Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (18 page)

Neil asked, “Where to?”

With most of this side of Whittier behind
them, William was hard pressed to think of anywhere else to hide
unless they wanted to double back. Maybe they could make it back to
the truck and drive back to the Cove. Getting back to the truck
could prove difficult at the moment though, so he decided to push
them forward.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much space left
for them on the downtown side of the city. To their right were the
Whittier Manor Apartments where they had started the day. Behind
them were the Anchor Inn and the gathering horde, which had nearly
trapped them there. The slope to their left was overgrown with
thick brush and sharply angled, making it all but impassable.

The most likely option for them was to keep
moving forward. Maybe they could get onto the seaside portion of
Whittier. They could perhaps find a place to sit and rest. They
needed to regroup. William recognized that he needed to take a
moment to process what had just happened to them. Sandra, Allen,
and Gus were all dead and gone. He needed some time to roll that
over in his mind. He wasn’t equipped to simply accept it and move
on with his life.

He wondered about Danielle as well. She
looked as if she was in a bit of a stupor. The others with them
seemed to be immune to the loss and devastation. They so easily
shifted into survival mode that the deaths of William’s three
friends didn’t faze them in the slightest. Their attitudes were
cold and distant to William. He just couldn’t figure out these new
people. He still wasn’t certain he trusted them entirely. Now that
it was just Danielle and himself, William felt like maybe he should
be more on alert.

Following the same basic physical principles
of water, the group flowed down the hill toward a big white wall,
separating the seaside and commercial side of Whittier from its
residential downtown, which ironically sat on the top of a hill. On
the other side of the wall and between another wall, sitting a
little closer to the water, was a wide bank of often used railroad
tracks that acted like a moat of sorts, dividing the city into two
halves.

Looking at the wall hopefully and with their
options dwindling quickly behind them, William could only hope
there would be better opportunities on the other side.

William and Jerry were the first over the
wall. Jerry landed and immediately maneuvered the hunting rifle
from across his shoulder into his hands. He didn’t see anything in
either direction but he felt exposed, watched.

Jerry stood guard, trying to look both
directions at once, while William helped the others over the
barrier. They repeated the same on the other wall and found
themselves in a grassy patch in Whittier’s seaside. It looked and
felt like a different city. It was as if Whittier suffered from
schizophrenia or lived a very public double life. Trying to get
their bearings and the courage to go on, they cowered in the shadow
of the wall, hoping their arrival had gone unnoticed.

Neil and his original group had already
passed through this side of Whittier, avoiding several packs of the
creatures. The walking corpses, gray with rot, loitered amongst the
cars and the buildings. For long moments at a time, the ghouls
could be mistaken for grotesque statues placed in an expansive lot
amid abandoned cars. At random and infrequent intervals, aggressive
tics gripped each of them successively, causing waves of flailing
arms and spastically jerking heads. Neil watched for any patterns,
wondering if they were somehow communicating with one another with
more than just their moans. There wasn’t time to watch closely, so
he wasn’t able to tell for sure. Thankfully, it was quiet in this
little corner.

Not far off from where they stood was a
solid, promising looking building with intact concrete walls. If
the front looked as good as the back, then Neil thought they had
just found the perfect spot to rest and let things settle down.
They needed to get back inside while they were still able.

He suspected that when some of those things
were stirred like a bunch of hornets, it had a similar effect on
others a short distance away. It excited them and attracted them
toward the sounds of the others. Their moans, that buzzing Hell’s
echo, beckoned to ghouls near and far like Satan’s dinner bell.

Neil had no interest in being on the menu
and had no intention of allowing that to happen to any of the
people with him, especially Danny and Jules. There was the third
child, little Nikki, too, but Neil’s connection to her was tenuous
at best. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her or didn’t want to
protect her, but she was so detached. She was so ghostly quiet it
sometimes disturbed him. It was easy to forget that she was there
on occasion.

He whispered his inquiry, “What is that
building there?”

Danielle answered quietly, “Ferry terminal.
Why?”

“We’re goin’ in,” Neil answered. “Jerry,
Emma, let’s go check it out. Jess, you hang here with William and
Danielle.”

Jess nodded and pulled the three children
close to her. She had somehow become the de facto mother figure to
the kids. She was comfortable with that, she guessed, and felt like
she was the only one with any parenting experience in their group.
It wasn’t much of a burden really. She had always been good at it
and enjoyed it more than most. If that was how she could do her
part, then Jess was more than willing.

Before he turned to go, Neil said to Danny,
“Keep a sharp eye out. You still have your pistol?”

Danny patted the front pocket on his
sweatshirt. Once again, Danny had to watch Neil walk away from him.
It had become so commonplace that it barely even had an impact on
him anymore. He knew that Neil would come back. He always did. The
true discomfort this time for Danny was that he and the others were
waiting outside with nowhere to hide if they were spotted. He only
hoped Neil would hurry.

Neil, Jerry, and Emma darted to the right,
running along a chain link fence until they came to the back of the
building. They climbed up onto a loading dock area and then paused
in the shadow. From his backpack, now weighed down with cans and
boxes of food, Jerry pulled a crowbar. He tried to force the door
open with the tool but managed only to work up a sweat. If they
were getting in, they would have to find another way.

Emma, getting impatient, asked, “Front door
then?”

“How about over the fence and look for a
back door?” suggested Jerry.

Nodding and starting to move at the same
time, Neil said enthusiastically, “Sounds like a hell of an
idea.”

It was not that long ago when Neil would
have looked at a fence like that in front of him and would have
found a way around or through it before he would have contemplated
climbing it. As it was, he leapt into it, scaling more than half of
it with the jump. He pulled himself up the sagging fence as
adroitly as a cat. In a flash, he was over and into the back lot
where vehicles had been staged to be loaded one by one onto the
ferry. It was currently empty.

