Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (7 page)

He took all of this in without slowing his
pace for the slightest moment. Fear and adrenaline were fueling his
legs. He found himself running away from the fence line and trying
to get to a nice hotel, the nicest in town, a common destination
for other fares in the past. As he ran, the growing activity to his
right still within the fence caught his eye. He looked over and was
stunned to stillness.

An old man with Einstein’s wild, white hair
and a peach colored golf shirt ran around the front of an RV. Bent
forward in an aggressive stance, the old man moved with much more
agility than a man of his apparent years should. His right hand was
missing, replaced by a stump from which cascaded a flood of red. He
rounded the vehicle’s front end, surprising a younger woman caught
unaware of his presence and caught unawares by his appearance. She
screamed and retreated into the RV’s side door with the
white-haired man in hot pursuit. When the man got himself into the
doorframe however, he was met with a surprising and deadly blast
from a gun still out of sight. The old man was tossed backward, his
feet coming over his head and body as he slid across the wet
pavement, leaving a dark streak of crimson.

A large young man sporting a dark handlebar
mustache stepped into the RV’s doorway and authoritatively pumped
another shell into his shotgun’s firing chamber. He spit and
shouted some vulgar slur that Abdul couldn’t quite hear due to the
bells ringing in his ears as a result of the gunshot.

The old white-haired man with the bloody
hole in his chest and the missing hand got back to his feet with
the dexterity of a wolverine. In disbelief, the man in the RV
didn’t react at first. The toothpick between his lips went limp and
fell as his mouth opened and his eyes widened. He couldn’t believe
it and neither could Abdul.

The cab driver was having a hard time
accepting what was playing out in front of him. Nothing he had ever
experienced could have prepared him for this. Seeing a man shoot
another was difficult enough, but watching the grievously wounded
man get back up like the extra hole in his body didn’t really
matter was a new category of disbelief.

Abdul found himself backing away from the
fence reflexively, his brain on autopilot. He saw the old man force
his way into the camper, despite suffering another point-blank
blast to his chest in the process. The two men fell into the
vehicle, one atop the other, locked in a deadly and ultimately
futile wrestling match. The woman inside filled the air with her
terrified screams as the men struggled with one another.

More gunshots startled Abdul, still backing
away from the fray. He saw another man standing atop an RV. The
scared man was screaming something and pulling the trigger on a
scoped hunting rifle. Abdul couldn’t see the man’s targets, but he
could guess that they were still more people.

Abdul’s head panned from right to left, his
eyes widening like camera lenses taking in the panorama. There were
people maneuvering between, over, and around the cars. A few here
and there had made it to the fence and were starting to scale it.
Abdul thought each looked normal enough to him but so had the dead
man who walked out of his cab. He didn’t know what was happening
and decided that it was time for him to hightail it out of
there.

He was certain he heard more shooting and
more screaming and another more starkly animalistic sound coming
from the surging bedlam on the opposite side of the fence. Far
enough away, Abdul finally turned and ran, his eyes focused firmly
on the town of Whittier and the long road separating him from it.
He stretched his legs and increased his pace, like a gazelle
sprinting away from a threatening cheetah or other predatory
cat.

A little more than half the way to Whittier,
Abdul’s lungs were no longer able to draw in oxygen and his legs
refused to run. He paused and lowered his head almost down to his
knees. He spat several times and then vomited. When he raised his
still heaving head, he could hear more footprints approaching.

A rushing mass of terrified travelers was
quick on his heels. Men, women, and children, screaming and
tripping into one another in a chaotic melee of desperate flight
were fleeing the same terror that had sent Abdul into retreat.

Mixed in the stretched crowd, Abdul could
detect hints and signs of things that simply were not right about
some of the people. Some of their eyes were… different. They didn’t
all seem scared. Some looked crazed, enraged, hungry. Some of those
grabbed others or pounced on those tangling inextricably with one
another. He also saw blood...lots of blood...buckets of it. It was
a slaughter and it was heading right for him.

