Outbreak: A Survival Thriller (11 page)

I try not to think about it as I
keep marking turns and distance traveled.

The trip is a painful one. Bandanna
can’t drive worth a damn and hits every pothole he can before getting on a dirt
road that takes us through a heavily forested area. This is a part of Peltham
Park I never knew existed, where large, lonely old houses pop up behind the trees,
looking empty and barren, the yards plagued with weeds and brambles.

“You wouldn’t believe the
valuable shit we found in these old houses,” Bandanna says, following it up
with an admiring whistle. “Barely had to kill anyone to get it, too.”

The Colonel
points at one of the houses.
“Lovely lesbian couple lived in that one
over there.”

He describes what he made them do
to each other while he watched. I won’t recount it here, but the story involves
torture and sadism on a level I wouldn’t have expected even from him.

Throughout the trip, they never
ask for directions, only the name of my road. The Colonel knows Peltham Park as
if he’s spent all of his life here. Maybe he has. He tells Bandanna where to go—mostly
along dirt roads through the woods—and before I know it, we’re on the
main road leading toward my house.

“It’s that one,” I say.

Bandanna points at my house as it
emerges from behind a wall of trees. “That one right there?”

“Yeah.”

The Colonel throws a glance over
his shoulder. If my hands weren’t tied together, I’d snatch the gun right off
his lap and put a slug through his head, no problem. Then I’d blast Bandanna’s
skull into bits before he could even slam on the brakes. I settle for pulling
against my binds in silent rage.

“Windows are completely sealed
and the roof is clear,” Bandanna says. “Nowhere to snipe from. Nothing to worry
about.”

He continues listing off details
to prove we’re in no danger as we approach. I have to admit, he knows what he’s
talking about. It’s clear these men have seized fortified houses before, even
if they didn’t take prisoners afterward. That just means they killed everyone
inside.

We creep up the length of my
driveway and park near the double doors of the garage. The Colonel shoves me
out of the back seat, keeping the gun trained on my head.

Like other houses on my street,
ours was built against a small hill. The backyard is actually a wooded slope
that juts upward. If you face the two garage doors, to the left, you’ll see the
hill, and to the right is the front yard, which slopes gently downward. Against
the hill, between its base and the garage, is a narrow path about four feet
wide that lets you walk around to the back of the house.

Edging that channel of space is a
granite wall my father built against the earth. He also made a granite footpath
leading around back to the deck opposite the garage.

The Colonel and Bandanna undo my
binds and follow me to the beginning of the path. Around the corner is the
hatch built into one of the garage windows. Less than twenty-four hours have
passed since I first crawled out of it.

They follow me around the corner.

“Nice and hidden,” the Colonel
says, admiring the hatch.

Bandanna has brought the M16 and
keeps it trained on my back as I stick the key into the padlock and twist.

The Colonel pushes me aside and
runs his hand along the surface of the hatch. It’s just a flap of heavy steel
that drapes the window, a handle built into it and another built into the wall
so you can chain the two together. But he’s opening and closing it and tonguing
his teeth like he plans to build one just like it. The black rose on his neck
creeps upward as he stretches himself to touch the hinges running along the top.

“In ten minutes, you emerge from
this hatch like the snake that you are, Kipper,” the Colonel says, “and if I
see you carrying anything other than your old man’s head, it’s rat-tat-tat time
for you,
comprende
?”

We lock eyes, mine carrying rage
that must be obvious; his showing a mixture of grandiosity and relief, like he
can’t believe how easy this has been.

“Fuck you,” I say.

Bandanna raises the M16. The
Colonel waves it back down, nodding and smiling at me.

“
Thattaboy
,”
he says. “Now get in there and bring me that head, Kipper.”

I turn to lift the hatch when he
clasps my shoulder and spins me around. With a stern look, he jabs a finger at
my face.

“Don’t think I’m stupid,” he
says, dark eyes boring into mine. He’s more serious now than I’ve seen him so
far. “I won’t give you the chance to snipe me from the windows. I won’t be
visible from the rooftop. And if you’re not back here in ten minutes, I will
break down these walls and come after you, and Melanie will die a painful,
biblical death. You got that, Kip?”