Emma was next. She was lighter and shorter
than Neil but not as practiced. It took her a couple of seconds to
reach the top of the fence.

Jerry watched and waited for his turn to go
when he was aware of an uncomfortable pressure in his chest and
ears. It was a very familiar low buzz which had him spin around,
expecting the worst.

Sure enough, a fiend dressed in a green
Forest Service uniform rounded the corner into the loading bay.
Jerry thought for a moment about climbing over the fence and
leaving the thing on the other side. He decided that having it
agitated and moaning there on the bay might bring more of them
toward the ferry building. He needed to deal with it before he went
over the fence.

Clutching the crowbar tightly in his hand,
Jerry gritted his teeth and closed the distance between the two of
them. He was raising the weapon above his head and readying to
strike when two more of the demons came around the corner. Jerry
skidded to a stop, throwing off his balance and his swing.

The tool’s sharpened claw head hit the
uniformed zombie across its lower mandible, shattering its jaw and
scattering teeth across the loading bay’s concrete surface. In the
process, Jerry tumbled clumsily into the first and then the other
two creatures. Jerry and the former Forest Service employee came to
a thudding stop on the loading bay platform. The other two teetered
off the edge and crashed to the pavement below in a
teeth-chattering crunch.

Jerry wasn’t entirely sure who or what was
still with him in the loading bay but he was certain he wasn’t
alone. There were too many legs and arms wrapped around him for it
to be all his. He tried desperately to free himself from the knot
of flesh. He pushed and stretched, trying to get a better angle on
the creature with whom he fought. Jerry couldn’t find its head or
its lethal mouth.

Struggling and fighting, Jerry finally got
himself onto all fours and was ready to get back onto his feet win
the unthinkable happened.

Emma watched helplessly from the opposite
side of the fence as the creature closed its mouth around Jerry’s
forearm and bit down. Emma screamed Jerry’s name but was unable to
do anything more. Neil climbed over the fence in the blink of an
eye and was running toward Jerry.

Jerry, his veins pumped full of adrenaline
and fear, yanked his bloodied sleeve from the corpse’s mouth and
rolled away. Coming to a stop, he looked up just in time to see
Neil bludgeon his attacker, crushing its skull in a series of
punishing blows.

The other two things were reaching and
clawing but not posing an immediate threat. Neil ignored them for
the moment and helped Jerry to his feet. He asked, “Can you climb
the fence?”

Jerry was stunned and looking at his arm.
There was no pain. He assumed he was in shock. He nodded at Neil
and heard himself say, “Yeah. I think so.”

Neil tried to soothe his friend’s nerves
saying, “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure something out. I won’t let
you...” He couldn’t finish his thought let alone his words.

The two men made short work of the fence and
were on the other side with Emma in a flash. She met Neil’s
sorrowful countenance with an empty, emotionless stare. She
swallowed her pain, turning it into rage. Her breathing slowed and
her mind cleared. She felt like a zombie herself. She looked at
Jerry and then at his arm but didn’t say a word. She turned about
and started to walk away, shaking her head.

Neil said, “See if we can get inside. We
need to find somewhere...we need to...” Neil couldn’t finish his
words and his thoughts were no better. He just followed Emma toward
a back door and hoped they would be able to get inside.

Danny and Jules shared a worried look when
they heard the echoing scream. They couldn’t make it out, but they
heard words in the feminine shriek. It sounded like Emma.

Jules stepped back further into the shadows,
sitting down and tucking her legs up close to her chest. It was
cooler in the darkness, but she didn’t notice. She actually felt
safer, almost invisible, insulated and protected from all the hate
and death with which the world was now filled. Despite her sadness,
Jules had no more tears left to shed. Hers was a quiet and lonely
sadness that she shared with no one.

Danny watched Jules slink away. He knew how
she felt because he felt the same way. Emma’s scream could only
mean that they had gotten into trouble and the silence following
likely meant even worse. His stomach twisted into a knot, becoming
heavy and uncomfortable and leaving a nasty, bitter taste in his
mouth.

Danny tapped Nikki on the shoulder and
pointed to Jules. Nikki, understanding the directive, walked
absently toward Jules rocking herself in a daze. Danny wished he
knew what to do but he clearly didn’t. At ten, how could he be
expected to know what to do when the world had come to an end?

He had his pistol, a rifle, and a backpack
full of food and water. His body was still cold but he was dry. The
world was unforgiving and brutal, but it could be worse and
had
been as of late. He thought that maybe
if he could know just what had happened then maybe he’d be able to
figure out some kind of a next step for himself. Thinking about
that for a moment, he decided that maybe he didn’t want to know.
What would happen to them if it were Neil? How could they survive
without him?

He looked at Jess and then at the two new
adults, Danielle and William. Not a single one of them looked as if
there was an idea to be had about what to do next. It was apparent
to Danny that they simply had to wait for the others to return. No
one dared to contemplate the possibilities if Emma, Jerry, and Neil
didn’t return.

Miraculously, the door on the back of the
ferry depot was unlocked. Neil looked in through the small window
on the door but couldn’t see much of anything. It was dark but it
also appeared to be undisturbed. Neil opened the door and stepped
inside slowly. Emma and Jerry followed him, though Jerry stopped
near the door and waited until he was told the place was clear. It
only took a few seconds to check the handful of offices and
rooms.

Jerry wandered toward the front of the
building and peeked outside. He could see some of the abominations
still some distance away but starting to turn toward them. They
could hear those two things out front and it was probably his fault
that they were still out there at all. Neil wouldn’t have fallen.
He wouldn’t have fucked it up. Those things would be dead and
everyone would have made it had it been Neil instead of
himself.