A New World: Untold Stories (5 page)

“Wear it,” Carol says, digging a fresh set of socks and underwear from a small suitcase.

“Are we leaving?” Carol asks, directing her attention to Kyle.

“Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t have a good feeling about this. One suitcase, we can come back for the rest. We have the room for a couple more days so we should be fine.”

Shrieks grow louder from the direction of the hallway, along with the sound of people passing by in a hurry. Hearing others leaving, Kyle’s heart pounds harder. The twinge of fear he felt earlier rises. Still not knowing what is going on, he knows he needs to get his family out. They’ll deal with what is happening in the morning, and perhaps feel a little foolish for panicking. That’s tomorrow, this is now.

“Can I take Teddy?” Sarah asks, now clothed in her summer dress.

“Yeah, you can take him,” Kyle says, zipping a suitcase closed.

Sarah wraps her teddy bear close, wrapping it in her small arms.

“Okay, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Kyle says, with the shrieks outside rising in intensity.

“Kyle, your language,” Carol admonishes, nodding toward Sarah, who is staring at Kyle open-mouthed.

Without responding, he hoists the suitcase off the bed and extends the pull handle.

“Okay, hon, hold mommy’s hand and stay close,” Carol says.

Opening the hotel door, the screams, previously muffled, become distinct. Several people are making their way down the hall with their luggage. Most have panic written in their eyes and Kyle imagines he must look the same.

Carol, with Sarah in hand, turns toward the elevators.

Grabbing her shoulder, Kyle says, “No, we’ll take the stairs.”

They turn in the hall and head toward the end, going against those making their way to the elevator. A green lit exit sign glows at the end of the hallway. Pushing the door open, he holds it for Carol and Sarah. Once through, he takes the stairs quickly, the luggage bumping behind him. As they descend, the screams grow louder and more intense. Kyle hopes he is doing the right thing by leaving and isn’t leading his family into the middle of what is going on.

A couple of others join in the stairwell, making their way quickly to the first floor. Something bad is happening by the number of people taking flight.

Perhaps they know something I don’t.

Kyle doesn’t notice much in the way of his surroundings. He just wants to get his family out of the hotel, to their car, and out of town. He doesn’t care about the rest of their vacation, he just wants out and his family safe.

Pushing the steel fire door on the first floor open, he rushes through, holding the door. A chorus of high-pitched shrieks fills the hallway that they empty into. Feeling a shot of adrenaline pound through his system, he looks down the hall toward the lobby. In the dimly lit corridor, people lie on the floor, unmoving. One person kneels over one of the nearer bodies. Kyle immediately thinks it’s someone checking on their condition.

The medics must be onsite already.

The person raises their head. Even in the gloom, Kyle sees dark stains covering the lower portion of their face. The person lifts its head higher and lets out an ear-piercing shriek, surreal in nature. He’s never heard a sound like that come from another human being.

“Out! Out now!” Kyle screams to Carol and pushes her toward the glass exit door just to the side.

The dim figure rises and starts down the hallway toward him, faster than he’s ever seen anyone move. He bangs into the exit door just behind Carol and Sarah. The chill of the night is barely felt under the intensity of the adrenaline coursing through him. He exits into a tendril of fog that swirls around him. Kyle remembers how quickly the second group caught up with the fleeing one. He knows that if the one streaking down the hall toward him gets through the door, he and his family will meet the same fate as the others. Dropping the suitcase handle, he turns to press against the door, forcing it to close faster.

The pneumatic arm of the door fights against him. Through the glass, he sees the person racing toward him. Still pushing, he glances to the side to see Carol and Sarah have stopped for him.

“Get to the car. Lock the doors and if I’m not there in two minutes, leave!” Kyle commands.

“But, Kyle…” Carol says.

“But nothing. Go!”

With another look, Carol turns and runs, gripping Sarah by the hand.

As Kyle watches the figure streaking toward him, he still can’t believe what he saw.

He really couldn’t have been eating the other one, could he?

The door inches closed. Then, with a suddenness that startles him, the door pushes the last inches as if there wasn’t anything fighting him to begin with. Without seeing what happens to the person, and leaving his suitcase lying on the ground, he turns and races after his family, seeing their dim outlines in the fog ahead.

