My Apocalypse (Book 1): The Fall (7 page)

“Thank you.” I said to him.

He nodded, then, without taking my hand, or even offering any words, turned and disappeared into the woods.

18.

I stood at the side of the bar a few moments later, having transverse the field quickly enough. The place was quiet, and I could not detect anything inside as I peeked through the few small places I could see through the windows at. After mere moments more of careful deliberation, I decided that it was safe enough, and began my search for a way into the bar.

It was easy enough.

The back door was slightly ajar, and swung easily open at a touch. I gave my eyes time to adjust, and did not see any movement, nor heard any sound, so I moved inside. I had entered into the kitchen area, and the smell hit me almost instantly. Something had died in here, and whatever it was, it was still here. In the small area, it was only a matter of a few seconds until I found the source.

Lying there on the floor was the body. A pool of blood spread around it, and flies were thick. Vomit rose in my throat though when my eyes fell on the small swarm of rats that covered the body’s legs. Gnawing and eating, I heard the sounds of tearing flesh and snapping bones. I started to back step, my stomach doing flips in my throat, then chaos erupted around me. I had reached out to steady my legs, trying to place my hand on a countertop, and accidentally hit a small pot. With a crash that echoed through the entire place, the pan hit the floor. Instantly the entire rat swarm looked at me at once, and I could see that something was not right. Their eyes glowed in the dark, and they let out a collective hiss that chilled the blood. I turned to head to the door, and there, between me and it, was more of the dirty vermin, trailing blood as they walked along the floor.

I was cornered, and my heart began to feel like it was going to explode in my chest. The rats edged closer and closer and my head whipped back and forth, looking for a way out. Then, as if on cue, there it was: a small window, there for the kitchen to pass food through to the front, and the decision was made.

With a single bound, I was on the countertop, my hands in the window. I was going to have to squeeze to make it through, for while it was long, it wasn’t that tall. I was through up to my waist when the unexpected happened.

All of the sudden, I felt hands grab my leg, trying to jerk me back through the window the way I had just come. I hung on for dear life, and managed to turn around to see what was going on. The man, or what was left of him, that the rats had been eating on had grabbed my leg, and was now trying its damndest to drag me with it to hell. It clawed at me, and I felt its teeth as it bit down on my boot. I was lucky though, due to my kicking, the thing could not find good purchase on my foot. I screamed at the thing, and brought my left heel down hard. I heard a satisfying thud, followed by the sharp sound of bones cracking, as my heel smashed into the creatures face. It released its hold on me, and the sudden freedom caused me to lurch out of the window, falling freely to the floor below.

I landed on the floor behind the bar. My breath exploded from my chest and I saw stars. There was a ringing in my ears, like some wind chimes tinkling in a summer breeze. I struggled to catch my breath, and clear my head. Finally the motes of light cleared, and I found my breath coming easier and smoother. I could hear the zombie in the kitchen shuffling around, and then, almost ear shattering in the quiet, a high pitched squeal. The dead head must have found one of the plague rats. I took one last breath to steady my nerves, then opened my eyes and got ready to get up.

And then I realized that I was staring right into another’s face.

I froze. The woman looked at me, mere inches from my face, and I could here a low growl beginning to issue forth from deep within it. Her eyes shone in the dark, and my mind harkened back to the encounter I had with the man on the train tracks so many months before. The woman’s eyes narrowed and her mouth split in an evil grin, exposing rotted and broken teeth. I could smell the death on her. Than, the next instant, the creatures head exploded in a shower of blood and brains, and a deafening boom tore through the small establishment.

“You need to move, NOW!!!” I heard from nearby. It sounded like the voice had traveled through a tunnel, muffled and distorted.

“You hear me?” the voice asked, insistent. “Get your ass up and get in here.”

The fog lifted from my head, and I looked around to see who had spoken to me. A figure stood at the far end of the bar, looking at me from around a door. The person held a rather large shotgun in its hands, pointed directly at me. Whoever it was wore a large helmet, made for motorcycle riding, the visor lowered, and a bulky black leather jacket, on which they appeared to have fastened a few hardened leather plates to in various locations.

“You al right?” the person asked me, raising the gun. “You been bitten?”

“No,” I answered, getting to my feet. “I’m okay, thanks to you.”

