One Blink From Oblivion (25 page)

“What do you want me to do?’ Brooke manages to say, with some effort.

“This rifle has a full thirty-round magazine. It works pretty much like the ones we had earlier at the clinic. It’s already cocked and locked. I’m turning off the flashlight. They might not be able to zero in on the gunfire but I’m sure they can follow the light with no problem. Our eyes will adjust in a minute and we’ll see well enough. All you need to do is watch these two doors and I’ll do the rest.” Max removes the sling from around his head and hands the rifle off to Brooke who inserts her arm and head through the harness.

“The bullets come out of this end right?” she paints her face in a sheepish smile and hopes that she has adequately disguised the torrent of emotion that lies beneath this facade.

“Shoot anything that comes through those doors, by the time we figure out whether or not it’s friendly it could be too late, and that’s no joke. You got it?”

“Got it.”

Brooke moves to an area of the room that allows safe viewing of both doors without putting Max in the line of fire. Max displaces debris as rapidly and quietly as possible. Using both hands, he sweeps a straight line down the center aisle by lifting the largest pieces and placing them off to either side of his wake. In this manner, he clears ten feet of path before encountering the first body. He gives a quick glance over his shoulder to see if Brooke is watching and is pleased to find her diligently guarding the doors. For the first time this night, he is grateful for the darkness. For Brooke to view such carnage would only exacerbate an already disheartening situation.

The small woman at Max’s feet wears a death mask fit for a Wes Craven film. Her jaw is easily broken in four places, which gives it the surreal misrepresentation of being double-jointed. It appears that a larger woman fell off one of the upper shelves and landed feet first on top of her. Though, she more than likely was not alive to feel her jaw snap like a branch anyway since an L shaped length of metal bracing protrudes from her chest like a staked vampire, a paradoxically unjust image considering all of the infected little more than a stone’s throw away that actually deserved such an end. Despite her state, Max checks for a pulse. He would hate to leave her suffering like this, or to find out the hard way that she is infected. No pulse. He moves on to the larger woman whose ankles appear to have broken or been dislocated in the fall and subsequent collision with the other victim. He clears away enough debris to uncover the woman’s torso and head. Aside from her feet that sit in unnatural angles, she appears to be free from injury. Max checks her neck for a pulse and finds a slow and shallow but steady beat, more of a waltz than a salsa. He hasn’t the time or materials to fashion a roll board and neck support so he risks turning her over so he can examine her further. He’s surprised to discover an attractive full-faced woman in her mid to late thirties. Her perm-straight auburn hair is highlighted with streaks of red and is coifed so that it would wrap neatly under her chin if she were upright.

“I found her. She looks okay, but there’s no way she’s walking out of here. Both of her ankles are either dislocated or broken, doesn’t really matter which, since she’s going to need surgery either way. Plus she’s out cold and probably in shock.”

“What should we do?”

“What we
should
do is leave her here and hopefully the marines or army or somebody will come clean this mess up and find her. What we’re
going
to do is try to at least get her out of this mall and someplace safe until help comes.”

“What about Vinny?”

“We look for him on the way out. If we don’t find him, then once I have the two of you someplace safe I’ll come back for him.”

Brooke nods her agreement, “What do you want me to do?”

“I can’t carry her and work that gun at the same time so you will have to be on point. Keep the stock to your shoulder and finger near the trigger. Keep the flashlight off unless we really need it. Anyone that you suspect of being infected, as soon as they’re close enough to see their eyes you put two in their chest and one in their head. If they don’t stop then just keep shooting. Aim for something small on them like a button or mole, anything. The smaller you aim the smaller you miss,” Max raises his eyebrows and tilts his head at Brooke for punctuation, “Got it?”

Brooke nods again and plays back Max’s instructions, “Stay ready, no flashlight, two in the chest one in the head, aim small miss small. You know I’m not just a spoiled little rich girl, I can take care of myself and you if I need to,” Brooke flourishes her statement with a sarcastic smile.

“That’s why I love you,” the words are free from his lips before Max even realizes that they’d been planning their escape.

If he were able to blush, then his face would no doubt be dyed beet-red. For a moment, the revelation just hangs between them in the dark stale air of the storage room. Dazed, Brooke allows the rifle to drift down to her side with its single deadly eye peering in the direction of the cold concrete beneath her.

In an effort to glaze over the proverbial cat that is now out of the bag, Max attempts to pick up on his instructions where he left off, “The most important thing to remember is, watch out for the freeway-man. If you see him…”

Brooke interrupts Max before he can round out the details of his –apparently failed- gloss job, “I love you too.”

She speaks softly but confidently. Her words contain no doubt or reservation. She sounds relieved even to have spoken them.

“Fact is I always have. Even before you and Vanessa’s little fling, I knew that I wanted to be with you. And, this may sound perverse, but learning what happened to you when you were younger, what you did, it just makes me love you even more. For you to become the man you have after having to endure so much takes a strength that’s beyond my comprehension, and I love you for it,” unlike Max, the blush on Brooke’s face
is
visible.

Max is shaking his head, “You don’t know what you’re saying. If ever there were two people from opposite sides of the track it’s you and me.”

Brooke takes a step closer to Max and closes some of the distance between she and her love, both physically and figuratively, “If you don’t hold my heritage against me then I won’t hold yours against you.”

Howls of a newly infected splinter the air and reality seeps back in around the fringes of their revelatory words.

Max snaps back into go mode, “We need to get moving!”

