Infected (Book 2): The Flight (12 page)

Meagan worked feverishly, adrenaline making her fingers clumsy.  In spite of her degraded fine motor skills, she completed the knot.  Under normal circumstances, she would have easily worked out the next step, but under the terror of being eaten, she couldn’t figure out what to do with the broom.

She stood at the window, looking uncertainly at the stick in her hands. Zeke realized she needed further direction.  “Hold onto the stick and drop the sheets out the window.”  Without understanding his plan, she complied. The sheet rope cascaded down and was tugged to the side by the breeze, unfurling like a huge flag of surrender. “Put the stick across the window and make sure there’s plenty protruding past either edge.”

As he was yelling, the helicopter fired a short burst into the house.  The rapid booming of the helicopter’s canon covered his directions, so he shouted them out again.

As she placed the broom stick across the window, the physics of the plan clicked in her mind, and a look of understanding and confidence reappeared on her face.  Keeping tension on the broom, she positioned herself in the window facing away from the room, sheet rope in her hands. 

She paused, considering the best way to begin her rappelling climb downward.  In a crash that Zeke could not hear, the infected broke through the door.  Without warning, in a move that caused Zeke’s teeth to tightly clench together in fear for her safety, she jumped outward, sheet sliding through her fingers.  A tenth of a second later, she tightened her grip on the sheet, arresting her fall.  The broom stick bowed outward under the weight, but refused to break. 

What started as a straight fall powered by gravity turned into an arc toward the house as she swung inward on the sheet like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.  Her body slammed into the side of the house with a jolting impact that crushed the air out of her lungs, and left her stunned. In spite of the pain, she refused to release her vice-like grip on the sheet.  Her timidity and fear were unexpectedly replaced with a desire to live, a will to do whatever it took to stay alive.  As she clung helplessly to the sheet, feet dangling ten feet above the ground, an inexplicable realization swept over her.  She would survive.  She would never again allow herself to be a helpless, passive victim of her circumstances.  Hand over hand, she lowered herself down the sheet.  Her feet sought purchase on the side of the house, but found nothing to take the weight and ease the burning in her forearms and biceps.  She continued descending and fought past what she thought was her ultimate, endurable limit of fatigue.  Finally, she reached the end of the sheet.  Her feet were still five feet from the ground when she released her grasp and fell the rest of the way, landing with bent knees absorbing the joint-jarring shock of the impact.

Meagan looked up at the window to see a young man in his twenties eyeing her from the position she had just vacated.  His furious voice chased after her as she followed Zeke to the tree line. 

Looking over her shoulder, she saw the man leap from the window in pursuit.  The earth’s pull on his body created enough force to shatter both of his legs on impact.  Undeterred by his inability to walk, he continued his pursuit, dragging himself on his elbows.  Another body leaped from the window and then a third, fourth and fifth.  The results were the same for each.

Zeke and Meagan reached the woods and disappeared into the thick, entangling mass of bushes, small trees, and kudzu.  The sight of the nightmare behind them was quickly blotted out by dense foliage.

Just after they entered the woods, a loud
whoosh
preceded an explosion.  A second later, a concussion blasted through the woods, knocking leaves from the trees.  Meagan felt the pressure wave slap her in the back, leaving her ears ringing.  Wood debris from the house rained down around them, some pieces large enough to break branches off the nearby trees.  A black column of smoke billowed into the blue sky.  They didn’t slow until they had traveled half a mile from the house. 

Finally Zeke pulled up and stopped.  Meagan, who had been staying right on his heels, stopped, too.  Zeke bent over and supported the weight of his upper body by resting his hands on his knees.  He grabbed gulping breaths of air, trying to restore the deficit of oxygen and rid his body of excess carbon dioxide. 

Meagan was winded from the breakneck race over rough terrain, but not nearly to the extent that Zeke was.  In an uncharacteristic show of calmness, she said, “I bet you’re wishing you spent less of your gym time growing your arms and more of it working on cardio.” 

Zeke did a double take in response. Ten minutes ago, she shrieked in terror when one of the infected ran into the side of the house.  Now she was calm and making jokes after having narrowly escaped being eaten and blown to bits. 

“Yeah, I suppose a little extra cardio training would come in handy right now,” he admitted suspiciously, wondering if she was undergoing some sort of mental breakdown.  “Are you okay?” he asked.

“As good as can be expected,” she answered.  Her voice definitely contained emotion, but the debilitating panic from before had been replaced by an air of control. Knowing what he was really asking, she continued, “I don’t know what happened to me.  Something in me changed when I was climbing down the sheets.  I know I’ve been really emotional since this started.”  She paused and looked at the ground in embarrassment.  “That isn’t me.  I’m normally a very level headed person.  When everything started, something snapped.  I felt broken, like I couldn’t handle what was happening.  My family was infected and I was trapped in the city with nobody. 