With the mist, it’s hard to tell where the shrieks are coming from. All he knows is that he has to make it with his family to the car. Everything narrows down to that one goal. He catches up with Carol, picks Sarah up in his arms, and they run along the side of the hotel. With shapes passing in the fog around them, they round the corner of the lodge and cut across the lot, making for their car.

The sound of their feet running on the pavement mixes with others in the surrounding area, barely heard through the multitude of cries coming from seemingly every direction. Several misty figures pass to the side. Kyle flinches involuntarily, not knowing if they are part of the group attacking or not. Several gunshots ring out nearby.

Kyle, carrying Sarah, and Carol enter the parking garage. The sound of their running echoes within the concrete enclosure. The fog hasn’t penetrated the structure, bringing everything into a distinct focus. Their car, thankfully on the first floor, comes into view. Kyle panics thinking that he left the keys in the room.

I’ve doomed them with whatever is going on because I forgot the fucking keys
, he thinks, angling toward the vehicle.

His onset of panic leaves as he feels the key ring heavy in his front pocket, scraping against his leg as he runs. Setting Sarah down, he heads to the side door and, with screams surrounding them, unlocks it.

“Get in and climb over the seat,” Kyle tells Sarah, thinking there isn’t time to unlock all of the doors.

As Sarah scrambles inside, Kyle runs to the other side. Unlocking the door, he jumps in. The slamming doors reverberate throughout the structure.

We’ve made it
, Kyle thinks, pushing the lock button with everyone inside.

Normally, Sarah would be asking a thousand questions about what is happening, but she remains silent in the rear seat.

Kyle fumbles with the keys. Eventually finding the right one, it takes a couple of tries before he can insert it into the ignition. Several figures enter the garage from the far side.

“Hurry, Kyle,” Carol says breathlessly.

Without waiting for Sarah to get into her seat and buckle in, Kyle starts the car. It comes to life with a roar. Throwing the shifter into reverse, with the figures closing quickly in, he punches down on the accelerator. The tires screech as the car lunges backward. Turning the wheel, he puts it in drive and heads toward the exit, leaving a single patch of rubber on the smooth concrete surface.

Kyle breathes a sigh of relief as they exit the garage. They made it out of the hotel. He’s still not sure what is happening, but seeing people attack each other, and the one appearing to be eating another, he really doesn’t care. They are out and will drive out of town, all of the way home if need be.

Steering down the driveway in front of the hotel, he enters one of the streets, turning for the highway a short distance away.

“Kyle, are they chasing us?” Carol asks, looking through the rear window.

Kyle turns to look. Misty figures can be seen running under the fog-bound lights. He doesn’t notice his coming to an intersection, nor the motor home.

Thrown forward, he hears the rending shriek of metal being torn. He slams against the rapidly deployed air bag and faintly hears a scream emanating from Carol. The back end of the car rises into the air and then slams back to the paved surface, bringing the car to a halt.

The tinkle of broken glass comes to a quick end. Stunned, Kyle pushes the white air bag down. Ahead, he only sees the smashed-in aluminum side of the vehicle he hit.

“Sarah! Are you okay?” Carol calls.

Kyle hears Sarah crying in the back seat, worried that she wasn’t buckled in and has been hurt. He startles when something slams against the side window. Turning, he sees someone standing by the windowpane, hammering against it. Carol screams, causing Sarah to cry harder.

Reaching down, he finds the keys and turns them. The car only gives a grinding noise and doesn’t start. The powder residue from the air bags, like fine talc, drifts slowly on the air inside. More darkened figures surround the car, the street lights making each a shadow as they begin pounding on the windows. Kyle turns the key again with the same result as the side window cracks, then shatters.

High-pitched shrieks fill the night. Hands reach inside, clawing at him. In his awkward position, Kyle fights the reaching arms.

There are so many of them
, Kyle thinks, feeling hands grab his arm.

