Containment (28 page)

Neil considered the younger man for a moment and thought about what he was saying. It did make sense that Dr. Caldwell would lead the others away as fast as he could, but there was something about the doctor that led him to believe that there were other options that might take precedence. For instance, they could make their way across the bridge and onto the Air Force Base and leave notes and markers behind to point the way toward them. Then there was the possibility that Dr. Caldwell would be waiting for them more or less where they had parted ways. He thought about Meghan and wondered how she was doing. He’d promised that he would stay in touch with them on the radio. The device had limited range and capacity, making it less than ideal, but it was at least something. And it was lying uselessly on the floor of the Hilton Hotel or in the middle of the street or something.

“Is there any way at all that maybe...”

Jerry shook his head and barked, “They’re gone. I think we’ve just got to face it. Meghan. Claire. All of them.”

“I’ve gotta believe that they’re still there, Jerry. They’ve just gotta be.”

“Why? What makes you think that we’ll ever see them again?”

“Because the alternative really sucks, that’s why.”

Jerry turned that over in his mind a few times while he fought with a couple slivers of sausage stuck between his teeth. He couldn’t stop thinking about Claire and getting back to her. He imagined Neil and him getting away to nothing and always being on the run without a single hope of seeing anyone else ever again. Neil was right and he knew it. Even if they weren’t destined to see the others again, they could at least try. “Okay. You’re right. Do you ever get tired of being right all the time?”

“I think you’d have a long line of people who’d disagree with you on that one, starting with my parents and ex-wife.”

“Still?”

“Well, a few weeks ago I think you would’ve had a lot longer line than now, but my parents are still alive down in the Lower Forty-Eight, and my ex-wife would probably hate me from the grave.”

“Pretty rough divorce?”

“Let’s just say that I wouldn’t be surprised to see her attorney out there leading the zombies so that he could squeeze a little more of my life out of me as a final compensation to her for having married me in the first place.”

“Jesus. That’s rough.”

“Ancient history now.”

They got up and went to the end of the hall. There was a small window that looked out onto the opposite lot from which they had come. From the window, it didn’t appear that there were any of the ghouls waiting for them in that direction. Rested and partially fed, the two men were feeling much better than when they came into the building. Like a pair of athletes preparing to start a marathon, they stretched their legs and checked their gear.

As they stood in front of a door leading out into the lot they had inspected from above, Neil said confidently, “I think we’ve got this. If we can get out without making much noise, maybe we could sneak away without them even noticing.”

Jerry nodded. Neil nodded back and put his hand to the push door handle. “Ready?” Again Jerry nodded, exhaling a deep breath.

Neil pushed the door open and was immediately grabbed by a filthy, grey hand that clawed at him violently. Hitting and pushing as forcefully as his fear would allow, Neil was able to finally break the thing’s grip and force it back. It was a man who was wearing the blue denim uniform of a delivery driver. The one good hand was already reaching back toward Neil while his other mangled limb was still swinging uselessly at his side.

There was another of the fiends just behind him; this one a woman in a business suit of sorts. The front of her throat was a mutilated mess of decomposing, frayed flesh that revealed the small bones and deteriorating muscle tissue of her windpipe and gullet.

Neil didn’t hesitate for the slightest instant. He leveled the shotgun in his hands and fired. The blast opened a large hole in the man standing in front of him and sent him sprawling on top of the woman. With his second shot, Neil hit the man again, pressing him further into the woman until they were knotted enough to allow Neil and Jerry to get away.

As they started to run again, Jerry said, “So much for getting away quietly. Where to?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Just run!”

They could hear the horde behind them get excited again and start to shuffle toward them. There was thankfully some distance that separated them now so that the two men didn’t feel the need to maintain a sprinting pace. They were able to settle into a more long distance trot of sorts.

As they continued east, the buildings became more tightly packed and the streets more clearly defined. The two of them ducked into another building and waited long enough to let their pursuers unknowingly run by and disappear out of sight. When they felt like it was safe to start moving again, they went back in the direction from whence they had come. They found a staircase cut into the side of a grassy incline and used that to get back up to Third Avenue and downtown Anchorage. With the threat behind them still in the Ship Creek area, Neil and Jerry were able to slow their pace somewhat and catch their breath.

Just minutes later, they crested another set of stairs through a retail center and were back up on Fourth Avenue within sight of the B Street parking garage. Standing on the now vacant street, Jerry looked down the road and saw what was undeniably Dr. Caldwell standing atop the parking garage and waving at them.

Jerry nudged Neil with his shoulder. “You were right again my friend. And thank God for it.”

They were circling her slowly, deliberately, repeating over and over again, “Zombie. Zombie. Come to life.” And then they started to count down from ten to one. The voices were children’s but the faces were those of Dr. Caldwell, Emma, Claire, Art, Jerry, and even Neil. They were looking at her, the playful menace in their expressions darkening with each pass. Their voices started to jumble themselves into a confused, twisted echo.

Meghan was aware that she was lying on her back but try as she might, she couldn’t rise up or even change positions for that matter. She was at the mercy of the swirling voices around her. She was terrified and helpless. The fear was not alone however. She felt her anger slowly start to simmer, building pressure and heat like a biological crock-pot, until her blood threatened to boil in her veins. The taunting fear faded, gradually pushed away by an overwhelming hunger that sent crackling jolts of unexpected sensation into her seemingly lifeless extremities. The hunger fueled the anger and the anger gave anima back to her limbs.

All at once, she was on her feet again, only she wasn’t sure who she was anymore, or
what
she was. The only certainty that she felt was the hunger. She needed to feed. She could smell...prey; delicate, tempting, and near. She could smell life and all of its juicy, salty possibilities.

