In the Lone and Level Sands (72 page)

“I’m with you on that.”

****

It was nearly seven in the morning when one
of the barricades came down. Al and Fred jumped to their feet; Al
had been almost asleep.

“Fire at will,” Fred said. “We’re already in
deep shit! I’ll alert the others before it gets too bad here. You
got it for a second?”

“I got it, no problem! Hurry!”

Al began firing while Fred rushed up the
stairs, yelling, “We gotta go! Everyone wake up!” He barged into
Ben and Charlotte’s bedroom. They were already hopping out of
bed.

“What’s going on?” Charlotte asked.

“They’ve broken in! We need to leave,
now!”

Richard was already alerting Carah.
Everyone, including Randy, hurried into the living room. Some
gathered things.

There were at least two dozen zombies
outside. Fred shot one as it headed toward the downed barricade.
The other barricade gave, and Al pointed his gun out the window,
toward the oncoming zombies. One grabbed the barrel with both hands
and pulled the shotgun from his grasp.

“God damn it! Fuckshit got my gun!”

“Take mine!” Randy said.

“No, I got another. On the floor over
there!” Al pointed to a pistol across the room. Randy nodded and
rushed for it, then handed it to Al.

“How are we getting out of here?”

“We’ll have to use that fire of yours!”

Randy nodded. “Ben, do you have any glass
bottles, anything that could make a good explosive?”

“There’s some beer in the fridge, and some
gasoline in the garage. I’ll get the bottles, Charlotte, the
gasoline!” Charlotte nodded and ran to the garage.

The place was dark, and several fists were
being thrown against the garage door. There was a work bench near
it, and underneath, in the cabinet, was the gas. Charlotte went to
it, and a second later, a hand shot through a small window on the
door. The glass shattered and the hand flailed around for a moment,
the skin sliced in several places. Charlotte jumped and gave a
little scream. Ben rushed downstairs.

“Are you okay?”

“I-I’m fine,” Charlotte said, watching as
the bloody hand pulled out of the hole in the door. Charlotte
grabbed the gas, Ben went to a box full of old grease rags.

“Thank God. Hey, we’ll need some of these.”
He pulled out a few rags, and the two of them went back upstairs,
locking the door behind them.

“We throw a couple of the fire bombs, and
they’ll go running for the flames,” Fred said. “The plan is, we run
to the van, quick as possible. We’ll take the groceries too, but we
need to be fast. There may be more coming, and they may not care
about the fire.”

Everyone nodded. Ben had Angus on his leash,
and he was growling. He tugged on the leash, trying to get at the
intruders.

Randy made a Molotov cocktail. “I never
thought I’d be using one of these in real life.” He chuckled as he
finished another. “Used them all the time in
Left 4
Dead.
”

“What’s that?” Fred said.

“Just a video game.”

“Forget it,” Al said. “Are you ready?”

“These should do it. Where can I throw them
from?”

“Use our bedroom,” Charlotte said. “You’ll
have a good shot from the window up there. Throw them to the left
of the driveway though, and don’t let the fire get to the
street.”

“Okay.”

“Come right down when you’ve thrown all of
them,” Fred said. “We’ll wait for you.”

Randy nodded, ran up the stairs, and headed
to the master bedroom. He opened the window and stuck his head out
to get his bearings.

“All right, let’s start a fire,” Randy said.
He tipped a bottle to soak the rag, and then lit it. He reared
back, took in a deep breath, and hurled the explosive. It landed on
the grass in the middle of several zombies, engulfing them in
flames. They writhed as the fire ate at them, but they didn’t try
to escape it. It spread to a few other zombies, and some from the
house stopped what they were doing and ran to the patch of fire.
The survivors could hear their screams over the moans of the
rest.

Al headed for the door, ready to lead the
charge. Some zombies didn’t see the fire. They continued to push in
through the windows.

Angus pulled free and rushed for the window.
Ben and Charlotte both went for his leash, but he turned and ran
back into the house. A zombie leaned in, found an arm, and sank its
teeth into it.

Blood poured. Ben and Charlotte hit the
floor. A gunshot rang out, drowning Charlotte’s painful scream. She
knew there wasn’t much time.

