The Infected (Book 3): Nightfall (5 page)

The two of them had to
yell just to be able to hear each other over the child’s constant shrieks.

“You want to shoot the
kid?” Leon was confused.

“No, I don’t want to shoot
him!”

The boy’s body shook out
of Karen’s arms and he convulsed on the soft grass. Karen hopped up from the
ground, like a poisonous snake was chasing after her. She quickly moved to
Leon’s side.

They watched as the
adolescent turned into a new creature. Shock stretched across Leon’s face as he
witnessed the change in the boy’s eyes. In the snap of a finger they went from
white to black. The child’s lips pulled tight exposing his new weapons. The boy
was missing his two front upper and lower teeth. The gap looked even sharper
and more dangerous.

“Leon, please do
something. I can’t handle killing my Mama and this child in the same hour.”

Leon saw his opportunity
to prove to Karen just how much he cared about her.

This is a good start.
He thought.

If I can take care of
this for her she’ll see how much I can protect her.

Leon had made his
decision. The kid had to go so he could win her affection. It wasn’t ideal. He
would have rather got her some flowers and a box of chocolate than kill this
infected child, but what are you going to do? The boy’s body had stopped
shaking. He was about to come back.

Leon took a large step
over to the little infected body. He hovered above the child for a second, “Sorry
little guy.” Was all he said before he dropped to his knees and kicked on the
saw in his hands. Leon buried all four inches of the circular blade into the
child’s face. Blood exploded everywhere.

“Leon? Wait!” Karen
couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

He couldn’t hear her. The
saw made a horribly disgusting sound as it fought its way through the bone of
the infected skull. It was like Leon had cut into a waterline. He was instantly
covered in liquid. It took a couple of seconds to force the saw out the top of
the child’s skull.

Just like cutting a two
by six,
he thought.

“Whew, okay. That’s done,”
Leon said as he rose to his feet. He found a clean spot on his shoulder and
wiped the blood from his face.

“What is wrong with you?”

He was blown away by the
look of horror on Karen’s face.

Wasn’t that what she
wanted?

I killed the thing!

Damn!

“What?” Leon shrugged his
shoulders at her.

“I meant
shoot
him.”

Leon grimaced. “Oh,
sorry.”
 

She told me to take
care of it and I did.

She didn’t say shoot
him.

I’m not a mind reader.
 

He felt a twinge of anger
and shame about this whole mess. It was just like what Leon’s father always
used to tell him. “Damned if you do. So why do it.”

“AAAAHHHHH!” Jim regained
some composure. The monsters at his window looked hungry. They were starving to
get a taste of him, just a bite, just a little nibble before the sun set in the
sky. “They came out of nowhere!” Jim squealed one octave too high.

“I got ‘em.” Frank
grumbled. He double checked to make sure his side was clear then he popped open
his door. Frank’s heavy hand dropped onto the metal hood of the PT Cruiser with
a loud POP. “Hey, chumps, over here!” He taunted them. He circled the front of
the car and waited for them to line up. The zombies headed for the new snack.

A single bullet ripped through
the three infected heads and their bodies dropped.

“Okay, it’s safe now.”
Frank raised his eyebrows twice at the two in the car, even he was impressed
with himself.

Jim exited the vehicle,
“Chumps” he exclaimed.

Sara got out on Jim’s side
of the car and shared the brief moment of levity between the two men. Out of
habit Jim hit the lock/alarm button on his key fob and then slid the keys back
into his pocket. He tugged at the metal door at the front of the building.

Locked.

The building was solid
brick and the windows were high off the ground. They would need a ladder to get
up to them. “Let’s see if there’s another way around back.” He didn’t wait for
anyone to answer. He jogged along the front of the building.

Sara kept her bat perched
up high above her shoulder. Frank kept pace behind them and watched everyone’s
back.

Jim rounded the corner of
the building, paused for a moment to check if it was clear and continued on. He
could feel his heartrate climbing and the sweat getting ready to flow.

When will I get to take
a nice hot shower?

He got to the edge of the
building, paused, and peeked around the corner.

Shit! Another five zombies
were coming this way. “Some
chumps
are ahead of us,” Jim ribbed Frank as
he readied himself for the fight.

Jim came around the corner
with his spear swinging. He lopped the top half of a freak’s head clean off.
Sara landed a home run and knocked a beast into the wall. The blades on her bat
cut a jagged smile into the face of the zombie. On her second strike she landed
the killshot. Its brains erupted out of its cranium and up onto the brick. The
tips of her knives sparked as they skipped along the porous surface. Her swing
had perfect form on the follow through. Frank finished off the last three with
a short burst of hot lead.

