Land of the Zombies Page 14

  I don’t bother to look back, but just run forward to get out. The ground is still wet from the recent rain, and my balance is already off since I’m carrying Julie. Before I reach the gate I stumble forward. I feel a loud pop in my shoulder where Julie has landed on top of me.

  We’re too slow trying to get sorted out, but she does roll off of me and when I start to stand she screams. Before I can react I feel something on my shoulder. It’s not the pain of whatever popped out of place, it’s a much sharper pain than that.

  I feel it tear away and my arm goes limp. I turn toward the zombie that just bit into my shoulder. Using my good arm, I pull a pistol from my belt and fire four shots into it before I control myself enough to stop. I slump down and cry out in pain.

  I roll to my back and suddenly Julie and Carrie are looking down at me. They both look panicked. I’m worried for them, but I can’t seem to focus. Suddenly there is a burning sensation running down my arm. I look over and see the blood running down my arm.

  “Shit, I can feel it. The infection is already spreading.”

  “It’s ok, we can get you out of here.”

  “No, leave me.”

  “You wouldn’t leave me, there’s no way I’m leaving you!”

  Suddenly Julie’s head is yanked back. I look down, and there is the zombie that I just shot. I look at it and realize there isn’t a bullet hole through the center of its head. There is a hole in its neck, one torn in its cheek, and two solid shots to the chest. But I never killed it. And now it has Julie by the neck. And in one quick motion it has ripped a chunk of her throat out. The blood sprays out and I can tell that she is dead almost instantly.

  The scene pulls me back to reality and I empty the clip into the zombie, making sure to get plenty of shots into its head this time.

  Carrie pulls me up. “We have to go. Now!”

  She is holding me up, I can’t hold my entire weight up on my own. “Wait!” I shout.

  I grab the pistol from her waist and lean down to Julie. “I’m sorry,” I whisper as I shoot a bullet through her head.

  “We’ve got to go!”

  Carrie has me propped up and is dragging me away from the scene. The undead know where we are now, and the entire field is emptying in our direction.

  We have to get away, so Carrie makes a beeline for the campus buildings. The path is clear, but I’m slowing her down.

  “Just leave me, you can go quicker without me!”

  “No, I’m not leaving you. Not while you’re still breathing!”

  It takes a few minutes, but we make it to the closest building. Carrie releases me and I lean against the wall. She pulls her shotgun from around her back and shoots through the locked glass door. She kicks out the remaining glass in the frame and props me up on her shoulder again.

  We get through the door as quickly as possible and we’re met with an open hallway. She looks down the hall and starts to pull me forward. We turn the corner and start up the stairway to the second floor.

  The floor is strewn with papers and books. People took off from here in a hurry.

  Carrie pushes open one of the classrooms and pulls me in behind her. I feel like my chest is on fire. I can feel the infection spreading through me, but there’s no way I’m going to let it take me before I can get Carrie safe.

  She sits me down in a chair and sets to wrapping up my wound. I help her tear the sleeve off of my sweatshirt and she uses that to tighten up the wound and stop the bleeding.

  “Look, Carrie, I’m not going to make it. We both know it. But I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure you make it safely. I promised your dad that I’d keep you safe, and I’m going to do that.”

  She smiles, tears forming in her eyes. “You’ve done all you need to. You got me this far, you don’t need to do anything else.”

  “Well, I’m still going to do whatever I can. We need to find a way out of here.”

  She runs over to the window and looks down. “Shit. I think they’ve got this place surrounded.”

  I can hear the echoes of the creatures in the hallway, and the echoes of the banging on the other doors. The glass isn’t strong, and it’s not long before I hear the glass shatter, followed by the sound of more of the undead making their way into the building.

  Carrie jogs down the hallway and looks down the stairs.

  “They’re already blocking the stairs. They’ve still got issues with going up, but they are definitely blocking our path.” She’s starting to look panicked. “What should we do?”

  I’m having trouble concentrating, so I shut my eyes. I squeeze them, trying to force myself to think. I get up and force myself over to the windows. Below us is a row of thick bushes.

  “The drop is only twenty feet or so. If you aim it and land in those bushes, you should be safe. I’ll go first and distract them, and then you can get away.”

  “I can’t let you just sacrifice yourself like that! You’re going to be OK!”

  “No, you know I’m not. This isn’t just an injury, I’m bit. I can feel the infection spreading in me. At some point it’s going to kill me, and then I’m going to come back as one of those things. This is about as useful as I can be. If I can get down there and make a bunch of noise, then they should be distracted enough for you to escape. It’s the only way, there’s no way we’re going back down the stairs. You said it, the path is blocked.”

  She knows I’m right, but she tries to stammer out an argument. The tears are flowing freely now.

  “No! I can’t be alone! You can’t do this!”

  Sometimes I forget how young she is. She has been so strong through this whole thing, but she’s still just a kid.

  “OK, I’ll stick with you as long as I can. Are you ready?”

  She nods.

  “I’ll go first. Then just follow.”

  Using the butt of the shotgun, I break through the window. It looks like a much bigger drop now that I’m up on the windowsill. But I need to go. I try to aim for the bushes and I let myself drop.

