(Book 2)What Remains (20 page)

I kept clear of his arms while tracing the short
rope to its source from the kid, under the truck then to the front
bumper where it was heavily looped and knotted. With the demented
puzzle pieces in view I figured out what must have happened. After
the boy was bitten, maybe after he turned, someone had tied him to
the truck because they wouldn’t put him down. This was enough to
settle my curiosity, anything more would take my mind to places I
didn’t want it to go.

Enough precious minutes were wasted; I marched
from the front of the truck back towards the kid. He reacted to my
return with bared broken teeth that had twists of silver from bent
orthodontics. I increased my step then used a wide swing. In the
moment before his lasting death the kid took another swipe putting
his left hand in the path of the Kukri, which effortlessly severed
the pointer and middle fingers. For a split second I could see the
trail of black mist floating in the wake of the blade from the hand
to his skull. My swing came to an end with the metal embedded above
his ear.

Undead or not, I had no wish to see the trauma
I’d inflicted on the teenager. Sarah remained on the ladder with
the rifle lowered to reveal a vacant stare. Still linked by the
fatal connection, my arm was extended backward as I stepped
forward. I clenched the handle then yanked to dislodge the blade
with a heinous slurp.

I stood at the fence with Sarah frozen atop the
ladder on the opposite side unable to break her gaze from the
re-killed boy.

“Babe,” I said softly without response.
“
Sarah!
”

She exhaled sharply with a plume of steamy
breath. “Sorry. It’s just…”

“I know. We can’t worry about that now because
his problems are over. Ours have just begun.” Timed with dreaded
irony, at that moment fists again began to hammer against the fence
in the front yard startling us both. It was inevitable that the
dead would know something was going in the backyard; we just wanted
it to be when the keys turned in the ignition.

“Give me a hand up so we can swap places. Start
the truck first then do what you need to do in the back. I’ll get
the kids.”

Scaling the face was infinitely easier with a
hand on the other side helping me up. I stared at the front fence
where the infected were focused. My heart stopped when I noticed
the boards beginning to flex inward from the barrage. Frankly, I
was surprised this was the first time I’d seen faults in the
integrity of the barrier after a few weeks of periodic
bombardment.

I bolted to the window. “Heads up!” I said full
volume to warn of my reentry. I hoisted myself up on the windowsill
to peer through the opening. Inside, the kids waited with their
personal backpacks on, both looking sufficiently frightened. Calise
gripped Colonel Meows-a-lot and Van Gough, her honored feline
guard, against her fluffy jacket. Maddox had removed his machete in
response to the clatter on the fence, ready to defend his little
sister.

The pounding increased on each side of the front
fence. “Time to go, guys. You’re first, Princess.” Calise
immediately headed for my arms with Maddox right behind her. She
wrapped her arms around my neck for a tow out the trap door.
“Monkey, I have a job for you.”

He looked confused. “I think we need to go
quick, Daddy. The monsters are hitting the fence louder than
ever.”

“I know. That’s why I have a job for you.”
Calise squeezed tighter, and I had to pry her hold slightly to
continue. “I’m taking her to the fence first then I’m running right
back for you. The instant we’re out the window I want you to run to
the front door. Take your machete and with the flat side,
the
FLAT side
, smack the door as hard as you can eight times in a
row. One time for every year of your age.”

“But…”

“Trust me. Make as much noise as you can. Draw
them to the front door so they get away from the fence. Eight
times, then you run back and lock the bedroom door behind you. By
then I will be here at the window waiting for you.” He still looked
wracked with worry. Calise started crying. “Maddox, you can do
this. Tell me you understand.”

“It’s okay, Calise. I’ll see you in a minute,”
he said.

I nodded at him, then my feet were on the ground
running with the trembling pink beauty fixed to my upper half.
Sarah’s shape was visible through the fence planks while our gear
piled over a foot above the threshold. 522 hummed eagerly, ready to
deliver us away from the violated haven that was once our home. The
ladder wobbled as I flew up the steps. Three-quarters of the way up
I heard Maddox’s distraction begin. Sarah waited beneath to receive
Calise. She looked terrified, no doubt from the sudden and steady
cadence that rang out from inside our home.

