The Zombie Virus (Book 1) (14 page)

Amanda put her arm around her and hugged her
tight, “It wasn’t your fault, Kera, they probably would have seen
us anyway.” She looked back over at the rest of us. “They saw us on
the other side of the patio doors and most of them ran at us. We
backed up away from the door but didn’t expect them to get in. The
chick in front didn’t even, you know, like, slow down. It was like
she didn’t even know the door was there. She hit it with her face
and both panes shattered around her and she fell through. She was
cut to pieces, her face was a bloody mess, but she got right back
up and the rest of the crazy people came pushing in behind her
growling like rabid dogs.

“We ran out of the room. Nathan was last. He
tried to slam the door shut, but their arms were there holding on
to him and blocking the door from closing. He yelled at us to get
the car keys while he tried to hold the door so they couldn’t get
all the way through. Their fingernails were gouging his arm and he
was bleeding, but he kept pushing against that door anyway. Kera
tried to help him while I ran to the kitchen for the keys. I wasn’t
gone four or five seconds when I heard Kera scream again and Nathan
yelled really loud. I grabbed the car keys and ran back down the
stairs and Kera went running and screaming past me.

“Nathan was at the bottom of the stairs,
fighting those things! They were biting and tearing at him yet
somehow he managed to hold them off. He was punching and kicking,
even though there were too many of them. One of them jumped at me
past him. Nathan grabbed the guy’s leg and they all fell over.
Nathan was covered in so much blood and they kept biting and
hitting him, but he kept yelling ‘Go! Go!’ I ran back up the stairs
and he screamed again then I couldn’t hear him anymore.” Amanda
cried heavily as she recalled this last bit. “I couldn’t do
anything for him, I was so scared!” she sobbed.

“It doesn’t sound like there was anything you
could have done honey,” Holly consoled her, her eyes moist
also.

“I wish I could have told him I loved him. I
haven’t told him that in years.” She shook her head sadly.

“I found Kera out by the car. She was, you
know, hysterical. I yelled at her to get in, but she didn’t move. I
pushed her into the passenger seat and ran around to the drivers’
side and then those crazy people came running out of the house. I
locked the doors but they were trying to get in, slamming against
the car with their bodies and fists. I was shaking so bad I
couldn’t work the key but finally started the car. They were
leaving blood smears all over the windows. We got out of there
quick. I never even looked back.

“We didn’t have, like, any plans or anything,
we just drove up 17 cause it was away from those people. Once we
were past the towns, we didn’t see much of anyone. Every once in a
while a crazy person would try to chase us, although they would
never even get close before we were past them. Then we drove into
Tappahannock. We didn’t think it would be as bad there as it was
down south, but it was a mess. There were cars blocking the road at
all the intersections and mobs of the crazy people everywhere. Some
buildings were burning. We couldn’t drive fast because of all the
abandoned cars and trucks. It was like a nightmare. They swarmed
around us whenever we slowed, slamming on the windows trying to get
in.

“They were hitting the windows hard enough
that they started to crack. There was so many of them they were
blocking the car. There were crazy kids there too. The back window
broke and they were trying to climb through. There were so many of
them around us that we couldn’t see out. I just jammed the gas
pedal all the way to the floor.

“We were hitting them, running over them. We
made it through the mob, but they kept coming at us from
everywhere, even running in front of the car. The front of the car
was all bashed up and steam was shooting out around the hood and we
could hardly see. I didn’t slow down at all. I was like, you know,
panicky!

“We were sideswiping cars trying to get
around, going up on like sidewalks and stuff. We lost a tire and
the car was making an awful sound and getting really hard to steer.
When we made it on the other side of town the crazy people thinned
out. The car was smoking and then it just made a, you know, banging
noise and stopped.

“We were both so scared. The windows were all
smeared and cracked and we couldn’t really see out good. Then
someone banged on my window and it was Frank who stuck his head in
the broken back window and asked if we were okay.” Amanda’s face
was ghost white from the memory of hers and Kera’s escape from
Tappahannock.

rank bellowed nervous laughter. “I was never
so happy to see anyone in my life and I think these two ladies felt
the same way!”

