Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City (4 page)

“Like the Amish,” Pete said from over by the window.

“What?” Matt asked.

“Like the Amish did. Back in the 80’s? I saw it on the internet. They all dressed up in red and bought a town out there in Oregon, or something.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Matt asked.

“It was the Rashneesh,” Luke said. “But, yes, kind of like that.”

“We could call it Zombie Free Country,” Pete said and shuffled back over from the window. Luke thought he was still about to break down, but at least he was paying attention again.

“Yes,” Matt agreed. “Now, what was I saying?”

Luke was beginning to warm up to the idea of moving.
Staying in the hotel, or even in the city in general, is probably suicide if this apocalypse shit never blows over
, he thought. He stood up from the table and walked around the room. “For a trip like that, we will need a serious stockpile of food and water,” he said.
And cigarettes.

“That’s right! Exactly. And I’ve been thinking on that,” Matt said. “There isn’t anything left around here, but I figure we find some road that still has traffic on it --“

“Like when after that chopper flies over and we always see a car or two on the road,” Pete offered.

“Yeah, just like that,” Matt continued. “We figure out a way to divert them, make them come down our road and then setup some kind of ambush.”

“Oh,” Ted said. “Yeah. I like that.” Luke really wanted to know why Ted only spoke up when it was about something violent, but knew better than to ask. “I know where we can get the perfect truck.”

Everyone looked at Ted. “Yeah?” Matt asked. “Where?”

“I used to work bank security, back in the day.”

“Really?” Luke asked with a laugh before he could stop himself. “Who the hell would let you work at a bank?”

Ted frowned for a second but then laughed too. “Yeah,” Ted said. “You believe that shit?”

“Ok,” Matt said. “So what?”

“I know where they keep their armored bank trucks,” Ted said. “Those things are like tanks.”

Matt got up and slapped Ted on the shoulder. “I knew I kept you around for a reason!”

Ted grinned his ugly crooked tooth grin. “Not just my good looks?” he asked. Luke doubted Ted had ever been kept around for his looks, unless you liked hillbillies with a lazy eye and bad teeth. Still, Luke liked where the discussion was going. Getting out of the city really would be the best thing for them. Maybe they could hole up in some town out in the middle of nowhere. A place with well water and working plumbing. Maybe a farm with chickens and other animals. Fresh eggs for breakfast was suddenly starting to sound really good. The idea had promise, but there were a few holes in the plan. “What about keys for the armored truck?” Luke asked.

Ted scratched his head. “Not sure. The guys just always had them.”

Matt shook his head. “That could be a problem,” he said.

“It’s also going to be hell getting them started if they have been sitting all winter,” Luke added.

“See, that is why we need a real home base,” Matt said and slapped the table. “Somewhere with tools and space where we can work on shit just like this.” He snapped his fingers. “I know where we can get a tow truck. I’ll bet it’s still there too.”

“What good would that do?” Pete asked.

“We get our home base setup and then we use the tow truck to move the armored car. We put it in our garage. We work to get it started, fix it up to be battle ready, all of that.”

“Works for me,” Luke said. “When do we move?”

“The sooner the better,” Matt said. “I’m thinking first thing in the morning. Make sure you all have your shit together.”

They all agreed that they would. Luke knew that if he wanted to collect all of his hidden food and munitions, finding the opportunity in one night might be trouble.
Maybe it would make sense to just leave it here,
he thought.
Never know if I will have to come back for it.
He liked the idea and lit another cigarette from the butt of his first. Surely they would find more smokes along the way.

TASHA

Tasha woke with a start.
What was that sound?
she thought as her heart slammed in her chest. She was certain she had heard a noise. Something metallic and something landing hard on the concrete floor out in the warehouse.
Could it have been a dream?
she wondered, but Tasha was not sure she had even been sleeping. It was pitch black in her locker. The door was closed as far as it would go. She listened hard but heard nothing. As quietly as she could, she sat up and slipped out of her sleeping bag. She found her pistol on the floor by her bed, stood up, and crept to the door of her locker. She stopped and listened again. Still silent. After a minute she began to relax a little but a sweat had broken out across her lean frame and she was beginning to get cold. Still, she was not completely convinced it was safe so she slipped out of the locker and walked over to look through one of the warehouse windows. It was night, but she had no way of knowing what time it was. Again, she was not sure if she had slept and it could have been the middle of the night or almost sunrise. She scanned the street and saw nothing. All was quiet. Not knowing what else to do, Tasha went back inside her locker and sat down. She began to shiver, so she crawled back into the sleeping bag, her pistol cradled against her stomach, and listened again for something, anything like the noise she thought she had heard. But, there was nothing more than the rhythmic beating of her heart and the sound of her own breathing.

