U.G.L.Y (28 page)

     As I passed the group feeding on Eve, I looked down and could see her face. Her skin was torn from her belly to her throat. Her breasts lie next to her upper torso. It looked as though they had undressed her, taken off a costume and set it on the floor next to her.

Her head was facing me and it looked like she was still awake. Her eyes stared looking into the distance with surprise frozen on her face. Then, as I  began to look away she blinked.

I have no way of knowing if she was still conscious or even alive for that last second when I looked. That image seared into my memory. I would be haunted by that image for the rest of my life.

     I focused only on running for my life. I ran down the hall, out the open door and into the alley. It was mostly empty, at least for now. The only host I could see was the one I had let out of his cell. Now it wasn’t moving as quickly and was beginning to succumb to malnutrition and weakness.

I followed it, closing quickly I ran right behind it until it collapsed in front of me. I ran out of the alley and into the street. I didn't know which way to go.

The detention center was only five blocks from the harbor. I could see, what was left of my car three blocks away in the direction of the waterfront. There were no hosts around the car. It had hit a propane tank and caught fire. Just beyond the smoke I could clearly see the water. I wondered if I could make it to the waters edge.

     I started to jog towards the burning car. The street was clear ahead of me and I began to feel a sense of comfort. Then I heard footsteps behind me. It sounded like thousands of footsteps.

I didn't look behind me. I ran as fast as I could, past the burning car. I had no idea what I was going to do once I got to the harbor. Behind me the sound of footsteps was getting closer. I could feel the infected behind me. I ran hard, my vision began to narrow, I couldn't breath, I started getting dizzy.

One block to go

I could hear breathing behind me now, faint grunting sounds filled the air.

Half a block

I felt heat on the back of my neck and heard a distinct clicking sound. I envisioned snapping teeth.

100 feet

I ran faster. I couldn't see at all anymore. I knew I was getting close to the edge of the dock. I ran until the ground disappeared beneath my feet. I ran right off the edge of the dock and as I fell towards the water, I could feel the host that was behind me hit my feet as it fell off the dock behind me.

     At first the water felt refreshing as I sank several feet under the surface but it quickly got cold. I thought maybe I would become hypothermic and drown. That would have been okay, I would just go to sleep. I wouldn't know or care if the hosts' got a hold of me. I wouldn't care what happened next.

When I surfaced I realized that I was easily 20 feet from the dock and drifting way. There was no sign of the host that was behind me. On the dock above me, were hundreds of hosts swarming, pushing each other off the edge. When a host hit the water it sank like a stone. They couldn't swim.

An overwhelming feeling of relief came over me and I swam slowly out towards the middle of the channel. Once I felt certain I was out of reach I laid back and floated. My ears submerged so I could hear nothing but the water moving around me.

     I felt rested, even after only ten or so minutes of floating in the channel. I suppose it was the release of stress, knowing the infected couldn't get to me. I was, for this very brief moment, safe.

I needed to get back to the detention center to get what ever food and supplies I could. I needed to take care of Eve. I had grown attached to her over the previous days. Our intimacy had connected us.

My thoughts were on Eve now. I had always had trouble with casual intimacy. Once a woman gave herself to me I built an emotional connection to her. It was not healthy for me. I spent to many years engaged in relationships that were not healthy but my emotional connection made me blind to how it was hurting me. My marriage was like that, and I almost didn't survive it. I wished right then that Eve and I had not been so close, now I felt the grief of losing her filling my heart.

27
.

-Crawling Back-

     It took several days to get back to the detention center. I worked my way down several blocks in the canal, and slept under a dock on a small boat mooring that night. As the sun came up the next day I began working my way back towards the detention center. I hid out in small stores along the way. I found a small retail store and changed out of my wet clothing. I found some cargo pants and a thick button up shirt. It helped with the cold. I had a constant shiver from being wet and cold all night.

I spent the next night in a 7/11 where I had access to some food and water. I wanted to drink, and I pulled a warm 12 pack of beer out of a cooler that had probably not run in days.

It was a long night. I didn't sleep well and the alcohol brought on the terrifying images of Eve being torn apart. I couldn't stop crossing images of her. Kissing her beautiful nipples then watching the hosts tear them from her body. Spreading her gently and sliding my tongue over her silky flesh, then a bloody hand gripped her pubic bone, my lips still touched hers. The lower half of her torso pulled away. I woke up and vomited again.

     I sat in the store dazed and groggy from what was certainly the alcohol. Light flooded the store, and I looked out into the street to see a thick morning fog. I could hear screeches In the distance and the occasional shadow pass through the fog.

I started preparing to move out into the street to make my last run to the detention center. I opened the glass door and looked in both directions to make sure it was clear. Through the fog I heard gun shots.

The shots were grouped in bursts. like you would expect machine gun fire to be. Controlled short bursts.

I started out and followed the sound of the repeating gun fire. Within two blocks I came across the alley that lead to the detention center. I was on the opposite side of where Eve and I had entered several days before.

The gate was locked but I was able to climb over it and worked my way slowly down the alley. I walked through the foggy alley, visibility was very low, and I could just make out bodies scattered around in small groups. They were all hosts as far as I could tell, and they were riddled with bullet holes. I could hear voices above me in the fog.