“Zombie. Zombie. Come to life,” continued to echo around her in the voices of children. She lashed out with her hand and brought it back empty. She reached again and again and each time her attempts were fruitless. Finally, her clutched fist brought back a squirming, squealing little creature...a pig perhaps. She barely even paused to consider it before her gaping maw was chewing into it. The raw, briny bits of flesh spilled down her throat only half-chewed, filling her stomach and still the hunger persisted.

Her quarry was limp and lifeless, cold and uninviting. She tossed it aside and realized it was the body of a child. It was a beautiful blond-haired girl she knew. It was Jules, and instead of being horrified at her choice of prey, all she could think to do was find Danny and do the same to him. She spun around looking for the second child. She could smell him. She could almost taste his scent it was so strong.

The hunger, gnawing at her from the inside out, was driving her mad. She heard herself make the voracious grunts and growls of a predatory beast. She saw another face. She knew it, not that it mattered. She must feed. She must always feed. But she did know it. Wasn’t his name Neil? He was special once. Yes, he was Neil. He was trying to talk to her; to tell her something. He was motioning to her but she couldn’t hear him for the other voices. “Zombie. Zombie. Come to life.”

The voice was becoming more prevalent as her vision again began to fade until there was only his voice. She still couldn’t understand it but she could hear the words; it was more than just gibberish.

Meghan’s eyes fluttered slightly and then she saw Neil looking down at her.

“You awake sleepy head? I thought you might be having a nightmare because of the noises you were making.” She sat up abruptly and hugged him.

“You okay?”

“I will be in a few seconds. Just hold me please.”

Neil didn’t say anything more. He knew what was going on. They all had nightmares and day-mares and even still awake-mares. It was hard to escape when you were living day in and day out through a reality that trumped most nightmares.

Meghan, trying to shake away the sleep that was still lingering, asked, “How long has it been? How long did I sleep?”

Neil told her that it had been just over twenty-four hours since they had all crossed the bridge onto Elmendorf. She wasn’t quite certain what she had been expecting, but more of the same wasn’t it. She held onto hope that with her next waking moment, she would be greeted with a smile and some genuinely good news.

As he held Meghan and tried to will away the terror that tormented her behind the veil of sleep, Neil remembered those emotional moments. The joy of reuniting was eclipsed by their persistent survival needs. They needed shelter. They needed to keep moving, and so they had.

The bridge might as well have spanned the River Styx, allowing access to the Gates of Hades and the unknown perils of the Underworld. They marched slowly, looking in every direction but down. Below them, amidst the idle businesses of Ship Creek, was the pursuing horde to which Jerry and Neil had given the slip.

Once across, Dr. Caldwell fully expected to be confronted by new horrors. It felt like they were journeying into some new Hell, another of Dante’s wicked Circles with fresh torments. Anti-climactically, it just appeared to be more of the same. Perhaps that was Hell enough.

At the main entrance of the Elmendorf side of the joint military base, the guard building had been reduced to a blackened pile of ashes, charred lumber remnants, and crumbling, scorched bricks. Lying around the ruins of the building were several mostly decomposed bodies. Most of the flesh from these corpses had been picked cleanly from the bone, leaving the skeletons to begin to shed their copper tones of blood and tissue for the white of the bleaching sun.

As if the Nature Gods could sense the mood of the group, the sky began in fits and starts to empty its Stratus buckets onto their heads. It was as if a giant celestial sponge was being wrung dry above them. Soon the drizzle became a downpour so that all of their heads, their clothing, and their gear were soaked and dripping.

Jules and Danny were the only ones in truly rainproof jackets so, thankfully, they were spared the discomfort and chill of being drenched to the bone. Poor Gerald, Dave, and Evelyn, the survivors from the bus, were all ill prepared for the weather and were, consequently, miserable. None of them had anything more than what they had been wearing those several weeks ago when they’d been forced into the survival marathon still currently being run. There was, unfortunately, not much extra clothing or jackets to be shared, but that which could be shared was. So, the three suffered through the autumn shower and felt their body temperatures and their immune systems drop along with the moistened air temperatures.

As they passed through the gate area, Meghan pointed out that a fair distance up the main road there were a handful of camouflage-clad fiends loitering, waiting, wanting. The things were mostly still, standing like deadly statues waiting for divine life to be breathed into their ruined bodies.

Jerry hoisted his scoped hunting rifle to his shoulder and peered through the telescoping lens. He placed the black cross-hair on one of their heads but paused when Neil touched his arm. “They don’t know we’re here and by the time they start heading this way we’ll be on ours. No point in drawing any more attention to us than we have to.”

Jerry nodded and put the rifle back over his shoulder. He then removed the automatic pistol from his hip holster and checked that it was cocked and loaded. “Right again.”

Neil smiled. “You’re gonna give me a complex.”

Claire asked, “What the hell are you two talking about?”

They both answered as they started to walk away, “Nothin’.”

It was late afternoon by then and the prospect of traveling in the dark with the unknown all around did not appeal to any of them, so they made a priority of finding shelter for the night. Following the road on which they were already traveling, they soon found themselves in the midst of base housing. The neighborhoods on Elmendorf were no different than the neighborhoods through which they had passed everywhere else in Anchorage. Aside from the empty shell casings from spent bullets and the random discarded clothing and luggage, there was a serenity clinging to the residential streets.

In short order, they found an open two-story home that would suit their purposes. With exhausted legs and weary minds, they made themselves comfortable on couches, chairs, and beds. They eagerly invited any change from the lethal monotony of running and hiding, running and hiding, running and…. It was a draining routine that was not too different from that of prey species on savannah of Africa or the tundra of Alaska.