I proceeded to clear the hole of infected again, this time the plan was to get to the other side. I took a deep breath and backed up to build some momentum and acquire some distance when I make it out through the other side and went for it. As I made it out the infected immediately forgot the cabin and the creation of a way through and focused entirely on my presence. They dropped to their knees, grabbed and tore my shirt and jeans. I struggled and fought to make it difficult for them to land their mouths on me but I was at the point of no return, they would soon overwhelm me. I did the best I could to survive but if memory served me well, a security guard back at school couldn’t handle one of the infected, there was no way I was going to survive six or seven of them all at once. It was time for me to face facts. It was over.
Something tugged on my leg. I figured it was just another of the infected ready to take a chunk out of me. I took a deep breath and gave up my fight against them, with expectations of the most painful death I could imagine. Lucky for me, I forgot Jason existed till that moment because it was that much more of a surprise when the tug on my leg became a full blown pull and I was dragged away from the infected with no more than a few scratches I caused myself with my aggressive movements to avoid a bite. Jason pulled me to safety, and helped me up off of the ground. With no exchange of words we ran from the mob of infected, hungry for whatever was on the menu, which was no longer me thanks to Jason.
“Don’t stop running. There are more in the woods heading towards that cabin. Those wolves attracted the largest number of infected so far,” Jason said out of breath from the struggle to stay alive.
“How did you know where I was?” I asked.
“I followed the wolves’ barks the same way the infected did and it led me to the cabin. Did they bite or scratch you?” Jason’s tone showed concern with some mixed level of relief, still out of breath. I’m sure he was more worried of what he would have to do if I turned.
“I managed to shake them off till you got me out of there. They tore my shirt and jeans a bit.” My gratitude was obvious. I was dead if it wasn’t for Jason’s impeccable timing.
As we ran we came across infected that would join the collective and follow us, but they were much more spread out the further we went from the cabin. This made them easier to dodge. After two or three minutes we reached the highway again. There were still a number of infected headed in our direction but it wasn’t so severe that we needed to run the whole time. We just needed caution.
Without the lantern it was going to be a rougher travel, but the daylight was on its way. All we needed was to stay alive till the morning light which usually arrived sometime around seven.
We continued towards the school on the highway without any clue how much closer we were. On the walk we read all the signs we came across for information on where to go next. Most of the signs gave us speed limits which we were clearly violating with a lack of speed. We also walked against the traffic which was also worth a ticket or two.
We came across a sign that directed us to a town that was to come up. “Exit 11” in case we wanted to head into the town.
Jason pointed at it. “Food!” he said and left it at that.
Message received! I nodded in agreement and we crossed to the proper side of the street where the exit was to come up. A few miles and the sign showed up again to tell us the exit was only half a mile away, and a quarter mile away, a few yards away, and we made our way to the town.
Morristown
W
e reached the entrance to the town to be stopped by pure amazement, confusion, fear and every other emotion you might come across when you are in front of so many buildings on fire, cars crashed with dead bodies pinned inside and under them; even the infected still devoured whatever bodies they found laying around. The beautiful thing about the town was the low number of infected on the street. But for all we knew, the greater numbers were closer to the center.
It was going to be difficult to find food, as it would be in any town with infected that roamed its streets.
Loud pop sounds came from somewhere in the town. Similar to fireworks but we didn’t know where they came from or what they were. The sun wasn’t in the sky yet but the sky was in the transition from black to a dark blue in some areas and to a dark orange in others.
The brightening light from the sky allowed a larger field of view that assisted us while we searched for the source of the sound. Jason and I debated, as we made it closer, whether we should be worried. As we moved closer they sounded more like consecutive explosions. We noticed a decline of infected the deeper into the town we went.
The sound led us to some sort of plaza, possibly located downtown, before they ceased. Jason and I briefly talked it over and decided to search the nearby stores for food and supplies. Although I ate like a pig back at the gas station, Jason was in more of a rush and didn’t have the chance to do the same. The stores stood to both sides of the street so we split up to search them.
The explosions began again and assured us that we could safely split up while the infected in the town chased after the sound. I took one side of the street and Jason took the other side. The plan was for both of us to start at the same point on opposite sides of the street and work our way down to the last few stores in the plaza. Regardless of how sure I felt there were no infected left in the area, I did not plan to rush inside of any store without being cautious.
The first store I visited was a two story clothes retailer. It was as usual; extremely dark which made visibility of anything nearly nonexistent. I tried to search through the areas of the store with the most visibility. I noticed the explosions became closer progressively. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were, but as the sound became closer it morphed into something else entirely. They were gun shots from fully automatic weapons.
I made a run for the door to get outside and back to Jason before the gunshots could reach us. I didn’t know what came next and I wasn’t going to wait till I found out I needed to jump on the defensive.
I stepped outside and looked down the street, three dozen soldiers dressed in their green and brown camouflage uniforms as they unloaded all their bullets into an army of the infected gathered after them.
Something was different when it came to these infected, though. Many of them walked to a slow pace like the others from earlier, but many also ran at the soldiers at full human speeds. I flashed back to my neighbor’s house, when the infected girl attacked me and came for seconds, with a million times more strength and speed. Whatever change took over these infected also struck that girl and caused them all to behave different from the other infected. Stronger and faster; they were the Robocop of the infected. It was as terrible as it sounded.