“When you included me in your group, I still felt helpless.  I wasn’t alone anymore, but I knew I was in way over my head. It kept getting worse until I was hanging from the sheet with those things in the room above fixing to eat me.  In that moment, I realized I was the only one who could save myself.  I can’t explain it.  I was suddenly overcome by the resolve to fight and to live.  It was like God reached into my head in that instant and fixed whatever broke yesterday.  The panic was gone.”

She paused again, looking back at the plume of smoke writhing its way into the sky like a black snake.  “I’m sorry about the cardio comment.  It was pretty callous in light of everything that just happened.   I guess I was feeling grateful to escape with my life and needed to say something to break the stress of the moment.”

“Don’t apologize.  I’m just glad you’re okay,” he added, still trying to figure out what had happened to her.  Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to complain.  He wouldn’t have survived another day with the Meagan of ten minutes ago.  Her paralyzing panic attacks would have quickly gotten them both killed.

“We better keep moving,” he finally said when he had managed to catch his breath. 

“Where are we going?” Meagan asked.

“I don’t know,” Zeke confessed.  “We need to get away from the state line though.  I don’t want to be mistaken for a sick person trying to cross the Alabama border.  If we can make it back to Bowden, we might be able to find another car.”

When they resumed their trek, Zeke led at a much slower pace.  Although she didn’t comment on it, he felt obliged to explain.  “Now that we’ve put some distance between ourselves and whatever may be left of the Bowden Horde, I don’t want to run ourselves to death.  If we cross paths with more of them, we may have to run for our lives.  I think it would be wise to move slowly enough to have an energy reserve available if we need it.” 

“That makes sense,” she said in an even voice.  Zeke had been huffing and puffing when he spoke.  She was right.  He should have spent more time on the cardio equipment.  His muscle bulk was proving to be a hindrance to him.  The extra weight was doing little more than tiring him. 

They cautiously moved through woods, open pastures and more woods.  Finally, after an hour, they circled back to the highway just west of Bowden. 

“We need to find somewhere indoors where we can hole up for a while.  I have one full magazine left and a couple rounds in the other.  If we run out of bullets, we’re in serious trouble,” Zeke said as he looked left and right out of habit.  There wasn’t a car in sight.  He slowly stepped onto the road with Meagan at his side. 

Meagan carried a stick she had picked up in the woods.  It was about three feet long and three inches thick.  She had found it in the remains of a tree that had been cut for firewood.  It was green wood and was very dense.  It obviously wasn’t the best weapon to use against the infected, but at least it was something.  It kept her destiny in her own hands.  It gave her the ability to fend for herself.  She had no doubts that Zeke would do everything he could to protect her, including sacrificing his life.  He hadn’t hesitated to run back to the house which was full of infected and under fire from the helicopter.  It wasn’t in her nature to depend on others and to expect them to take care of her, though.  She had always been self-sufficient.  The club gave her the ability to remain that way; it enabled her to defend herself.

Nobody was driving on Highway 166.  Everybody knew the Alabama state line was closed.  There was nothing on the highway between Bowden and the state line except for a few farms.  That, and the fact that the horde had gone that way, kept everybody off the road. 

As Zeke and Meagan walked into Bowden, the town appeared deserted.  There were no vehicles driving on the streets. An occasional dog barked, but other than that, the silence was ominous: no lawn mowers, no cars, no airplanes.  Just silence.  As the houses grew closer together on smaller lots, they occasionally saw a face peering around drawn curtains.  Many of the faces disappeared as soon as they realized they had been seen.

"There's another one," Meagan pointed out as they walked passed a single story brick house.  This face didn't disappear like the rest when her pointing finger indicated its presence. It didn't respond when she waved either. At first it just eyed them with morbid interest.  Then the face banged into the window.  Its head reared back and its mouth opened.  A faint howl made its way through the negligible space between the closed window and the frame it slid in.  The face behind the glass twisted and contorted in rage. A scream from the house across the street answered in reply.  Closed curtains in a large window swayed back and forth as a body rubbed against them.

Zeke turned and saw two faces in a small kitchen window of another house.  The faces mirrored the neighbor across the street in grimaces of rage.  Another scream came from somewhere behind the first house.  This one, however, didn't come from within a house.  It rang out in a hauntingly clear vocalization that brought terror from the hidden recesses of Zeke’s mind.  It back brought images from horror movies he had watched late at night at slumber parties as a kid.  It brought back images from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom he watched with his grandpa, images of predators about to pounce on their prey.  The howls forebode impending death.  He understood that the death the howls were announcing were his and Meagan's. 

They broke into a run.  Another unseen voice clearly belted out a demonic scream that pierced through both of them and spurred them on to greater speed.  Even though the specters were as yet unseen, there was no doubt they were there.  As they continued to run, they passed a body lying on the sidewalk.  It had been picked apart; there was virtually no skin left on the body and very little muscle remained on the bones.  A severed arm lay a short distance away from its torso.  Tattered and ripped clothing was strewn about the corpse, further evidence of what was lurking out of sight. 