Abdul forgot his fatigue and the pain in his
overtaxed lungs. He forced his legs forward again, pushing himself
beyond his limits. His fear, raw and powerful, blurred his eyes
with tears but numbed the agony threatening to grip his heart and
lungs. His fear helped to keep his legs moving and maintain the
distance between him and the crowd threatening to overtake him.

There was no plan. There was no destination
in mind any longer. He merely wanted to get
away
. And stay alive.

People went to Whittier for a number of
reasons: fishing, glacier cruises, hiking, hunting, and relaxing.
That morning, all the people lined up in the vehicle staging area
on the far side of the Anton Anderson Tunnel for the most part were
seeking one or more of those activities. Tourists and locals alike
were in search of recreation.

When the first scream violated the calm,
most people looked up from whatever distraction was in front of
them but few reacted more dramatically than that, likely assuming
the scream had resulted from some horseplay or some other innocuous
fun. The next shriek had many people turn off the smart phone, set
down the book, or turn down the volume on the stereo to a lower
decibel. A few folks stepped out of their parked vehicles to get a
better look at what was happening.

The first gunshot prompted some to lock
their doors and raise their windows. Some stout and foolhardy souls
couldn’t resist the urge to seek out the source of the ruckus. The
sage-like idiom
Curiosity
killed
the
cat
was threatening to migrate from hypothetical to
absolute.

One man, a middle-aged father of three, saw
from his rental car’s side mirror an orange vested police officer
attacked by an out of control young man possibly in a drug-related
rage like those people you hear about on the news. The poor
policeman was overwhelmed by the brute ferocity of his attacker and
beaten to the ground.

The stunned father leapt from his car to
come to the officer’s aid. He ran toward the scuffle. He saw
another motionless body, perhaps an older woman, lying near a
full-sized touring van. He shouted, hoping to interrupt the melee.
It worked, but it worked to his detriment.

The crazed attacker, upon hearing the new
voice and seeing the father approach, released the brutalized law
enforcement officer and unleashed his wrath upon his new target.
With the police officer’s arms no longer struggling beneath him,
the other man released his grip and flew at the father, caught
completely off guard and off balance. The father fell over backward
with the blood-smeared face of his attacker bearing down upon him.
The battle was over almost as quickly as it began.

In the tussle, the father’s shirt and jacket
were pulled up onto and over his head. His attacker took full
advantage of his victim’s inability to defend himself adequately
and lunged forward into the father’s undefended abdomen. He sank
his grinding teeth into the soft, white flesh of the father’s side
just above his waist. The man’s teeth didn’t bite just to hurt; he
was on a mission to rend flesh from his victim. He bit and chewed
until he ripped a dripping soft piece of tissue from the father’s
body, struggling feebly like a salmon caught ruthlessly in a bear’s
jaw.

The father’s fear and adrenaline were not
enough to enable him to extricate himself from his attacker’s
clutches. With each successive bite, the father felt his strength
and his life drain from his limbs, no longer able to fight. His
vision was fading, as was his sense of where he was. There was no
more pain, despite the fact that his body was still under full
assault. The teeth of his attacker had found their way beyond the
surface of his skin and into his internal organs.

Tragically, the slain father had neglected
to shut his car door behind him in his haste to intervene. His
children, safely buckled in the back seat, would soon pay the price
for his oversight. Moments after the father expired, the original
attacker, the reanimated woman, police officer, and even the
father, now as frighteningly bloodthirsty and remorseless as the
others, all feasted upon the young, defenseless flesh.

Like a wildfire fanned by a generous wind,
pockets of terror spread all across the parking lot. Whether
resulting from Abdul’s Passenger Zero or from other infected people
managing to find their way to Whittier, the infection was growing
and devouring at a frighteningly alarming rate.

