Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (19 page)

Jerry hadn’t looked at his arm yet. He
hadn’t been able to work up the courage. He stepped away from the
thick glass front door and wandered slowly into a bank of chairs in
front of an enclosed counter and a desk. He sat heavily in one of
the plastic chairs and sighed. Slowly, he lifted his up his arm.
The sleeve was dark and shiny with blood and other matter. He
couldn’t see through to his arm though.

Reluctantly, he lifted the sleeve of his
coat. He closed his eyes, still too afraid to look. When he heard
Emma gasp from behind his shoulder, Jerry thought to himself that
maybe it was just better not to look at all. Suddenly, he felt a
cheek close to his and breath on his cheek.

Emma’s soft voice whispered in his ear,
“Open your eyes, dumbass.” The soft press of her lips against his
cheeks helped his eyelids part. He looked down and was left utterly
speechless. His arm was clean. There wasn’t a bite or even a
bruise. That was why he couldn’t feel any pain.

Jerry shook his head and wiped his eyes,
which were beginning to fill with relieved tears. He looked again,
afraid of what he might see, but his arm was still perfectly
intact. He even managed to laugh a little. “Teeth. It didn’t have
any teeth.”

“What?”

Jerry, his laugh filled with relief, said,
“I knocked out all its teeth. It couldn’t bite me.”

Neil walked into the main lobby with a
confused smile on his face. He looked first at Jerry and then at
Emma, standing next to him and laughing hysterically. He was about
to ask when Jerry held up his arm to stop him. “It didn’t have any
teeth,” Jerry said. “It didn’t have any teeth.”

Neil joined the infectious chuckling. When
Jerry pulled his sleeve back down, he realized some of the mortal
matter stuck in the bloody goo was teeth, yellow, worn, and
misshapen. Shaking his arm violently, Jerry flicked the teeth from
his coat and onto the floor.

Instantly sobering the mood, Jerry pointed
out, “More zekes are coming. That’s probably my fault.”

Neil asked, “How many?”

“I only saw a few but there could be more.
What are you thinking?”

Neil rubbed his chin, now covered in a full,
if patchy beard. He said very thoughtfully, “I wonder...”

Emma glanced around to try and figure out
what he had in mind. “What are you thinking about?”

“Well, I was thinking that we have that big
fenced yard out back. If we could lure enough of those things back
there and then close the gate, we might be able to even the odds
around here a bit. What do you guys think?”

Emma was shaking her head and looking at the
ceiling but saying nothing. Finally she said, “Neil, if you thought
of it, then I’m sure it will work out. Let’s give it a shot.”

“Maybe we should go get the others first and
bring them back,” Jerry suggested. “More hands to help out. We may
need them.”

“And they’re probably scared shitless. They
must have heard my scream,” added Emma.

Neil smiled. “Emma, I think they heard your
scream in Anchorage, my friend.”

When Neil, then Emma, and then Jerry all
appeared, all six people, three children and three adults, breathed
a collective sigh of relief. They were back.
All
of them were back. Danny couldn’t stop smiling, but
Jules hadn’t moved. She was watching all the emotional reunions but
she remained stoically separated, her expression unchanged.

After the hugs and the happy tears, Neil
said, “We found a place but we have to move fast. Let’s get our
stuff and head over that way.”

Climbing the fence on the far side of the
lot made reaching the depot much quicker and much safer. They were
in a huge, open, empty lot. The ground was painted with several
long yellow lines between which cars, trucks, motorcycles, RVs, and
any variety in between would be parked for loading onto the
ferry.

Jules walked along one of the lines like she
was walking a tightrope. She danced back and forth to music only in
her head. Her precarious steps and disregard for her own safety at
the promise of plummeting to her certain death was anything but
playful. Losing her balance on more than one occasion, she nearly
fell off her narrow perch.

