-17-
Danni fell down the stairs of my porch and crashed to the ground in an ashy cloud.
“Mom,” Jared yelled and rushed forward. I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. “Let me go!”
“Stay here,” I said. I wasn’t going to argue with him and my tone let him know. Jared tensed, but stayed put.
The outline of a person swayed in the doorway of my house. It shuffled onto the porch.
Yellowed skin clung to the small frame of what looked to have once been an elderly woman. The ratty remains of a housecoat hung from her shoulders. It fluttered as she limped forward. The floral pattern of the dress turned black on her left side where a large wound had dried and clotted. The old woman’s skin, already wrinkled, had hardened in leathery ridges that cut across her face like canyons. Her eyes stared without blinking and remained focused on Danni.
Danni scuttled across the front lawn on all fours like a crab. I stepped between her and the husk. Jared rushed to his mother.
“Jared, get your mother to the side of the house,” I said. I backed away from the porch, leading the husk into the yard.
It stepped forward with no recognition of the stairs. I heard the bones in the woman’s ankle snap as her foot rolled under her body. The husk tried to stand on its ruined ankle, but collapsed to the ground. Splintered white edges of bone jutted out from desiccated skin.
I led the husk into the middle of the yard. It reached for me with a thin, branch like hand. I aimed my shotgun at the husk’s head and pulled the trigger. Its body twitched in the ash for a few seconds and then went still. There was no blood. Something clotted and spoiled splashed across my lawn, but there was no blood. There hadn’t been any when I shot Ian and there wasn’t any now. What Senator Heathway said must have been true. The radiation must be drying the husks out, even their blood.
“Lucas,” Jared yelled. I turned to see him supporting Danni’s body. She was curled forward and vomiting into the ash.
“Where the hell is her mask?” I asked as I helped Jared get Danni inside. It lay on the floor in my front hallway.
“It pulled it off,” Danni said. Her voice was strained and strings of vomit dangled from her chin. “I should have looked before I opened the door. I thought it was you and Jared.”
“Were you bit?” Jared asked. His words were thin and high. He tried to put Danni’s mask over her face, but she vomited and he pulled it away.
“No,” Danni said. “No, it didn’t bite me.”
“It’s the ash,” I said. “She must have breathed in too much.”
“Is she going to become one of them?” Jared asked. “Lucas, do you think she’s going to change into a husk.”
“I don’t know,” I said. It was the truth. “But I don’t think so. You’re mom didn’t have her mask off for too long. She’s showing a few signs of radiation poisoning. We need to get her downstairs and into the bunker.”
We helped Danni into one of the bunks. She was sweating, but the vomiting had stopped for the time being.
“What are we going to do?” Jared asked.
I rushed over to the red medicine cabinet that hung on one of the walls. I grabbed a small orange bottle with an eyedropper in the cap. “Give her a few of these drops ever hour until I get back.” I passed a bottle of white pills to Jared next. “Give her three of these every four hours.”
“Get back?” Jared said. He took the bottle with shaky hands. “What is this? Where are you going?”
“The eye dropper is potassium iodide,” I said. “It’ll help with the radiation poisoning, but I don’t think it’s strong enough. I’ll need to go to the pharmacy and find something stronger. The pills are antibiotics. I’m hoping they’ll wipe out any infection and bring your mom’s fever down. If I can find something better in the pharmacy, I’ll grab it, but these are pretty strong. She’s going to be okay.” I don’t know if I said the last part to myself or to Jared, probably both.
“Lucas, it’s getting dark,” Jared said. “What about the husks?”
I walked to the back of the bunker and took a Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm handgun down from where it hung next to the other weapons. I bought this gun for Kara. It was light and had little to no kickback. Jared should be able to handle it fine.
“You’ve got one shot in the chamber and seventeen in the magazine,” I said. “How many shots is that total?”
“Eighteen,” Jared said.
“Good,” I said. “Eighteen is all you’ve got. I don’t have time to go over everything about shooting with you. The safety is off so don’t screw around with the gun. If you need to use this, just point and squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull the trigger. Just squeeze it lightly. You got it?”
“Yes,” Jared said. He looked over to his mother.
“Jared, listen to me,” I said. “I’m going to leave the gun on the table. Don’t pick it up unless you need to use it.”
“Okay, I won’t,” Jared nodded.
“But if you need to use it, don’t hesitate,” I said.
“No husks are going to get down here,” Jared said.
“Jared, listen to me,” I said. My voice was sharp and startled the kid. “You see any husk, no matter who they used to be, and you shoot it. Don’t hesitate. They aren’t people anymore, got it?”
Jared cast a quick glance to where his mother lay on the cot. He couldn’t bring himself to say yes, but nodded. I hoped he wouldn’t need to use the gun, but didn’t want to leave him without one.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said and pulled my mask down. “Now repeat everything I just told you.”
“One shot in the chamber and seventeen in the magazine for a total of eighteen shots,” Jared said. He looked at the handgun. “I squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull it. And I don’t hesitate, no matter who the husk used to be. I got it.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “Good. Be safe kid. I’ll get back as fast as I can. Make sure to look after your mom, okay?”
