Undead 02 The Undead Haze (3 page)

I pulled the edge of the flap open. In front of me and on all sides there was forest. Kevin set his tent far from the rest.

Arrogant jackass. Didn’t think anyone could ever escape?

I took a deep breath of the crisp morning air and tried my best to sprint to the forest. It ended up a determined, awkward lop. I didn’t look back. If they were chasing me, it wouldn’t matter if I saw them coming or not.

They’d get me, just like they got me in the forest before.

* * *

My lungs ached. I ran until I couldn’t run another second, then I walked. I couldn’t stop. Walking was better than being stationary. Had Kevin or his crazies found out I was missing yet?

I went straight into the forest then started jogging in a wide arc to the left until I saw glimpses of road. I didn’t hear any voices. No roar of truck engines, either. I had to keep up the pace.

Eventually I passed the gas station. I kept far away from it.

Fuck if I felt naked. I had the clothes on my back and not a damn thing to defend myself with. I tucked my chin down into my coat and thought about getting to Pickle and getting far away from Kevin. I made fun of the situation, but now that I was out of it the gravity of my near death experience hit me. If I hadn’t been snarky Kevin would’ve eaten me.

The sun was almost entirely risen by the time I made it back to the house I’d left Pickle in. I climbed through the back window I left open. The house was small and set back from the highway in a wooded area. I chose it for its privacy. It hadn’t let me down. There was no sign of entry. Not a single Z wandered the area.

When I cracked open the door to the bathroom where I’d left Pickle, I wanted to hear an angry scurry to the door. But I didn’t hear anything. She’d burrowed into the blanket I set in the bathtub. She lifted her head as I approached, her beady red eyes dull.

“I’m sorry, girl,” I said as I picked her up. “I hope you weren’t worried.”

I stroked her thinning white fur and kissed her head before putting her back in the blanket. There would be time for apologizing later. I needed to change my clothes, pack my gear, and keep on moving.

I wasn’t sure who owned the house. There weren’t any family photos on the walls. Clothing in the closet and dressers indicated a man and a woman. No kids. As I sorted through moth eaten sweaters, I wondered if the house was empty before the apocalypse.

The jacket, jeans, and sweatshirts I found were a size too big, but it felt good to shed my damp, urine scented clothes.

I rummaged through the pantry and found two cans of soup with pop-tops. It wouldn’t last me more than a day and a half. I hoped I’d find more once I had the chance to stop.

I cleaned my brand wound with rubbing alcohol and cotton puffs. They didn’t have bandages big enough to cover it. I made one out of duct tape and gauze.

I placed Pickle in the top of my pack and left the zipper open a few inches for better ventilation. Then I left.

Chapter 3

Even though it felt like acidic tapioca coming up my throat, I coughed up another ball of phlegm and spit it in its designated bucket. After a few seconds of relief, more throat snot worked its way up until I needed to repeat the process. By now the aroma must’ve been beyond vile, ranging into intolerable. If I could smell it, I would’ve been disgusted with myself.

A thick fog hovered outside. I couldn’t see Monte Cristo or any of the buildings past it. I vaguely saw the Parks building that housed the student store straight across from me. Today would be a good day to scavenge if I wasn’t on the verge of death. For all I knew I had some form of the bubonic plague.

Somewhere under the desk, Pickle moved around, making herself more comfortable in the tiny bed she’d created over the weeks we’d been there. I found it humorous she had a better setup than me. My bitter laugh was cut short as I involuntarily hacked out another yellow package.

Everett Community College was supposed to be a pit stop where I could rest and fend off what I thought was a head cold. After walking for a half a day and reaching the main city of Everett, I began feeling lightheaded. My throat itched and my nose dripped. I needed to stop.

Just like I’d thought the gas station would be a quick stop, this also ended up being a bigger ordeal than I bargained for.

I wasn’t familiar with the town itself, but I was drawn to the campus because I’d taken some classes there years ago. I knew its layout. Remembering the names of different buildings was comforting. Knowing the land didn’t hurt either. Any advantage helped.

The campus was a ghost town, which was one of the reasons I thought it would make a good rest area. I was still running on the assumption I was
just
getting sick. Mildly sick.