Danielle looked over at her friend Kameron,
sitting next to her on the Gray Line of Alaska tour bus. The scream
followed by more screams worried the two of them and everyone else
on the bus. A ripple of concern whistled through the passengers
like a gale through the trees. If they had been a stand of birch,
there likely wouldn’t have been a leaf still attached.

The bus driver, to his credit, tried to calm
the souls in his charge. He felt disconnected and alone, his radio
unable to reach anyone at his dispatch office. The last he’d heard
over the radio from headquarters was something about a disturbance
at Providence Hospital. Since then, the radio had only produced
static.

His employer offered and he’d completed
training that was intended to help him through emergency
situations, but most of that theory had been lost on him. When
doing it, he always felt he was doing so to place the proverbial
checkmark in the box. Now, he doubted the value of the training.
The thing to which he did cling was the desire to keep everyone
safe and, if at all possible, calm.

Using his intercom several times after
feigning receiving messages over the radio, he announced to the bus
occupants that authorities had the situation in hand, a fact that
he could neither confirm nor claim to reasonably believe himself.
He hadn’t heard from anyone and didn’t expect word anytime
soon.

He was careful to not let his eyes linger
for too long in their numerous trips to the rearview mirror above
his head. He didn’t want to betray the doubt and concern behind
them.

After several minutes of worried waiting, a
few more brazen passengers decided they’d had enough. The volume
and frequency of the tortured and terrified shrieks were
increasing. They also were getting closer and closer to the bus;
the last one reaching out from just a few car lengths away. A pair
of men finally stood and started to walk themselves to the front of
the bus. Each paused a short moment when he had gotten to the
driver, who initially refused to budge. If he allowed his
passengers off the bus, he would have failed. Keeping his
passengers together and on the bus was the best method for him to
maintain some sense of control and that, in his mind, was the only
way for him to ensure their safety. With all that running through
his mind as he eyed the adamant faces of the two obvious fishermen,
the three men shared looks but no words before the driver finally
consented to open the doors.

Once the door had been opened, others
followed the lead set by the two men. One by one and group by
group, everyone aboard the large tour bus exited. The bus driver
was the last to leave his seat, much like the captain of a sinking
ship.

The group of more than sixty people was
waiting impatiently next to the bus. The driver took out his keys
and opened the bus’ two side compartments holding the passengers’
luggage and personal effects.

At once, like the worst rushes on luggage
carousels at busy airport baggage claim areas, the entire group
pressed forward in the mad dash to lay hands on luggage. Kameron, a
solidly built and determined young man, waded into the crowd in
search of his and his friend’s backpacks.

Having trained and competed as a college
wrestler in the not too distant past, he didn’t like to use his
strength away from the mat, but he found it necessary under the
present circumstances. Forcing his way steadily into the melee, he
finally got close enough to spy his friend Danielle’s bright green
backpack as it toppled from the compartment and was kicked under
the bus. He wanted to find his red bag too, but Danielle’s was
clearly more important than his. It wasn’t strictly a matter of
chivalry or his desire to impress his beautiful traveling
companion. Her needs were real and not rooted in materialism, which
didn’t seem to be much of a concern for her at all.

He’d met her through an online chat room. He
wasn’t necessarily looking for romance when he entered; at least
that was what he tried to tell himself. He was bored and lonely and
happened to see the commercial on the television at a particularly
moment. He signed in and, after several unsuccessful openings for
dialogue with others, he found Danielle through the chaos.

They chatted for hours and then connected on
Facebook for more private conversations. That was several months
ago. They’d exchanged pictures online and had begun to text not
long after, but still they hadn’t met. If her pictures were real
and not one of those online scams, he was very eager to meet her.
He’d dated pretty girls in his life, but he had never been with an
honest to goodness beauty like her. Her skin was a color that
reminded him of warm, sunny beaches but appeared as soft as flower
petals. Her eyes shone like emeralds and her hair was as dark and
full as a summer night.