The person grunted and beckoned with the gun. I went towards it and ducked around=d the door. A set of stairs led upwards, and I started up, stopping only for a second when I heard a loud thud behind me. The light was better in the stairwell, small battery operated lanterns were set every couple of feet. The figure had placed a decent sized metal bar across the door, held in place by two large hooks. The person reached up and removed the motorcycle helmet it was wearing, letting long auburn hair spill down. Blue eyes sparkled at me, but in them I saw distrust and annoyance. The woman, barely a woman, was probably twenty or so, pale of skin and pretty. Bright freckles stood out in stark contrast to her ivory skin.

“Um…” I began, at a loss for words once again in so little a time.

“Don’t,” the woman said, “until I decide if I’m going to kill you or not, just don’t speak. Go up.”

I decided the most prudent course of action would be to follow her instructions, mainly due to the rather large gun she was carrying. I turned and trudged up the stairs, my mind spinning. So much had happened in the short time that I had been awake; so much of my world was in turmoil. Now here I was, being led by gunpoint by a girl I thought was in trouble, and gods know what was going to happen next.

My family came to mind again.

I could see Tyler, cocky as he usually was, thinking this was like some video game, trying to be a hero and more than likely doing more damage than good. Christopher and Seth, the smallest of my kids, possibly scared, possibly excited, but no doubt both already dead. My mom, Aliyah, Jasmine, even my dog Cat. And my beloved, Crystal, what had become of her? My head started pounding thinking of them all. I was so worried that I would never see any of them again.

We had made it up the stairs, and the woman led me through a doorway into a small apartment. Boxes and crates were stacked along the walls, and in one window, a small emergency light blinked on and off. She motioned for me to sit down at a small card table and followed suit in a chair across from me. I couldn’t help but notice that she never let the shotgun go, her finger on the trigger at all times.

“Who are you?” she asked me.

“My names Eddy,” I replied.

“Abigail,” she told me. “What are you doing out there? I don’t mean to sound rude, but you are aware of what’s going on right?”

“Well,” I began, laughing a little, “up until a few hours ago, no I did not.”

She looked at me, confusion and incredulity on her face. When more questions failed to follow after a few seconds, I decided to continue. I told her all that I knew, from when I woke up in the hospital to that moment. Hearing myself talk, I reminded myself of some cheesy horror movie, and almost couldn’t believe it myself. After telling her, we both sat there, the girl letting my words sink in.

“That’s a hard story to believe,” she said to me. “Yet I see no lie in your eyes.”

“I kind of wish I was,” I told her. “I keep hoping to wake up, find out that all this is nothing but a bad dream.”

“Wish I could tell you it was.” Abigail’s words were sincere, but held no comfort to me.

“So why are you here?” I asked her. “Surely there are better places you could have gone, safer places.”

“Sure,” she started, “sure there were. When the military started evacuating the civilians, I could have gone with them. I could have found other people holed up somewhere, tried to wait it out in a larger group. With that, at least I wouldn’t have died alone. That’s all that would have happened. I have been here for months now, and I have been fine.

“Plus there is my dad.”

I looked at her, and raised an eyebrow in question. Seeing my expression, she continued her story.

“My father is sick, has been for some time. I think the stress of all that has happened just made it worse. He owned this place, and when everything started getting bad, I came here to help him. By the time the evacuation started, he could barely move, and I couldn’t just leave him. There was at one point twelve of us here, but some left with the soldiers, others went to look for supplies and just never came back. Now it’s just me and him here. You are the first living person I have seen in a month.”

She fell quiet and I thought it prudent not to press her, so I changed my line of questioning.

“Why do you have the light?”

“I figured it was the least I could do,” she said, shaking her head, “figured it would make me feel better. Didn’t ever think anyone would ever actually see it. I honestly thought I wasn’t ever going to see a living person again.”

“Well here I am.” I said to her. “Though I probably wasn’t exactly what you were expecting, right?”

“Like I said before,” she looked me in the eyes, “I never expected to see anyone again. I figured that anyone left after the evacuation was smart enough to not go outside. I figured I’d die here, alone and probably due to shooting myself to escape the misery. Then here you come, an idiot trying to be a hero.”

“No heroics,” I told her, rather a little too sharply. “I am just trying to find my family. I am not out to save anyone.”

