The Infected (Book 2): Karen's First Day (8 page)

“Turn that shit off!” she cursed. All one hundred and ten
pounds of her sat tucked back between her old leather jackets. Her wheelchair
was pushed as far back as it could go to hide her away. Cliff turned off his
flashlight and opened the blinds behind him. The sun instantly lit up the room.

She rolled herself out of the closet. She wore a faded
old black Led Zeppelin t-shirt and her hair was dyed jet black. So black that
it was comical in contrast to her aged body.

“Mom, what happened?”

“How many fucking times do I have to tell you call me
Morgan?!” the words bled into each other. A lifetime of legal and illegal drug
and alcohol abuse had given her a permanent slur. Cliff found a bag in the
closet, “What happened, Morgan?” he loaded a pharmacy’s worth of pill bottles
from her nightstand into the bag.

“Crazy bitch.” She pointed with the barrel of the gun at
the nurse on the floor. “She comes in here, yelling crazy about someone biting
her and she says I need to hide. I’m like, “Hey honey, I don’t give two squirts
of piss about your problems, leave me the fuck alone.” Then she pushes me into
the goddamn closet. You believe that? A couple minutes later she’s breakdancing
on the floor. Then the bitch comes at me. So BLAM! I shot her.”

“Why do you have a gun?” Cliff put his hand out for her
to hand it over.

“Protection! I don’t want one of those damn man nurses
climbing up on me in the middle of the night. Getting his dirty rocks off. No
thank you!” she slapped it into his hand.

“What?”

“You think cause I’m old they don’t want a piece of this?
When I was your age men would fight over me!”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the stories. Morgan we have to get out
of here. Do you have any more ammo for this gun you shouldn’t have?” He grabbed
her favorite black leather jacket from the closet.

“Extra box of bullets in the drawer. Where are we going?”

Cliff opened the nightstand drawer.

“You’re coming home with me,” he said as he dug around
and found a full box of .38 caliber.

“I’m not leaving, are you crazy?” She wheeled her chair
around to face him.

He opened the chamber and pulled the two spent shells out
and replaced them with fresh rounds.

“There is an infection spreading and it’s not safe here.
What else do you need?” He put the gun into his back pocket and dropped the
rounds in the bag. He grabbed some more clothes from her dresser drawers and
jammed them into the bag too.

“What are you talking about?” She wiped the excess saliva
from the corners of her mouth. Her unfocused eyes tried to stay locked with
his.

He knelt down in front of her so they were face to face,
“There is some kind of infection spread through bites. Everyone else in this
building is dead. I’m taking you home to stay with us. Do you understand?”

She smiled at him and raised her hand to his face. She
gently touched his cheek. Her hands were cold to the touch, “When did you cut
off all your beautiful hair?” That was as close to a “Yes, I understand.” that
he was going to get from her.

He didn’t have enough hands to hold the light, cleaver,
gun and also push her wheelchair. Cliff placed the cleaver into the pocket on
the back of the wheelchair. The blade was long enough that the handle stuck out
and was an easy grab if he needed it.

“Okay, let’s get going.” He pulled her arms into the
sleeve of her jacket.

He grabbed the nurse’s body by the ankle and pulled her
out of the way of the door. He slung the bag up onto his shoulder and wheeled
her for the door.

“We’ve got to stay quiet, all right?”

She put her index finger up to her lips and gave him a
wink.

“That’s right. The elevator’s out so we are taking the
stairs, okay?”

“I ain’t walking down any stairs,” she said as she folded
her arms in her lap.

He opened the door and spun her around so he could be the
first one out. The hall sounded clear. He pulled her out into the dark space.
Got her faced in the right direction and he sprinted down the hall. The front
wheels squeaked loudly at this speed.

A figure moved out from one of the bedrooms. Cliff came
to a full stop and got his flashlight up and on the moving object. An old man stood
naked in front of them. His pale skin sagged off his old frame.