After a few more minutes, still hearing nothing, she cursed herself for a fool.
That is what I get for going up on the roof
, she thought. Being out in the open always made her anxious. She laid back down and closed her eyes. She was just getting warm again when she heard something moving in the darkness. She knew immediately it had been a trap. Whatever was coming at her had made a loud noise and then laid in wait to see her come out and expose her hiding place. Patiently, it had let Tasha go back inside her locker and then given her the time to let her guard down. Now Tasha heard it come rushing through the locker’s door, scrambling like it was on its hands and knees. Tasha fumbled for a match, scratched it along the floor and held it up to see what was coming for her. At first she could not tell if it was a survivor or a creeper. As it got closer, she realized it was a man. He was filthy with long hair, but his face …

“I found you!” he hissed. “We saw you on the roof today and I told them I would find you!” He giggled and Tasha’s blood ran cold with fear. The man had a long rusted knife in one hand and she froze as he scrambled toward her on the floor.
What the hell has happened to him?
she thought as he rushed at her. The skin on his face was horribly frostbitten.
Oh my God, he’s a ghoul, a monster!
His infected skin oozed pus and what remained of his lips were black and festering. His nose had almost completely rotted away. His clothes were filthy and gray and the decaying reek of him was overpowering. With a scream of terror, she went for her pistol, but it caught on the fabric of her sleeping bag and she fumbled as she tried to pull it free. By then the ghoul was on top of her and the match wisped out. Suddenly, they were fighting in absolute darkness.

“I found you,” he repeated. “I knew I would. They laughed at me but I was patient and now you’re mine!” He reeked of rotten flesh and Tasha could feel his rancid breath on her face as he pressed closer to her.

“No, God, no!” Tasha cried, pushing back at him with her one free hand while she fought to draw her gun with the other. His weight pinned her arm. She felt the stab of his knife at her waist. She realized he was trying to push the blade into her stomach, but the sleeping bag was between them and it was thick enough to slow the dull blade. Tasha twisted to avoid being impaled and clubbed at his head with her fist. He grunted and grabbed a fistful of her hair. Pain shot through Tasha’s head. “Get off of me!” she screamed and pushed at his face. She felt what was left of the skin on his cheek slide away and her thumb drove up and into his eye.

“Dirty bitch!” he cried and shook his head trying to dislodge her grip. She knew this was her only chance and she held on. She pushed her thumb in further and dug her long untrimmed fingernail into his eye socket. The man screamed. It was primal and horrible but he would still not let go of her hair. He stabbed again with the knife, trying to drive it deeper, but the sleeping bag held. Tasha twisted again, feeling the pressure of the dull blade slide over her ribs. She held fast and he yanked on her hair, wrenching her head from side to side. In desperation, she twisted her thumb in the ghoul’s eye socket and felt something warm and wet splash into her face. Tasha gagged and the man screamed in pain, finally releasing her hair and rolling off of her. Her right arm free, she yanked the pistol out of her sleeping bag and fired at a spot where she guessed he had to be. The muzzle flash illuminated the locker and she saw she had missed wildly. The gunshot was deafeningly loud in the small space, but she kept firing. Two more times she missed until on the fourth shot, she heard him scream. Tasha was sure she hit him. She pulled the trigger a fifth time and the muzzle flash revealed blood on the wall on the inside of the locker. The man was scrambling for the door and she aimed and pulled the trigger as fast as she could. The final shot caught him square in the back and he sprawled forward into the doorway but she kept pulling the trigger while the chamber rotated and the hammer fell only on empty shells.

Tasha shook with adrenaline and was sweating and panting. She desperately wanted to see, so she felt around for another match. Her hand fell on one of her lighters. She flicked the flint wheel and lit the fuel. The flame was weak, but it cast off enough light that she could see her attacker. He was not moving. She prayed he was dead. Two shots had hit him in the back and he had fallen half out of the locker door. The flame flickered and died. She rolled the flint to make a spark, but it would not catch. “Damn it,” she cursed and searched around for a coffee can she used to keep random stuff. She fumbled in the dark until she found her mirror and then the coffee can. She dug around until she felt another lighter. She lit it and with shaking hands, used it to light one of her candles sitting on her makeshift shelf. Finally she could see.