“Hello!!” I yelled. It became suddenly obvious that I needed to make sure they knew I was there, and that I was still human. Otherwise I am sure I would have found myself the target of the next burst from their machine gun.

“We hear you” A voice bellowed from above me, “are you alone?”

“Yes” I yelled up to them. “I was run out of this building several days ago and have been working my way back”

“Alright” The voice thundered over me. “head for the entrance door. Get your ass inside before you attract flies”. I could hear a radio crackle and faint mumbling as I ran.

     I ran as quickly as I could. I knew that having exposed myself, it was only a matter of minutes before I could be attacked through the fog. The door came into view and opened just as I reached it.

Two marines stepped into the alley. One was armed with an AR-14 and the other a side arm. I recognized the man with the side arm's collar device as a Marine Corps Major. The two men didn't say anything to me as I approached. The Major grabbed my shoulder and rushed me inside the detention center. The door slammed closed behind us.

I stopped for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dark hallway. As my vision cleared, I could make out the entrance to the common room I had run from a few days before. Now I could see that the hall and common room was full of equipment. I felt stunned for a moment, I thought Eve might still be lying in the next room.

“You okay?” the major asked “The boys tell me you were here before”

“Uh, Yea thanks.” I said, still trying to catch my breath “Me and another person were here for a couple of days but we... I lost control of the room. I had to run.”

“By yourself?” He asked, he knew what had happened.

“Yea, she...” I took a deep breath “She didn't make it”

He put his hand on my shoulder and told me they had found the body of a blond woman that was recently killed. They had cleared the room and taken all the bodies to the dinning room area on the other side of the building. Preparations were being made to burn the bodies. I asked if I could have a moment to say goodbye to Eve. They granted me that, and we burned her body after a short ceremony.

     I didn't know what to say. We hadn't known each other very long and at first I had felt that she was a burden. Then as we got closer she became a sexual object, a distraction, I know I was the same for her. We were a moment of pleasure to each other as the world came closing in around us.

But after the night we spent in
Grants Pass
, she became something more to me. I began to care for her, to crave her touch, to feel her. I was heart broken, I watched her die. I held myself responsible even though there was no way I could have made it to her in time. She was under attack before I could even get to the catwalk. It was seconds before they had begun tearing her apart.

     As I stood there with my head down and hands crossed in front of me watching the reflection of funeral flame on the tile under my feet, I fought off the images from my dreams the night before. Those crossing images of her were so vivid, I couldn't see anything else.

     I heard a soft voice next to me.

“Was she your wife?”

I looked to my right, and standing next to me was a woman with reddish brown hair wearing civilian clothes. Her expression was sullen as she looked up at me. Her eyes were green and penetrating as she stared into mine.

“uh, no” I stammered, still overwhelmed with the thoughts running through my mind “I found her stranded in lake Tahoe a few days ago”. I added “We uh.. got close over the last couple days though” I closed my eyes “ I think I got her killed”.

2
8
.

-Security-

     After some time the Major approached me and invited me to join him and the others for some coffee. We sat together in the common area and I retold my last few days to the group.

“Sounds like you have stayed just ahead of the infection till you got into
Tacoma
” He said.

     He extended is hand to me “My name is Major Steven Levitt. I am commander of a medical evacuation unit based out of
Camp
Pendelton
in
California
. We were deployed out of Pendelton about four days ago to support a large movement of patients from
Seattle
. This was before this second wave broke”.

“Second wave?” I asked, “Second wave of what?” I had suspected this infection was a mutated version of the first one that had overrun
Los Angeles
, I wanted to get as much information as I could from Levitt. I continued asking questions before sharing any of the information I had gathered about the infection.“U.G.L.Y” He took a sip of his coffee “I'm sure you remember the outbreak that took down
Los Angeles
?”

     I nodded.

     Levitt continued,
“Well those that got sick were infected through a different process. They fell ill slowly, and reacted differently. They still turned into murderous monsters, but now they can spread it to other people. And this son of a bitch spreads fast.” He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath.

     He continued, “We were covering a medevac, a group of sick had been flown to
Seattle
after the first wave. We had started moving them south when word came across the radio of a crash in the mountains in
California
. The patients from that crash were infecting other people and it was spreading faster than it could be contained. Took out a small town in a matter of hours.”

     He was talking about where this had begun for me. That crash was in my town, and it was what I had been running from for days. He continued to tell me how the world had begun to come unraveled.

“That bus load of patients was just the first, it wasn't long before the other ill people started to turn.”

     Levitt explained that they lost control of their evacuation, as the infected turned, they began to attack their care givers. He said that in a matter of an hour, the entire unit had been lost. Only a few managed to get far enough away from the chaos to regroup. They collected weapons and opened fire on the infected, which by then, numbered in the hundreds.

When it was all over they collected what they could and started moving south again toward
Tacoma
. They had been camped on the outskirts of the city when they saw smoke rising from downtown. They headed in to town to investigate, and found the smoldering remains of my car and the detention center full of infected.  

     As the sun went down, the light In the common area was beginning to fade. I had collected the gear that I had left and I offered to help collect wood from the broken furniture spread throughout the detention center to build a fire.