Trying to Survive (Part 1) (3 page)

   I swerved out into the main road, slid the car sideways and came to a stop with the intention of turning around and trying to save her. Walt grabbed my arm and climbed over me into the driver’s seat, then pushed me to the other side. I was so weak and disoriented that I couldn’t do anything to stop him.

   I tried my hardest to tell him about the girl, but my voice was too faint to be heard. “Wait… we have to go back.”

   “Just hold on, James!”

   When Walt floored it and straightened the car out, I felt myself fall to the right, hit my head against the window and collapse down into the seat. As Walt continued to yell for me, he became low and muffled – like he was calling out to me from the distance.

   As the seconds passed and everything around me started to fade, I could just barely make out the sound of his voice. He was forcefully shaking my shoulder to try and keep me awake – yelling my name over and over again.

   All I could think about was going back for that little girl.

Chapter 2

   Before I even opened my eyes, I could feel the burning on the left side of my face. It was soon followed by an even worse level of pain coming from my eye. I reached up and felt that some kind of bandaging was tightly wrapped around my head to hold it closed and keep it covered.

   As I lifted my head from what seemed to be a bunched up towel, the glue from another bandage on my face pulled at the stubble on my cheek. They were both wet, and I wasn’t sure whether it was from sweating profusely or if it was mostly blood.

   My eye presented a small, dark room – full of shelving stacked with randomly sized, white and tan boxes. Whenever my right eye moved around, the left automatically tried to follow and brought about excruciating pain.

   I took in a deep breath and picked up the strong odor of disinfectant coming from the floor. When I searched the inside of my mouth with my tongue, I could feel that its fingernails ripped all the way through my cheek like jagged pieces of metal. All I could taste was blood.

   My throat was so dry that it took a few moments to gather enough saliva to speak. I fearfully called out “Walt?” with a hoarse and brittle voice that barely filled the room.

   I heard rushing and heavy footsteps. “It’s okay, man – I’m here.” Walt dropped to his knees and placed his hand on my shoulder. “How do you feel?”

   I grunted out “Not good. It’s bad isn’t it?”

   He began to dig around in his pocket and I heard the unmistakable rattle of pills in a plastic bottle. He helped me sit up, then proceeded to open the small orange bottle and shake out three tiny pills into his hand. “Take these.”

   As he stepped away and grabbed the gallon jug of water from the duffle bag, I mumbled in confusion “Where the hell did you get all this stuff?”

   “We’re at a Vet’s office – about a mile away from your house. I did the best I could to stitch your face up… Just take the pills, man.”

   I tried to give one back. “I need to stay alert. I think three is too many.”

   “They’re for dogs, so they’re weak – just take them.”

   The pain was rapidly intensifying – especially in my eye. It quickly inspired me to fling the pills into my mouth and take a large sip of water. “Tell me, man… my eye.”

   Walt looked away and pressed his lips together. When he turned back to me he was slowly shaking his head. “It’s... You’re lucky to be alive. Let’s just leave it at that for now.”

   In my mind, the tone of his voice confirmed that my eye was ruined. “Great… Fuckin great.”

   “You’re gonna be fine, James. I have antibiotics too.”

   A fear suddenly gripped me, to the point where any pain I was feeling vanished. I fell back and started to crawl away from Walt. He jumped up and whipped around – most likely thinking I’d seen something behind him. “What!? What is it?”

   “You gotta lock me in one of the rooms, NOW!”

   “What are you talking about?”

   I jumped to my feet and started looking for the door. “My face! What if I’m infected!? You have to get the hell away from me!”

   Walt lunged forward and grabbed me by the collar, doing his best to subdue me as I struggled to distance myself from him. “Calm down, James! Don’t even say shit like that… We don’t know anything about what’s happening.”

   “That’s exactly why I can’t be near you!”

   I ripped his hand away and went out into the even darker hallway. There were no windows to allow any moonlight to make its way in, and I didn’t want to wait for my eye to adjust, so I began desperately feeling around for other doors.

