He grabbed a small stone and tossed it inside, preparing himself for a charge. Nothing. He lifted his visor, tentatively stepped forward while sniffing the air - must and damp oily wood. He could see that the trusting owners had left the Volvo unlocked. The amount of dust layered on top wasn’t encouraging. When he opened the door the dome light didn’t come on and he squished up his face in mild frustration. The key was sitting in an ashtray between the seats so he inserted it and gave it a turn - not even a click. Perhaps they’d had taken the battery cables off in order to save it while they were away. A quick check under the hood told him otherwise. With a sigh, he realized that he’d have to hike up to the Jeep, take its battery out, and bring it down to the Volvo.
He stepped back outside and looked at the chimney stones. Two big ones were piled right against the door. He’d need something to pry them with. He’d get a big branch from the many littering the forest floor. He took off his helmet and set it, along with the shotgun, against the wall. He walked around to the back of the garage and right there, not more than thirty yards away, two infected squatted over a carcass. He saw them first, but not by much. They were adolescent males, utterly filthy - blood streaked faces, tattered clothes and tangled, greasy hair. They were struggling with a dead porcupine and so engrossed in their meal that they hadn’t heard him walk up - but they saw him now.
Jon found himself stunned, his muscles locked up as though he’d been delivered an electric jolt. His brain said run, but his feet glued themselves to the ground. The Fiend holding the dead animal had both arms sleeved with tattoos. It suddenly jumped up and without dropping its kill, charged at Jon full speed, the other charging right behind. Jon finally unfroze as the tattooed Fiend’s bloody maw opened with a horrific scream.
Jon ran. He ran in a straight line right back up the driveway. Out loud he found himself yelling, “Fuck You, Fuck You, Fuck You!” over and over. He didn’t dare turn around for fear of stumbling. His police baton banged against his leg, but he wasn’t going to try pulling it out of its belt loop and risk a fall. He got to the main road before he realized that he had left his helmet and gun behind - not that he could have done anything about it. He could hear the two Fiends only paces behind him, one letting out another scream, kicking his adrenaline into overdrive. He could see his Jeep in the distance and he angled his way toward it. His mind was rushing to keep up with his fear. The Jeep would just be a death cage, but he had no place else to run. They were gaining on him.
He grabbed the door handle and yanked, only to be stopped by having locked the door earlier. He fumbled for the keys while cursing himself and glancing at the charging monsters. He pressed the unlock button, threw open the door, and dove in while hitting lock again as they slammed up against the truck. They bellowed and punched, spider webbing the driver’s glass, one of them using the porcupine carcass for a bloody cudgel. He found himself involuntarily screaming as he tried to get his mind to formulate a plan. He had perhaps seconds and they’d be through.
The Jeep was on a down slope. If he could… He stomped on the clutch, dropped the stick shift into neutral and released the parking brake. The truck started to creep forward. A look outside nearly stopped his heart as he watched one of the bastards pick up a rock and heave. The thing bounced off the driver door just as the truck started to build some momentum. “Come on Come on Come Come on!”
The wheel without power steering was like a turning an old tractor. Another rock, bigger this time, went skipping off the windshield. He was going maybe five miles an hour now, then ten, the Fiends running along side. Steering with all his might, he avoided a tree, kept the thing on track with the road, then the driveway to the burned out house, and now he was outpacing them and he cheered. “Yeah, motherfuckers!”
Then he could see the lake, and the plan was for not. With a sudden sense of defeat, he took his hands off the wheel and watched as the Jeep rolled past the ruined house over a tidy lawn and out onto a dock, ultimately launching itself into the lake. It then promptly began to sink.
The impact buried Jon under a mountain of food, assorted blankets, tents, a camp stove and bottled water. From what he could see, he was submerged under cloudy green water. Despite the spider webbing, the windows were holding. Then the seals started to leak as the water pressure increased. He had maybe a few minutes and then he’d drown. After all he’d been through this would be a stupid way to die. Still, a part of him wanted to stay in the truck. As he struggled to get out from under the weight of his gear, he really thought about it. It was an absolute horror show up there and from what he could tell, Cain’s was winning the war. It was exhausting trying to survive an apocalypse. And who, besides himself, was he surviving for? He had no living relations, no girlfriend, no ex-wife. He’d always lived the life of a loner, happy to go on assignment to other states, other countries, a girl in every port. His primary reason for existence was to pass on information. What was there really to go on for?
On the other hand, he’d made it this far. If he gave up now, what was the point of the hard slog up through the South all the way into New England? He was almost to Canada. He’d be an asshole to throw in the towel now.
Strangely, as cold water came up over his calves, he found himself flashing on the defense plan for Canada. It meant giving up the West but they had drawn the line at Lake Winnipeg. Running north and south from that famous body of water was a system of rivers and smaller waterways that more or less connected the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River with Hudson Bay way up north. For the most part, the infected had lost the skill that is swimming. US and Canadian engineers were working around the clock, digging connections between these waterways in an effort to create a massive moat around Eastern Canada. There were gaps, but those would be plugged with minefields and constant patrols.
In the winter, when much of that water froze, it was going to be a challenge, but maybe not. It was suggested that the infected would be forced to stay in the warmer southern climate or risk freezing to death.
When the water reached his thighs, Jon snapped out of his reverie and considered once more the supposedly easy out that was drowning. Then he laughed at the thought. He’d fight until he was either home free or dead. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be by his own hand.
The water pressure would make it impossible for him to open the doors until the cab was full. He managed to get his hand on his police baton and struggled to slip it out of its belt loop. After a few awkward yanks, he got it free, gripped the side handle hard, and rammed the short bottom end into the compromised windshield. A small hole appeared and water shot at him with the pressure of a focused garden hose. He rammed the baton again. The water rushed in with a wallop. Jon found himself swirling in a cloud of gear and glass. Though the surface was only ten feet away, he was completely disoriented. Using the steering wheel, he thrust himself up and out of the truck.