Jared had tears glistening in his eyes, but nodded. He knew what that meant. He understood why the gun was on the table.
-18-
The pharmacy was three blocks from my house. I thought about taking the Bronco II, but decided against it. We needed to save gas and I didn’t want to risk getting the truck stuck somewhere. Besides, going on foot would give me a chance to scout the streets and find the best route for Danni and Jared to leave.
A tangled knot of cars choked the intersection at the end of my street. I could see a few mangled bodies in the cars. I aimed the shotgun at the motionless corpses. They still had some hair and didn’t look as desiccated as the husks, but I wasn’t taking any chances. They didn’t move. The crash must have killed them. I filed that information away. I was desperate to grasp whatever understanding of this situation was available, even small bits of information.
The rain had stopped a day ago. When it first started, I was angry and cursed the clouds as I ran down the sidewalk, but in retrospect, the rain must have saved my life. The ash being wet and stuck to the ground is what kept me alive, not my childish attempt to protect myself with a sweatshirt held over my face.
Now, as the ash began to dry out and once again become airborne, my NBC mask would keep me safe. Danni had her mask knocked off while fighting with the husk and I saw how that turned out. Hopefully she hadn’t taken too much of that crap into her lungs. I shuddered thinking about what Jared would have to do if she had. I reached back and tightened the straps on my mask.
I turned left on Davidson Avenue and headed towards the pharmacy. This was a journey I had made more times than I could remember. Kara’s birth transformed Lisa and me from rational human beings into hypochondriacs that panicked at the sound of our daughter’s slightest sneeze. The pharmacy was open twenty-four hours and I could remember the look of fear in all the other fathers’ faces as we sorted through the boxes of medication at 1AM.
When I held Kara on the day she was born, I made her countless promises. I was her father and that meant more than I could possibly comprehend while standing in the delivery room. Lisa fought through thirty hours of labor to bring our baby girl into this world. I loved her before Kara arrived, but after seeing the pain and work she went through to give me a daughter, she was a goddess. Lisa lay on the delivery bed exhausted and slick with sweat. She had never looked more beautiful. I had never loved her more. I pushed these memories out of my head.
A group of five or six husks shuffled towards me from the end of Davidson. They were slow, but I wasn’t going to wait around for them to get closer. I had a good deal of rounds stored in my bunker, but it wasn’t unlimited. I had to save it whenever I could.
I ducked between two buildings. I think one was a bank and the other was empty. It had been an ice cream parlor at one point. I remembered sitting at the little bar inside with Kara and buying her first milk shake. Her eyes were the size of saucers as she stared at the mountain of blended chocolate ice cream and heaps of whipped cream. She hardly noticed the cherry topping the thing off. A stomachache of monstrous proportions followed, which Lisa had been pretty pissed about. But I didn’t care about Lisa’s anger. That day had been wonderful, even a late night run to the pharmacy for Pepto couldn’t change that. Everything could fall to shit, but none of that mattered if I had Lisa and Kara. I missed them.
A husk dove from behind a dumpster, forcing me against the brick wall. My mask grated against the rough brick and I worried that it might come loose. The clacking of the husk’s teeth in my ear was deafening. From the corner of my eye, I could see ragged bits of flesh waving like tattered ribbons between the husk’s teeth. Its painfully distended stomach pressed against me. It had just finished a meal and was hungry for seconds.
I waited for the husk to lunge forward and then dropped low, ramming my shoulder into the husk’s chest, wrapping my arms around its bulbous gut. I felt rib bones grate against my shoulder as I drove the thing across the alley. It clawed at my back and gnashed its teeth, but couldn’t seem to get ahold of me. As we hit the opposite wall, I stepped back and brought my elbow around in a tight downward arc. The husk’s withered nose crunched and twisted beneath my elbow. It showed no reaction.
The husk loped forward, its arms outstretched and milky, spoiled eyes fixed on me. A chorus of dull groans echoed from the mouth of the alley. More husks shuffled in, cutting off the direction I had come down the alley.
The husk with the broken nose stumbled across the alley and dove forward in a clumsy attempt to knock me to the ground. Alone these things weren’t much of a threat. I could easily knock them to the ground and shoot them or just out run them, but what they lacked in speed and intelligence, they more than made up for in numbers. I was going to be overwhelmed.
I stomped on the neck of the husk that had leapt for me. It wouldn’t kill it, but would put it out of action long enough for me to escape. Stepping over the husk, I ran towards the dumpster and yanked it away from the wall. The wheels were coated with grease and clogged with garbage. They squealed in protest, but I was able to wrestle it into the middle of the alley. Leathery arms and boney fingers grabbed for me from the narrow space between the dumpster and the walls. For now, they were too weak to get past the giant metal box of garbage. Soon, enough husks would be there to push it out of the way. I wasn’t going to wait around to see.
