My Apocalypse (Book 1): The Fall (13 page)

34.

We all, save for Wall who had walked off a ways, sat on or around the car, having stopped at a small house off the side of the road. We made it back out of Kickapoo, without any other incident, and back to the intersection by the Nugget. We came to the conclusion that One-Fifty would be better than the interstate, probably having less traffic during the evacuation, and therefore a clearer path to Champaign.

By the time we had made it to the intersection, Wall had started to sweat profusely, and every now and then we could see small spasms tear through his body. The conversation about time for the change to occur came to mind, and I realized that he must have had a hell of a metabolism. When we were a ways down the road, almost to the small town of Oakwood, I decided to pull off at a small house right off the road. The others quickly got out of the car, but I stayed with Wall.

Eventually the big man came to, and when I told him what was going on, he got out and started walking away, telling everyone that he wanted to be alone. I kept all at bay, respecting his wishes.

“What are we going to do?” Doc asked me after awhile.

“I don’t know,” I told her, looking across the small field behind the house. Wall sat up against a lone tree in the field, and from where I stood, I couldn’t tell the big man’s condition. My heart went out to him, for many reasons, but mainly because I believed that no one’s life should end the way his was going to. I couldn’t imagine turning into one of those things, what it felt like, what was going on in his mind.

“Eddy…” Abigail said leaving it at that, nothing else needed to be said. I didn’t dignify it with a response though, my mind going in circles trying to figure out my next course of action.

“Dude, look,” Timothy started, “I’m usually the first to say to kill anyone that’s been infected, but I’m at a loss here. I can’t, or maybe won’t, tell you what you should do. You want a suggestion though?”

“What?” I asked him, looking at him, waiting for the punch line, or some smartass comment, to come next.

“Ask him,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder and looking at me in the eyes. “Just go over and ask him what he wants, and do what he asks. Honor what he wants.”

I just looked at him, my surprise evident on my face. I couldn’t believe something so profound came from this little punk’s mouth, and couldn’t respond to his words. After a moment, I clapped him on the shoulder, nodded, and started walking out to where Wall sat resting. After a couple handfuls of feet, I turned for just a second.

“Hey, Tim,” I called back. He turned and our eyes met. “Thanks mate.”

“No problem dude,” he replied. “Wish I could take credit, but I think I heard it in a movie somewhere. Or maybe a TV show. Don’t remember.”

He was still muttering to himself as he turned away, and I merely smiled and turned back to Wall. I was in no hurry to do this, especially not knowing exactly what was going to happen. I reached to my hip and cocked my gun, just in case.

Gods give me strength,
I thought, looking into the sky. The sun had been hidden behind some clouds, and I saw a storm front in the distance. It was going to rain, and the air was getting cooler by the minute. I was within a few feet of the giant man when he looked up, smiling.

“It’s all right,” he said to me, and I noticed his eyes had fallen to the gun on my hip. “I understand; you need to do what you need to do.”

“No man, no,” I started, kneeling down beside him. “It’s not what you think. Not by a long shot. Just came out to see how you were doing, that’s all.”

“I’m… okay…” he said, his words coming in labored gasps. Sweat was pouring off the man, and I could feel the heat radiating off of him like a cloud. “A little hard to breathe, but it doesn’t hurt at all. I’m cold though, and my hands and arms are numb.”

He coughed, small specks of blood flying out and catching on his lips. When he reached up and wiped his mouth, he sighed as he saw the blood.

“I don’t think it’ll be too much longer.” He looked at me as he spoke, his eyes sad.

“What do you want?” I asked him.

“I want to live,” he said to me, “but that’s beyond your power now I think.”

“Why Wall, I never knew you could be a smartass.” I smiled at him, hoping my joke would calm him some. He smiled again.

“No joke man,” he said, “I want to live. I wanted to see the world one day. Get married, have kids, grandkids. Love the right woman, you know, everything most men want to do.

“I never wanted to die like this.”

“Do you want me…?” I asked him, dropping my hand to my pistols butt.