When his face broke the water, the first thing his eyes focused on was the two Fiends, standing at the end of the dock. They screamed with excitement, yet hesitated to jump into the water. Jon looked to his right and saw the dock for the house next door and the rowboat tied to it. With the weight of his leathers pulling him down, he started swimming. The damn infected followed his progress from the shore. Maybe he’d confuse them if he swam under water. When he was twenty feet from the dock, he took three deep breaths and dove.
He still held the police baton along his forearm. It made swimming a bit of a struggle, but he’d be damned if he was going to let it go. He swam under the dock and slowly let himself rise so that he popped up between it and the boat. His lungs were searing, but he forced himself to take the quietest breath he could as he broke the surface. He pulled his knife from the sheath that was tied to his leg, cut the ropes and began to gently push the boat away from the dock. Suddenly, he could hear their feet running across the planking. He kicked away with all his might. They splashed into the water, reaching out and screaming, not really swimming, but achieving a sort of doggie-paddle cum spaz-splash. The tattooed one hurled the porcupine at him, the carcass sailing just past his face. The other got a grip on his leg. Jon kicked the creature in the chest, twisted free and plunged the knife into its shoulder. It howled in anger and pain, giving Jon a couple of yards of distance. The rodent chucker was still sloppily swimming toward him, and Jon used the baton, stunning it with a blow to the head.
Free for a moment, he swam a little more and then tried to pull himself into the boat without swamping it. As he struggled, his legs and arms felt weighted with lead. Then the Fiend with the knife still in his shoulder caught up with him, grabbed his left leg and bit down hard. It hurt like hell and he begged the god of
Scorpion’s Titanium-Tanned Racing Armor
to let its product hold up under three hundred pounds per square inch of biting power. He turned, twisted the knife and pulled it out. The monster gnashed and bit at him. This was the most deadly kind of proximity with an infected person and Jon could feel his repulsed and frightened body try to levitate from the water. He jammed his gloved thumb into the Fiend’s eye and then drove the knife into its sternum and up into the heart. The blade wasn’t coming free this time and he had to let it go. He kicked away from the dying thing as fast as he could, lest he ingest some of the growing blood blooming in the water. The one he had hit was the baton was nowhere to be seen. He had to assume that it had drowned.
With a do or die heave, he pulled himself into the boat, got the oars into the oarlocks and turned the boat toward the burned out house. He had to get his helmet and gun. Then he saw more of them, dozens more running through woods, heading toward the shore. He stopped rowing. The breeze was coming up and it gently pushed him away from land. He looked over his shoulder at the island and pointed the boat there instead. Then his stomach growled. He didn’t have a single morsel of food. If he weren’t such an optimistic guy, he’d swear he was screwed.
The female Other that led them, stopped short of the shore and just watched. It and the Others with It arrived too late to get the Fresh One that was rowing away.
As though channeled up from the swelling in its belly, a pregnant Other felt its stomach churn, and the sense of frustration from the Others around It entered its mind. The thing that grew inside It was speaking to It again – not speaking, but feeling. Mostly It liked the feeling; the thing in its belly guiding It, helping It track down the Fresh Ones. But when It was hungry, the feeling became very harsh and It even considered cutting out the thing that grew inside.
The one that led them held its own little guiding thing in its arms – that baby Other was asleep. When it was awake, all of the Others around It got the feeling together - the baby Other guiding them.
The pregnant Other could see less panic in the Fresh One’s eyes as it moved away in the boat. Another pang of hunger feeling shot up from the thing that grew inside, and It held Its growling belly with fierce frustration. They would watch for a while then the Other that led them would renew the hunt for other Fresh Ones – the infant Other that the one that led them held always knew where to find more Fresh Ones.
When Jon got close to the island’s shore he heard a new woodpecker and chuckled, deciding that he wouldn’t count on them to raise the alarm in the future. He quietly tied up to the dock and walked up a path, holding his police baton at ready.
In a clearing was small house, a shack really. Its windows seemed intact. The front door was closed. There was a fire pit out front with a bunch of split log benches around it. It appeared to be an overnight camp, a place to come out to, cook hotdogs and tell ghost stories. The fire pit had some old damp ash in it. Tales of lovebirds, poets and profanity users were carved into the benches.
He walked the perimeter of the shack; reminding himself after the garage incident, don’t walk into a house without sweeping the outside first. He cursed himself for having let his guard down. His excitement over the car overrode all caution. He told himself he wouldn’t do it again.
Sniffing the air, he could smell no evidence of death. After whacking the baton on another tree and getting an echo in response, he walked up to the front door and tried the latch. It opened with a light creak. Inside there were several bunk beds, a potbelly stove, a kitchenette with a slop sink for cleaning fish. There was no food and nothing to eat with. Clearly, the camp was for overnights only. He could sleep in safety, but he wasn’t going to fill his stomach. Heck, he didn’t have an appetite anyway. The adrenaline rush had taken so much out of him that all he wanted to do was sleep. Snapping himself out of it, he decided he’d better go back out to the dock and make sure one of those infected sons of bitches wasn’t a better swimmer. He scanned the water with his binoculars and then the shore. The Fiends had gone - for now.
He found a path that appeared to circle the island. It followed the shore and he was able to scan the mainland as he walked. He noted a surprising lack of other houses around the lake until he reached the opposite side of the island. On the far shore stood a huge mansion. He guessed that this end of the lake was privately owned or at least the eastern shore was.