I’d spend just a day there. That’s all.

Then, after searching a few locked buildings, I walked across a sky bridge which led to the second floor of a three story building called Rainer. The heavy glass doors downstairs were shut and locked, so I didn’t have to deal with securing more than one entrance. The only thing I worried about was the door I came through, which I locked with a crowbar, in addition to its normal upper and lower locks and their manual bolts.

On day one I searched the bottom story. Day two my cold turned into something nasty, and that was it. No more searching. I whimpered like a baby as my nose clogged and my throat got dry. I grew afraid there were undead roaming the areas I hadn’t cleared. As time went by, a new sense of paranoia set in. Weakness and fear gnawed at me, and it only grew worse the longer I didn’t search. Each time I thought I heard something I paced behind my closed office door, secretly hoping the soft padding of my feet on the carpet would lure any undead out, but dreading the moment when it did. It was a vicious cycle.

And Kevin? I imagined hearing the convoy outside the building. There to come take me back. I remembered his crazy, made-up verse and dreamt of it on bad nights.

Dreams of Blaze plagued me since the night I couldn’t find her in Startup. They’d been growing darker and more frequent since I’d been searching for her. Now that I was sick and sleep deprived, the dreams were becoming more hallucinogenic. Sometimes I woke up smelling cigarette smoke or feeling like she was in the room. I chalked it up to a guilty conscience and gave up trying to make peace with the situation.

I huddled in my makeshift bed of padding ripped out of couches and chairs and I shivered. I carried one thermal blanket in my backpack, but winter was coming on and that wouldn’t be enough. Hell, I even layered on tapestries and wall quilts from the offices. Not like it mattered.

I glanced outside once more. The scene hadn’t changed, but my willingness had. My head swam as I removed myself from the blankets and I grabbed the filing cabinet for support. My nose dripped and my body convulsed in an onset of shivers.

There was one thing about my situation I particularly hated—my lack of weapons. I suppose my adventures in the summer were far too easy because ammunition was abundant. Even during desperate times I had something, whether it was a handgun or assault rifle. Now all I had was a 9mm with a few rounds, a flashlight, and a baseball bat. The bat had modifications, though. Just some nails here and there. And a lady’s face I drew on it—her name was Barbara, in case you were interested.

Gathering my two weapons, I opened the office door and peeked out. To my left there were no windows and the hallways faded into blackness. Even if I waited for my eyes to adjust, I wouldn’t see anything. Well, except part of a corpse. Half the body was obscured by a right turn in the hall. All I saw were the legs. That half of the building was creepy. It instigated my paranoia. So still and dark. When I went to search that floor, I could only take a few steps into the bleeding edge of blackness before I had to retreat. I’m not sure what it was about down there, but I didn’t want to find out.

Look at me, Cyrus V. Sinclair, afraid of the dark and the boogeyman.

I stepped out of the office and closed the door securely behind me. Yesterday Pickle escaped, bent on having an adventure. I still hadn’t seen her. Since then, I’d been keeping the door shut.

The hall was vacant and chilled. My boots made no noise on the carpet. At the right end of the hall were heavy wooden doors that led to an open space before the staircase. I heaved one open. Blinding light dazed me and I squeezed my eyes shut until the burning went away.

Once my vision returned, I took a few steps towards the window until I had a good view of the campus. Taking my time, since I had a lot of it, I scanned the area for any signs of life—or death—of which I found none. Not even a breeze moved the leafless branches of the bushes and trees.

I was as confident as I ever would be. I opened the stair access door and headed one floor down to the sky bridge landing. Each footstep echoed, bouncing around the cement stairwell.

Too loud. Stop being so noisy,
I chided myself.

I was soon in a room similar to the one above me. Open and chilly. I assessed the area around me then stared at the door to Parks. It was just across the sky bridge. Like most entrances in the college, it was glass with a metal frame bisecting it at waist level. As far as I could tell, my only option was to break the glass and squeeze through the lower half.

Swallowing an incoming slime ball back down my throat, I unlocked the double doors, yanked the crowbar out, and crouched to open one and slide through. If I walked across the bridge, I would be visible.

I was convinced death was around the corner, but I could make some effort to prevent it.

