The Infected (Book 2): Karen's First Day (11 page)

Karen had finally washed all of the sticky blood out of
her hair. She also had to change out of Jim’s blood soaked button up shirt. For
the last twenty minutes Karen had been trying to keep Robin asleep, but with
the racket it was almost impossible.

There was still no call from Jim or her mother. She had
spent most of the time double and triple checking that she had everything ready
to roll the minute Jim showed up. She kept her phone in her hand in case anyone
called. Karen wanted to call Jim, but she was so afraid he would be sneaking past
a group of the infected humans at that exact moment, Jim would be torn apart
and she would have to listen to him die. Karen turned down her phone after she
thought about it happening to Jim. The phone vibrated in her hand telling her
that it was in silent mode.

Robin’s head bobbed and she had conked all the way back out.
Karen laid the little one back on the bed next to her big sister. Valerie had
been hardcore gaming for a long while now. Karen’s “mom instinct” was telling
her to get the kid off the computer, but what else could she do and be that
quiet?  

A thought occurred to Karen, they would not be taking the
laptop with them. What good would a chunk of plastic be against one of those
infected people? Another thought crossed Karen’s mind. Her daughter might not
get to play on the computer or watch SpongeBob for a very long time. Karen was
surprisingly okay with the idea of no more TV. It would be good for the girls
not to watch so many shows. Then Karen’s heart flooded with grief. If the
government couldn’t get this whole mess under control there wouldn’t be any
Facebook.

Shit balls!

Like any addiction, the idea of losing Facebook drove
Karen nuts, but it also felt freeing. No more status updates or making sure she
wrote, “Happy Birthday!!!” on someone’s wall that she barely knew. The
uncertainty of the whole situation gave her a stomach ache.

Would it blow over in a few days and get back to
normal, or would this be how it is for the rest of her life?

Tears formed in her eyes from the thought. A lifetime of
running and fear was a nightmare scenario for her and the children. A horrible noise
outside ripped her from the dark thoughts and melancholy. It was not Cliff. No
one had come down the steps. It sounded like a scream, but the sound was
distorted.

Karen stepped to the window and her breath was taken
away. The noise was coming from David, her older, deaf neighbor from next door.
He was on foot and racing across the lot with a group of four infected hot on
his tail. He was covered in sweat and blood. The distorted noise was the sound
of him calling for help. As he chugged away for his front door it was very
clear he was out of breath and needed to stop. The infected were younger and dressed
in dark blue EMT outfits.

“HELP! HELP ME!” David cried out.

Tina and Cliff watched from their bedroom window. The new
barrier he had built made it impossible to get down there in time to help David
out.

David struggled to get across the last section of the
lot. The infected closed in on him and were now in arms reach. As he stepped up
onto the sidewalk the tip of his shoe caught the edge and down he went. The
monsters were on him. They bit down and ripped out a chunk of flesh across his
back and neck. David let out a mangled scream, but he didn’t give up. He got
his feet back under himself and stood up with a powerful yell. He tossed the
creatures off his back and they tumbled to the ground behind him. The four
infected beasts wrestled to escape each other’s arms and legs.

David’s face had become pale and he ran with a limp for
the corridor that led to his front door. Karen lost sight of him as he passed
the stairway that led up to Cliff and Tina’s place. She could hear the sounds
of his keys jingling as he pulled them from his pocket. Karen dashed out of the
bedroom and ran to her front door. She pressed her nose to the cold metal
surface and looked out the peephole.

David used the stairway as a crutch and pulled himself
along. Karen was able to see down the entryway, past him and to the group of
relentless infected. They had gotten back to their feet, resumed their hunt and
immediately chased after him.

Karen broke out into an instant sweat as she helplessly
watched David fight to get his key into the doorknob. He had been bitten and
would turn. There was no saving him. She couldn’t risk opening the door. There
was no fighting the four of them.

All she could do was watch.