The alley turned left. Streetlights had begun to flicker on, but shed no light between the buildings. I wondered how long the power grid would continue before it went black. Not much longer, I figured.
My path was clear. The alley ended on Palmer Street. The pharmacy was on the corner across the street. I pressed myself against the wall of the alley and tried to remain hidden in the shadows. Palmer looked empty. Maybe most of the husks had been drawn to Davidson by the sounds of the others.
I stepped out from the alley onto the sidewalk and jogged to a parked car. I squatted behind the car and surveyed the street. Most of the streets looked clear. When the ash began to fall, most people probably slowed or stopped their cars. They probably even got out to investigate. Humans were stupid like that. Danger could clearly be written on the side of something and we couldn’t help but stick our hand inside. Our biological disregard of common sense had at least ensured that the streets were going to be easy to navigate.
Some cars had crashed into telephone poles or buildings, but I didn’t think Danni and Jared would have a problem finding a clear route out of town. I edged around the parked car and looked up and down Palmer. Some shadowy forms stumbled around in the intersection at one end, but I could avoid them if I stayed quiet.
The right leg of my pants snagged on something underneath the parked car. A husk clung to my leg with its skeletal fingers. I kicked out, trying to knock the husk free. I missed. My boot
thunked
against the bumper of the parked car. The air in my lungs froze.
Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t.
I pleaded inside my head.
The headlights began to flash. The car alarm wailed. I heard a horn. The husks heard a dinner bell.
-19-
Husks came from all directions. They spilled from smashed storefronts like water from a burst dam. More shambled out of darkened alleys and stumbled into the street. I turned to try and find an avenue of escape, but the street was choked with the dead in both directions.
The car alarm continued to emit a banshee’s wail, calling more husks from their hiding places. I thought about shooting the car’s battery in an attempt to silence the stupid thing, but it wouldn’t have made a difference at this point. The screech of the car alarm became a muffled din beneath the groans and growls of the husks.
I ran. I didn’t know what else to do. Danni still needed medicine and I was too close to turn back and find another pharmacy. I sprinted across the street, my breath fogging the lens of my NBC mask.
My shotgun swept back and forth as I ran. A husk loped out from behind a liquor store. It wore the stained remains of a postal worker’s uniform. The hat still clung to the husk’s head, holding stringy clumps of hair in place. A shoe slipped from the husk’s skeletal foot as it stepped off the curb and stumbled towards me. I turned and fired.
The shot tore the husk’s gut open and spilled the dried remains of its intestines across the pavement. The husk spun in a morbid pirouette and collapsed to the ground. It struggled back to its feet. The jerky-like organs crunched beneath the husk’s feet as it continued towards me. I could see desiccated flakes of skin and organs clinging to the blue postal uniform. They fluttered free with each stilted movement and were lost in the ash that littered the street. I racked another shell and aimed for the head.
Jared was right. I realized that I hadn’t fully accepted his version of things until now. The husks were zombies. These weren’t sick people. They weren’t human. They had been at one time, but whatever was in the air and the ash had changed that. Every zombie movie I had ever seen played through my head in fast-forward. I lined up the next shot for the husk’s head. The postal worker’s hat was thrown into the gutter as its owner’s head disappeared. Greasy strands of hair fluttered like sea grass before being carried away by the breeze.
The husks were closing in. I still had a decent lead, but it wouldn’t last. The minute I stopped running, they would catch up. The pharmacy stood on the corner.
The lights were still on inside of the pharmacy. No one had time to close stores before they became ill. I was glad to see the rows of neon bulbs emitting their sickly light, but that feeling quickly withered and died.
The doors were automatic, folding back on themselves when I stepped on the pressure pad. At one time, this had seemed convenient. Now it felt like a death sentence.
I was pretty sure that husks lacked the ability and intelligence to open a door, but this door would open itself for them. A second set of automatic doors waited behind the others.
The moment the opening was large enough, I squeezed through and sprinted for the aisle on the far side of the pharmacy. Boxes of light bulbs, clothespins and cheap tools hung from hooks in the home supplies aisle. I searched the bins beneath these things. There had to be something I could use to buy myself enough time.
I grabbed a spool of clothesline and a roll of duct tape. Sprinting back to the front of the pharmacy I saw the first husk stumble onto the pressure pad in front of the first set of doors. The doors folded outward, knocking the monster onto its ass. Two more husks tripped over their downed comrade.
Winding the clothesline between the security sensors and the handles on the inner doors, I closed them off as best as I could. I wound the entire roll of duct tape around the clothesline with the hopes that it would make it stronger.
The husks spilled through the first set of doors and flooded the small entryway. They tripped over each other and clawed at the doors. I watched greasy smears of gore appear behind their fingers like a snail’s trail. The doors jerked and shook as they tried to open automatically. The security sensors wobbled. It wouldn’t be long before they toppled and the doors opened. I needed to hurry up and find the fuse box to kill the power or find medicine for Danni and get the hell out of here.
The only question was how I was going to do that, now that husks surrounded the pharmacy.