(Book 2)What Remains (10 page)

Worry overtook her delicate features yet again.
“Don’t we
want
to find other uninfected people?”

Other people...

A hard blink unleashed a flood of memories in
that split second. I saw the survivors that came across my path
during the flight home. I saw the failed rescue plan and the
burning corpses around the elementary school. My heart palpitated
the way it did when I pointed a shotgun at a man in front of his
daughter simply because he was scared and had me in the crosshairs
first.

“Nathan?” If she didn’t suspect that I was going
through some post-traumatic stress from the last time I drifted
into my thoughts during our conversation in the bathroom earlier,
then she most definitely suspected it now. “Sweetie, wherever you
keep disappearing to up there,” she said, motioning to my head,
“that place doesn’t matter now. You’ve made it back to us and those
places that keep pulling you away don’t matter because you have us
again.”

She brought me back to Earth again. “I know,
babe... I’m sorry. To answer your question; no, we don’t want to
find other uninfected people. Any human being out there isn’t the
same person they were when the dead stayed
dead
. People are
desperate and have nothing to lose. They are doing things and
acting in ways that would have been unthinkable just weeks
ago.”

There was a brief moment of silence. Muffled
giggles filtered down to our ears from above. She paused as if the
next question could open Pandora's Box. “Is that how you got home?
Did you make it because you were desperate and had nothing to
lose?”

This time I didn’t need to drift into my
memories of an atrocious past. “
No
. I ran past people that I
could have helped. I stole from people that were taken by the
virus. I.... I killed a man. I murdered a man that saved my
life.”

Sarah stood in shock holding a pan of sautéed
vegetables that simmered lightly.

“People turn into monsters when they have
nothing to lose. I turned into whatever I needed to because I had
everything
to lose.” A smile appeared on her face, which
made me feel instantly better. Rather than dwelling on my crimes I
quickly shifted back to the original subject. “The dirt biker
outside is doing a good thing right now. The infected are flocking
to him because he’s like a raving Happy Meal out there. If he keeps
it up he’ll eventually pull enough of them away from the cul-de-sac
for us to make it in the car and get the hell out.”

The change in her posture was relieving. It’s
not every day that you confess crimes to your spouse like they are
as significant as taking the trash to the curb. Sarah swirled the
veggies around in the pan causing the sizzling to intensify for a
moment. “We’ll talk about our plan after dinner. This food smells
delicious and it needs to be in our bellies! Let’s enjoy
Thanksgiving mini-feast now then worry about the apocalypse
later.”

Two happy faces appeared in the opening of the
attic. “Hey guys! Is everything ready?” Calise said down in an
excited pseudo-whisper. Sarah nodded happily and started up the
creaking ladder. I doubled back to make sure no lights were left on
so we could enjoy the meal in our hidden area without any of the
infected inviting themselves to the feast.

I eased the ladder closed behind me; we were
sealed tight. The attic felt more vibrant than it had ever been.
Fruits of the kids’ decorative labor were obvious. They had gone
into the boxes and took out a few containers of Christmas
ornaments. Everything was so bright and festive that it resembled a
dream. Looking at the sweet arrangement of past memories and their
childish excitement made it easy to forget about the ravenous
ghouls just outside our walls. An array of pan-cooked delights was
spread across the impromptu table made from an artificial
Christmas-tree box covered in random tablecloths.

We settled and our feast began mostly bathed in
silence. Food came as a welcomed distraction but it was obvious
that the events of the day were still being digested by every one
of us. I pondered how the little things in life suddenly took on
significance as I ate what could be one of the last chicken nuggets
ever made. The kids looked equally content with the warm morsels
that filled the colorful M&M plates.

As much as it pained me to pop our pleasant
little bubble, I knew that we had to discuss the days ahead. Maddox
and Calise may be young but the time was near for their innocence
to be thrown out into the evil world. We would traverse the
wasteland as a family in every sense; withholding knowledge at this
point could be a disastrous mistake. I let out a deep sigh, and the
attention shifted towards my end of the makeshift table.