“Goddamn it, put your clothes on, Phil!” Morgan turned
her head in disgust.

Phil’s teeth snapped at them and he shuffled forward with
his arms outstretched.

Karen finished off the last slice of her pizza. The salty,
buttery crust flaked a little as she took the last bite. Her tongue ran a lap
around her lips to clean up the remaining flakes. She was able to get Robin to
fall asleep in her arms. Valerie had an old set of headphones on as she played
her game on the Internet. Karen found them in the closet and thought it would
be a good way to distract the little girl until her father finally got home.
The headphones would block out any of the sounds caused by the unwanted
infected monsters that might wander by.

Karen couldn’t stop herself from compulsively checking
her phone for updates on the carnage that was taking place across Portland and
Vancouver. She knew that the images would haunt her, but she was desperate to
find out any real information that could help her answer her questions.

Was this happening all around the world and was there
a cure?

Most of the info she found was only guesses. Untested
theories thrown together by scared humans. As far as the Internet was concerned
there was no known cure. None of this was making Karen feel any better. She
started to regret looking at her phone. The last link she clicked on was a
disturbing article that claimed everyone was already infected. Bites from a
turned person made the transition from a living human to blood thirsty murderer
take place faster, but the main point of the page was that if anyone passed
away for any reason they would still turn. Karen’s brain felt like it was
melting from the concept.

Everyone was already infected with something?

How?

Why now?

Was it in the water or the atmosphere?

Where did it come from?

Did aliens drop off this disease to knock the human
race off the planet so they could pillage our resources?

She could speculate for the rest of her life and never
find the answer. The anxiety caused the muscles in her back to seize up and
turn into knots the size of golf balls. She needed a back rub, badly or a large
glass of white wine, something to calm her frayed nerves.

Karen put her phone down and rubbed at her shoulders. She
needed to get up and off the bed. A walk around her bedroom to stretch her legs
would help the soreness that was setting in after her death match with Steve. She
laid Robin down on the bed and pulled the sheet over her little body. It was
warm in the bedroom and the girl was fully clothed, but she did it out of
habit. She had just made a full lap around the room when something outside
caught her attention.

Someone was crying. It was faint at first, but growing. She
checked the window.

Every muscle in Karen’s body twitched.

A toddler. A little girl.

Karen had seen her around the apartment and at the pool.
The girl’s face was covered with snot. Her pajama bottoms soaked in blood. She
called over and over again for her Mama. Her little feet shuffled across the
apartment’s grounds. All of the buildings looked the same to a kid that didn’t
know the alphabet. Karen scanned the area around her. It was clear of infected
for the moment.

Where the hell were the girl’s parents?

Was that where the blood came from?

All she wanted to do was pick up and comfort that baby.
Karen’s body was immediately covered in a layer of sweat. She was wracked with
indecision. She couldn’t leave her babies. But she couldn’t watch this one
suffer either. An idea formed. Robin would be asleep for a while and Valerie
would probably not look up from the computer screen for a long time.

Karen stepped from the window and headed for the front
door. She pulled one of her steak knives from the wall as she unlocked the door.
She paused to think about this. Last time she left the apartment she almost got
killed by Steve.

Could she live with herself if she let something
happen to that baby?

No. She could not. Karen checked to make sure the gun was
on her hip. It was locked and loaded. She opened the door. The warm spring breeze
felt good on her damp skin. She locked the door and promised herself that she
would only be gone a minute. She just had to grab the child and get her to her
home safe and race back to her own children before they even noticed she was
gone. 

She stepped softly out to the edge of the building and double-checked
her surroundings before stepping farther out into the parking lot. Behind her
and up on the second floor Tina’s front door opened. Karen turned and saw
Tina’s head popping out the door.

“Did you see the baby out there?” Tina’s voice wavered.
She was as choked up as Karen about this abandoned child.