His use of my name, instead of
that nickname Kipper, chills me right down to the marrow. I nod once at him and
turn toward the hatch.

“You’ve got a steel heart, young squire,”
he says and pats my shoulder.

Then he holds up the hatch, and I
climb inside.

The familiar, fungal smell of the
garage fills my nose, reminding me of my parents.

Using my flashlight, I make my
way past the cluttered shelves, the busted minivan, and the tools all over the
floor. Everything is exactly how I left it. My hands shake as I fumble for the
keys. When I open the door, I’m greeted by a sour stink almost like that of my
high school’s locker room after soccer practice.

“Hello?” I call out when I see
the couch is empty.

The smell gets worse as I make my
way to my parents’ bedroom.

“Dad?” I say as I open the door
and peer inside.

My father is curled up on the bed
he and my mother had once shared, his skin a sickly pallor and coated with
sweat. He’s in drastically worse shape than he was yesterday. His eyes are open
just a crack, barely enough for me to see his pupils roll toward me. In his
hand is a framed photograph of our family. On the bedside table is a 9mm pistol
I imagine is fully loaded.

“Dad,” I say again, gripping his
free hand. “Can you hear me?”

His breath is foul and his eyes
are as yellow as corn. The skin around them crinkles with emotion. He’s barely
breathing, and his voice comes out an abrupt whisper.

“Kip?”

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” I say as I
drop to my knees next to the bed, still clasping his ice-cold hand. “I failed.
I don’t have the medicine. I’m sorry.”

His voice scrapes out of him.
“Doesn’t—matter. Too—late.”

“Just hold on.” I blink away
tears. “There are men outside. They want us out of here.”

Hearing this, Dad’s brow tightens
in a look of cold rage.

“Why don’t—they enter?”

“They think you’re armed and
ready to shoot them. They want proof that you’re not a threat to them. But I
won’t do it.”

A sudden surge of vitality comes
into him. He grips my hand.

“Yes. Give it to them. Make
it—hurt.”

“I can’t kill you, Dad. That’s
what they want. I can’t do it.”

“Do it for—for Mom,” he
says. “She wants you—to live. I’m dead, Kip.
Dead
.”

“But I can kill them. I can snipe
them from—”

“No!”

He tosses my hand aside and
coughs violently. I wipe phlegm from the corner of his mouth. His trembling has
stopped. His eyes remain open.

I’m sure he’s dead. Then his eyes
roll toward the bedside table and the gun lying on its surface.

“Listen to me now,” he says, “and
do exactly as I say…”

I sit against the closed bedroom
door, my dad alone in the bedroom. The gun goes off less than ten seconds after
I closed the door and slid down its length to the carpet. My father is dead.

They must have heard the shot
outside. The Colonel will assume I went through with the plan, buying me a few
more minutes.

As soon as it’s done, I push
myself up and open the door.

Dad shot himself in the heart
just as he had said he would. It was part of his plan. He’s dead by the time I
make it back to the bed. I kiss his forehead and tell him I love him, but I
don’t dwell on my loss. That will come later.

With hurried movements, I dig out
a hunting knife from the bedside table—my
father put
one in practically every room—and go
to work.

When I’m finished, my hands
covered in blood I’ll never be able to wash off, I run into the room where I
packed my bug-out bag the day before. I throw open the closet doors, drop to my
knees, and slide a heavy shoebox toward me.

“That you, Kipper?”

The Colonel has heard the hatch over
the garage window slam back into place. I stand facing the granite wall against
the hill, listening to the crunching of leaves and twigs as he and Bandanna
make their way out of the woods, followed by the scraping of shoes against pavement.
I imagine the Colonel crouched behind the Jeep for cover while Bandanna aims
the M16 at me in case I come out shooting.

“It’s me,” I say. “I have what
you want.”

I look down at my hands, which
carry my father’s severed head. Studying the cold mask of his face, the eyes
turned up in their sockets, I have to hold back tears, though not because I’m
worried about crying in front of the Colonel. I need clear vision for what I’m
about to do next.