CHAPTER 10

Frank stood up and stretched his massive arms. “Let
me back it up a bit there and tell y’all how I happened to be at
the right spot at the right time.” His deep powerful voice and warm
smile had a calming effect on us as he began to narrate his
story.

His smile broadened and he looked at the rest
of us. “Hi. My name is Frank Gunderson and I’m a survivor.” He
chuckled to himself, pulled his hair back into a ponytail, and
banded it off.

“I belonged to a local 1% biker club before
all this crap went down. I worked as a welder for the steamfitters
union in Tappahannock but didn’t make it into work that mornin’
this shit started.”

He stroked his beard thoughtfully, thinking
back. “My wife Glenda and I lived right on the outskirts of town
close to the club’s clubhouse. We have a daughter just a couple
years older than these two ladies here. She had joined the Navy out
of high school and was working for Naval Intelligence overseas.

“We didn’t stay up to watch the lightshow the
night before, we just weren’t into any of that crap and I had to
get up early for work. When I woke up that next morning, Glenda was
already up, which is unusual. She’s not an early bird. She said she
was feeling cruddy and got up to make some coffee. She looked
awful, with dark circles under her eyes and a bit pale. Said she
had a fever. I didn’t think much of it until I was on the bike
heading into town and heard the news on the Harley’s radio about
the mystery illness. I didn’t even give a second thought about
work, I just swung the bike around and went back home.

“Glenda had gone back to bed by the time I
got there so I had to wake her. She hadn’t heard the news and
before I could tell her what was happening the phone rang. It was
our daughter Celia, callin’ from the ship in the Gulf. She sounded
real scared. Said that she was sick along with most of the crew and
that the scuttlebutt was that the comet had caused it.”

He shook his head in frustration. “I didn’t
know what to say to her, my baby was far outside my protection. I
told her it was probably nothing to worry about and that the
sickness would most likely go away after a few days just like a
cold. I put her on with her mom and Glenda looked real scared when
Celia told her what was happening.”

Frank was pacing around the group as he
spoke, occasionally looking off into the distance as if into the
past. “I got back on and told her that I loved her and to call me
when she was feeling better. Never heard from her again. She’s
probably one of those things now,” he said, pointing past the
bridge.

“Glenda was a strong woman, but she was real
shook up about what Celia had said and worried to death about her.
I told her the Navy would take care of our little girl and I would
take care of her. She wasn’t much comforted. Her fever was really
getting bad and she said her head was a’splitting. She took some
Tylenol and damn near drank a gallon of water then went back to
bed. I figured I’d let her rest a couple of hours and then check on
her.

“I kept watching the news and could tell
things were worse than what they were letting on. I tried calling
some of my brothers but couldn’t get a hold of nobody, even at the
clubhouse. I guess it was between ten and eleven when I went back
in to wake her. Glenda was burning hot and drooling like a teething
baby. When I tried to wake her up, she just laid there dead to the
world. I shook her, yelled at her, even tried cold water. She just
wouldn’t wake up. I noticed she had a smell about her, a sweet
scent.

“Now I’m not much of a worrier, but I was
shitting bricks when I couldn’t get her to respond.” He let out an
exasperated breath, and shook his head again, wagging his ponytail.
“I called 911 to try to get an ambulance. The message said all the
lines were tied up. I called the hospital and did get hold of
someone, a nurse I think. She said they were overwhelmed with
patients and couldn’t do much for ‘em. Said it was best just to
keep her in her bed and well hydrated.” He laughed again, a short,
vicious bark. “What was I supposed to do, stick a garden hose down
her throat? She was out cold. She wouldn’t be drinking any water
the regular way.” His lips were a thin bloodless line as he fought
to control whatever emotions were boiling up within him.