My legs were rubbery as I stayed low and moved across the bridge. The cool air felt like it was freezing my mucus. There was no hope of breathing through my nose. And was it just me, or was it cold enough to freeze my eyeballs, too?

Clutching my bat, I came up to the overhang of the Parks’ roof. In front of me were the doors, to the left was a wall, and to the right was a slanted walkway to the parking lots. As the coast was still clear, I moved forward. I was right when I said the door was the same as Rainier. There was a primary key lock and peg locks on the top and bottom.

I took the bat, gathered as much strength as I could, and swung at the lower half of the door. The sound of it cracking was so startling I had to fight back a reactive shout. To the undead out there, this noise was a dinner bell. But I had to keep going. Bringing the bat back once again, I gave it another hit and it gave way. I chipped away as much of the remaining glass as I could with the heel of my boot.

You don’t need to hear a moan to know one’s coming. I was well aware when I broke that glass I’d be surrounded in no time. Even though I hadn’t seen any Zs, it didn’t mean they weren’t there. Whether it was minutes or hours, I had to hurry.

I set Barbara in and squeezed through the tiny opening. My gloves made getting through the broken glass a hell of a lot easier.

Down the hall was a skylight, barely lighting up the linoleum floor. Posters and bulletin boards promoting nonexistent clubs and programs lined the walls. To the right were glass displays with mannequins sporting school apparel and backpacks. Behind the display paper would be the student store.

I started forward. Once at the end of the hall, I glanced to either side. Left was fine, but the right made my heart stop.

The store security gate was closed. The metal grid barred me from everything I wanted.

Why hadn’t I thought of that? The school was clearly closed down when the apocalypse came, so why wouldn’t the gate be closed? Being sick put me in a foul, spacey mood. But look at where I was? In a disappointing situation with Zs coming from at least a mile radius to eat me up.

I’m not giving up
.
Get your fucking act together, Cyrus. You’re getting in there.

I walked past the gate and headed farther right. There was a book buyback window, like a drive through window, but nothing else.

At least I had an option. Gritting my teeth, I struck the pane of glass at the buyback window, which broke faster as it was thinner than the entrance doors. I threw the bat in and tried hauling myself through. The first attempt didn’t work, and I fell back onto the ground while releasing a loud sneeze. My throat throbbed in pain and my vision blurred.

Wiping the dribbles of snot off my nose, I got back up and put everything I had into lifting myself over the counter. Glass clinked on the ground. A series of tearing sounds was enough to let me know jagged pieces were snagging on my clothes. Then I was through, both feet on the ground, inside the store.

Minimal light filtered through the front gate, casting most of the store in darkness. It smelled dusty and unused. Heart pounding, I remained in a crouch and listened, though my ears were ringing from the silence. If something was in the store, it wasn’t voicing it.

I grabbed the flashlight from my jacket pocket and clicked it on. A subdued yellow beam hit the floor and I raised it up. Binders, notebooks, backpacks, and all manners of school supplies were pristine on shelves and walls. My spirits soared when I saw school sweaters and jackets. On the back wall, beside the backpacks, I saw two large drink refrigerators, in front of which were racks of snacks that might prove more substantial than the junk going stale in vending machines.

Finally, my luc—

Every time I gave myself a high five for finding something, or thought things were looking up, I jinxed it and things went bad. Cutting my thoughts off before the cosmos could work against me, I stood and began my search. Cautiously.

My heart and stomach wanted to rush for the food, but the store was small enough to clear in no time. I held Barbara in one hand and the flashlight in the other and searched each aisle. Each row yielded no corpses, moving or otherwise. Relieved, I went to the back wall, grabbing a backpack as I passed. My hand shook from the stress of feeling out of sorts and on a time crunch. I unzipped the bag and filled it with anything useful.

Repeating the process with three other backpacks, I forgot about the impending doom waiting outside until at least ten minutes had passed. Before I could forget, I moseyed over to the sweaters and grabbed a hoodie, pulling it over my head. I repeated the process until I had two sweaters on. There were definitely more clothing products that would help me out, but I’d have to come back later to shop more. Returning to the last backpack I’d been filling, I resumed my work.