He got his key into the knob and popped open his front
door. The four infected caught him in the doorway. He tried to push them back,
but his wounds had weakened him. Karen banged at her door. She couldn’t stop
herself.

“Leave him alone!” she yelled. She tried to get their
attention.

Nothing would stop them from feeding. They bit and ripped
into him. He fell to the floor of his apartment and rolled to his stomach. He
tried to crawl away. They used their nails and teeth to pull the flesh from his
back. Clumps of meat were peeled away and crammed into their hungry mouths.

The sound of absolute pain echoed throughout the
apartment. Up the flight of stairs, Cliff and Tina clutched their children and
tried to cover their ears to block out the horrible sounds. Karen kicked and
palm struck at the door, her mouth was unable to form words. She screamed
nonsense as tears fell from her eyes.

David kept fighting to get away. He pulled himself deeper
into his apartment and tried to kick at one of the infected.

“SOMEONE-HELP-ME!” his words were crushed together as he
cried for salvation. Blood sprayed the walls as he fought to get off of his
belly. The infected chewed, scratched and scraped at his midsection. As if it
pleased them to torture the man longer.

His body finally gave out and he lay flat on his back,
letting the monsters feed on his insides. He was still alive and begging for
mercy. It took a very long time for his screams and cries to fall silent.

It felt like an eternity for Karen. She could not stop
herself from watching every second of the attack. The infected monsters dug and
pulled at the body for so long that they split him in two. At that point Karen
could not take anymore. She turned her back to the door and slid down to her
butt, folded her arms across the top of her knees, dropped her head onto her
forearms and wept.

She could hear them continuing to strip the meat off the
dead body and viciously eat every scrap they took. It was a sight Karen knew
would haunt her for the rest of her life. She sat on the floor crying until her
legs felt numb.

The bedroom door opened and Valerie stepped out.

“Is it safe?” the little girl asked.

“Yes,” Karen said as she wiped away the tears on her
face.

“Why are you sad Mama? Is it because of the man or is it
because Daddy isn’t here?”

“It’s everything.” Karen ran her hands through her hair
and pulled it out of her face, “Go play your game. Mommy needs another minute.”

Even though she wanted to ask another question, Valerie
listened to her Mama and climbed back onto the bed and continued to play her
game.

Karen’s phone began to vibrate in her pocket. Her fingers
struggled to pull the phone out of her fitted jeans.

It was Jim.

She swiped the phone to answer the call.

“Jim, thank God! Are you okay? Where are you?” her words
stammered out of her mouth.

“Karen, I’m fine. I’m on the 205 bridge. Are you and the
girls safe?”

Karen could hear the hesitation in Jim’s voice. He was
keeping something from her. It meant that it was bad out there and he was afraid
to tell her just how bad it was. She chose her words carefully. It would not
help the situation to make Jim even more worried.

“Yes. We’re okay.” She pushed her thumb into her other
ear to block out the sound of the infected feeding on the other side of the
door.

“Baby, I’m coming home. You kiss those girls for me and
tell them that Daddy’s on his way.”

Her whole body shook as she forced out the next words, “I
will. Jim, please hurry home. People are going…nuts.” She covered the phone so
he couldn’t hear her sobs.

Jim’s voice broke, “I love you so much. I’ll be home
soon.”

“I love you too,” she said as she pulled the phone away
from her ear and watched as the small screen told her that the call had been
disconnected. She pushed herself up off the floor and walked to her bedroom.

Karen fell onto the bed and held Valerie. She delivered
kiss after kiss to the little girl. Valerie had no idea what her Mama was doing
but did not mind the love and attention.

“Daddy is on his way, baby.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s halfway home.” Karen carefully slid in next to the
sleeping Robin and kissed her on the forehead. Valerie lay on the other side of
Karen.

The three snuggled and held each other. Karen focused on
this moment. How soft and warm the bed was. How the children’s little bodies felt
against hers. She channeled her mind to push out all of the bad thoughts and
images and replace them with this moment. This small sliver of time when her
children were safe and Jim was still alive. Karen closed her eyes and whispered
over and over to herself.