“Kids,” my words were heavy as if I was breaking
the news about the loss of a family. “We need to talk about what
the next few days will hold for us.” Sarah’s shoulders dropped,
knowing what needed to be said.

“We’ve been safe hiding here for a while now
waiting for me to recover. I really appreciate you guys taking care
of me after I got so banged up. With Monkey helping Mommy out and
Calise being the best little doctor I could ask for I feel almost
back to my old self.” Recognition made her grin from ear to ear.
“But after what happened earlier today I think we know it’s time to
leave the hou–”

A horrible
boom
, combined with a
bloodcurdling scream somewhere close by, cut through our isolated
bubble and ended my sentence mid-word. Calise screamed and we all
jumped.

“
STAY PUT!
” I commanded, rushing over to
the peephole on the side facing our neighbors’ drive.

I fumbled with the boxes covering the vent,
disregarding any attempt to maintain our silence. I wasn’t sure if
Calise’s crying was muffled by her mother’s hand or by the
palpitation of my own heart. Outside it was dark, but a wavering
light emanating from towards the cul-de-sac lit a few silhouettes
eagerly hobbling away from the house towards the light.

“What do you see?” Sarah called in a coarse
whisper.

“I’m not sure. Maddox, help me reseal this.” He
was already at my side before I even finished speaking, grabbing
onto one of the boxes I had thrown to the side. We rebuilt the box
wall swiftly.

“Mommy is with Calise so I need you to wait by
the ladder. As soon as I raise the ladder back up I want you to
pull the cord in so it isn’t hanging on the downstairs side. I’ll
call up to you when it’s okay to drop the cord so I can pull the
ladder down again. If you don’t hear me call then you DO NOT lower
the cord. No matter what you hear outside or downstairs you must
keep the ladder closed. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir. Daddy... are you sure you should go
down there?” Another shotgun blast came then, close enough that I
could feel the impact of the boom in the floorboards. Sarah held
onto Calise tightly trying to calm her.

My hands were already pushing on the end of the
drop-down ladder. “No I’m not sure. Everything will be fine so stay
up here with Mommy and your sister. I’ll go look out the peephole
in the family room. That’s the only way to find out what is going
on in the area we can’t see from here.”

The revving of the maniac’s dirt bike leaked in
again from the direction of the cul-de-sac and Sarah’s scowl voiced
her disapproval.

“I’ll be fine Hun. If it is him, and it comes
down to a forced introduction, then I want him to think I’m the
only person holed up in this house.” I patted my side confirming
that my trusted Kukri was where it belonged then took the twelve
gauge in my left hand. Calise looked completely terrified. I threw
a smile her way and said, “Don’t worry, Princess. I’ll be back in
just a minute.”

The creaks from the wooden ladder had never
seemed louder than they did at that moment. Beyond the complaints
of the wooded rungs, the wailing of the engine outside was
punctuated by shotgun blasts and angry shouts. Once I eased the
ladder back to its concealed position the stiff nylon cord snaked
upwards until it was out of sight entirely. I glided heel-toe
swiftly through the hall past the plush feline guards.

I pressed my body against the boarded window as
if I could somehow become one with the wall if only to know what
was on the other side without revealing our position. My heart
thundered within my chest joining the vibrations from the fierce
battle on the other side. The last time I had felt anxiety like
this I was climbing the stairs of the parking deck in the first
days of the outbreak. Having my family so close to this unknown
danger was like reliving the collapse of life all over again.
Coarseness around the peephole bit into my eyebrow as I pressed
against the barricade to see as much as possible.

Everything visible was dark and blurry, and my
anxious panting wasn’t helping things in the least. I took a deep
breath through my mouth, slowly released it through my nostrils,
then repeated the exercise. My brain played tricks on me using the
darkness to form shadows into enemies that shouldn’t exist. Then I
realized that those enemies did exist... and they were
everywhere
.

The dead clogged the entrance to the cul-de-sac
even more than they had when I barreled through them on the
pilfered police bicycle. Random bursts of light lit them up from
different angles making their numbers difficult to determine. In
one of the flashes I saw three fall at once; then, not even a
second later, I felt the vibration of the weapon that brought them
down.