   The tip of my foot snagged on something heavy and caused me to fall on top of it. When I felt the softness of a body, and the nose, lips and chin under my right hand, I quickly crawled a few feet away and used a doorknob to pull myself up.

   Walt rushed over, spun me around and pushed me against the wall. “None of these rooms lock from the outside. Calm the fuck down, man!” He lowered his voice. “We’re making too much noise.” He looked down at the body. “It was lucky enough that I only had to deal with one of them when I broke inside this place.”

   I leaned forward, so closely that our noses almost touched. “It could happen at any second and you won’t be able to get away from me. You won’t have time to pull that bolt back and load another shot in if you miss either… We just need to stay apart for a few hours or something. We gotta be sure.”

   I pushed him away. “I’m not gonna be the one to kill you… You understand me?”

   I continued down the hall and checked the doors to see if they could be locked from the outside. Soon finding my efforts to be wasted, I turned back to Walt and said “You’ll have to be the one to stay locked in a room. I’ll go to the other side of the building… Hopefully, if I do turn, I won’t be lucid enough to know where you are.”

   Walt shook his head and presented his hands in a pleading manner. “What if something happens and we really do get separated? I don’t like this idea – I’d rather just risk it.” I kept walking and he said “Please, I really don’t think this is smart.”

   I came to a stop and turned back to him. “It’s not up to you. Just do it or I’m gonna leave the building and go somewhere else… And if you follow me, I swear I’ll just knock you out cold and drag you back here.”

   His prolonged and deep glare told me that he wanted to continue arguing, but he kept quiet. I knew he was just scared and worried about me…
I’d feel exactly the same if things were the other way around.

   Walt furiously stormed back to the room where I regained consciousness and retrieved the other rifle. He rushed up to me, grasped the barrel with his other hand and roughly shoved it against my chest. “Hope you’re doing the right thing.”

   Before I turned around to walk away, I asked “What’s the situation outside?”

   “I don’t know why, but on the way here I only saw about a dozen small groups of them walking around – all spread out too. Every time I passed one, they’d all start chasing the car, but after about five seconds they’d just give up and keep heading the other way… It’s like the others are calling to them or something.”

   Walt took a step closer. “I’m not sure exactly what time it is, but it can’t be more than three or four hours until sunup. You were out for a long time. If you were gonna turn it would have already happened by now.” He poked me in the chest. “Once the sun comes up – this shit ends and we stick together. Deal?”

   I looked down at the floor and nodded. I could feel my hands shaking again and my body starting to tense up. A strong sense of doom washed over me as I turned around and headed to the last room at the end of the hall. I could feel Walt’s eyes cutting through my back the entire way there.

   By the time I closed the door behind me and locked it, the meds were kicking in and the pain was gradually fading. I was scared beyond imagination, my blood was pumping at a hundred miles an hour, and I could feel my breathing getting deeper and faster… Knowing they were some of the symptoms only frightened me even more. My own mind was starting to convince me that I was already turning.

   The room had no windows, so I hit the light switch by the door. Once I was done squinting and blinking my eye, I noticed a metal crate meant for large dogs to my right. I took a deep breath and walked over to examine it further, but the locking mechanism wasn’t at all complicated or strong enough to hold me.

  
Won’t do shit…

   The room was perfectly clean and blindingly white. I was already finding it annoying not to have the use of my left eye. If I wanted to look left, I’d have to turn my head all the way to the side…
I can’t forget how easy it is for one of those things to sneak up on me now…

   The bright fluorescent fixtures were directly above the type of large, stainless-steel table that you’d find in any Vet’s office – giving it a mirror-like appearance. Next to it, sat a wide array of instruments, carefully laid out on a much smaller, adjustable table with wheels on the bottom. There were medium-sized cages stacked on top of one another against the back wall, and various machines and equipment everywhere I looked. The room seemed to be set up specifically for surgeries.

   The silence made it so I could hear the blood pumping through my neck. It was like someone softly beating a canvas drum inside my skull. The only thing that drowned it out was the yelling periodically accompanying it.