 Jim glanced over his
shoulder to make sure everyone was still clear before he moved on. He stepped
over a dead body and trucked the rest of the way to the backdoor. It was locked
too, but next to it was a large dumpster.

“We can bust out the
window and climb in through here,” Jim said as he lifted himself up onto the dumpster’s
lid. “Switch me for your bat.” He held out his spear toward Sara. She switched
him quickly. Jim took a second to get his balance on the flexing lid of the
container. He swung the bat and the glass exploded into the building. He
dragged the slugger over the window’s sill to knock out as many skin cutting
shards as possible. After a couple more swipes he had all the big nasty ones
out of the way. As Jim turned back to Sara to hand her the bat he noticed a rug
on the ground outside the door. “Can you pass me that?” Jim pointed at the
ground.

Sara grabbed the rug up by
the corner and handed the dirty, dark blue rectangle to Jim. He draped it over
the sill and started to climb up through the window. He got one leg over and
then the next. Jim hung from the sill for a short moment. When he let go he
dropped three feet to the tile floor.

Jim pushed down on the
door’s handle and let them in. Sara handed him back his spear as he flipped on
the light switch by the door frame. The space was white and sterile. They
entered a short hallway that fed into a larger warehouse. Jim had never in his
life broken the law like he had today. He was not a big speeder and didn’t drink
and drive, but today he’d had to do a little looting and now some breaking and
entering. It was weirdly exciting. He could see how thieves could get addicted
to the thrill.

Frank flipped on a bank of
lights.

Row after row, full to the
brim with medical supplies, appeared. On the far wall sat a dozen glass doored under
counter refrigerators storing little vials of medicine.

“Whoa, that’s a lot of
shit to look through.” Sara ran her hand through her thick red hair to brush it
out of her eyes.

“Frank, you look for the
antibiotics Tina wrote down. Check the fridges. Sara and I will look for the
blood transfusion kit and anything else we might need,” Jim said as he
unclicked his backpack, he fished out the hammer that his father had given him
when he bought his first house, “Here’s the key to the fridges.” Frank nodded,
took the hammer from Jim and pulled the list from his front breast pocket. He
booked it across the warehouse and squatted down in front of the first fridge
and started reading the labels.

Sara and Jim wandered the
aisles. They read the labels of all the different medical supplies. Elastic
tape, non-adhesive tape, cloth tape, hypoallergenic tape, silk tape, foam tape,
paper tape and on and on it went. Jim’s head was swimming from all of the
choices.

Which is the correct
kind of tape for a gunshot wound?

Does it matter?

He had not even made it to
the bandage aisle or come close to finding the transfusion kit. There were
gallons and gallons of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide on one of the
shelves. He remembered that they had plenty of that back at Cliff and Tina’s
apartment. He grabbed a couple of different rolls of tape and tossed them into
his bag. He pillaged the bandage and gauze shelves. One of the shelves had a
little black hard plastic case labeled surgical kit. He took it. Sara came
around the corner with an arm full of supplies.

“I think I got some of it
here,” she held up a medium sized box. The label read ‘complete transfusion kit’
and featured a photo of the contents.

“Perfect,” Jim held open
his bag and Sara had to push hard to fit it in with the other supplies. She
also had syringes, a box of rubber gloves and a suture kit.

CRASH! Glass spilled out
onto the floor of the warehouse. Frank had found what he was looking for, “Got
‘em.” The little glass bottles clinked together as he poured a tray out into
the side pocket of his duffle bag. “Should I bring the penicillin in case we
find a lonely lady wandering the city and she needs a ride?” Frank’s sense of
humor continued to sprout as the day drug on. He zipped his bag closed as he
rejoined the others, “Do we need anything else?” Frank dropped Jim’s hammer
into the backpack.

 Jim looked around
the room. “I wish we could take the whole store. Anyone have any allergies?”
Jim forced a few more rolls of gauze into his back. They shook their heads at
him.

“That’s good,” Jim
wrestled the heavy pack up onto his shoulder.

“Let’s get out of here and
over to the gun shop,” Sara said as she moved towards the front counter of the
store. A double-door separated the two rooms. She hit it first and kept it held
open as the others passed by. The front of the store looked like a doctor’s waiting
room. A few chairs lined the walls and magazines were laid out on short end-tables.
A kid’s corner was set up with a little TV and some toys. Jim averted his gaze from
the corner. There was a red toy firetruck on the floor. It was the same model
he had gotten Valerie two years ago while they were out shopping at Ross. She
was being an amazingly good kid that day and the toy was like ten bucks. Her little
face shined so brightly when he told her that he would get it for her. Jim’s
two little girls had played with it at least once a week since. Jim didn’t want
to think about what might have happened to the girls, but seeing the toy
reminded him to stay focused and keep moving. He had to find the girls.