“We are safe and Jim is alive.”

The horrible day and last night’s rough sleep had left
Karen exhausted. After a few minutes of relaxing and focusing on the golden moment
with her children she had drifted into an almost sleep state. Her body sunk
deeper into the mattress. Valerie had closed her eyes and breathed deeply as
she slept in the nook of Karen’s arm and chest. Karen’s mind drifted out of
consciousness and into the dream world where minutes felt like hours, where the
dream world felt real and the nightmare happening in the real world disappeared.

Karen was yanked out of the dream by the sound of gunfire
and screams. At first it sounded like someone was watching an action movie in
the apartment next door. Karen’s eyes opened and she clutched her children closer
to her body. It took her a moment to get her bearings and remember where she
was and what was happening.

The shots fired sounded like machine guns. The noise was
coming from across the complex. Maybe out in the street. She worked to get out
from under the sleeping children.

Once she was up, she moved to the window. Karen was so
curious to find out what was happening, but she did not want to get hit with a
wild round. Not that these super thin walls would do much to protect her.

She got up the courage to peek out with one eye. It was two
men and a woman dressed in camouflage. Each of them was armed with an assault
rifle. They sprayed rounds into a large pack of infected humans. The machine
guns did a great job of chewing up the dead bodies, but most of the shots missed
their actual weak spot.

The infected charged forward, straight into the line of
fire, they never even batted an eye as their comrades fell victim to lead
poisoning.

To Karen they did not appear to be with the Army. They
had no badges or patches on their clothing. They looked more like weekend
warriors, hunters or doomsday nuts. Although, given the current state of things,
she could not call them nuts anymore.

They fired in short bursts and then fell back, working
backwards across the edge of the parking lot. They took turns firing while the
others reloaded.

“That’s it, I’m out!” One of the men yelled.

“Let’s get back to the church!” The woman called to the
others. They took off running away from the apartments. The two with ammo paused
every twenty feet and tried to finish off the last of the infected.

“Back to the church?” Karen repeated to herself.

There was an explosion in the distance. Close enough to
rattle the windows next to Karen’s face. Black smoke rose above the roof of the
adjacent building. Karen noticed there were many columns of smoke rising into
the afternoon sky. There must have been hundreds of fires all over Vancouver
for that much smoke to be in the air. Karen left the window to check the front
door. She wanted to see if they were still eating the neighbor or if the noise had
caught their attention and they had moved on.

She was disappointed to hear the sounds of shuffling feet
outside the door. Karen stepped up to the peephole and looked out. A set of
black eyes stared at the door as if they could see her through the hole. Its
face was completely covered in blood and raw meat hung from its mouth. It threw
its face into the door and the jolt scared the shit out of Karen.

She let out a scream. It was more like a yelp, but it was
enough to excite the infected monsters on the other side of the door. It
crashed into the door again. It hit it with all its force. The metal door
groaned and the frame sounded like it had cracked. The others joined in and
crashed their bodies into Karen’s front door. The noise woke up both children.

“Mama!” Valerie called.

“It’s okay, baby!” Karen answered her without thinking.
Her voice riled them up even more. Their bodies smashed into the door over and
over again. Karen backed up and pulled her gun from its holster. She heard the
sound of a high-speed collision outside. Karen raced out of the hall and back
into the bedroom.

“What was that, Mama?!” Valerie had her arms around her
sister and the two held each other tightly.

“I don’t know baby,” Karen said as she spied out the
window.

“Who at the door?” Robin tried to keep the conversation
going.

“Bad people,” Karen whispered as she looked back at her
daughter and pressed an index finger to her lips. There was an accident in the
street next to the apartment. A car had crashed into a telephone pole.

Karen leaned closer to the window so she could get a
better angle. It was instantly clear why the car hit the pole. It was trying to
avoid the slow moving horde of infected old people. A large retirement
community sat on the block next to the apartment complex. It looked like they
were having a parade, a tragic old dead person parade.