The Plague Unto The End (17 page)

Both of us nodded and prepared to run.  Curtis leaned into the door and we all heard the loud CLACK of the door opening.  The daylight from outside was blinding.  Curtis began to stumble outside and Matt ran behind him.  The layout of the plan went through my head and I remembered that Matt was supposed to go first.

“Get out of the way!” Matt yelled to Curtis, but he didn’t react to what Matt said.

Curtis pulled open the driver’s side door of the truck and slid across the putrid slime on the seat.  Matt threw the tarp inside the cab and tried to lay it out on the seat.  Part of it flapped over Curtis, but Matt had managed to cover the mess.  Matt slid inside the truck next to Curtis just as the first couple of the carriers came into sight.  They had no doubt heard the door when we opened it.  I jumped inside with Matt and Curtis and pulled the door shut behind myself.  I jammed the key into the ignition and pushed in the clutch.

The old truck had been through a lot through the years but it still started up just like every other time.  I started moving forward and heard a thump on the right side of the truck.  I instinctually looked in that direction just in time to see a rotten face appear in the passenger’s side window.  Matt pointed the barrel of his shotgun past Curtis to the center of the face and pulled the trigger. 
BOOM
.

There was a sudden spray inside the cab and my ears were ringing.  I was jarred and disoriented and could barely keep control of the truck.  I could see Curtis cupping his ears and he looked like he was yelling.  Matt was looking at me yelling and pointing out toward the street.

“GO!” I heard Matt as the ringing began to dissipate.

I pushed my foot to the floor and could hear the tires begin to squeal.  We began to move out of the parking lot and through the disorientation.  I drove the truck over a curb.  The truck thudded over the grass and we made it out to the main road.  In the rearview mirror I could see what all of our commotion had caused.  There were at least fifteen of them chasing us.  As I looked back at the building I could see the front of the store.  Some of them were not chasing us; they were at the barricade on the front of the store.  I could hear several other shotgun blasts coming from inside the store.  As I watched in the mirror, my heart sank.  At first it was just one, then two, then two more, disappearing into the store through the broken glass of the front doors and the piled-up shelving.

“Oh crap!” I yelled.

“What?” Matt responded, looking puzzled.

“They got inside.  They got in through the front,” I blurted out.

“What...no.  Frannie!  We’ve got to go back right now!”

“Yeah, yeah.  We’re going,” I responded as I started to turn the truck around.

Matt pulled out the radio and turned it on.

CLICK
, “You guys okay?  Hello, are you guys okay?” asked Matt over the radio.

PFFFF
, “Yeah, we’re okay,” I heard Jim respond.

PFFFF
, “We’re all in the office,” said Sid.

CLICK
, “Did you get’em all?  Is anyone hurt?” asked Matt.

PFFFF
, “No one is hurt, but we couldn’t get all of ‘em,” said Sid.

CLICK
, “How many made it inside?” asked Matt.

PFFFF
, “Not too many, but we’re going to need some help getting back out there,” said Jim.

PFFFF
, “Look, what’s done is done.  If y’all try to get back in here now, they’re just going to follow you in,” said Sid.

CLICK
, “Well, what do you want us to do?” asked Matt.

PFFFF
, “Go do what you guys were gonna do.  We’ve got some beef jerky in here.  We’ll be alright,” said Jim.

“He’s right.  They’re fine.  We’ll just make it worse by trying to do something right now,” said Matt.

“Yeah, you’re right, but we could have done without the shotgun going off inside the truck,” I said.

“Well, Curtis was kinda about to get his face eatin’ off.  So, I think a little noise was worth it,” said Matt with a raised eyebrow.

“I want to see Fran,” said Curtis, sounding very scared.

“Did you just hear and see all the same things we did?  Would you settle for talking to her?” asked Matt.

“Yeah, I guess I could settle for that,” replied Curtis.

Matt handed the radio to Curtis and he spoke to Frannie.  He also asked her for a more clear position for his mom’s van.  She described what was in the parking lot as we circled the shopping center.

“There it is,” said Curtis pointing to a dark gray van parked where Frannie had described.

“You sure you want to do this?” I asked Curtis.

“Yeah, she might need help,” replied Curtis.

“She might be dead,” mumbled Matt.

Curtis glanced at Matt and looked back to the van, “I have to know.”

We quickly pulled up to the van on the passenger’s side and Curtis scrambled to get out.  Matt looked at me and glared for a moment as he followed Curtis out of the truck.  I pulled the parking brake and put the truck in neutral.  I grabbed my sword and stepped out of the truck.  Curtis ran up to the passenger’s window and looked inside.

“Where is she?” he said.

Matt looked into the van beside him.  He looked back at me and pointed at the front seat.  There was an obvious bloodstain on the seat and the driver’s door was still partially open.  Curtis quickly walked around the van to the driver’s side.  Curtis walked to the driver’s door and began to spin, looking in all directions.

“Mom!” he yelled.

“Shut up!” Matt whispered loudly.

“Mom!” Curtis yelled again.

I ran to him and threw my arm around his mouth.

“This was one of the possible outcomes.  You knew this.  We had talked about this.  She’s gone, just like my brother and just like his sister.  We move on.”

“Look out!” said Matt from beside me.