64

In the School

That night, Layne had a dream.

A song was playing. It sounded very far
away, and he couldn’t tell what it was, but it sounded happy. Layne
was standing in several inches of water, but when he looked down,
he saw nothing. Ripples expanded from his ankles, but the entire
world was white.

“Where am I?”

His voice echoed, but when it returned to
him, it wasn’t his voice, and they weren’t his words.

“The noosphere?”

He meant to say “What?” but instead said
“Why?”

“Because you’re aware now.”

Layne realized the world wasn’t empty. A few
feet away, a wall extended infinitely in either direction. It was
cold when he touched it. He could see no way to get to the other
side of it.

And he wanted to get to the other side. The
music grew louder.

He wasn’t sure why, but he was supposed to.
Layne looked around, but the answers wouldn’t come to him. Then he
realized the answers were on the other side of the wall. He was
frustrated. The music grew louder.

Layne noticed he was alone. His friends were
gone, he even had vague memories of their deaths. They were dead,
and it was his fault.

There was someone on the other side of the
wall. Someone he needed to see, needed to talk to, someone who had
the answers. But he couldn’t get past the wall. The music grew
louder.

Layne looked up. The wall was high, but
unlike the sides, it wasn’t infinite. Perhaps, if he only had a
boost from someone, he could get over it, get to the answers.

Only there would be no way back over. Even
if any of his friends were still alive to help him over the wall,
it would mean leaving them behind. Forever. The music was
deafening.

Layne decided whatever was on the other side
of the wall couldn’t be worth the trouble. He turned and began to
walk away, but with every step, the music got smaller, and a
disturbing feeling swelled up inside him. He felt worse and worse,
and suddenly he realized why: This was more than just a need for
answers. Whoever was on the other side of the wall was dangerous.
They had to be stopped.

Layne turned and headed back toward the
wall. The music was getting bigger and louder, and he was excited
to see that now there was a door, a rectangular outline visible
because a brilliant light shone through the cracks. Layne reached
for the doorknob, the song was about to reach a crescendo, and then
he woke up.

He was glad to see that his friends weren’t
actually dead. He was even more glad to see that Dex and Lacie
hadn’t left them, and were gathered in the lobby with the others.
Layne had overslept again.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Keely said when
Layne entered the lobby. Most of the others looked to him. Dex had
been playing a card game with Ralph, Kyle, and Lacie, but now he
stared at the ground.

“I’m going back to Los Angeles,” Layne said.
The words surprised him almost as much as they surprised everyone
else. Even Dex was staring at him then, eyes wide.

“Well, it happened,” Kyle said. “He lost
it.” He threw a hand of cards into the pile before him.

“Are you out of your mind, son?” Warren
said. “After all we went through to get here?”

“I know it sounds crazy. And I couldn’t ever
ask any of you to do this with me. But I have this feeling… That’s
where I need to go.” The others stared at him, waiting to see if he
had more. He realized he did. “You remember that man we saw on the
road? The author, the one who talked about a guy in prison in
L.A.?”

“Yep, Layne’s definitely nuts,” Keely
said.

“I can’t imagine how absurd this must sound
to you guys. But it’s… It’s all I have. I can’t explain it any
better than that. I need to find this guy, Norman Peters. I need to
talk to him. I don’t blame you, if you want to stay here.”

“Layne,” Garrett said, “you really are nuts
if you think we’d let you go alone.” Now everyone’s wide eyes were
turned to Garrett. Especially Layne’s. “You all are going to sit
there and talk about Layne like he’s crazy? I don’t know about you
guys, but Layne’s the only reason I’m alive. Layne dragged your
asses out of burning wreckage, hiked you through the wilderness to
Astoria, got some of you to safety and then went back out for the
rest. He got us across that bridge, dragged you out of the water.
Took us all the way to the stadium, busted us out of a hotel full
of monsters, dragged my ass out of a fire. He gave you all food and
clothes, found us a roof over our heads every night. Know what?
You’re crazy if you
don’t
want to stick with him, if you
don’t want to trust him.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I’m still here,” Dex said. He looked at
Layne apologetically. “Because I know I can’t do this alone. None
of us can make it on our own.”