   I kept telling myself that I should have done something differently. I was angry…
if I don’t turn, I’ll still have to get through all this with one eye. We didn’t even make it ten feet away from my house before I was permanently disfigured and almost killed… This is so fucked…

   I couldn’t stop my mind from producing vivid images of that little girl in the window. I attempted to sooth my conscience by assuring myself that if everything was fine by morning, we would go back for her. Though no matter how I played out the situation in my head, it always resulted in all of us being killed. I worried we could end up attracting them to her instead of actually helping.

  
Is she all alone? Hopefully, she’s smart enough not to go outside…

   I was almost certain things were only going to get worse from this point on. Even though it didn’t seem possible, I knew it was.

   All I could do was sit there – smoking up all my cigarettes, torturing myself with fear and guilt, meanwhile hoping I was wrong about possibly being infected. I even found myself praying for the first time in my life…. I felt their strength first hand when one of them broke through the car window.

   What if these doors won’t hold me? What if I really do end up being the one to kill Walt?.. Will I know it’s happening? Will I be aware of anything at all?

   When someone turns into one of those things… is it like dying or being trapped in a nightmare?

Chapter 3

  
My arms weren’t long enough to keep the rifle pointed at my head and my finger on the trigger. I didn’t plan on allowing myself to turn, so I just sat there for hours holding the knife closely to my throat. I felt like I was committed to plunging it into my neck if I had to – although, I wasn’t sure if the time came that I’d be able.

  
There was a red, ceramic clock hanging above the door. Every time I looked up at it, I expected to see that an hour had passed, but that wasn’t the case at all. The painkillers had me in a type of daze that seemed to drastically slow down time.

   I would have gladly welcomed some of the pain to return, just so the hands would move faster.

   I eventually ordered myself to stop checking so frequently. It wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty of other things to think about. I could only guess my subconscious mind was keeping it all a bay by grasping for any distraction that might shield me from the reality of what’s going on outside… and what happened to me.

   I constantly came close to nodding-off, but I forced myself to stay awake – just in case. My only comfort was the fact that my breathing had calmed and my heart rate had noticeably dropped. As far as I could tell, I was feeling perfectly normal.

   The pain in my face and left eye was slowly returning, and it felt more like I’d been burned than cut. I did my best to keep my eyes still – every time I moved them around too much the pain would intensify. I could sense that it was there and still intact, though I knew it was ruined… I could just feel it…

   As I watched the large hand of the clock move closer to 6:30am, I knew Walt would be at the door soon…
Has it really been long enough to know for sure? Even colds and stupid shit like that can take days to display symptoms…

   I jerked straight when I heard the loud, frantic knocking, followed by Walt’s voice. “Hurry up – open the door!”

   Even though the rational part of my brain was telling me I would have turned by now, I was still hesitant to walk over and let him in. I was so scared that I could end up hurting him.

   When the knocking turned to pounding, it snapped me out of it and I ran over.

   The moment I slid the deadbolt aside, Walt pushed his way in and gently closed the door behind him. His bewildered expression told me that something had him scared. “Some people just showed up. A man and a woman – she’s hurt and it looks pretty bad. I just so happened to be lookin out the window when they pulled up and got out of a car.”

   At first, I was fearful as well… but after a rapid stream of thoughts, a different perspective soon presented itself. I raised my brow. “Maybe this is a good thing. We can work together.”

   “Yeah, maybe… but we have to be careful. You can’t trust anyone at a time like this. Most people only care about themselves. I guarantee that plenty of people are already going crazy enough to kill us for our food and guns.”

   “So, what – should we just try to stay hidden and hope they leave?”

   We both froze to the heavy, metallic bang of the door to the building being opened and slammed shut. Walt put his ear to the door. “Most of these rooms have medical supplies, so hopefully they won’t check this one first. I really think we should try to avoid them.”

   Within seconds, a man’s deep and booming voice filled the hall. “Is anyone in here!? I need help! Please, don’t shoot!”

   Walt glanced back at me. I could see the want to help them in his eyes as he clenched his jaw. I said “Fuck. This isn’t right… We should help them.”

   “…I don’t know.”

   “You said the woman is badly injured, right?”

   “Yeah.”

