Among the Living (29 page)

“I said, identify yourself!” One of the soldiers calls again, and when they don’t answer, he tightens his grip on the gun and a single shot echoes across the neighborhood. The attacker on top of the woman rears up from the shot. His head whips back, then he falls to the side.

The first one leaps to his feet but is brought down by two shots, one from each gun. The two soldiers glance at each other, then one of them, visibly shaken, talks into a small device in the collar of his shirt. Voices, tiny and tinny, drift upward. The other man moves in on the woman, with his gun still pointed at her.

“Are you hurt, ma’am? Did one of them bite you?” His voice is small from where they stand, but Kate can tell it has a waver in it as if he is trembling.

The woman groans and rolls over and tries to get up on all fours. Her hands seem unsure, and Kate is positive it’s just the adrenaline running through her body. The woman sobs and tries to stand, but the soldier closes in on her and points the gun at her face.

“Are you bit, ma’am? Did one of those things bite you?” She looks up at the gun and shies away, but she can’t seem to find her voice. The other soldier continues talking into his little radio as if oblivious to the spectacle before him.

“She’s in shock,” Kate says but only loud enough for Bob to hear. She wants to jump off the little balcony, drop the fifteen feet to the ground and smack the shit out of the black guy who is pointing his gun at the lady.

“Ma’am, I am not going to ask you again: Are you bit? HAVE YOU BEEN BITTEN?”

She comes to her feet, and Kate can tell she is struggling. There is blood on her, but judging by the amount, it probably isn’t hers. She tries to speak, tries to form words, but nothing comes out, and she just stammers for a second.

The soldier backs away from her, one slow backward step after another until he stands by his partner. They confer for a moment, and the woman, with shaking hand, lifts her pant leg to show the bloody bite mark. It’s livid, and there is a small stream of blood flowing down.

Kate is only twenty feet away from the poor woman and feels shocked at the spectacle. The first soldier looks up in a panic and points up the street. They talk back and forth quietly in a heated argument that doesn’t last long. The soldier with the radio looks at the woman, who now acts odd. Foam comes to her mouth, and she shakes in place. She drops to one knee as if in sudden pain, and her whole body trembles. She coughs loudly before a stream of blood spews from her mouth. It’s red and ropy like it is thick with mucus. Strands of it hang down her chin and coat her shirt.

The soldier slams his gun against his shoulder, aims and shoots her in the head. She is whipped around by the force of the shot, her body flopping back at an impossible angle, knees flat on the ground. Her sightless eyes fix on Kate as her head falls back with a crack that seems as loud as the gunshot.

Kate backs up in horror and struggles not to scream. She wants to grab Bob’s gun and shoot both of these assholes in the head. How would you like that, mother fuckers? She has seen death before, has caused it herself, but she was not prepared for the cold-blooded murder she just witnessed.

“Folks, get everyone out of your building and get away from here. They’re coming!” he yells at them as if unaware that he just shot an innocent lady in the head.

“You shot her, man. You just killed some innocent woman. What the fuck gives you the right …”

“You don’t know what is going on out here, man, so just shut the fuck up. I did her a favor, ‘cause now she can’t turn into one of those things,” the soldier yells back at Bob. “Just listen, grab what you can carry, warn everyone you can and get out of that building. This place is going to be overrun in a few minutes! This ain’t no joke! If you want to live, you need to grab your girl and haul ass anywhere but here!”

An Army Humvee screeches around the corner followed by a second one. A truck also arrives, one of the big ones with a canvas top. It slams to a halt, and men and women pour out of the back. They are young, all of them and they look scared, but they seem to have the drill down as they stand in a line at attention. Meanwhile a couple of them haul a big gun out of the back and start setting it up. Another truck arrives, and men jump out and start dragging big sandbags into the street.

Kate turns to Bob, and he says the words she is mouthing, their voices parroting each other.

“What the fuck is going on?”

The morning wears on and we manage to make it into the shower, together, which means it takes about three times as long as it should. Then we retire to her room to finish what we started under the pulsing blast of steamy water. Later as we lie close, comfortable, together, we talk about all manner of things while I trail my fingers over her warm flesh. We doze for a bit, and then she suggests that we head to my house.

We have been completely preoccupied with each other, unaware of what is going on out in the world. I get up from the bed naked as the day I was born and look outside to see if the weather has changed. This is Seattle, after all—if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.

I expect to see cars on the street, and if I lean far enough out, I can probably make out Denny, which is a major road stretching between the waterfront, Seattle Center and I-5. What I don’t expect to see are a couple of green trucks pulling onto the main street. Men in uniform get out, and I think of the other trucks I saw yesterday, on their way to destinations unknown. Now they are here and very real. I have to wonder what they are up to. It’s creepy, seeing the damn things two days in a row. There is something going on, something huge.

I can feel Erin’s eyes on me. I turn, and she smiles at me. A genuine smile that makes me feel a sudden overwhelming rush of affection. I walk to the bed, lean over and kiss her. I stare into her eyes for a moment, content and yet lost at the same time.

“I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“It’s okay, Mike. Next time I’ll just hit you over the head with a club and drag you back to my lair.”

“I think you did that last night.” I laugh.

After a moment, she gets out of bed and dresses in jeans and a light-blue polo that looks amazing against her dark skin. I watch her slide into her clothes from the other side of the room. She stares at my state of undress and smirks; one eyebrow arches up. I go to her and hug her for no reason other than that I can. We kiss for a moment, and then she advises me that I can’t stay naked all day.