  I hit the bushes hard. They are softer than the ground, but not by much. I hear branches snapping and I feel them scratching my face. A fresh pain rips through my shoulder as I come to a stop. I bite down on my lip and I can taste the blood I’ve drawn.

  I look up and Carrie is in the window. I roll out of the bushes. “Aim here!” I shout, pointing to a stretch of the plant that wasn’t crushed by me. She leaps from the window.

  Her landing is much more graceful than mine. She hits the bushes and snaps through a few branches, but comes to a stop pretty quickly. I grab her hand and help pull her off the bush.

  “Let’s get moving. Before they realize we’re here.”

  I can see that the crowd of undead is already starting to turn toward our direction. I can’t even start to count how many of them there are. It looks like a crowd gathering on the first day of a new semester, except this crowd is dead.

  We move through the campus as quickly as we can.

  I lose track of where we’re going, I just trust Carrie to lead the way. We cut between two buildings, and suddenly we’re in some sort of maintenance area. Carrie pulls me forward and leans me up against a pickup.

  She hops into the cab to see if there are any keys. This area is not clear though. I notice several of the undead walking around, and they’ve noticed us.

  “Hurry up, Carrie. We’re not alone,” I say. I lift my shotgun and aim for the closest creature. The crack of the shot echoes between the buildings and the zombie drops to the ground. I take aim and drop another.

  “What are you doing in there?” I ask as I glance over my shoulder. “There are keys or there aren’t!”

  I hear the engine start to turn over then I fire another shot. The engine makes a little more noise then roars to life. I look over and she is coming up from underneath the steering wheel.

  “Hot wiring? Another survival technique your dad taught you?”

  “He always wanted to be prepared for any situation
!” She smiles a little, and then her face gets serious. “Now move it, we need to get out of here!”

  Using the truck as a crutch, I make my way around to the other side, pausing only to shoot the undead. I hop into the passenger door and Carries takes off.

  She slams the truck through a closed gate, sending shock waves through my body. The burning sensation returns and I start coughing. I’ve got my head down between my legs, and when I open my eyes I see the blood on the floor of the truck.

  Carrie glances down and then flashes me a worried look. “I’m going to get you out of here. No way I’m going to let those things get you.”

  The maintenance area empties onto a service road. Carrie follows the road until we hit a main stretch of road leading to the highway.

  “See, we’re almost to the highway! We’re going to make it!” She is laughing with excitement, and I can’t help but smile. I know I’m done, but she has a chance.

  The truck bounces as we make the turn onto the highway, and we continue south and up into the hills.

  As we drive, I am fighting to stay conscious. Carrie keeps reaching over to shake me back awake.

  We don’t make it far before I hear the truck start to sputter.

  “Shit! This must be why it was back in the maintenance area!”

  Carrie pulls to the side of the road and lets the truck die. She pops the hood and hops out.

  I push open my door and nearly fall out. It’s much cooler outside than when we were at the lower elevation. This seems to renew my energy as if the air is cooling the burning that is inside me.

  I stumble and lay down on the ground. I close my eyes, and I see my friends and family. I see Ben and Terry, Maria and Julie, Greg and Don. They’re all alive again and laughing. Sergeant Gray is there too. A warm feeling of happiness washes over me. I thought I would never see these people again, but here they are.

  My family is there too. My mom and dad and my younger brother are all sitting around a table. They must have made it through this whole thing safely. I call out to them, but they don’t respond. I guess they can’t hear me. I realize that I can’t hear them either. I see their mouths moving, but I hear nothing but silence. Maybe the distance is just an illusion, they’re all just further away than I realize.

  But that doesn’t make sense. I turn and start to look around. There is Rob and his dad. Rob is standing over his dad’s body. And then there’s Mrs. Miller. What is she doing here? What are any of them doing here? They all died. Something is not right here.

  Suddenly Rob’s dad reaches up and attacks Rob. He’s one of the undead, and he is tearing at Rob. I can see the pain in his face, but I don’t hear anything.

  Mrs. Miller looks like she is laughing, and then she runs toward my friends and pulls out a knife.

  “No!” I shout, but nothing comes out. I try to run toward them, but I’m moving in slow motion. I can’t seem to get any closer, and suddenly she is stabbing my friends. Their blood is spraying around the room.

  My parents look to the other group but seem uninterested. Why aren’t they helping anyone? Why are they just sitting there sipping on water?

  “Jay!” That’s the first thing I’ve heard. Someone is shouting at me. “Jay! Wake up!” I can’t place where the voice is coming from. It just seems to fill the air around me.

  Something slaps me hard across the face. I open my eyes and there is Carrie. Just Carrie, no one else. She has tears in her eyes.

  “You asshole! You can’t leave me all alone! Why did you do that?” The tears are flowing down her face and she punches me in the chest, but her blows don’t have any force behind them.

  I try to sit up, but my body is on fire.

  “Carrie, I don’t have much time.” I can barely get the words out. “You’re strong, you can do this. I know you’ll survive.”

  “No, you can’t just quit on me. If you die, then fine, you die, but I’m not letting you just give up. Come on!”