   I reached out for the handle and he grabbed my arm, barely stopping me from pushing it down and opening the door. “Are you sure about this?”

   The face of that little girl in the window flashed before my eyes. I just couldn’t bring myself to ignore another person’s cries for help – especially now that we were able. “We have to help them. We’ve been selfish long enough.”

   Walt moved aside, took three long steps backward and trained his rifle at the door as I cracked it open. I could hear their footsteps, accompanied by drawers and cabinets being opened, and random objects falling to the floor as they searched one of the nearby rooms.

   I bellowed out “Hello! We’ll help you!”

   All the different noises resonating out into the narrow hallway suddenly stopped and there was nothing but silence. It wasn’t long before we heard the man’s voice again. “We don’t have any weapons! I just want to help my wife!”

   Walt slightly lowered his rifle, approached the door and opened it all the way so he could bark out instructions. “Come out of the room with your hands up!”

   He walked past me and through the doorway, brought his rifle back up and pointed it in the direction of the man’s voice. “Slowly!”

   A short and somewhat heavy-set black man who looked to be well into his thirties, crept out from one of the rooms. He was clearly terrified and seemed to be unarmed. His light-gray shirt was partially stained with blood, but I didn’t see any injuries so I could only assume it all belonged to his wife.

   I pushed Walt’s rifle down and approached him. “Walt, go gather all the shit you used to patch me up!”

   Walt hesitated. He wasn’t as trusting as I was. It was probably the right way to be, but I didn’t care. After everything I’d seen and all the people we watched being slaughtered – I wanted to take the chance and try to help them.

   I looked back at him and yelled “GO!”

   The man slowly dropped his hands to his sides. I could see the panic and desperation twisting his face, and the shaking in his voice told me was fighting off tears. “Please, my wife’s arm is really bad. One of those damn things tore into her!”

   Right as he said it, I could tell he noticed the bandages all over my head and face. He thinned his eyes and asked “How long ago did they get at you?”

   I knew exactly why he was asking. He had the same worry for her that I had for myself. I did my best to appear confident in my answer, i to provide him with some semblance of comfort. “It’s been at least eight hours and I haven’t turned… I don’t think that’s how this works.”

   He momentarily leaned his head back, let out a sigh of relief and brought his hand to his chest. “Oh, thank God.” He looked back into the room and said “It’s okay, Melanie. Come on.”

   A partially Hispanic-looking woman around the same age stepped out into the hall. She was tightly clutching her right arm and it was bleeding heavily, flowing down to her hand and dripping to the floor. Her right shoe was streaked and dotted with blood. The solid white sneaker made the red stand out in such a way that it almost seemed fake.

   From what I could see, the wound didn’t appear to be life threatening.

   The pink band holding her dirty-blonde hair back was sliding off, allowing some of it to fall out and cover most of her face. Almost every step she took was followed by a wince and a gasp – showcasing her extreme pain.

   I waved them toward me and said “Follow me. My brother already had to patch me up. We have all the stuff in a room down the hall – pain killers and antibiotics too.”

   When we made it to the room, Walt had everything laid out on the floor. A bottle of alcohol, a needle and thread, bandaging and medical tape. He looked up at them and said “Come sit down next to me. I’ll do the best I can.”

   She stumbled over to Walt and her husband helped her to the floor, then sat down beside her. When she moved her hand away from the wound, I immediately saw that it was worse than I thought. It looked as though one of them bit a large chunk of her forearm away, and I was almost certain I could see the white of the bone.

   Walt grimaced and mumbled “Oh fuck”, but quickly gained his composure and tried to comfort them. “It’s pretty bad, but you should definitely be okay.”

   The man grabbed Walt by the shoulder, then turned to me and put his hand out. “I’m Chris. Thank you for helping us.”

   “Don’t worry about it.” I tried to feign a smile. “We’ll be stronger together, right?”

   Chris nodded, turned his attention back to his wife and allowed her to squeeze his hands as Walt carefully cleaned the wound. There was so much blood that Walt had already soaked the small white towel he had on hand.

   Walt shot me a quick glance and said “Go in the next room and get some more of these.”