Feeling himself drawn into the uncomfortable
illusion a little too deeply, Neil had to turn away. He couldn’t
watch, as if her fall would be all too real for him. He focused on
the four ghouls pressing themselves into the gate on the far side
of the lot. He wondered to himself how many the gate would be able
to withstand. What was its tipping point? Maybe they could move a
vehicle up against the gate as a support and restrict the amount
the gate would sag. With the right bait and a little luck, they
could get most of the things from this side of the city cleared in
no time at all.

Of course, he was no fool, and realized
their luck had not always been kind to them. He hadn’t completely
detached himself from reality. He chanced a glance back over at
Jules and felt the same discomfort raise the hair on his arms and
the acid in his stomach. No, he was still connected. Regardless, he
could hope that with enough planning, they could mitigate any
potential threats through careful and meticulous planning. Why
shouldn’t it work? The next step was to sell the idea to the other
folks in their group because it was going to take all of them to
get it done.

They ran to the back door and threw
themselves in with a rush. The children ran into the first
available office and collapsed behind a big, official-looking desk.
It would eventually feel good to be back inside but for the moment,
they were still pretty wound up from the day’s activities. After
some rest and a little more to eat, they would all feel better.

Jess and Danielle moved to the enclosed
counter area where ferry passengers would book passage. They looked
into the main lobby with interest. It was empty except for some
chairs but it looked so...ordinary, like they were gazing into the
past. The office was just waiting for the clerks to arrive in order
to open. If the front door had opened and in came a person to check
on their reservation, neither of them would have been
surprised.

Instead, at the front door but on the
opposite side of a very strong, thick pane of glass stood three
ghouls, all awaiting a different kind of service. Their bony arms
were splayed across the glass but they didn’t appear to be much of
a threat. There may have been more of them outside and likely were,
but that was all they could see.

“I think we should put some paper over those
windows and probably on the windows on the inside doors too,” Neil
said from behind them, causing both of them to jump. “Keep them
from seeing in and let us have a little light in here later
tonight. Maybe we can find a metal trash can. We might be able to
light a fire or something.”

Jess said to him, “I think we can make that
happen.” She scanned the desk area and found a full tape dispenser
and suspected she would be able to find some newspapers, copy
paper, or something else to cover the glass. She thought that maybe
after she and Danielle covered the outside windows, she could have
the kids do the inside windows. She could give them a little
distraction and a chore.

Neil, meanwhile, explained to everyone his
plan. Despite some skeptical looks, no one voiced any dissent. It
was decided that it was too late in the day to begin such an
endeavor; they needed a full day to accomplish all they wanted
done. They could take the balance of the day and the night to rest,
eat, recuperate, and plan.

With the coming night, tensions began to
rise. Night was an exceptional host for uncertainty, especially as
of late. Horrible things happened every day in this new world but
those events, those tragedies became all the more terrifying in
isolating darkness where terror became very personal. For now, the
threatening sisters of Dark and Night were held at bay on the
outside.

Going through the supplies in the bags and
backpacks, William happened upon more than just food. He found Gus’
bag, which had been picked up by someone. It was filled with bottle
after bottle of liquor. There were so many bottles in the bag that
they didn’t clatter together. William felt sorrow for his lost
friend but also found a smile at his friend’s decision about
priorities. The only food William found in the bag was a jar of
cocktail olives, some maraschino cherries, and a jar of salted
peanuts. Gus had packed a bar’s worth of essentials.

William held up a bottle of spiced rum. “Gus
wanted us to have an Irish wake for him...and everyone else.”
Quietly to himself, William said, “I only wish he was here to enjoy
it with us.”

Emma disappeared into a dark room and
reemerged with a handful of coffee mugs. She passed one around to
everyone but came up one short. She looked at Jerry and asked if
the two of them could share.

Neil had a couple of mugs of Jack Daniels
while Emma and Jerry shared some Absolut vodka with cranberry juice
in it. Jess found a bottle of Don Julio tequila that she shared
with William.