“Thanks, Dex,” Layne said. A great burden
appeared to have been lifted from Dex’s shoulders, and Layne felt
the same way.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful,” Jessi
said, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for us, Layne. But this,
it’s too much.” She stroked Kara’s hair. “I’d go with you, I would.
But I don’t want to put Kara through this.”

Layne felt a pain in his chest; the last
thing he wanted was to put his friends in danger, but trailing
close behind that was for them to split up.

“You think you guys will be better off
alone?” Garrett asked.

“I… No. But what are we supposed to do? The
roads will take forever to get through. Do we just walk all the way
back to Los Angeles, find the nearest prison, and ask everybody we
find if they’re Norman Peters?”

“He said Norman’s in a maximum security
prison,” Katie said. “There can’t be that many of them in one city.
And I’m sure they all have manifests.”

“And we don’t have to walk,” Layne said.
“Remember that road we took, right outside of Astoria? It was…
something Ferry Road. There was a dock there. We can sail to L.A.,
I doubt there are any zombies at sea.”

“So let’s say you find this guy,” Kyle said.
“Then what?”

“I just want to talk to him.”

“You don’t honestly think he had anything to
do with all of this, do you?” Warren said.

“I don’t know,” Layne replied. “But I’m
going to find out.”

The silence that followed was almost
painful. Layne wondered what was going to happen next.

“Okay,” Kyle said. “I’m in.”

“Well, we’re sure not getting anywhere by
sitting in an empty school,” Keely said.

“We’ll follow you to L.A.,” Jessi said. “But
Kara and I aren’t going near the prison.”

“That’s fine,” Layne said. “That’s good,
actually.”

“All right,” Katie said, standing up. “Let’s
go.”

****

They lucked out and found a yacht in the
ferry yard, which they reached around midday. The wooded road was
familiar to Layne, and he could hardly believe he was actually
heading back, and that everyone had agreed to stick with him.

The yacht was small, and the inside was
cramped. They brought all of their belongings with them, which made
the inside seem even smaller.

Sleep proved difficult, since the boat was
always swaying. Every now and then, a wave would strike with just
enough force to jog the yacht and wake up most of the passengers. A
particularly bad wave jarred Kara from sleep and resulted in her
crying for nearly an hour, keeping most of the others awake.

They took turns steering, and they stayed
close to the shore. The on-board GPS received no signal, and the
speed maxed out at about fifteen miles per hour.

“I think I could swim there faster than
this,” Dex said on their second day of sailing.

During the day, most of them would choose to
leave the stagnant interior and sit around on the deck, especially
if the water was calm.

When they passed beaches near cities, most
of them chose to sit downstairs. The sight of bodies strewn across
the beach, the sand reddened, was unpleasant.

At night the air was warm and salty. It was
nice, even chilly at times. Whenever Layne was steering, he enjoyed
it. It was at least better than being crammed in a hot room made
even hotter by the shared body heat of nearly a dozen people.

One foggy morning, as Layne was beginning to
think they had somehow gotten lost, he saw something. It loomed
into view like a ghost, surreal at first. He almost thought he
imagined it.

Layne walked over to the stairway, opened
the door, and peered inside.

“Hey, is anyone awake?”

“Yeah,” Garrett said. “A few of us.”

“You should come see this.”

Garrett, Dex, Warren, and Keely emerged from
the interior and stood on the deck.

“It’s bigger in person,” Warren said.

Through the fog, they saw the brilliant
orange of the Golden Gate Bridge.

“I guess we’re close, then,” Keely said.

“I think we should dock,” Layne said.

“What for?” Garrett asked.

“It might be hard to know where to get off,
if we wait. I don’t want to end up in Mexico. We can get off here
and take I-5. It heads straight to Los Angeles. It’s a long drive,
but we’ll get there for sure.”

“All right. I’ll wake the others.”

As they loomed closer, the scene that
emerged from the fog was horrific. The bridge was covered in
bodies, and the ones that moved were no longer human. Some were
draped over the edge of the bridge, some floated in the water
below, bloated and decaying.