“No,” he replied, reaching out and taking my hand away. He kept hold of it though, and I would swear he had a temperature of a hundred and ten. “I don’t want you to do anything but walk away. Give me your gun, walk to the car, get in with everyone else, and find your family. I don’t want anyone around to see this.”

“Wall,” I started, but he dropped my hand and reached for my gun, trying to get it from the holster.

“Damn it Eddy, give it to me and go!” he yelled this, and I felt horrible for making him do so. I reached down and pulled it free, holding it in my hands for a moment, then spinning it towards him butt-first.

“Are you sure man?” I asked him. When he nodded, I allowed him to take it. His hand fell to his lap, like the gun weighed a ton, and I caught myself imagining what was going through his mind right now. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything more, so I nodded at him, then got to my feet and started back to the car. I had taken no more than three steps when Wall stopped me.

“I almost forgot,” he said, holding out a small key. “In my pack there is a lockbox. Inside it you’ll find my gun. I ask you one thing for me to give you it though.”

“Anything,” I told him, sincerely, “whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

“It was my ancestor’s sidearm,” he told me, once more his words becoming sparse and labored. “He was the first freeman of my family, fought for the North during the Civil War. I was named after him, and the gun’s been passed down throughout my family ever since.”

I started to speak, to tell him that it should stay with him, but a spasm racked his body, and I stopped.

“I want you to have it, to continue the tradition,” he continued. “More than that though, I want you to kill as many of those fucking creatures as you can with it. Can you do that for me?”

He pressed the key into my hand, his eyes pleading me to take it. As bad as I had been in my life, as many fucked up things I had seen and done, I would not, could not, ignore this mans request. I took the key and nodded. Tears had sprung into my eye.

“I want to thank you,” I said to him, “for all you’ve done for me since I woke.”

He nodded, and looked down at the pistol. The spasms were coming more frequently, and I knew he must not have much longer. He readied his finger on the trigger, and sighed, his chest heaving. Knowing there was no more to say, I rose and turned, starting my way back to the car.

When I got there, everyone seemed to have questions for me. I was still holding onto Wall’s key, the metal digging into the flesh on my palm. I walked around to the driver’s side and opened the door.

“Get in.” I told them, and slid behind the steering wheel.

“Eddy, what’s,” Doc began.

“GET IN!!” I yelled at her, not taking my eyes from out the windshield. I felt, rather than heard the others get into the car. My heart was pounding hard enough for me to hear it in my ears. It wasn’t until I went to turn the car on that I realized I still held the big man’s key. It had dug deep enough into my hand to draw blood. I slipped it into my pocket, than turned the Fury’s key.

No one said another word.

We had just pulled away from the house, back onto the road once more, when a shot rang out across the land. It was heard even over the rumble of the car’s engine.

Abigail and Samantha started to cry.

Timothy looked out the window, silent for one of the first times since I had known him.

Doc looked over at me, but I did not return the glance. My eyes were fixed on the road ahead, and my mind on the goal that was now not only mine. Hot tears streamed down my cheek, and I felt a lump start to grow in my throat. I already missed the big man, a man that I considered, even though I had known him for only a short time, a true friend.

35.

The trip down the small, two-lane highway was fairly uneventful. It was also extremely quiet. Everyone was lost deep within their own thoughts, most of all me.

Is this what the world was now? What happens if I find my family and they are infected? I had talked numerous times with my baby and my kids about this exact situation, but always as a joke. I do not believe any of us actually thought, even in our wildest dreams that the world would actually end with a fucking zombie apocalypse. Then a thought came to me, something I was slightly ashamed I had never asked before.

“Doc,” I began to ask her, touching her arm to pull her from her own thoughts, “How far did this thing spread?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know.” She turned to look at me as she spoke. “In the last few months it seemed to spread fast. It spread much too fast. It was two, two and a half; months ago that Wall’s radio went out.”

Her voice broke when she said his name, and I glanced at her quickly. I mentally berated myself for not seeing it before. They had spent so much time together since all of this started, leaning on one another for support, why shouldn’t they have? She loved him that much was clear as crystal to me now. I didn’t press her then, letting her compose herself before she continued.