Before she could ask I briskly said, “It’s fine.
Get on in. We’ll be there in a sec.” She took Calise then dropped a
few steps before taking a risky leap from the ladder.

The eighth clang sounded when I was fifteen feet
from the window. In my passing glance of the front fence I saw at
least two places where the wood had begun to splinter. Minutes
before I had seen the planks bow inward. That time they were
motionless because the hungry rage that battered them was
redirected towards the front door. If enough of them were
interested, which I strongly suspected there were, then it wouldn’t
be long before they stumbled over each other over the obstacle of
our missing front stairs.

My head was in the window already when Maddox
flew into the room, slamming the door shut behind him. “I did it!”
he said, panting excitedly. A storm of fists landed upon the front
door with such fury that the window frame supporting my weight
vibrated like an earthquake had begun.

“Come on! They’ll break through any second!” He
grabbed hold of my shoulders and I yanked us both clear. “Ladder.
NOW!
”

Maddox headed off full tilt. I returned to the
trap door to shut off signs of our departure. Another vicious
shudder echoed through the building. Wood surrendered under the
assault in a thunderous roar. It was all out of view but loud
enough to engrave that moment in my nightmares. Our home, the safe
haven that had sheltered us in the old world straight into this
wretched new one, had fallen. The horde stumbled inward like water
breaching a dam. I listened for only a few horrible seconds that
would remain ingrained with me always.

By the time we had gotten on the road it was
after eight o’clock. I retraced the path I had taken the previous
day on the bike. We were all shaken by the dramatic exit from our
home. The kids clung to Sarah under several blankets while I tried
to fight the urge to join them. After twenty minutes they settled
down. The excitement of being inside a mail truck, especially one
with such extreme alterations, was a sufficient distraction.

As they made themselves comfortable I tried to
focus on the road rather than the selections I had made for
supplies. This choice of the route was familiar so I didn’t have to
give the road a second thought. Travel was slower than I would have
liked it to be. Maneuvering around abandoned, burned, or wrecked
cars cut the average speed down to a fraction of what it should
have been. 522 lived up to McAllister’s hype; she swerved around
the tight spots with the ease of an open lot.

The dead were everywhere. Clusters had to be
avoided like any other road obstruction we’d faced. I was thankful
that none had gotten close enough to put a rotting hand on the
truck; although, I knew our journey was in its infancy so it was
bound to happen at some point. Most of the reapers within view were
gathered around predictable sites probably with more recent human
activity. A handful of buildings had obvious living occupants.

One, a hotel constructed in the last couple
years on the eastern corner of a shopping area, was swarmed by the
infected on the ground level. Positioned in an open lot in a way
meant to attract visitors, I could see far more detail than my
sanity needed. People were on the roof waiving for my attention as
we passed. A man in a red jacket desperately jumped around in hopes
I’d notice. Next to him a woman wrapped in a hotel comforter flew a
banner made from a translucent fabric that looked like the inner
shade from a room below. Thin blue letters, possibly written with a
tube of toothpaste, scribbled the words “
CHILDREN ARE HERE
”
on one line then “
HELP US
” on the next.

I felt very thankful that Maddox and Calise
didn’t have windows to look out of, they didn’t need to see the
hopeless looks I witnessed on the people up there. When my speed
increased the man ceased his plea and dropped to his knees at the
moment we flew past. In that instant, even through the chain
covered windows and across the tainted space in between, I felt the
final shreds of hope leave the man in the red jacket. Windows would
have been the nail in the coffin in this instance. Willfully
ignoring anyone that desperate was an act I never wanted them to
think I was capable of.