We chat for a moment about how we will spend our time after we swing by my house. We come to the conclusion that we should take a scenic drive, maybe to Mt. Rainier. We can pick up goodies for a picnic on the way. Our plans settled, she goes to the bathroom to get ready, and I am left to my own devices. I can’t wait to get out of the city. We seem to be making the assumption that whatever brought the soldiers to this part of the city won’t keep us here.

When I am dressed and seated on her couch, I switch on the television and try to find the news. The local channels are showing sports and infomercials, but a red banner runs across the bottom of the screen. It keeps repeating something about a sickness. People are hurt, confused, and they might be dangerous. Dangerous? I hunt through my pants pockets, which are in a heap on the floor, until I find my phone. The little text message icon is lit and, sure enough, Leonard has sent several. I back up to the first one of the day. It came in around 7:00 a.m.

Mike, it’s real, the virus. They have been covering it up, shutting things down … Cell phones are flaky, so I’m sending messages from mine just in case it works. They have nicknamed them deaders, and they have already taken over a couple of neighborhoods. The virus attacks the nervous system, shuts down the brain. Makes them appear dead. The people slip into a state that is like death, then they reanimate.

I nearly drop the phone at the message. Things like this happen in books and movies, not in real life. He is just setting up a joke. The next message is even more disturbing.

They are shutting down communication in the city so word doesn’t get out, but you can bet your ass it won’t last long. The virus, they are calling it Registrop, spreads through saliva. A bite from one of the victims takes about thirty seconds to do complete and irreparable damage. It is mutating. It seems to get stronger with each generation of infection.

The last message is from an hour ago.

Get out of the city. Go home, find a place to hide. If one of them attacks you, kill it. The Army guys are doing that now. They are shooting anyone who appears to be infected. They are stronger than us, faster. They want our blood. I know it sounds absurd—just get out, Mike.

Erin is still in the bathroom fixing her hair. The hair dryer clicks on and off, then there is the clink of things being placed on the sink, and she is actually humming. I want to go in there and pretend like nothing is wrong. I want to hold her and protect her. It can’t be real, can’t be. I read the messages over and over. It is not like Leonard to make jokes like this. But how can he think I will take it seriously?

I poke my head in the door to see what she is up to. She has a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth and is putting earrings in her lobes. They are short silver loops. She spits and shows me her pearly whites like a child.

“Okay, I know Leonard can be a little crazy at times, but this one takes the cake.” I show her the message. She reads it and then reads it again.

“He must be joking.”

So I show her the next message. She reads it and hands it back, no longer smiling. Gunfire from outside the building interrupts us, and we both jump. These aren’t the distant shots we heard last night. These are much closer and much louder. More shots, and I rush to the bedroom to get a glimpse of the street, but I can’t see over the side of the building. Besides, the shots sounded like they came from the other side.

“Let’s just go to your house,” she suggests, and I don’t care anymore if Leonard is serious. I just want to get out of the city, go home, and watch the news. Surely the trouble hasn’t reached as far as Auburn. It looks like we will have to postpone our picnic.

“Is your car close?”

“Yeah. There is a garage in this building. We can be out of here in a couple of minutes.”

She squats and takes a small red plastic bag out of the cabinet under the sink and then starts sweeping items in. Hairbrush, wet toothbrush, toothpaste and a bottle of pills. She grabs a lipstick. I decide I have seen enough, so I go to her room to find my shoes and socks.

We meet in the hall, and she dashes past me to load another bag with clothes. I down my coffee, which has grown cold. A glance at the clock tells me it is nearly eleven.

She locks her condo, and we make for the elevator. It zips us to the parking garage, and there is her little red Honda Civic. I take her bags and put them in the trunk, then we pile into the car and she squeals out of the place and toward the garage exit.

She zips up the little driveway that rises to meet the street and almost runs into a man who wanders by as if in a daze. He doesn’t bother to look at us.

She slams on her brakes, and we are both thrown forward. The guy doesn’t even acknowledge us or the shriek of the tires. He walks into the street, on which cars are stretched in every direction. They are all at a standstill with more piling up behind them by the second. Horns honk, and people get out of their automobiles to stand around looking toward I-5. Others get on hoods and try to make out what the holdup might be.

Erin pulls up the little rise, but we aren’t going anywhere. I pop out of the car, and it is easy to see why everyone is stopped. The camouflaged trucks I was worried about are more troublesome than I thought. They block the road, men piling out of them in an orderly fashion.

“What the hell is this?” Erin mutters.

“The gas leak maybe?” I know how dumb the words sound, but I refuse to believe what Leonard sent me earlier. I roll the window down and yell at one of the men in green who is going car to car, telling people something, pointing down toward the waterfront.

“What’s going on?”

“You should get out of here, sir. This place is about to become a battlefield. The deaders have overrun Seattle Center. They’re headed this way.”

“Deaders?” I shrug my shoulders. Isn’t that what Leonard called them?

“The ones with the virus. Just get out and head for the waterfront with all the others. More National Guards are on the way, so you should be safe.” He doesn’t sound very convincing.

When I look back, he is gone and more men pile out of the military vehicles. They look motivated. Some appear concerned, but they also seem confident as they pour into the city street with large guns in hand.

Has the city gone completely mad?

Angela is sitting on the couch crying when Lester runs into the living room. He spares her a glance and then dashes to the back of the house. The generator is dead thanks to her pulling the plug. This leaves the TV cold and black. He runs to the sliding glass door and watches as hands feel along the top of the fence. The thin slats of wood that have fallen into disrepair are all that separates his house from the green belt. Where did they come from? The fingers move, shift, slide along the top, and it freaks Lester right the fuck out. He shivers violently.