I jumped back as an arm reached out from under the van and pulled the rest of the corpse toward my legs.  As the carrier’s head came into view,
BOOM
, Matt unloaded a shotgun round into its head.

“NOOO, Mom!” yelled Curtis as he shoved me away and ran to the corpse.

It appeared that she had pulled herself under the van trying to get away from her attacker, but had only been able to make it halfway under.  They had eaten her legs off.  Curtis knelt down beside the corpse and began to sob violently.  Matt and I began to look around and could see the entire parking lot beginning to move.

“Curtis, I know how hard this must be, but we’ve got to go right now,” I said as I kept an eye on the advancing hoard.

“I can’t just leave her here,” said Curtis.

“We’re not taking that...her in the truck, now let’s go,” said Matt.

“We have to take her,” cried Curtis.

“Leave him,” said Matt as he grabbed my arm.

“What, we can’t just leave him, he’ll be...” I replied.

“Yes, we can.  He’s dead weight, therefore he is dead.  Leave him,” replied Matt as he began to pull me toward the truck.

I looked around the parking lot and the closest carriers were only about fifty feet away.  I looked back at Curtis and began to run toward the truck.  I started the engine and Matt got into the passenger’s side.  I started to move and came around the side of the van where Curtis was sitting.  He was gone.  I slowed and looked around, but he was nowhere on that side of the van.  I started to pull off when I heard a thump on the back of the truck.  I looked in the mirror expecting to see a carrier on the camper, but it was Curtis climbing into the back.  Once he was inside, I stomped on the gas and sped toward a narrow spot in the crowd.

“Hold on!” I yelled just as we smashed into the first couple of corpses.

Matt did what he could to keep them off of the truck.  He actually ran out of shotgun shells and had to start using my Glock.  Curtis was completely useless.  He sat with his back against the cab, staring out the back of the truck.  When we finally made it out of the crowds, I found myself back on the main road that led to my house.

“There is something I have to do,” I said to Matt as I pushed my foot into the gas pedal and shifted the gears.

“Where are we going?” asked Matt very confused.

“My house, and you can keep all of your ‘This is a dumb idea’ crap to yourself.  I’m going,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road.

“Well, you said it, not me.  But what about Mr. Meltdown back there...” said Matt just as Curtis cut him off.

“I’m fine.  I am not as worthless as you guys are making me out to be.  It was just a lot to take all at once.  I just wanted to be able to say goodbye to her.”

“It’s alright Curtis.  We understand.  I might have to do the same to my brother when we get to my house,” I said.

As I drove, I noticed an astonishing amount of new damage and additional vehicle wrecks.  The thrift shop Matt and I had stopped by was burned to the ground when we passed it.  The number of carriers in the parking lot to the Food Lion made it impossible to consider it for any kind of a food run.  The sunlight from the earlier part of the day was gone and it was becoming overcast again.  It looked almost like the day everything had started.  I narrowly maneuvered around the wrecks at the intersection just prior to my street, but decided to take the back road to avoid a large crowd on the main road.  I passed the place on the road where the reporter had been standing when I was watching the news report a few days ago.  She was gone and so was the cameraman.  The truck was jammed between several trees heading into the park on the opposite side of the pond behind our house.  The expensive video equipment lay smashed on the side of the road.

I slowed as I rounded the last corner before my house.  I could see it in the distance.  I took a deep breath and started to move toward it.  Matt was carefully scanning the neighborhood for groups of them while we moved.  Curtis had flipped up the window on the rear of the camper and was watching for any that came out as we passed.  Matt and I had talked about how to approach the house and we both agreed that the best way would be to drop me off, and Curtis and he would circle the block.  We didn’t want to get the truck trapped in front of the house if too many of them showed up.  Halfway up the block, Matt and I switched seats and he drove me to the front of the house.  The front door was still closed, just as I left it.  I got out of the truck and Matt keyed his radio just to make sure it was still working.

“Just hit the radio when you’re ready for me to come get you and if you get into trouble let me know,” said Matt in the most concerned voice I had ever hear him use.

“I got this.  I’m going to go in grab the camera and head out to the garage to get the charger.  Then I’ll run to the gate and be waiting by the road, quick and quiet,” I said, trying to fill myself with confidence.

I opened the door and stepped out with my sword in hand.  I started walking toward the front door, looking to each of the front windows as I walked.  I didn’t see any movement.  I looked back at the truck as Matt slowly pulled off and headed down the street.  For the first time since I met Matt, I was alone again.  I looked down the street from where we had come from and noticed several of the carriers stumbling out into the street, like some extremely late attempt to catch the truck.  I stepped up onto the front porch and took a deep breath.  I envisioned Thomas standing in the hall just as I had left him.  I pictured the single shot to the forehead it would take to release him from his mindless wandering.

I reached for the doorknob, but realized that the curtain in the window to my right was moving.  One of them grabbed onto the curtain, trying to grab at me, and pulled it off of the wall.  The entire front room where the video camera sat was full of them.  I could count at least twenty from where I stood.  They all began to slam their rotten hands against the glass, but their decaying state had left them unable to exert very much force.  I slowly backed down off of the porch and pulled up my radio, ready to tell Matt to come get me.