He manages to fend them off, feeling only an occasional scratch against his cheek, but he is slowly being pulled from the vehicle, his buckle having broken in the crash. Bucking and thrashing in an attempt to break free, he feels the remains of the glass in the window scrape against his side.

“Kyyyyyle!” he hears Carol scream as he is pulled from the car.

He slams onto the ground, the impact nearly knocking his breath away. Whipping around and writhing, he attempts to break free. He needs to gain control and save his family. There are too many. He feels the weight of several on top, pinning him down. Teeth sink into his cheek and tear. He screams from the pain and from not being able to get to Carol, to get to Sarah…his princess.

He hears another window shatter and, through the bodies of those around him, glimpses a multitude next to the car. He fights but he can’t break free. Warm trickles of blood flow down his cheek.

“Mooooommmm,” Sarah screams.

And enveloping sickness seeps into Kyle. Anger at not being able to help. Sick at hearing Carol and Sarah scream.

My dear sweet girl. Noooo. Please, no. Save her please
.
I’ll do anything. Just please let her be okay
.

Through his thrashing, a mouth finds its way to his neck. Red agony penetrates his anger. He feels a warm spray against his chin. The fog-bound lights above dim, their yellow glow turning gray. They fade and blink out.

Bill isn’t sure if he’s lucky or cursed. He’s still alive, so there is that. But at this moment, he questions how good his fortune is. Given all that he’s gone through in the past months, he would have guessed that he was on the positive side, but now, he’s not so sure. He pulls himself along the ground another foot, his body pushing through pine needles and branches that make up the forest floor.

The morning sun shines through breaks in the branches of the pine trees, casting beams of light through the woods. A breeze rustles the branches making the shadows dance across the ground. Pushing a larger branch to the side, Bill extends his arms and pulls himself a little farther, dragging his injured leg behind. The pain induced by the movement shoots up his leg. He sees the wooden stock with the black rubber butt plate of his rifle several feet away, resting in a pile of needles and branches. That has been his goal for the past while. For now though, he must rest.

Grabbing his leg and bracing himself, he rolls onto his back. He gives a grunt as pain shoots through his body. Laying back, staring at the blue sky through the intertwined branches overhead, he feels the beads of sweat on his forehead cool from a breeze making its way through the woods.

Until a while ago, things were going fine. He’d made it out of Sturgis when things went to shit, retiring to his hunting lodge to wait out the crisis. Only, the crisis didn’t end. Several trips on his horse to the edges of town confirmed that. No one moved in the day lit streets. He had just turned around and headed back to his lodge without looking for survivors.

He knew from experience that a few rattlers could be found in the hills, but didn’t expect one in this region. Heading out at first light, he started by checking traps he had set in the area around his cabin, finding a couple of squirrels that had been caught. He then prowled some of the ravines searching for sign of deer moving through the area. Riding on such a nice day, he was relaxed and caught up in a reverie. The noise of the rattle came as near a shock as his horse shying. It rose up on its hind legs, dumping Bill to the ground, and then bolted through the trees.

As soon as he hit, the snapping sound and the pain told him that he was injured, and more than likely had broken his leg. Holding his leg tightly, and working through the pain, he confirmed the breakage of his lower leg.

Seeing his rifle laying a few yards away, tossed when he was thrown, he began a slow crawl toward it. It wasn’t just the rifle he wanted, but his pack containing most of his gear. He needed to get to its contents before he could think about locating a branch strong and straight enough to make a splint. His horse, nowhere in sight, will eventually make its way back to the cabin. However, Bill will have to make his way back himself. That is his next goal after retrieving his rifle and gear. After that, he will worry about how he is going to get around in order to sustain himself. With a broken leg and only a few medical supplies in the cabin, it’s going to be tough.

To this point, it’s been one agonizing pull after another, with him nearing his gear one foot at a time. Each thrust of his body across the ground brings sharp, searing pain racing up his leg. The agony causes sweat to break out on his forehead with each pull, the intense pain almost triggering unconsciousness.

He’s had to rest between efforts to let the pain ease to dull, aching throbs before forcing himself to do it again. Luckily, the skin isn’t broken and, other than the swelling, it doesn’t appear that he has cut any of the vessels, so it’s highly unlikely that he’s bleeding out internally.

