The Plague Unto The End (23 page)

Matt sat down in the driver’s seat and gripped the steering wheel.  He reached over and put the key into the ignition.  Nothing, not even the click of the starter.  The battery was completely dead or there was something else wrong with it.

“Style, huh?” I said, smirking.

“Well, I guess we know why he shot himself.  I wouldn’t have wanted to leave this car sitting here by itself either,” Matt said as he got out of the car.

I walked back over to where I had dropped the keys to the beat-up sedan and picked them up.  As I stood up, I could see slight movements in the tree line.  I looked closer at the motion and could see that several stumbling corpses were coming out of the trees.  I looked back over at the police car and a group of about five carriers were crowded around the car.  Matt had picked up on them too and pulled out his machete.  He ran over to my car and jumped into the passenger’s seat.  I slid the key into the ignition, hoping for a miracle.  I turned the key and the rusting, poorly maintained car sputtered to life.  I could see a large cloud of black smoke blow out of the exhaust, and if the carriers didn’t hear the car start, they could definitely smell it.  I pulled the door shut and raced toward the opening in the crime scene tape on the opposite side.  I could see in the rearview mirror that the noise and commotion had stirred up all of the carriers in the area.  Some of the less rotten-looking corpses were almost at a full run after the car, and the more heavily decomposed ones were shuffling as fast as they could.

Matt tapped my shoulder and pointed to the back seat of the car.  I looked over my shoulder and saw—lying on the back seat—a small child.  She looked to be about the same age as Frannie and appeared to have not been injured.  I pulled the car over and Matt pulled out his shotgun.  He placed the muzzle on the girl’s head and nudged her with it.  She didn’t move.  He looked at me and nudged her harder, but still there was no movement.  I looked out the back window and could see that the group from the crime scene was still coming after us.

“She probably was left in the car alone after all of that happened.  Maybe she was in the accident and had internal bleeding…who knows.  Just leave her there.  We don’t have time to get rid of the body now. 
She’s
not going to try to bite me, but
they
will if we stay here.  Besides that, this thing doesn’t have much gas in it and I don’t know if it will even keep running,” I said as I pulled away from the shoulder.

“Hey, but I did want to check out this truck up here,” said Matt pointing at the large tractor-trailer stuck in the ditch.

I looked behind us and the corpses did appear to be far enough away that we would have a few minutes.  I sped up and pulled up next to the truck.  Matt quickly jumped out of the car and I did the same.  Matt ran over to the driver’s side of the truck and climbed up to look into the window.  I walked around to the back door of the sedan and opened the door.  I grabbed the legs of the little girl and pulled to get her out of the car.  I could hear suction and a tearing sound as I pulled and could feel that she was stuck to the seat from decay.  I stopped, pulled and looked around in the car for a blanket or something.

I popped the trunk and walked around to the back.  There were several bags of old clothes in the trunk.  I grabbed one of them and pulled it open.  I pulled out a large overcoat from the bag and walked back to throw it over the girl.  The coat was heavy on one side.  I shook the coat and could hear something clunking around inside one of the pockets.  Shotgun shells.  I threw the coat over the girl and ran back to the trunk.  I moved around some of the bags and there it was, a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun.  I chuckled for a moment in disbelief, thinking about all the noise Matt made and all the time he wasted on the police car.  I pulled it out and checked the chambers.  It was loaded but one of the shells had been fired already.  I brought it up to the front of the car and put it on the driver’s seat.

I looked over at the truck for Matt, but he was nowhere in sight.  I looked back to the advancing carriers and they were starting to get close enough that I felt like we were running out of time.

“Matt?” Where are you?” I asked as I ran over to the truck.  I looked into the window, but didn’t see Matt anywhere.  I looked back at the running corpses and I couldn’t wait any longer.

“Matt I’m leaving!” I said as I jumped off of the truck and ran back to the car.

I got into the driver’s seat and threw the shotgun onto the passenger’s seat.  I put the car in gear and started to pull off.  The driver’s side door of the truck flew open and Matt jumped out holding his backpack.  He ran to the passenger’s-side door of the car and I slowed for him to get in.  He started to step into the car, but I felt one of the corpses slam into the back of the car.  Matt turned with his shotgun and blasted it in the face.  The body of the carrier smashed into the open passenger’s-side door and Matt shoved it to the ground and climbed into the passenger’s seat.

“I almost left your happy tail,” I said, jamming the gas to the floor.

“I think I got some good stuff though,” replied Matt.  “But what am I sitting on?”

“Oh, yeah, I found that in the trunk of this beast,” I said.

Matt lifted up the sawed-off shotgun and raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

“So what was so fantastic that you almost got left behind?” I asked.

“Food…canned food to be exact.  Some truckers live out of their trucks while they are making shipments because it saves time and money.  So some of them keep food in there too and it hasn’t been particularly hot the last few days, so it’s probably still good,” said Matt, looking very pleased.

“Like what?  What was in there?” I asked.

“Beans, some canned fruit, canned pasta, and a couple other things,” said Matt.

“Great, now we just have to stay alive long enough to eat that stuff,” I said.

“I was gonna ask too, um...why didn’t you take that out of the back seat?” asked Matt.

“She’s kinda stuck to the seat and I didn’t really want to know what happens if only part of her comes off of the seat,” I replied.

