Decay (Book 1): Civilization (11 page)

By the time Deacon and Kathrine tied the boy up in Kathrine’s coat, Tommy had carried Kyle to the truck and helped him into the back seat. Blood poured quickly from the wound on his arm. Tommy could see most of the blood had flown from Kyle’s radial artery. He applied pressure to his arm in hopes of slowing the flow, but the artery had been ripped open, allowing too much blood lose already.

Chapter 10

Deacon blasted the sirens as soon as he climbed into the driver’s seat of the massive truck. He pulled out onto the street with the plan of looping around the block and heading toward the hospital. Most of the street was clear of civilians; however, many abandoned vehicles were scattered about.

“Engine twenty-one to dispatch,” Kathrine said into the radio. “Do you copy dispatch?” Silence. “Engine twenty-one to dispatch, can you hear me?” Silence. “Dispatch! Where the hell are you?” She slammed the radio handset into the windshield, cracking the glass, and let out a scream.

“I’m sure they are busy with all this chaos,” Deacon assured her. “Try your cell; call the hospital and let them know we are coming.”

Kathrine thumbed through the contacts until she reached the number for the emergency room. She pressed the screen above the name and the phone connected the call. Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring… Squeezing the phone tightly in her hand, Kathrine fought hard to not throw the phone into the windshield as well. “Just get us there quickly,” she finally said.

None of the three firefighters knew what to think of the gruesome scene all around them as they drove through the city toward the hospital. Blood stained spots on the concrete, people ran for their lives, others lay dead in yards or next to their cars. Many of the bodies were missing arms or legs.

Kyle lay on the seat, sweat beaded up on his pale face and neck. His breathing became very shallow and raspy. Tommy sat on the floor next to him watching out the side window. He didn’t want to let go of Kyle’s arm in fear of the blood pumping too quickly out of his body.

The closer they made it to the hospital, the more packed the street became with abandoned cars. Deacon slowed down, but only enough to do less damage to the truck as he plowed through the street, shoving cars and trucks out of the way with the bumper. He shut the siren off, as it finally occurred to him that it was still on and none of these cars were going to move out of the way on their own.

Many people wandered around in front of the hospital. They were covered in blood and looked sick. “This must be the line for the ER?” Deacon asked.

“Hopefully we can at least get what we need to patch Kyle up and go,” said Kathrine. “I can’t believe this. Look at these people. They look like they have been through hell.”

As the truck moved through the hospital parking lot, people came up and banged on the doors. The blood on their hands smeared the glass. Deacon pulled the truck as close as he could to the entrance, jumped out, and ran around to the other side to help Tommy and Kyle.

“Get back please. We have a firefighter injured,” he told the crowd as they closed in. “Don’t worry. We aren’t cutting in front of you. We are going to grab what we need and be on our way.”

The bloody people moved in closer still and reached for Kyle and Tommy as they climbed down out of the truck. Tommy shoved them back and held on tight to his friend as he tried to rush him to the entrance. He quickly lost Kyle in the mob as the group became too thick to keep away.

“Kyle!” shouted Tommy. He plunged into the crowd to save his friend. ”Get off my friend!” He was followed closely by Deacon and Kathrine, who fought people off as they made their way to Kyle. When the three finally made it through the violent crowd they saw Kyle being ripped apart.

His screams were weak, but they were enough to express the pain he felt as his left knee was stomped on until it bent backwards. Two men pulled on his head while a woman bent his fingers back before biting them off.  One of the men shoved two of his fingers into Kyle’s right eye and pulled and twisted his head until his neck snapped.

Kyle’s body went limp, his pain had ended. Tommy let out a yell like a battle cry and swung his strong arms at anyone close by. Deacon continued struggling to reach Kyle’s body when he heard Kathrine’s scream erupt from behind him. “Kathrine!” he yelled before charging back to where she was.

Tommy smashed several of the attackers. He was as sure of what was going on as anyone else, but he intended to fight for the lives of his friends. Moving quickly behind Deacon, he punched and kicked anyone that came within reach.

“Kathrine!” Deacon yelled again as he saw her lying on her stomach. A group of people stood above her, stomping on her back and pulling her hair. She kicked and punched at them, but it was not enough. Blood sprayed the concrete from her broken nose.

“Deacon. Please help me,” she sobbed. “I want to go home to my little boy. Take me home to my boy.”