Keeping an eye on the man, she slipped her legs out of the sleeping bag and crept over to him. She stood over his body, her hair falling into her face. Fury welled up inside of her and she started kicking his corpse. “Goddamn you,” she screamed. “Why did you have to come here? Why did you ruin everything?” He had invaded her space and she knew that her time hiding there was over.
He said ‘we saw you on the roof’,
she remembered.
So where are the others? Are they already here?
She was afraid but also furious that the choice to stay or go had been taken from her. She knew she had to run that very night, to get out of the building as fast as she could. As she stood over the body, she realized she was crying. She did not want to stay any more. Tears streamed down her face and she wiped them away angrily. Tasha looked back insider her locker at her sleeping bag.
What do I have time to take?
she wondered, just as she heard the sound of breaking glass.

Son of a bitch
, she thought with her heart hammering and knew she was out of time. She looked longingly at what had been her home over the last few months. A part of her knew living like a scared animal in the dark was no way to exist, but now she had to run, and she hated leaving it all behind. She heard something big fall over downstairs and knew that someone had gotten into the building.
The sound of the gunfire drew them
, she realized as she moved inside the locker and grabbed her ratty old backpack, a leftover from her time before the apocalypse. Staying as quiet as she could, she stuffed some lighters, matches, her mirror, a few cans of cat food, and a blanket into her pack. She wished there was time to roll up her sleeping bag, but from the sounds of it, the others were coming for her and the bag was half shredded anyhow. Ignoring what it would mean if she was caught, Tasha slung her backpack over her shoulder. Even though her pistol was empty, she slapped on her gun holster and took the weapon. Not daring to delay any longer, she crept out of the locker and back across the factory floor to the steel ladder which led to the roof. Taking one last look around at the warehouse and the doorway of her locker where she could see the light of the candle still burning inside, Tasha made her way up the ladder.

The moon was up, full in the sky with only spots of clouds, but there was no sign of the sun on the horizon.
With the moon where it is, it’s probably still the middle of the night
, she thought.
Not the best time for avoiding creepers but hopefully other survivors will still be asleep
. She went to the edge of the roof where there was another ladder leading over the side of the building to an old fashioned steel fire escape. She tightened her backpack so she would have both hands free and climbed the ladder up and over the rooftop wall. Moving carefully, she started down. There was suddenly more crashing from inside the building and the sound of a human howl of despair.
They found the body
, Tasha thought. Throwing caution aside, she hurried down the steps.

She raced along the fire escape, descending around and down each level. When she reached the bottom, she saw how the ghoul had gotten to her. He had stacked crates together to make a kind of ladder so he could reach the bottom of the fire escape. The bottom ladder normally hung out of reach from the road, but was now extended to the ground. In one way it helped her because she did not have to worry about the noise of lowering the ladder, but she worried the ghoul’s friends would come for the fire escape too. She squatted down in the shadow of the bottom tier of the fire escape and looked around to try to make sure there was no one else in the alley. Everywhere she looked there were shadows cast by moonlight that she could not see into.
Damn it,
she thought.
They could be anywhere.
Tasha listened as hard as she could. Nothing but the noise of whoever was inside the building behind her. She began to wonder if it was loud enough to attract creepers when she heard something running hard down the alley below her. She froze and held her breath, her heart slamming in her chest. It was a creeper and it slowed beneath her, as if sensing her. Tasha thought there was no way it could see her and she did not understand how it could possibly know she was above it. Then something big fell over inside the warehouse and the creeper ignored her and sprinted through the alley, turning around the corner of the building.

She waited again and listened. She was conflicted. She did not want to wait too long because she knew the others looking for her inside the cannery would eventually start working their way back outside.
I have to risk the creepers,
she thought and gathered her nerve. Slowly and as quietly as she could, Tasha climbed down the last ladder and stood in the alley below. She considered just finding a spot nearby to hide for a few days, waiting for the men and any creepers to leave her building, and then going back to her locker.
But will the ghoul’s friends ever stop watching for me now that I’ve killed him?
She did not think they would. So, she looked down the alley, staring hard into the shadows and wished with all her heart that there was nothing waiting there as she crept by. Nothing jumped out at her as she reached the end of the alley, so with nowhere else to go, she turned left and ran for Broken Top mountain.