Lying on his back, letting the pain ebb and to catch his breath, Bill thinks back to the time months ago when he was forced to flee into the hills.

*
 
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He had come into town to pick up a few bales of hay and barley for the two horses he stabled on several acres just outside of Sturgis. After he had loaded his red Ford F250 at the feed store, Bill had driven over to his brother’s house. There was only the two of them left in the family, their parents having died many years ago. It had been two years since Bill’s wife died from cancer that came on suddenly, wasting her quickly and leaving them childless. Dave, his brother, had never married.

Both of them were mostly retired, picking up the odd job here and there, so it was an easy guess that Dave was at home. Plus, Dave didn’t own a vehicle, choosing to walk everywhere. He could therefore almost always be found at his house. Every other week or so, Bill would drive into town and the two would pass the night visiting. This evening would be no different. Bill would most likely spend the night and head back to his place in the morning.

The afternoon went by quickly, the passage of time marked by the growing number of empty Coors cans on an end table parked between two lazy boy chairs. They had only moved from their seats to replenish the empty cans with full ones, or if they had to relieve some of their fluids so they could replace it. After Dave fixed them dinner, they settled in for their usual banter and conversations about times past. The light through the thin curtains of the front window grew darker as the day slowly wound down.

With the darkness closing in on the world outside, Bill kicked back, letting the footrest rise. That was when he heard the first scream. It was barely audible, but it was distinct.

“What the fuck was that?” Bill asked, pausing in the midst of bringing his fourth beer to his mouth.

Dave turned his head and glanced toward the window.

“Who knows? Fucking kids are out at all hours of the night when school breaks for the summer,” Dave answered, gesturing outside with his beer. “If you ask me, I’d keep them in school year round. They’d stay out of trouble that way.”

Bill nods and resumes his drink. He didn’t agree with Dave, remembering the fun summers they had hiking through the Black Hills together, but he didn’t say anything. Dave had grown grumpy in his later years, although they were both only in their early forties, and he didn’t want to let the peacefulness of the evening be interrupted by disagreeing. If he did, Dave would launch into one of his harangues about the youth and their lack of respect these days. Sometimes it was fun to prod him and watch him climb onto his high horse to discourse about the ills of the world.

During an earlier visit, they talked about the pandemic sweeping over the world and the number who had taken ill, with many dying. Dave had mentioned his going into town to purchase food and supplies, saying something like, “Those motherfuckers aren’t going to get me sick.”

Bill had kept busy with chores at his place for the most part, not focusing on the flu and how many had come down with the illness. There were times though, that he worried about the high death rate and whether this virus was going to shake civilization to its very core. He was under the opinion that it was not an ‘if’, but ‘when’. Sometimes while making dinner, he wondered if this was ‘the one’.

He had a well and enough food. He knew the Black Hills to the southwest like the back of his hand, so hunting to find enough food wouldn’t be an issue. It would be inconvenient for sure, but not impossible. It was to what extent the flu would take people down that worried him. He knew some who had already succumbed and each time it happened, his anxiety grew.

He had hesitated about coming into town at all, and he knew that if his brother hadn’t lived within the city limits, he wouldn’t have. Buying the extra bales had just been insurance. Driving through the town had seemed odd. There just hadn’t been anyone around and many of the small stores had posted signs: “Closed until further notice.”

Even the diner where he had lunched had been mostly empty. That was a real shock. Most of the times when he had dropped in, it was packed with a lunch crowd, or old-timers hanging around drinking coffee and swapping stories. This time, when he walked in, there had only been a couple of tables taken. It was the same at the market when he picked up the beer for his and Dave’s evening. Many of the shelves had been empty.

Apparently people don’t like Coors
, he had thought, grabbing a half rack.

There had been plenty of that besides the one he had purchased, with many other labels having been depleted.

Several more shrieks interrupted their peaceful evening; coming from the nearby neighborhood streets. Dave sat up in his chair, looking again toward the front window.

“That had better not be the Mayer kids partying,” he said, referring to one of the families living just a few houses down. “Their parents are ill and at the hospital.”