She fell quiet then, and I felt that it was probably a good time to keep my mouth shut. We both settled back into our own thoughts for some time, and my mind drifted once more. There was too much for me to process, and so much had happened in such little time, I could just barely keep up with it all. I sat back and looked out the window, the flashing light just barely seen out of the corner of my vision.

Blink, blink. Pause. Blink, blink. Pause.

It was strangely hypnotic.

The light flashed, and my mind wandered.

And I fell into blessed slumber.

19.

I woke some time later and found myself alone in the small room. The gray light of early dawn filtered through the window next to me, and I stretched to clear the cobwebs and felt my bones crack, my back popping more than once. As I moved slowly around the small apartment, I looked into a few of the boxes, but finding no more than canned goods and other various odds and ends, I stopped my search promptly. I did, however, sit down and look into the pack that Alec had made up for me.

Thank you,
I thought, looking to the sky. I made a vow then and there to repay that man, would I ever see him again.

The first thing I pulled out was a pint of whisky, some unnamed brand I had never heard of before, and three packs of cigarettes. I immediately lit one up. Besides that, there was a small length of thin twine, about ten feet, another knife, two lighters, a couple of extra t-shirts, three bottles of spring water, and there, at the very bottom, was the mother lode. Three small bottles sat resting there, wrapped up in a red handkerchief. One was a simple bottle of aspirin; the other two were prescription bottles. One held a handful of vicoden, the other was antibiotics. Once more, while hugging the bottles to my chest, I swore to thank him heartily if I ever saw him again.

My stomach growled, and it dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten since the day before, and I really didn’t know how long it had been before that. I got to my feet and once more started looking around in the boxes, finally stumbling across a few cans of stew. I popped one open, and tore into it with my bare hands. At that moment I don’t think I had ever tasted anything so good. I turned to go and get another, when I heard a moan coming from behind a closed door to my left.

“Abigail?” I walked towards the door, reaching a hand out to grab the knob. My hand had just alighted on it when, once again, a low moan could be heard. Followed soon after by what I thought was a growl.

I quickly yanked my hand away, cold sweat erupting across my body. I knew that sound, and wanted nothing to do with it to be honest. I made it back to my bag in only two large steps, and snatched it up off the floor and onto my shoulder in a single fluid motion. I drew the large knife Alec had gave me, and then turned towards the door leading back to the bar downstairs.

Then I stopped.

Where was Abigail at? Was she in there? I looked back towards the door, my hand on the stairwell doors knob. My mind was torn between the two choices: Flee, and protect myself, or go back, just in case she was in there.

“FUCK!” I thumped my fist against the doorframe. Flipping the knife point-down, just like my father taught me long ago, I turned and slowly made my way back to the other door, allowing my pack to slide off and hit the floor.

I grabbed the knob once more, taking a few deep breaths to calm myself, and threw the door open.

An ear-piercing scream ripped through the air, followed instantly by an explosion. I threw myself to the ground, and felt something tear into my right leg, a burning pain, like being branded.

“What the fuck are you doing!?!” I heard Abigail scream.

“I’m sorry,” I screamed back, throwing my knife away, and then my hands into the air. “I heard something moaning, thought you were in trouble maybe.”

“Jesus Christ,” I heard her say. My leg felt like it was on fire, and I could feel a warm sensation spreading slowly on it. I saw a spot about two inches wide there where the pants leg had been ripped, and under it, the flesh of my leg could be seen.

“You shot me!” I said to her.

“You scared the shit out of me,” was her response. She lay her gun down and came over to me. “What were you doing?”

“I heard moaning and growling,” I aid to her as I sat up, leaning heavily into the doorframe. “I thought one of them things got in here. I didn’t see you, and I thought you might be in trouble.”

“Like I said,” Abigail smiled at me, kneeling down by my side, “a fool trying to be a hero.”

She looked at my leg, and I winced, drawing in a sharp breath as she touched it. She laughed a little, and turned away towards the nearby table.

“Well,” she said a mocking tone in her voice, “I shot you. Lucky you move pretty quickly, only a few pellets actually hit ya.”

“Abigail, really, only a few pellets?” I asked, astonished. “Feels like more.”