Find them or die
trying.

Jim slid his backpack
straps onto his other shoulder and clicked it into place. He snagged the keys
from his pocket as Sara’s hand rested on the door’s leaver. She was all set to
move when the car alarm began to blare outside. The sudden noise made her jump.

“Jesus, Jim, watch your
thumb! You scared the shit out of me,” Sara hit Jim in the shoulder with the
back of her hand as she composed herself.

Jim’s heart skipped a beat
too. All of them were on edge and as hungry and dehydrated as they were he was
shocked that they weren’t at each other’s throats. The stress of the day had
given Jim twenty more grey hairs and the sun was still up.

The car’s alarm blasted
outside. Frank and Sara turned to Jim. He was staring at the keys.

“Turn it off,” Frank
readjusted his duffle bag.

Jim hit the button and
silenced the alarm, “I’m not the one that set it off.”

The alarm blasted again.
Something was bumping into the PT Cruiser. Jim cut the alarm off a second time
as Sara inched open the door. She peeked out with one eye.

“Shit,” Sara whispered the
word.

“How many?” Jim asked.

“A lot,” she whispered
again.

“Damn it girl, how many?”
Frank moved closer to the door.

Something startled Sara and
she pushed the door shut quickly, “A lot.” Her voice was more than panicked. A
body slammed into the front door of the building. A moment later the car’s
alarm went off again. This time Jim unlocked it.  

“Do we go out the way we
came and forget the ride?” Frank took a step back from the door.

“I don’t know.” Jim’s mind
scrambled to conceive a plan.

“Should we make a stand in
here?” Sara followed Frank’s example and stepped farther from the door. The
monster outside continued to beat at the front door.  

“I don’t know,” Jim said
as he squeezed at the walking stick that made up his spear.

Come on brain! Come on!

The monsters outside could
hear them discussing their battle plans and more dead bodies were crashing into
the front door.

Devon was going to bleed
out before they could walk back. They needed that car. Facing a horde out in
the open sounded like suicide. They had barely made it when there were four of
them fighting together. Opening the door and inviting them in sounded even
worse. Jim looked around the room again.

Was there anything here
we could use to help us?

That’s when he spotted it.
Jim had seen it before and it pained him, but this time it gave him an idea.
The little red toy firetruck. Jim patted at his jacket’s pocket. He felt the outline
of the Zippo.

“I got it,” was all Jim
said as he headed back into the warehouse. They followed him without question.
Jim retraced his steps back to the aisle that had the gallons of rubbing
alcohol.

“There has to be a ladder
up onto the roof. Grab as many bottles as you can.” Jim scooped up as much as
he could carry off of the shelf. The others continued to follow him. Their arms
filled with bottles.

Jim raced back to the rear
entrance. A door sat at the end of the hall with a sign that read CLEANING
SUPPLIES bolted to it. Jim opened the door to the closet. On the far wall was a
service ladder leading up to the roof. Jim dropped the plastic bottles and set
his spear down in a corner. He pulled off his backpack and removed his hammer before
he laid the pack down on the floor. Jim found a box of heavy-duty black plastic
bags. He ripped one out and forced it open. The three of them filled the
plastic bag with the bottles of rubbing alcohol. Jim tested the weight in the
sack and it was at its max capacity. He yanked on the straps and slipped the
bag up onto his shoulder. Jim worked the handle of the hammer into his belt and
then he started to climb up the ladder.

“Frank, carry up that roll
of paper towels,” Jim said half way up the ladder. The plastic straps dug deep
into his shoulder as he ascended the metal rungs. Frank put the roll of towels
into his bag and then started up the ladder.

Jim got to the hatch that
led outside. It had a padlock on it. Jim looped his arm around the last rung so
that his elbow locked him into position. With his free hand he pulled out the
hammer and began to wail on the lock. It took Jim a solid twenty strikes before
the screws that held the lock in place started to give. He let out a trumpet
yell on the last hit and the latch gave way from the wood frame. Jim pushed up
on the hatch and it creaked open. As he climbed the final rungs the door
clicked into place.

It was a very tight
squeeze to get the big bag of highly flammable liquid out onto the roof. When
Jim got to his feet he dropped the bag and gave his back a good stretch. Frank
was right behind him and Sara’s head popped through the opening seconds later.

They surveyed the land.
From this height they could see blocks away in every direction. Jim could
almost see his apartment from where he stood. Wrecked vehicles littered the
streets. Infected hordes grew by the minute. Buildings burned and spewed ash
into the air. The beautiful city of Vancouver was in ruins.