“I doubt they’d be doing that. They seem like pretty good kids to me,” Bill responded, forgoing his earlier decision to not disagree. Dave only grunted and eased back into his chair, taking another drink from his beer.

“Mooooom. Stop! Moooom,” a cry erupted from the night, edging on panic.

Both men sat straight up.

“Dammit!” Dave said sharply, rising from his chair and stepping toward the window. “This isn’t right, Bill, I’m tellin’ ya. The world just isn’t fucking right. We made a wrong turn somewhere and this flu thing is another piece of evidence saying just that.”

A scream of agony overrode the yells of “stop” causing Dave to hesitate a moment on his way to the curtains. Shaking his head, still holding his half-empty can in one hand, Dave continued. Throwing one side of the drapes aside, he stepped to the window, cupping one hand against the glass before the curtains fell back into place, hiding him from view.

Sitting up in his chair, worried over what the scream might mean, Bill waited for word from Dave. The terror inherent in the piercing shrieks made Bill believe that some kid had been found doing something elicit and the mom was about to descend with the hounds of hell behind her. Discipline was one thing, but causing such fear as he heard in that shout, along with the scream of pure agony, well, that was just going too far. He was reaching for his phone when he heard Dave.

“Whoa! What the fuck?” Dave said from behind the curtains.

“What?”

“There’s a bunch of people running down the street,” Dave answered.

“How many are there? And why are they running?” Bill asked, curious and
 
still holding onto his phone.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell but I can see some of them running this way under the street light at the corner. It beats all that I’ve ever heard.”

Bill pushed down the leg rest, thinking about joining Dave, wondering what was happening outside. The shrieking sounds, having become more numerous, also gained in intensity. The first twinges of fear crept into Bill, agreeing with Dave’s exclamation that “this isn’t right.”

“Whoa! What in the serious fuck?” Dave exclaimed, beginning to back out of the curtains.

The sound of breaking glass shattered the last remnants of their peaceful evening. Bill watched as Dave stumbled backward. Reaching out in an attempt to keep his balance, he only managed to pull the drapes down. Stunned, Bill saw someone grab hold of his brother. Stumbling over the falling drapes, Dave went down with his attacker, who apparently charged through the plate glass window, falling on top of him. Dave’s beer was thrown from his hand, arcing through the air and spraying its remains across the room.

Bill remained standing, startled and watching on with disbelief. His beer slipped from his hand, forgotten. The can hit the floor sending a spray of liquid and foam into the air. Falling over, fluid flowed from the opening, gurgling onto the carpet.

With the living room opened to the outside, the shrieks were much louder. Dave screamed, adding his own cries to the mix as he fought the person on top clawing at him. Still in shock, but seeing Dave in desperate straits, Bill ran around the chairs and launched himself at the person attacking his brother.

Slamming into the side of the intruder, Bill grabbed hold of him and rolled over, pulling the crazed man from Dave. The attacker continued shrieking at an ear-piercing volume, all the while trying to free himself. It was all that Bill could do to hang on.

Throwing bales of hay around and working on his little plot of land kept Bill in good shape. He shouldn’t have had any problem subduing the screaming man on top of him. However, the smaller man gave him all that he could handle.

To the side, Bill saw Dave gain his feet and rub at his arm. Wrestling the invader furiously, Bill felt trickles of blood flow down from where the man was cut when he came through the front window. With the attacker’s back to him, and with his strong arms wrapped firmly around the man, Bill expected Dave come to his aid. He was a little peeved that Dave seemed to be taking his time.

“Dave!” Bill shouted, “Do something, man.”

There was no reply. Bill’s leverage was weak and the strength of the man on top was starting to break through his hold. With all of the force he could muster, he rolled and tossed the intruder to the side. Continuing his momentum, Bill moved to his knees and quickly gained his feet. With a snarl, the attacker also sprang upward.

Could this dude be on something?

Amazed at the speed of the man, Bill took a few steps backward and bumped against the chair where he had been relaxing with a beverage only moments ago. Looking for Dave, he saw him standing near the open front door. His eyes were wide with fear, and something else. An apologetic look?