She came back to me with a bottle of alcohol and a rag in her hands. She dumped a liberal amount on the fabric, and then knelt down on one knee, looking me dead in the eyes, her own blue ones holding laughter in them. She smiled a little smirk, and then spoke once more.

“Stand up,” she said, motioning with the rag, “and drop your pants. I need to clean it off, see if there are any of the pellets still in there.”

“Umm…” I said suddenly very self conscious.

“What? You shy or something?”

“I’m not wearing any underwear,” I said simply. A laugh tore out of her mouth, and her shoulders shook when she tried to contain it. Without the bulky armor from the night before, I saw that she was slight of build, but she held an air of strength.

I stood and started to undo my belt, looking around the room to try and keep my mind off of the fact she was so close to me. My eyes fell on the bed that dominated the room, and the man laying there.

I could tell at one time that he was a larger man, but sickness had desiccated him to a mere shadow of his old self. A long beard adorned his face, and both it and his hair were well kept though. Obviously Abigail took very good care of him, despite the current situation. There were a handful of oxygen tanks near the bedside, and quite a few pill bottles on the bedside table. He wore a mask, meant to help him breathe, and I could hear the hiss of the gas in the quiet. Every so often, a small moan would escape him, and he would move a little. When he did, Abigail would stop working on my leg and look over, a look of concern, and love, on her face.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked her.

“Lung cancer,” she answered bluntly. “It's the result of him smoking for forty years and owning a bar for twenty.”

“He’s lucky to have, OW!” I hollered as she pulled a pellet out of my leg, and then followed it by slapping the rag down on the wound. She began wrapping it with thin gauze, placing a small bandage over the spot before she did so.

“Like I was saying,” I began again, “he’s lucky to have you. Most would have left him, went their own way.”

“Most did,” she replied. “You’re done. Pull them up.”

I did as was told to, and when no further words were offered, looked at her questioningly.

“I’m the youngest,” she began. “Two of my sisters were here when all this began. They both left with the evacuation. I couldn’t leave him alone, and he wouldn’t leave the bar.”

She shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the bed’s edge. Reaching over, Abigail placed a hand on her father’s forehead, rubbing it gently with her thumb. The look in her eyes wrenched my heart. I don’t think I had seen so much affection in a long time. I walked over and placed my hands on the bed knob at the foot of the bed, leaning on it gently.

“How long does he have, if you don't mind me asking?” I asked, letting the question hang in the air.

She sighed at my question, her mouth twisting into the mockery of a smile, and shrugged her shoulders.

“Don’t rightly know,” she told me. “Doctor’s gave him six months. That was two years ago. So could be a month from now, could be tomorrow, could be ten minutes from now. All I know is I’m going to be here for him when the time does come.”

“What are you going to do after that?” I asked her after a few moments of tense silence.

“I do not know.” She replied.

We both sat there for awhile, neither of us speaking, her rubbing her father’s forehead, me with my own lowered, thinking. I did not quite know what to say. I wanted to help this poor girl, but I had to get home. It seemed wrong to just leave her though, to leave her with no options and no hope. I knew she wouldn’t leave her father, and that I would not ask of her, so I finally decided on a course of action.

“Look,” I said to her, pulling her from her own revelry. “You seem capable of handling yourself; my leg is testimony to that. I must get back to my home, to my family. When the time comes, go to the hospital. There’s a group of survivors there, good people.”

“Hospital?” she asked, looking at me once more.

“Yes,” I replied. “There is a small doorway set into a concrete wall this side of the river, straight through the woods from here. You’ll go across a small parking lot. Once you enter the door, you’ll bee in a corridor. Go straight down it, and it will end at the elevator shaft. Go up to the fourth floor and follow another passage that you find. Once you are out of it, find the large doors and knock. Ask for Wall or Doc Mc Layton. Tell them I sent you. They’ll take you in, of that I’m sure.”

“Are you leaving then?” she asked me.

“I have to,” I replied. “The sooner I get there the better. Chances are that they aren’t there anyhow, but I have to try.”

Speaking those words caused the futility of my journey set in all at once. It had been almost a year since I walked out of our house and went looking for my dog. Almost a year since I last saw my family. The reality of it all hit me like a smack in the face, and I shook my head, tears coming to my eyes. The chances that my family were still at our house was slim at best, that they were all still alive even more so.

Regardless, I had to know.