“I didn’t leave her side for more than a few
minutes from then on out. That woman meant the world to me. She and
Celia were the only really good things in my life.” He shook his
head again and took a deep breath. “I don’t know how much later it
was when she woke up. I was kind of dozing in the chair beside the
bed. I looked over at her and her eyes were open and those blood
red orbs were looking right at me but there wasn’t any recognition
in that look. Then she growled at me. Actually fucking growled.
Excuse my language there, son,” he said to Jeremy.

Jeremy just nodded.

“She twisted up out of bed and dropped to the
floor on all fours, and then just launched herself at me. Now she
ain’t a big woman by any measure, but it felt like a linebacker
sacking me and I flew backwards over that chair. If she hadn’t been
tangled up in the sheets she would have had me right there. I got
up on my feet real quick. She literally ripped the blankets from
her body and stood there as naked as the day she was born, saliva
dripping from her chin and still growling like some savage animal.
She snapped her teeth at me and lunged and I knocked her aside and
got out of her way.

“I ain’t never hit her before and felt awful
for doing it. There was just something inhuman about her. The hit
didn’t even faze her though. She was back up and at me again,
trying to gut me with her fingernails, snarling and growling the
whole time.

“I bum rushed her and knocked her to the
ground and pinned her arms behind her back. It was like trying to
ride a bucking bronco. She was fighting hard and was surprisingly
damned powerful. She kept bending her neck trying to reach back to
bite me. I was able to get some of the sheet and bind her arms up
good and then her legs. I was trying to talk to her, trying to calm
her down, but there was no understanding in her. She was fucked up
in the head!” He rubbed a sheen of sweat from his forehead and then
sat down in the grass.

“We just sat there on the floor looking at
each other for a while. She wanting to tear me up and me already
tore up over what was happening to her.” The big man was quiet for
a moment, contemplating what to say next.

“After a while I got her up on the bed and
tied her arms and legs better with some cord. I tried feeding her
half a sandwich that I made by sticking it in her mouth when she
was snapping at me and she actually swallowed some of it, but it
still didn’t stop her from wanting a piece of me.

“Later that evening she shit herself and just
laid in it. She had already pissed the bed a couple of times so it
was reeking in that room. I was hoping that she would snap out of
it, but whenever I looked in her face all I saw was madness.

“The first time I went out for a smoke is
when I noticed that there were others like my wife around. Some old
dude from down the street saw me on my sidewalk and charged down
the road toward me faster than a guy that age should be able to
move. When he got close I saw that he had the same look as my wife
– bloodshot eyes and all. He ran at me snapping his teeth and
making this loud wail, like ‘Aahhhhh’. When he got close enough I
just slammed him in the face with my fist and turned his lights
out.

“Then I saw others running down the road in
my direction and decided it was time to go back in. They broke the
window on the storm door and were beating on the front door. I
thought it was going to come off its frame as hard as they were
hitting it. Somehow it held. Luckily we didn’t have any low windows
in the front of the house.

“I got my shotty from the closet and shoved a
bunch of shells in my pockets. There were only two or three of
those lunatics outside the house, but they sounded like a legion of
banshees the way they were wailing. I could hear Glenda upstairs
wailing too.

“I got some duct tape and taped her mouth
shut. That damn noise was creeping me out. I couldn’t stay in the
bedroom anymore because the smell was so bad. I got a bottle of
whiskey and went in the living room and got slam-assed drunk. I
don’t know when the lunatics out front finally gave up, but in the
morning when I woke up, everything was quiet.

“I stayed drunk that entire day. I don’t even
remember if I ate or not, or if I even went to check on Glenda. I
came to that third day on the couch, laying in my own piss and
vomit, surrounded by empty beer cans and liquor bottles. I knew I
had to do something with myself or I was going to end up dead. I
got myself cleaned up, fed and tried to think of some plan of
action. I cut down the barrel of the shotgun so I could put it in a
holster on my leg and went upstairs to Glenda. Even in the state
she was in, covered in her own crap and long past crazy, she was
still a beautiful woman, model type you know. She had silky long
brunette hair and brown eyes that would make ya weak kneed looking
in ‘em. There was no way I could put her down like some sick dog,
for all I knew she would get over this at some point.