  She stands and grabs my good arm, pulling me up with her.

  “I’ve got the truck started again. We can at least go a little further. I think I saw a sign for a campground up ahead. At least it should be flatter. Maybe there will even be a cabin or something.”

  She pushes me into the truck and helps lift my legs in behind me.

  We don’t have to go far before we reach the campground. There is a large cabin at the entrance where guests would go to sign in.

  She pulls the truck up and stops it. After she unloads me from the car, she practically drags me to the building.

  She starts digging through cupboards and cabinets. Once again, I am fighting to stay awake. I’m afraid that if I fall asleep again, I’ll see my friends and family again, and I don’t want to lose them again.

  She comes back with a first aid kit. I see a bottle in her hand but I can’t make out what it is.

  “Here, this should help.” I feel a needle enter my arm and a warm liquid enters me. The warmth rushes through my body, but the burning that has been filling me leaves.

  “Thank you.” I look around. My head is a little clearer now. It is still fuzzy, but it is not as bad as when I could feel that infection rushing through me, eating away at my body.

  We are in a back office. It is very bright. I am sitting in a chair next to a metal table. It starts to dawn on me that this isn’t just an office. This is some sort of medical facility. At a campground?

  “You look confused,” says Carrie.

  “Yeah, where are we?”

  “Well, we’re at that campground. This must be the main office. There’s a lounge out in the front and some offices. And this must be the vet area. I guess they must help with injured animals or something. I found some medicine in one of the cabinets, that’s what I gave you. And it looks like it’s working.”

  “It is. My whole body felt like it was on fire, but that is almost gone now. I can barely notice it.”

  “I figure that whatever it was, it can’t hurt you. I doubt it’s going to turn you into a dog or something!”

  “That might be a better alternative to what actually is going to happen.” As soon as the words leave my mouth I regret it. The tears are beginning to swell in Carrie’s eyes again. “Carrie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

  “No,” she says while wiping her eyes. “I know it’s going to happen. It’s just so hard. My mom, my dad, Greg. The whole group. It’s just not fair that everyone I care about keeps getting killed, and yet I just keep going. Why me? Am I just lucky? Or am I being punished? I don’t know, but I do know that I can keep you comfortable until the end. The others went too fast, there was nothing we could do but make sure they didn’t come back as one of those things.”

  She leads me to the main lounge area. She has already started a fire in the big fireplace, and the heat is already starting to fill the room.

  I lean back into a large lounge chair.

  “Carrie, have you secured this place?”

  She grins. “Look at you. You can barely sit yourself up, and here you are worried about if the building is secure. That’s why you were our leader. Yes. Yes I did secure it was best I could. The doors are barricaded with couches. Unfortunately there’s that big glass window, so there’s not much I can do there.”

  “Good,” I wince as I speak. “Let’s sort out the ammo we have left. What is there?”

  She gathers up all of our weapons and has two shotguns and two pistols on the floor. She empties out the only backpack we have. There are four bottles of water and one extra clip for the hand gun. She checks and tells me that each of the clips are about half full. And that total there are ten shotgun shells left.

  “Are there any other weapons here?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “I expected to find at least a rifle or something, but no. Just some scalpels in the vet area, but nothing we can really use out here.”

  “Alright. Give me one of those shotguns. I don’t need a lot of shots though. Just give me a couple. I want you to hold on to ev
erything else. You’ll need it when you’re on your own. Just remember, stay high. And keep yourself fed.”

  “Thanks, dad!” she says sarcastically.

  “Ha! Ok, I guess I don’t really need to go over all this, you already know all of it!”

  Suddenly there is a loud banging at the door. It’s like someone pounding with their fists. We both turn toward the door and Carrie suddenly looks very pale.

  I hear the sound of glass rattling and look to the large window. There they are, the undead at the window, banging on the glass. I know that is who is at the door too.

  We both hop up and grab our weapons.

  “Carrie,” I whisper to her, “be ready to run. They’re going to get through pretty soon. I’m going to lead the way. I’ll kill as many as I can, try to get them distracted and you run.”

  She looks to me and nods. Then she grabs me and hugs me tight.

  The glass in the window shatters and Carrie releases me. The zombies are clumsily crawling through the window. But they are making their way in.

  A hole bursts in the door. My heart drops in my chest. In the moonlight, I can see nothing but the undead. There are too many of them. Carrie will never make it out even if I get them distracted.

  I shake the thought from my head. No, I have to get her out of here.

  I run to the door and fire a shot through the hole. Blood and brains explode everywhere, and the force of the shot sends the first wall of the undead stumbling back. I can hear gunshots behind me. I fire into the crowd again.

  A hole is opening among the crowd. There, now there’s enough space to get through there. I can just tackle them and Carrie will be free.

  There are more shouts behind me and I hear a scream. I turn and see Carrie firing into the oncoming wave of undead, but there are too many. As she fires forward, they are coming in from the sides. I run to her and fire at the zombies that are surrounding her. I see one preparing to lunge and lift the shotgun to fire.

  I pull the trigger, but nothing happens. I’m out of ammunition. The fact hits me as I see the creature sink its teeth into her arm. She screams and another grabs onto her.