   As I went to leave, I noticed that the back of Chris’s shirt was torn and bloodied. It looked like he was bitten and injured in several different places. “Walt, he’s hurt too. His back.”

   Chris waved his hands around and shook his head. “Take care of her first. Don’t worry about me – it’s not that bad.”

   I thought to myself as I walked away –
He’s lying. It looks even worse…

   The moment I grabbed up a few of the small towels in the next room, the woman let out a brief but loud scream. I rushed back to see that Walt was pouring alcohol onto the wound and Chris was covering her mouth to keep her quiet.

   Fearing one of those things may have heard her cry out, I ran to the window and spread the blinds. My head jerked back when I saw the face of a woman and the glowing, amber, bloodshot and bulged eyes pressed up against it.

   Within a second, I was on my back with broken glass falling all around me, and my shoulders were pinned to the ground. I reached up, grabbed her by the throat and barely held her head back as she growled and viciously snapped at me – flinging a mixture of spit, blood and pieces of the last person she ate all over my face.

   Just as I felt my arms begin to shake from the strain, and her hot, foul breath washing over me – Chris grabbed her and flung her across the room like a rag-doll. She quickly recovered, lunged at Chris and took him to the ground. The back of his head smacked against the hard tile floor and had him stunned.

   Before I had time to react, she’d bitten into his throat and torn it wide open. His wife started to scream again and then a single shot rang out. The right side of the infected woman’s head burst and sent blood all over the wall. She instantly went limp and collapsed on top of him.

   Walt ran over, pushed her off of Chris with his foot and then started to back away. He was grabbing at his neck, coughing and choking on his own blood. I watched as a large pool of it quickly formed around his head and upper torso… There was no saving him.

   When his wife saw that he was seconds away from death, she only cried harder and screamed louder. I crawled over, covered her mouth and used my other arm to subdue her.

   I whispered in her ear “There’s nothing you can do, I’m sorry. But please, you have to be quiet or more will come.”

   She stopped trying to get away, held on tightly and dug her nails into me – trying her hardest not to make too much noise as she sobbed uncontrollably and struggled to breathe. I looked off to the side and did my best to comfort her as Chris continued to choke and spit up blood every time he released one of the few short breaths he was able to draw in.

   My ears were still ringing from the shot being fired in such a small room... I watched Walt’s lips move, but the sound of his voice didn’t really register. I’m almost certain he said “I’m sorry.”

   He must think it’s his fault for not firing in time… Really, it’s my fault for looking through the window. I should have been more careful…

  
We all stayed as we were for what seemed like an entire minute. I tried to think of something to say, but found it to be an impossible task. Walt finally broke free from the trauma induced trance and walked over by the window. “I see about five, but they’re all far away… I don’t get it… They had to have heard the shot.”

   The woman continued to sob and tighten her grip on me. Still at a loss for words, I just kept my arms around her and let her head fall to my chest.

   Walt walked over and leaned down next to us. “Your name is Melanie, right?”

   She was still hyperventilating. It took her a few tries and a good amount of stuttering to answer “Yes.”

   “Melanie, we have to get out of this room – it’s not safe anymore. We just have to get across the hall, okay? And I need to finish cleaning and wrapping up your arm so it doesn’t get infected.”

   I added “We both need some painkillers too. My eye is killing me, man – and it’ll help calm her down.”

   Walt and I gently lifted Melanie to her feet. She had to wipe the tears from her eyes before she could start walking. I led her across the hall and Walt gathered the medical supplies so he could finish patching her up.

   I helped Melanie collapse into a somewhat comfortable looking chair in the corner of the room. She was no longer crying, but her expression had turned dull and lifeless. She wasn’t even showing any signs of being in pain. When I looked into her eyes, I got the feeling that she was staring right through me.

   I knew she was in shock and that her physical pain had been replaced with emotional torment. For the time being, there was nothing I could do or say to comfort her.

   As I firmly held a fresh towel on her arm and waited for Walt to prepare the bandage, I looked over at him and said “We rest awhile, then there’s something we need to talk about… Something we need to do.”