He can see that Brooke is visibly dejected as she lets her gaze drop to the floor and her posture slumps just a bit. Max closes the rest of the distance between them and lifts her chin to meet his gaze. Her eyes are wet with tears that are yet to fall. He leans in and with more restraint then any event in his life up to now has ever required, he touches his lips to hers in a single heart-felt kiss that has been years in the making. The wetness of Brooke’s eyes collates into fully developed tears, which roll down her cheeks.

As Max withdraws from her, he once again looks into her eyes and whispers, “To be continued?”

A shy half-stupefied grin and nod are all Brooke is able to muster. The dichotomy of the moment overwhelms her. In the distance the infected wail and search hungrily for their firsts meals while representing the opposing team, looking for flesh to tear and blood to drink. But, right here, in front of her, is the love of her life and her greatest desire
in
the flesh, speaking softly to her with words that she has longed to hear. Her hands tremble with a potent concoction of fear and excitement.

“Let’s do it!” says Max, and with minimal effort, he slings the woman up and onto his left shoulder.

***

Max and Brooke traverse the back corridors with Brooke in the lead, Max behind and their new refugee in tow. Brooke uses the flashlight sparingly at each turn and intersection, giving them just enough light to gauge the relative safety of each straightaway before they proceed. Exit arrows pointing the way to freedom are posted every fifty feet. Brooke slowly turns every handle along the way and secretly breathes a sigh of relief every time the door proves to be locked. Though she desperately wants to find Vinny, she dreads what else they might find in his stead.

The hallway remains mercifully clear and all doors that intersect it locked until they reach the lighted exit sign over the stairwell door. Since the door is only intended for use during an emergency, the lock it’s fitted with is meant to keep people from coming out of the stairwell and into the hall. From Max and Brooke’s side the door offers open and easy access without a key to the stairwell and ultimately the lower level. Max is well aware that this could mean trouble. In trying to free themselves, they could inadvertently poke a hole in a hornet’s nest of infected waiting in the stairway.   

Max mouths silently to Brooke to go on the count of three and he pulls the pistol from his waistband. He pulls the pistol’s slide back and checks the chamber for a round. Satisfied that the gun is ready for action he mouths a mute countdown, ‘Three, Two, One’. Brooke pushes hard on the horizontal handle and throws the door open wide. Her left hand is back on the forward stock of the rifle a moment later and she depresses the flashlight’s pressure-switch.

The stairwell landing before them is clear and Brooke takes a few tentative steps forward until she reaches a three-foot wide span of metal railing. Lifting the gun up and over the rail, she directs the beam of light first along the stretch of upward steps -leading presumably to the roof, ‘still clear,’ and then slowly traces the flight of downward steps finally settling on the next landing. The body of a soldier lies face down on the platform with his hands zip-tied behind his back. Brooke watches and listens for a moment, looking for any signs of life. Satisfied, she gives the nod to Max who steps through the door with pistol raised and ready. Max motions his head toward the door, indicating to Brooke that she should close it to prevent any surprises from behind. Brooke removes her left hand from the forward stock of the rifle and the stairwell is instantly dark again. Since the electricity still seems to be humming Max can only assume that the lack of lighting in the area is by design, but it’s whose design that concerns him. 

              Brooke uses her free hand to pull the door from its locked-open position and allows it to close slowly under its own weight. Just as the door is about to latch closed behind them Max turns and jams his foot into the sliver of an opening.

“Pull the empty magazine from my waistband and wedge it in the door. We might need to backtrack if this doesn’t pan out.”

Brooke complies and a sliver of regress remains visible between the second-floor doorway and its jam. Turning her sights back to the rail, Brooke once again lights the way, only this time she finds the lower landing is unoccupied.

From Brooke’s left and slightly higher come the words, “So
nice
to have company.”

The words are spoken slowly and with too much breath, like an obscene phone call. Brooke swings the rifle in the direction of the voice and finds the soldier from the lower landing standing on the lowest step of the upper staircase. A round quarter-inch hole is visible in his neck just above the collar of his flak vest. His arms are still tightly bound behind him and the pallor of what was previously brown skin gives him a ghostly countenance. A tinge of yellow highlights the brown of his irises.

Brooke pulls the trigger but her reaction time is no match for his. The soldier dodges to his right and the metal-jacketed slugs ricochet off of the concrete behind him sending a fan of debris out in their wake. Max is standing behind Brooke with no clear shot of the soldier and an unconscious woman draped over his –increasingly fatigued- shoulder. The soldier flexes and a moment later, his hands are free from their inadequate bindings and he has grasped the business end of Brooke’s rifle. With it, he levers Brooke backward, pushing her back into the door from whence they came. Her left heel strikes the empty magazine/doorstop sending it skidding across the floor of the second-floor corridor and out of sight. A moment later her body impacts the door and the trap is complete. They had unknowingly walked into a
dead man’s
ambush thus being snared and outsmarted by a single biter.

With Brooke temporarily nullified, the soldier releases the rifle in preparation for feeding.

A nonchalant “Forget something?” are the last words he ever hears as he turns to find himself staring down the loaded barrel of Max’s pistol.

His enhanced vision gives him a nanosecond glimpse of a glowing-hot bullet as it explodes outward and then…darkness. A puckered, smoking and slightly off center hole is the only evidence of the biter’s altercation with Max. His back against the wall, he now leans in the corner like a drunk after last call on Friday night. His body slowly slides to the floor. The closeness of the blasts cauterized the wound so there is surprisingly little mess. Brooke regains the breath she expelled during her collision with the door and rights herself.

“You okay?” she hears Max say from a distant place where the ringing in her hears doesn’t dwell.

“
We have to go!
” Max yells, but Brooke is unable to discern his words.

She yawns, shakes her head and clears a bit more of the ringing from the rifle’s blast.

“What?”

“
The biters, they’re coming!
”