Knowing what alcohol could do to a
diabetic’s blood sugar, Danielle did not share in the drinking but
she did share in the muted revelry. It felt good to be smiling
again. The threat of having to dive back into the fray again on the
morrow was still there, but for the moment it took a back seat to
the immediate comforts and delicacies this life afforded, if even
for this brief time.

From the sugar buzz of the fruit and other
treats they’d been given, the children perked up a bit. Well, Danny
and Jules did for a bit until their exhaustion and the dropping
temperature in the depot finally caught up with them.

Some small fires were started in a pair of
metal trashcans to warm the main lobby and diminish the darkness
somewhat. The sounds coming from the street outside had most of
them on edge on and off through the night but there were brief
periods of peace. As a result, rest was elusive, coming in fits and
starts.

As soon as the children’s eyes closed, they
jerked, quivered, and whimpered. Eventually they settled into a
more peaceful sleep, but Neil assumed that was when their minds
were finally too exhausted to taunt them any longer.

Jess walked up behind Neil as he watched
them. “I’m worried about Nikki,” she said.

Neil answered with a raised eyebrow as if to
say, “No shit.”

“No, really. I haven’t heard her say a
single thing. I don’t think she would have even eaten tonight if I
hadn’t spooned some food into her mouth. I think about half of that
ended up on the floor. She’s just so gone.”

Neil sighed again, his head feeling the
effects of the booze. He looked over at the three kids and wondered
about all of them. Danny was growing stronger and more independent
by the day. Jules, once doing the same, was retreating into her
shell again. Today in the snow, it was the first time he’d seen her
animated since Meghan’s death. He was worried about her, but that
concern paled in comparison to that which he felt about Nikki.

Nikki had been pale and weak looking since
he first encountered her along a lonely stretch of the Seward
Highway. She harbored a frailness of both body and mind in her eyes
that couldn’t be dismissed. Her bone-thin arms rarely left her side
while her legs only moved when prompted by someone else. Her face,
though pretty and almost angelic in its pureness, was impossibly
thin.

Knowing all of this did not necessarily make
it any easier for Neil to guess what to do. If she didn’t eat and
didn’t run when they needed her to run... He couldn’t think of a
child as a liability, but there was no denying it. He couldn’t
ignore a basic truth. They needed to get her to a place where she
could heal, if that were still possible. For her sake, Neil hoped
it was.

There was always some other distraction
though. Something else always took priority over caring for the
mental wellbeing of a child. And seemingly on cue, the sounds from
the street drew all of the adults’ attention. The moment of levity
granted to all of them had come to an end.

They crept to the front door and peered out
through a flap left in the newspapers. There was a group of a dozen
that had gathered in the empty street. They were gathering with a
purpose though. They had been drawn to this place like bees to
flowers. They weren’t completely sure as to why, but their
predatory minds had shown them the way.

Neil hadn’t realized he had gone to sleep
until Danny roused him awake early the next morning. He must have
dozed either very late in the night or very early in the morning.
He had been feeling his eyes go nearly cross trying to pick out
details on the growing mob in front of their hiding place in the
ferry terminal. The dim moonlight and the hazy, persistent snow
falling made any efforts to see into the night more than a few
yards nearly impossible.

Trying to remember his last memories of the
night before, Neil’s eyes finally came into focus. He looked at
Danny for a good long while and then smiled. They were in the front
entryway, as close to danger as he could be. He’d slept in the
shadow of the walking corpses standing on the other side of a thick
pane of glass.

Danny asked, “Why you smilin’?”

“It’s good to be woken up and not hear the
words,
Neil
we
have
a
problem
, before I can see straight. Everything still
okay?”

Danny gestured with his head toward the
window. “They’re still out there, but they’re not standing right at
the door anymore. Jerry doesn’t think they know we’re here. He
thinks we should get started early.” Danny wasn’t entirely sure
what “get started” meant, but he was tasked with delivering the
message. Danny had heard only the barest details of the plan to
corral zombies into the ferry’s fenced lot.