Another flash of light came but it was more
constant and directed. The headlamp of the dirt bike rolled across
the wall of excited undead and around the perimeter towards the
rest of the neighborhood. The biker was screaming at the top of his
lungs and then two more infected bodies collapsed. From my limited
view it looked as if he was taking strafing runs at the group with
a shotgun and used a blade of some kind for a more personal touch
when he was close to them.

A sinking pit in my stomach told me that
something wasn’t right about this most recent escapade. This was
different from what I could gather on the tactics of the
neighborhood vigilante before that night. In the times before I
never heard yelling, and the engine of his bike never sounded
pushed to the level it was now. Something had changed with the man,
something had made him reckless. Before, he was defending his
territory with brazen flare; on this night he moved like a man
beckoning the end.

Our yard was suddenly clear of any zombies. All
of them had shambled closer to the excitement of a stark-raving mad
meal that kept trolling by on the street. Easily two-dozen shapes
congregated together where the man was strafing. I imagined there
to be a dozen more motionless beyond them but it was hard to tell
with the limited light.

Should I go out there and help him?

My mind raced through possible outcomes from
helping the crazy stranger.

Before I could make any choices, another scream
came without any accompanying gunfire. I squinted as hard as I
could in an attempt to get a better view through the tiny hole. The
beam of light flew down the street on the same path I had taken to
reach the house. Three bursts of light lit the surrounding area
quickly followed by shaking from the sound of their fury. His
consecutive shots told me that he was using a twelve gauge with
some reloadable flexibility for shells. Assuming he reloaded before
making another pass I guessed he had two or three more shells
left.

This isn’t right. Something is wrong this
time.

I was frozen to do anything but gawk at the
scene that unfolded. The headlight didn’t veer off; it stayed on
the direct course. Three more quick flashes came and the walls
shook. A whole section of the infected were shredded by the blaze
of pellets. He had actually cleared a path that led to the
cul-de-sac. I couldn’t believe how proficient this lunatic had
become in this insane attack. Then the lone headlight on the bike
turned into a strobe as the treads found traction, climbing up and
down over fallen corpses. A roar of the tiny engine joined each
up-and-down motion when the man pumped the throttle with each
rotting speed bump.

The biker had made it just past the entrance to
the cul-de-sac, his wake littered with chunks of fallen frights.
From my vantage point, the scene was all shadows and lightning but
I felt like I could see every inch of the carnage after having
lived in his position almost exactly during my flight home. I held
my breath knowing that with his speed and reckless ferocity he was
close enough for our house to turn into a backdrop for stray
bullets. I turned away to warn Sarah and the kids that they needed
to hide behind boxes that could absorb anything that strayed
towards us. Then he screamed again, just as he had done whenever
turning around for another pass, and I was instantly pulled back to
the peephole.

When the headlight shined over the reflective
letters of the black Cannondale police bike, it made them flash
into a clear view. The fury of his attack, I’m sure combined with
his heart pounding in utter disregard, more than likely prevented
him from seeing the tragic circumstance that brought his mission to
an end. I saw it so briefly from my point of view that a blink
would have left his demise a mystery. My recovered bike was still
in the middle of the street, right where it fell when I was thrown
from it. There were so many corpses in the area that it was hidden
like a landmine in an un-mowed field. His front wheel wobbled when
it first made contact, causing his bike to do a quick jackknife
motion. Misfortune’s pieces aligned in just the right way so that
the pedal of my discarded bike caught the spokes of his front
wheel.

His collision was so sudden that it was almost
as if a tripwire had stopped the bike in its tracks. Momentum sent
him over the handlebars, slamming him into the concrete like a rag
doll. The motorized bike vertically rotated back to front with my
bike still anchored. At the climax of the twirling wind-up the
police bike dislodged like a fastball, sending it launching across
the concrete and into the neighbor’s mailbox with a metallic clap
that rained sparks upon impact. Not even a second behind it was the
dirt bike flipping erratically end over end directly towards our
house.