Jason ran out of the store he was in and joined me, paused in astonishment at the army of infected in a full sprint towards the soldiers that ran from them in our direction.
The soldiers wasted full magazines before they reloaded and wasted that one; rinse, repeat. They would take down the ones that ran first, and take out the slower ones until minutes later more of the runners would jump out of the crowd and get their attention again.
One of the soldiers separated from the group, ran towards Jason and I while the other soldiers gave suppressive fire.
The soldier ran up to us. “You two, we need to get you guys out of here. This is no place for you to be, the infected have overtaken this area!” He told us as the rest of the soldiers caught up and surrounded us as a way to protect us against the infected.
Jason and I didn’t give the matter a second thought; we did what we were told and went with them. The number of infected increased over time, but finally, the sun peeked over the buildings on its way to peak over the buildings.
The infected became more visible and easier to hit, but by now their ammunition became limited.
“I’m out,” one of the soldiers yelled out to inform the rest of the soldiers.
“Everyone save your ammo!” someone shouted.
They ceased fire and ran away from the infected.
Two different types of infected people and a handful of unfamiliar soldiers were our company for the time.
“Going live!” Another one of the soldiers yelled out. That same soldier flung a grenade into the sum of the infected. An explosion followed and with it came airborne zombie bodies.
The bodies of the infected affected by the explosion succumbed to erosion, or gave into contortion. These contorted selected twisted and turned, distorted and burned.
The windows blew on the multitude of buildings we walked passed. They shattered and dropped down on the infected that weren’t hit by the initial blast, while those of us not infected scrambled to avoid the glass rain.
“Turning left!” the soldiers communicated through shouts organized to similarly resemble radio communication. They moved as a unit, with one collective mind.
“We’re going to try to lose them. Keep up!” one of the soldiers told Jason and I.
We gained some distance on the infected, but Jason and I did not have the same stamina these soldiers did, as a result, the gap between them and us was apparent. They turned on the next intersection and we followed around the same corner to go into a building. One of the soldiers stood behind at the door and invited us over. He signaled us with his hand to join him and the rest of his unit in this presumably secured building.
We ran in behind them and the soldier at the door close it behind us. The soldier who closed the door passed Jason and I and led the way to where the rest of the soldiers gathered.
Much like every other location, there was no power, but it still managed to be properly illuminated by a number of lanterns, candles and torches the soldiers placed through the whole path we took. The little light allowed us to at least see we were inside of a secured office building, a massively large one. That’s what she said.
The soldier that led the way shut every door behind us as we went through, before he proceeded to pass us again and continue to lead the way. At some point we made it to a stairwell and just like before he closed the door behind us and walked right by us and led us to the next. He did this a few times while we went deeper into the building.
Jason and I assured one another, through nods and eye contact that we would let them lead as long as they needed to. The staircase led us to the fifth floor lobby.
We entered the lobby and met up with even more soldiers and an entire lobby’s worth of survivors they rescued and brought there. More people, whose escorts were either attacked or didn’t show up, who were saved by these independent soldiers.
“You guys are the worst soldiers I’ve ever seen. Anyone else could have been more prepared than you guys,” some loud mouth in the lobby said. One of the soldiers responded immediately and they had a quiet but intense and heated conversation about whatever, before the man became infuriated and walked away.
“Take a seat wherever you please,” the soldier that led us there said. He was the one in charge of their operation and unit. “You are safe here.”
We sat on chairs leaned against the wall and listened to some of the families that were present talk of their misfortunes and share tears in their respective sorrows. By the looks of things, a few people were left behind. The population of the lobby could have easily reached forty survivors without including the soldiers. There were approximately seventy survivors.
I closely watched the man in charge go over to one of his fellow men in inform and discuss some topic that put them both on edge. I couldn’t hear their exchange of words but their energy and postures changed in accord to the tension built while they spoke.
The man in charge tilted his head slightly as he spoke, precisely when the climax of the conversation arrived. I’ve noticed most people subconsciously do this motion when they worry or lie, and everyone lies when they are worried. I found interest in that the protector of these survivors kept something to himself or was just informed of something he first thought to keep to himself. I felt confident that in moments Jason and I would both know what it was. I hoped for something dumb and simple. (I forgot to make sure the stove was off before I came out into the apocalypse! Oh no! ) But I knew better, there was a real problem.
“Listen closely, everyone,” the man in charge said when he finished his conversation. “It seems that all the branches of the United States military have been deployed to different areas of the country. This has stretched them thin.” His shoulders and forehead tensed up. (Here it comes.) “We are all that is left in the area. With the loss of power we’ve also lost the ability to communicate with anyone at HQ. There is no rescue.” The worry filled the air and the families discussed between themselves what this meant for everyone before he continued. “We will need to work together so that we could safely move from this location to the next, on our way to The Hills. We will run out of supplies soon which means we will leave soon. In the meantime, everyone relax as much as you can and get your rest. We are temporarily safe here and a plan is in development. Sit tight. We will inform you when we know more.” He finished, sighed, and resumed his conversation with the other soldier.
“What are we going to do?” Jason asked me. “We can’t stay here.” His eyebrows arched up and his face strained.