“Before his radio went out, he had heard reports of infected as far as Austin, Texas. We don’t know anything after that. Right before though, they were reporting that the government was trying to contain the infected by something called a fire-sale. Wall would never tell me what that meant, but every time I heard it, it seemed to break him down further and further. The last one was right here in Champaign, and then the radios went dead.”

Fire-sale, I had heard that somewhere before. I know I had. My mind just wouldn’t grasp it, like something sitting on the tip of your tongue and you just couldn’t say it. I let our conversation drop, both of us once more falling into our own little worlds of thought. But that term stayed there in my mind, like a scab you can’t help but pick at.

It had started to rain by the time we hit the small town of Fithian, and it did not seem that it was going to let up anytime soon. I was spacing, watching the lightning play amongst the clouds, when a bolt ripped away and struck a tree off in the distance. With its flash, it struck me where I heard that term before, and almost put the car into the ditch again pulling off the road. I spun towards Doc, grabbing her and pulling her close.

“Are you sure,” I asked her, our faces inches apart, “that he used the term “Fire-Sale”?”

“I… I… Eddy…” she stammered.

“What’s going on?” I heard from the backseat, the others having woken up when I pulled over.

“Answer me.” I said to Doc.

“Yes,” she said, fear in her eyes and her voice. “Why?”

I let her go, probably a little too roughly, and turned away. I was hoping she had heard wrong, but it made sense, and part of me knew she hadn’t. I punched the dash, once, twice, and then found myself screaming into thin air.

“Eddy, what’s wrong man?” Timothy asked from the back. When I didn’t answer he turned on Doc. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Nothing, I swear,” she told him. “HE had asked me a question, and I was telling him the answer, and he just started freaking out.”

“What were you two talking about?” Abigail spoke that time, and I could hear it all. I sat there though; my eyes squeezed shut tightly, trying to calm myself.

“He had asked me about how wide it had spread,” Doc said, “and I told him. Then I said something about Wall telling me of a fire-sale in Champaign and he flipped.”

Hearing it again just threw me back into the rage I was trying to prevent, and my hand flashed outwards, slamming into the windshield. I felt bones shatter in my knuckles, and glass spider web.

“Did you say a fire sale?” Timothy asked Doc, to which she simply nodded. “Where have I heard that before?”

It was a few moments later when next he spoke, excited and his words directed to Doc.

“Are you sure Wall said fire sale, one hundred percent sure?”

“Yes, why” Doc asked.

“Timmy,” Samantha said to him, “what is it?”

“A fire sale is the governments answer to infection,” he started. He spoke fast. “At least it is in a few movies I had seen.”

“Timmy,” Samantha said her voice thick with authoritative air, “this isn’t a movie.”

“No, no,” he began again, “I know it’s not. But you all stop and listen to me for a minute.

“A lot of what we see in movies is bullshit, I know that. What most people don’t know, or refuse to acknowledge, is that there is truth in a lot of it also. Like a fire sale. Let me break it down for you:

“A virus hits some small village in Africa, right. We send in scientists, soldiers, try to contain it, study and figure the new bug out. Everyone dies, but that isn’t the worst part. The worst part, next day, another village shows signs of the bug. Now our government is scared, worried that it’ll spread and become world-wide. Containment didn’t work. What’s left?”

“Everything must go…” Abigail said, almost to herself.

“What?” Doc asked.

“They call it a fire sale.” Timothy continued. “Everything must go, and I mean everything. If our government can’t contain it, then they destroy it and everything within a good distance from it also. The job is usually done by means of highly destructive explosive devices. That is a fire sale. And you just told this man that there was one ordered on the town where his family was at.

“No wonder he’s snapped. I would too.”

The car was quiet for a moment.

“Eddy, maybe I heard…” Doc began, but I cut her off with a look.

I pulled the car back onto the road, once more continuing our journey. I tried not to think of it, did not want to believe that there was a chance my family was dead. I stared through the windshield, now cracked in a small spider web from where I had punched it, and gripped the wheel with white knuckles. I focused on the road, trying not to cry.

I tried not to think.