“Yes,” Karen whispered up to her neighbor. Tina was
already out her door and heading down the steps before Karen finished her one
word sentence. Before Karen knew it she had a fellow Mama by her side and this
one was armed with a recently used butcher’s knife.

The little girl was beginning to walk away from them.

“What’s the plan?” Tina stood shoulder to shoulder with
Karen. Both of them were reluctant to leave the alcove of their apartment
building and venture out into the open where the monsters lay in wait. Karen
saw the look of absolute focus in this woman’s eyes and that gave her
confidence that they would be okay if they kept their heads about them.

“I was gonna see if I could call her over here and figure
out which building she lives in, but with the two of us we could just go get
her.”

“Sounds good.”

The two women raced over the asphalt. Both of them were
trim, but they never worked out in the gym and they hated jogging. Twenty steps
at this sprinter’s pace told them both just how out of shape they really were. Karen’s
lungs burned. Her quads ached. Seeing the same pain on Tina’s face helped her
not feel so bad about her conditioning.

“Sweetheart!” Karen called to the child.

The toddler spun on her heels. When she saw the two women
racing towards her she let out a supersonic scream then turned back around and
started running away.

“Don’t run! Come back! We won’t hurt you!” Tina cried out
after the little one. The little girl had some wheels on her. She was going to
be a future soccer star for sure, if she lived that long.

Karen and Tina had to turn on the jets to keep up with
her. Behind one of the buildings on the far side of the property was a large,
well-kept grassy field that the neighbor children would play on. The little
girl sped out onto the field. She screamed at the top of her lungs the whole
way.

As Tina and Karen gained on the toddler she changed
direction again and headed towards a large bush that sat in a flowerbed behind
the last building on the lot. She squeezed her body between the building’s wall
and the bush.

Both women were out of breath and unable to string a sentence
together, but they finally had the little girl cornered. Karen and Tina both
clutched their knees and tried their best to catch their breath. They inched
along the wall trying to reach for the child.

The little girl coughed out, “Mama, Mama, Mama!”

The thick branches of the bush kept them inches away from
reaching her. 

“Come on, sweetie. We won’t hurt you. We’ll get you back
to your Mama,” Karen begged the child. She felt the panic building up inside
herself. She didn’t mean to be this far away from her children. If they
couldn’t get the child to calm down she was going to get them all killed.

Tina tucked the knife into the back of her belt so she
could reach out with both arms, “Baby, come here. It’s okay,” she used her
calming Mama tone.

Karen kept her head on a swivel. She looked for any
movement on the horizon.

The tip of Tina’s finger brushed the child’s arm. The
human contact caused the little girl to scream even louder. On the other side
of the field a woman shuffled out from the tree line. Karen hoped it might be
the little girl’s mother.

The woman happened to have the same colored hair as the
little girl, but it was not her mother. This thing was no longer anyone’s
mother. The infected woman walked with a heavy limp. Its right ankle was broken.
The thing’s lips were bright red from a recent kill. It was zeroing in on the
sound of the young girl’s screams.

“I almost got her,” Tina strained.

“Look! There’s one coming,” Karen got Tina’s
attention. 

Tina wrapped her fingers around the child’s upper arm and
pulled her clear of the bush. Tina pulled the child up into her arms, secured
the baby against her chest and it helped quiet her screams. Karen pulled her
gun and readied her knife.

Two new sets of black eyes exited the tree line behind
Karen and Tina. The two new infected creatures had fully functioning legs and
they sped rapidly over the grass. One of the infected wore a pair of black gym
shorts and no top. Its low body fat and sculpted muscles were impressive as it
zoomed at an incredible speed after the two mothers. The third infected was
dressed like a hipster. It wore a tight Atari t-shirt and skinny jeans. Its
thin body floated effortlessly across the field and kept pace with the
ex-jock.  

“Let’s lose them around the edge of the building,” Karen
said as she motioned for them to run.