The road curved slightly.  As they rounded the bend, Bowden High School came into view.  "We need to get off this road and get inside," Zeke wheezed as he struggled to satisfy his body’s screaming demands for oxygen.  His legs were wobbly, and his vision was spotty; exhaustion was threatening to send him to his knees.  His forward progress was fueled solely by adrenaline and a stubborn refusal to give up and die.  Meagan was huffing beside him. She may have been in better shape than him, but she was struggling now as well. Both were near the point of complete exhaustion.

The school seemed like the best immediate option for a secure indoor location to rest.  Screaming voices grew around them.  There were at least a dozen keeping pace with them, possibly on parallel streets.  "I can't go much further," Meagan gasped as they approached the school’s entrance.  Zeke pulled on the handle.  The door was locked.  He looked through the narrow, wire-impregnated glass, trying to see inside.  The hallway was dark and empty. 

He turned from the door and saw two bodies emerge from around the bend two or three hundred yards behind. The two men stopped, eyeing them without moving.  Even from that distance, the absence of other noise permitted sound to carry clearly when one of the men took a snorting breath, sampling the air with its nose. 

"We're out of time," Zeke said, voicing the obvious.  He resumed his flight in search of another door that might permit them entrance to the building.  When he looked over his shoulder, the infected men broke into a pursuing sprint.

Zeke and Meagan rounded the corner of the building.  They passed a worksite where somebody had been painting a huge red
B
on the side of the building. The job had been abandoned without any effort at clean up. A ladder still leaned against the wall.

As Zeke passed the neglected equipment, Meagan, who was several paces behind, yelled, "Wait!"  Zeke spun on his heels.  Meagan had already started extending the aluminum ladder. He understood what she was doing without being told. If one door was locked, they were probably all locked.  If they couldn't get safely inside, they could at least get on the roof and out of reach, assuming the ladder was tall enough.  The ladder clinked rapidly as the locking mechanism slid over each rung and was pulled back into place by spring tension.  At maximum extension, the ladder was a good five feet short of the roof.  Before Zeke had a chance to make sure the legs were securely positioned on the ground, Meagan was already ascending two rungs at a time; any trepidation or signs of caution were afterthoughts she didn't have time to consider.

Zeke bounded up the rungs behind her, catching the back of her shoe in the mouth as he climbed.  The ladder bowed under the weight of the two scalers roughly climbing at the same time.  Meagan blatantly ignored the sticker which warned to refrain from using the top rung. Placing her hands against the wall for balance, she stepped onto the top rung, stretched upward, and wrapped her fingers over the ledge of the roof.  She pushed off the ladder as she pulled with her arms to give the slight acceleration needed to overcome her dead weight and pull herself up.  The push off caused the ladder to teeter slightly and it began a slow motion succumbence to gravity.   Two rungs from the top, Zeke tried to steady the ladder by pushing his hands against the wall. His best efforts couldn't stop the ladder's slow leaning tilt.

Unable to stop the lean, he realized the ladder's fate was sealed.  It was going to fall and unless he got off, he would fall with it.  He stepped onto the second to last rung, raising the center of gravity, which increased the rate it slid across the side of the building.  His only chance was to push off the rung with his legs and hopefully achieve enough height to reach the edge.  His rubbery legs thrust upwards with every bit of strength they held in reserve. His arms stretched up, and both hands firmly grasped the ledge above him.  In a fleeting thought, he realized that without the ladder, they wouldn't have a way to get off the roof.  His foot reached out to the left and he wrapped the toe of his shoe around the top rung of the ladder, stopping its arcing path along the side of the building.

He looked to his right as Meagan pulled herself up onto the roof, two feet away.  Looking to the left, he saw three infected tear around the corner.  He pointed his feet up as far as he could with the ladder hooked at his ankles and pulled with his arms.  He dragged his torso over the edge of the roof, but with the ladder dangling from his feet, he couldn't get his legs over the ledge.  Meagan lay down on the ledge beside him, her head and arms hanging down, grasping for the top of the ladder.  Zeke pulled his legs up as high as he could.  Meagan touched it with her fingers, but couldn't get them around it.  She scooted further over the edge until she reached the point she felt like there wasn't enough friction between her body and the roof to hold her in place. Zeke strained to pull his legs up higher. With a final grunt from Zeke, the ladder rose into her straining fingers. 

She tried to pull it up, but only succeeded in pulling herself further over the edge.  "Don't let go of it!" she screamed.  "I can't hold on to both the roof and the ladder!"

With Meagan supporting part of the weight, Zeke pulled himself up far enough to swing his left leg over the top of the roof with the ladder still supported by his right foot. His body was now parallel to the edge of the roof.  He maneuvered his body so that his weight was resting on Meagan's butt, pushing her down onto the roof.  "I'm letting go with my foot. If you can't hold it, let go."