Smoke churned away from the smoldering shell of
a grocery store on the western corner of the hotel’s shopping
center. Heaps of blackened human shapes dotted the surrounding
parking lot. Charred figures wobbled mindlessly on the property. A
featureless charcoal sculpture of a person stumbled over a curb
leaving its own smoke trail as it met the pavement. I pushed the
accelerator a hint more to get away from the hellish remains of a
formerly vibrant area.

I went into autopilot after the grocery store.
Maddox tried to engage me in conversation, but I had no response to
give. All I could handle was the road immediately ahead of us; any
of the other hideous sights to our side would have disparaged more
than informed. Winds knocked our irregular chariot around. The
weather changed rapidly. Winter was approaching with the
apocalyptic pollution giving it a boost.

A new landmark that approached on the left side
interrupted my worries about the weather. After a slow mile beyond
the shopping center there was a car dealership with an absurdly
large American flag posted at the corner. In all the times I’d
driven past this flag, or others like it on auto dealers, I didn’t
remember ever seeing the stars and stripes extended in their full,
fluttering glory. I assume it would take storm-level winds to allow
the flag to fly and in those cases someone at the dealership
probably would pull it down for safekeeping. The flag had turned
into an enormous flash of color saluting the crumbled nation it was
supposed to represent. Winds that knocked the truck also
invigorated the symbol in a way I’d never seen before.

We rounded a steady bend to pass the dealership.
I had to jerk the wheel around a wall of the infected. Dozens of
the bastards stood together, snapping their jaws with a fixated
stare upward. Then I realized - it was the flag! The enlivened flag
caught the attention of the undead as much as it caught mine. The
flashes of red, white and blue defiantly flew above their reach
like bait on a hook. Arms rose towards the source near the
epicenter while the outside violently pushed to get closer. None of
them took any notice of Frankenstein’s mail truck careening towards
them before we narrowly turned away.

Our path had almost taken us out of the area we
were familiar with. What I saw leading to that point was a total
divergence from familiarity.

One factor that we didn’t plan very well was the
need for bathroom breaks. Calise’s little voice broke through my
focus, “I need to go potty! Daddy, I really need to go potty!”

I leaned back to share a glance of sheer panic
with my wife. Calise bounced up and down next to her, ready to
burst at the seams. “Alright honey, I’ll find a spot to stop,” I
said, attempting to hide the frustration in my voice. “I need you
to hold it for a minute while I look for a safe place to pull over.
Can you do that for me?”

She nodded her head to agree.

We were fortunate to be in a mostly vacated,
wooded stretch of Hull Street. A field off the eastbound lanes was
the first break in the trees in a few miles. I sped to a crossing
in the median a little ways up then did a quick U-turn. Some kind
of farm was parallel to the crossing. This wasn’t the time to scout
for an actual bathroom so an open area with a wide area of
visibility would do for now.

Stillness permeated the stretch of road; there
wasn’t a single car or corpse in sight. I passed the farmhouse to
pull over in front of the open field just past in the direction we
came from. The farmhouse looked untouched with the exception of its
front door, which was ajar; otherwise it had no indications of
activity.

“Daaaddddddddyyyyyyyy….” Calise cried. “I really
need to go pee pee!”

“Nathan this is good,” Sarah said. “Pull over
already.”

I pulled to the side then turned sharply and
backed up to the shoulder so the truck was nearly perpendicular to
the road. In the event of an emergency I was able to see
and
drive in both directions. “Come up here through my door, baby girl.
We’ll keep the warm air back there.”

She landed on top of me before I finished the
sentence. Cold air nipped at our exposed skin. Calise clutched a
roll of toilet paper as she grabbed my left hand since the Kukri
already occupied my right. We went to the back of the 522, which
faced the open field, then I stepped away to check the area while
she dealt with more pressing matters.

The silence in the area was maddening. Thus far,
the end of days had only given us the persistent droning of
attacking ghouls or distant echoes of battles lost. All that could
be heard here was the chilling winds and the purr of an idling
engine. During the time when the living still ruled I doubt it
would have been so quiet. Quiet that should have been refreshing
instead made me teeter on the edge of paranoia.