“Okay, whatever.  We’re not going to be keeping this junker for long anyway,” said Matt.

“So, do you think Jim got the last thing I said?  Do you think they went back for us at the Game Stop?” Matt

“Don’t know,” said Matt as he stared out the window at the passing trees.

“I guess I’d like to think that they would have gone back for us, but I really hope that they didn’t,” I said.

“Why do you say that?” asked Matt.

“We made it out.  We’re on the way to the church.  They didn’t need to go get us.  I’d hate to be responsible for any of them being hurt or...bitten,” I said.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out in a few minutes,” said Matt.

It didn’t take us long to find our way back to the church with our clunker of a ride.  I felt scared, happy, and hesitant all at once.  The van was there, sitting parked in the parking lot.  There didn’t appear to be any new damage to it.  There were a handful of corpses standing outside of the door to the front side of the church.  The noise of our vehicle quickly drew their attention.  I threw the car into park and shut off the engine.  The car sputtered and backfired as the engine died.  Matt and I quickly got out of the car and separated to split up the small group.  Between us we were able to take care of the group quickly.  I started to knock on the door, but Matt grabbed my arm.

“You still have that walkie?” asked Matt.

“Um, yeah, but why wouldn’t we just knock?” I responded.

“Because they were just knocking,” said Matt and pointed to the dismembered corpses.

“Good point,” I said.

CLICK
, “Anybody there?” I said into the radio.

PFFFF
, “How did you...hold on I’ll let you in,” said Beth.

I looked over at Matt and he looked eager to get inside after hearing Beth’s voice.  I was eager to get inside after knowing that they were still alive.  The door squeaked open and Matt and I stepped inside.  Beth reached over and hugged Matt.  Matt looked shocked, but happy about it.  I raised an eyebrow at Matt and started to walk into the church.  I expected to hear people talking or something, but the building was quiet.  The sun hadn’t gone down yet.  It couldn’t have been more than three or four o’clock in the afternoon.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Most of us are still here, trying to recover,” said Beth.

“What do you mean, ‘most of us’?” I asked.

“We did go back for you.  Jim said he didn’t couldn’t hear the name of the place you said to go, but he wanted to go back anyway,” said Beth.

“What, did Jim get hurt?” I asked.

“No, Jim’s fine.  Well, sort of.  He feels responsible for the whole thing,” said Beth.

“Wait, what happened?” I said beginning to be frustrated.

“Okay, um, Jim said he wanted to go back for you guys.  Tracey told him that she wanted to go too, but she had to take care of Sid’s arm first.  She convinced Jim to wait until the morning to go back.  She also took a look at Frannie and told us that she knew what antibiotics to get.  It was so hard to convince Sid that he shouldn’t go.  He has been in a huff all day.  Well, until Jim came back.  Anyway, Jim, Tracey and Bishop Hadley all decided that they were going to try to find you guys.  Jim said they decided to check for you at the Sports Authority first and then they were just going to slow-roll through the area and see if you guys popped out.

After they didn’t find you at the sports shop, Jim said they checked the other stores in the area.  He said they drove past a cigar shop and he thought he saw one of you inside.  They all jumped out and kicked in the door.  Jim said there was no one inside.  Not even any infected people.  Jim said he kinda lost it for a minute and started looking through the store again.  Bishop Hadley told Jim they needed to leave.  Hadley ran to the van and Jim saw a wave of infected coming through the parking lot.

Hadley was grabbed by several of them.  Tracey ran to help the Bishop, but there were too many of them.  Jim tried to shoot them off of Hadley...” Beth paused.

“Okay, then what?” Matt asked.

“He shot Tracey!” said Beth, beginning to cry.

“What? Is she okay? Where is she?” I asked.

“The massive crowd took Bishop Hadley, but somehow Jim got Tracey into the van and drove out of the area.  Jim said that Tracey told him where her ambulance was last and he took her there.  He said that she tried to tell him how to stop the bleeding and how to bandage the wound.  Jim was too nervous and he couldn’t stop the bleeding.  He put the supplies into the van and drove her back here.  He ran inside with her and put her on the floor.  He screamed for someone to help.  Tracey wasn’t breathing.  Jim tried to tell us what she had told him, but we couldn’t get it to work.  She died,” said Beth, wiping tears from her eyes.

“I don’t know what to say.  She was a good person.  She was good to have around too,” I said.

“Yeah, this blows,” said Matt.

Beth cleared her throat.  “Rev is having a kind of funeral service or something in the auditorium for Tracey and Bishop Hadley.  Jim is sitting in one of the classrooms with Sid and hasn’t been able to look at Tracey since it happened,” said Beth.

“How’s Sid doing anyway?” I asked.

“Better now.  Jim did bring back some pain meds from the ambulance.  Otherwise, he is taking the loss of his arm pretty well.  He was making jokes about being unarmed before...well you know,” said Beth.

“How about Frannie?” asked Matt.

“Yeah, and Curtis where’s he at?  Why didn’t he go?” I asked.

“Curtis.  He said he wasn’t going to leave Frannie again after the Sports Authority.  Frannie’s not doing too good.  She hasn’t been talking and her fever is really high.  Tracey said she knew most drug stores carried the antibiotics Frannie would need, but she never told any of us the name.  Or maybe she did, but none of us knew what she was talking about,” said Beth.