Tina took the lead. The struggling child slowed her pace,
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Tina kept telling the little girl. She said it over and
over trying to convince herself it was going to be okay.

Every step they took was starting to feel like a mistake.
Karen looked over her shoulder and the infected were already halfway across the
field. At the rate the two infected men were moving they would be on top of the
Mamas in a matter of seconds.

The women rounded the corner of the building and ahead of
them was a fence that surrounded this building’s garbage cans and recycling
bins. It was the type of cyclone fence that had the hard brown plastic pieces
slid diagonally throughout it.

“Head for the fence,” Karen huffed.

They entered the small fenced in area. Two large garbage
bins filled most of the space. Tina ducked down between the two bins and Karen
squeezed in next to her. Tina didn’t want to cover the little one’s mouth, but
it was the only way to silence her cries. Two breaths later the infected
blasted around the corner of the building. Karen was able to see them through
tiny slits in the fence. She kept her gun up and ready for action.

Both of the infected males seemed to have lost their prey.
The infected lady joined her much faster gentlemen and the three of them slowed
from a full tilt sprint down to a brisk walk. They looked like they were trying
to listen for the fleeing ladies. They sniffed the air, but the smell of the
garbage masked Karen and Tina’s scent.

Tina noticed a metal bracelet around the two year olds
wrist. It was a stainless steel chain that held a stainless steel plate. Tina
looked closer and it had a name and address etched into the small steel plate.

ANITA BILLINGS

995 SE 136
^TH
AVE APT C8

VANCOUVER WA, 98683

That was this apartment complex. It was two buildings
over from where they were crouched. Every minute that passed for Karen felt
like someone was punching her in the face.

What if Valerie noticed she was gone and decided to
wander out to look for her Mama?

The infected moved like they were three-toed sloths. They
were taking a leisurely walk in the park when they did not have a living target
to slaughter. It was driving Karen crazy how slow the infected were moving.

Two or three minutes had clicked by and the three
infected were still only twenty feet away. Karen did not have twenty minutes to
hangout and wait for them to slowly leave the area.

She mouthed the words, “Stay here.”

Tina nodded at her. Karen inched her way around the
entrance of the fence. The infected didn’t hear her moving around the outside
of the fence. She crept in behind them. It was risky but she couldn’t wait any
longer. Her plan boiled down to this.

Kill the two fast ones first.

It was a simple and easy plan to remember. So she felt
like it should work. Karen could feel her bones shaking in her body as she
moved around the last corner of the fence.

Their backs were to Karen and they stood ten yards
away.  At this distance she was not sure she could hit their skulls. She
took a few steps closer and moved as silently as a ninja. The closer she got to
them the worse the idea seemed.

The sun was directly above her in the afternoon sky and
without sunglasses the glare off everything was painful on Karen’s retinas.
Sweat dripped off her forehead and stung her blue eyes. Karen’s gun trembled at
the end of her arm. Her nerves finally got the better of her and the gun went
off before she was ready. She didn’t mean to squeeze the trigger. Her muscles
were twitching all over her body. The round flew at her targets and ripped the
ear off the trim ex-jock. The monsters made a one-eighty and took off in a
sprint at her.

Shit balls!

In a panic she popped off four more shots. One in its
neck. Second in its shoulder. Third destroyed the infected man’s nipple. Fourth
got it right in the eye.

Infected bullseye!

His light switch was permanently flipped off and he
dropped to the ground. The Hipster was next. His “I’m proud to be a nerd”
glasses somehow still clung to his face and Karen wondered if the prescription
somehow helped the dead man see her better.

It was moving too fast and Karen began to backpedal away
from him. The sudden movement made it even harder to aim. Her next two shots
sailed over its head.

How many shots was that?

Six or seven?

How many were left in the magazine?

Then she remembered to grip the gun with both hands. The
jagged steak knife poked out the bottom of her fist as she steadied her
shooting hand.