There is a frag grenade stuffed
inside my father’s mouth. I’ve cut an opening through the corner of his lips
and into his cheek so the strike lever can escape once I pull the pin, which I
do by lowering my mouth to his, clamping my teeth around the pin, and yanking
it. My thumb remains pressed against the lever to keep the explosion at bay.

For now.

“You’re going to walk around the
garage very slowly,” the Colonel says from the driveway, “and then you’re going
to turn around so I can make sure you’re not strapped. I see even a flash of
gunmetal, Kipper, and you’re going down the gravity elevator to concrete land.
In other words, I will drop you to the fucking ground, you got that?”

“Just don’t shoot,” I say. “I’m
coming out.”

I kiss my father’s forehead and ease
my way around the garage. The two men are standing in front of the Jeep. The
Colonel holds the Glock at his side like he isn’t worried about a thing. He
even wears a confident smile. Bandanna is in a combat stance, holding the
weapon and aiming through the sights with one eye closed.

“Spin around slowly,” the
Colonel
says. “No sudden moves.”

I hug my father’s head so his
face is pressed against my chest, the grenade’s lever jabbing one of my ribs.
This keeps it down for now.

I turn ever so
slowly—probably more slowly than they expect.

“You made me kill my own father,”
I say as I turn. “He didn’t do anything to you.”

With my back to them, I let go of
the lever. It pops open.

I have five seconds.

“He just wanted to be left
alone,” I say.

Four seconds.

The Colonel sighs dramatically. “
C’est
la vie
, Kipper. We can’t always get
what we want.”

Three seconds.

“He wanted me to give you a
message,” I say, facing them again.

The Colonel is aiming the Glock
at me.

I was right. They never intended
to let me go.

Two seconds.

“Oh?” the Colonel says, “and
what’s that?”

“Go to hell.”

I toss my father’s head at their
feet.

Bandanna fires the M16 but misses
me as I duck around the garage.

Perfect timing. The explosion
slams the garage doors with a hollow boom. It sends shock waves that rattle my
body even as I land behind cover. There’s a metal ripping sound that must be
the Jeep being torn apart, accompanied by a roar that reminds me of thunder.

As I lie on my stomach, hands
covering my head, I listen for footsteps—one or both men running for
cover. But all I hear is the pattering of debris falling back to the ground.

I spit out bits of dirt that have
gotten into my mouth and roll onto my back. All I see is smoke. I sit up and
grab a rock in case I need to throw it at someone.

No one emerges from the haze, and
I don’t hear a single shout or cry of pain.

I still need to make sure they’re
dead. When the smoke clears, I immediately see the dusty, broken remains of
Bandanna propped against the granite wall, his right side completely torn apart.

The Colonel is in the woods
several yards away, in about the same terrible shape as Bandanna. He’s lying
facedown, both legs missing. Maybe he turned to run away at the last second. I
can barely see the tattoo on his neck from all the dust and damage.

I check his pockets, hoping for
keys to the warehouse. Nothing. I check Bandanna as well, but all I get is
blood on my hands.

Nothing inside
the remains of the Jeep, either.
The keys are probably lying in the
woods somewhere, little more than bits of twisted metal now.

I race back into the garage,
where I left one of the emergency packs my father and I pre-packed long ago for
situations in which we had to make a hurried escape. It has all the basics for
a few days of survival outside the house. The 9mm is on the floor next to it,
along with a few ammo clips. I take all of it and leave through the busted
garage door.

The evening sky is darkening into
night. The next several hours will be dangerous, more so than anything I’ve
attempted so far. Already I can hear moans coming from the woods behind our
house.

I shoulder the pack and run as
fast as I can toward town, only my compass for guidance.

When my mother worked as a
pre-school teacher, she suffered from fatigue that made her irritable and
scatterbrained toward the end of each shift. She saw a doctor who prescribed
stimulants, the same stuff they give kids with ADHD. After the Outbreak, my
father took those drugs and split them up among the different emergency packs
and medical kits we kept around the house. His thinking was that if the house
came under attack, the stimulants would help us delay sleep while we defended
the place.