bedroom. Frank and Sara
help Devon to the couch.

“KAREN?
KIDS? VALERIE? ROBIN?” the bedroom door is open, but nobody is there. Our laptop
is on the bed. A video game prompts me to click continue. I check the closet.
Nothing. The case to my handgun is open and the gun is gone. I look over the
rest of the closet and Karen’s boots are gone along with some of her clothes. I
know they are not under the bed. We use an old queen box as a bed frame so we
do not have to worry about someone hiding under there. I leave the bedroom and
check the computer room. It is a junk room really. My hands shake. They are not
there. There is another dead body I do not recognize on the floor. A large
puddle of blood surrounds its head. I move back down the hall. They are not in
the bathroom. I get to the living room and see that my sliding glass door is
broken. Glass covers the floor and there is blood everywhere. A dead body lies
outside on the back porch. Inside is another mound of bodies. They sit by the
sliding glass door. All senior citizens. Someone has blasted this door and
these bodies to pieces with a shotgun. There are empty shells all over the
floor. There are also shells from my Ruger everywhere. Bullet holes pock the
sheetrock in the kid’s playroom. My family is not here! I fall to my knees,
sobbing. I failed. Everything I did was not enough. All the horrible things I
had to go through added up to nothing. No. No. I didn’t make it home in time. I
can’t see. My eyes are blurred with tears.

“Jim?”
Sara calls to me. I look up. At the doorway to the back of my place stands an
infected. It comes right on in. Its flesh stripped arms reach out for me. It is
an old man in a tracksuit, with big bushy eyebrows. It has a bad tattoo of an
anchor on its forearm. He must have been in the Navy. I jump to my feet and
grab him. My blood boils. I lift the infected body up into the air and sweep
out its legs. We crash to the floor. Its teeth snap inches from my face. I sit
up and straddle it. With every fiber of muscle I have left I eviscerate its
face with my elbows. I use the shin guards on my forearms to absolutely destroy
it. I hear myself screaming but I can’t stop. Between blows I catch glimpses of
the photos that hang on the walls of this shitty apartment. My family. My
little girls. My wedding day. Frank pulls me off the dead body. I kick at it as
I get to my feet.

“CALM
DOWN!” It is his turn to talk me down off the ledge. He turns me away from the
dead thing on the floor. “That won’t bring them back.” Its head is a two-foot smear
on the floor. Some of its blood has splattered onto an Ernie doll that was left
on the floor. I got it for Valerie on her first birthday. She loves that doll
and has slept with it more than any other toy.

“We
can’t stay here,” Sara helps Devon back to his feet.

“Where
can we go?” Frank lets me go.

“I
don’t know! My only goal was to get here!” snot runs down my nose and falls off
my upper lip. I can’t take my eyes off the bloody Ernie. I have got to clean him.
Valerie would cry if she saw him like this. I can’t function. I have lost
myself.

“Go!
Go without me! I quit,” I zone out and stare at the floor. I can’t look
anywhere without seeing something that will make me lose it.