Tommy charged hard into the group, knocking everyone back like bowling pins. Deacon followed close behind. Together they picked Kathrine up from the parking lot and started toward the truck. Through all the blood and dirt on her face, Deacon could see that her left eye was swollen shut and her nose was busted wide open.

As they reached the truck, Tommy yelled out in pain. A woman had latched onto his leg and bite deep into his calf. Deacon helped Kathrine up into the truck and turned around to help Tommy. He stomped on the woman’s neck, and just when she let go another woman grabbed ahold of Tommy. This one scratched at his face while chewing the skin off his arm.

“Get in the truck!” yelled Tommy. “I’ll hold them off. You get Kathrine the hell outta here.”

“I can’t leave you behind, Tommy.” Deacon ran back to the truck and grabbed the red fire axe, as he returned he swung it hard into the second woman’s back. She seemed to be unfazed, so Deacon swung again and again. Tommy was able to knock her off, and Deacon used this opportunity to chop into the woman until his arms were sore. In the end, her head was nothing more than a mushy pile.

Tommy wasn’t there when Deacon turned back to him. In his place stood several others, and before Deacon had a chance to move they were all over him. He cowered down, not sure what to do. Pulling his thick coat over him, Deacon lay on the concrete. The men and woman around him punched, kicked, and scratched at him in an attempt to rip him apart, yet his bunker gear was far too thick.

Strong arms wrapped around him, lifting him up off the parking lot. Deacon was sure this was it for him. His body was flung over his attackers shoulders, and he realized that he was not being attacked. He peeked out of his coat to see that he was being carried to the truck by Tommy.

Most of Tommy’s face was covered in blood. He was missing most of his left ear, and a chunk of his neck had been torn open. Blood spewed from the gash. “Get in the truck, and this time shut the hell up. Get in!” Tommy yelled at Deacon as he threw him up onto the driver’s seat.

Deacon finally was able to take a good look at his friend. Two of the fingers on Tommy’s right hand were broken, both of which were bent to the side and dark purple in color, and the right side of his face was just as bad as the left. Even as Tommy stood there he was being attacked. The strong man held back the rushing crowd as Deacon started the truck.

“Hop in Tommy!” Deacon said through the window. “We’re ready to move.” He looked down at Tommy, who made eye contact one last time before pushing his way through the violent crowd. “TOMMY!” But it was too late. Tommy only made it ten yards before being dragged to the ground.

Looking back to Kathrine, whose pale skin made her look terribly sick, Deacon knew he had to leave. He now had only the hope that he could save at least one of his friends. He would take Kathrine to a hospital in the next town over. Backing the large truck up was difficult with the amount of cars in the way. The occasional bump in the street turned out to be a person who failed to step aside for the fire truck.

After successfully backing out of the hospital parking lot, Deacon saw that the destruction was happening exponentially. In the short amount of time they were there, the chaos had spread like a California wildfire. Deacon decided that he would slow down for nobody. After what he just witnessed, he knew there was no hope for anyone running around the streets anyway.

A man reached up from the back seat and grabbed Deacon’s hair. He raised his right arm and blocked the attack with his heavy coat. Kathrine punched at the man weakly in an attempt to help, but she had no effect on him other than drawing his attention.

The man turned to Kathrine, his busted wire framed glasses just barely holding on. Deacon struggled to maintain control of the vehicle as he tried to pry the man away from her. Pulling hard on the man’s red University of Southern California shirt, Deacon realized he was losing this fight. He propped his knee under the steering wheel and reached both hands around the man’s waist.

By the time Deacon finally pulled the man way from Kathrine it was too late to regain control of the truck. The thirty-five thousand pound truck collided with a large palm tree. It was only moving at forty miles per hour, but the amount of momentum caused the front to collapse a split second before the palm tree snapped and fell slowly to the ground.

Deacon’s vision was blurred as his head throbbed. He knew he could have only been there for a moment, yet it felt like he had the worst hangover of his life. In a daze, he stepped out of the truck and fell to the street where he threw up the small amount of liquid that was in his stomach.

As the dizzy spell passed, he stood and walked back to the truck to find Kathrine. Climbing in the driver’s side first he saw the man crushed between the dash and broken windshield. His body twitched and jerked as if he was trying to free himself.
It’s only nerves
, Deacon thought.

Before climbing back out he grabbed the axe from under the twitching dead man. Making his way around the truck he checked the street around him. For the most part it was empty. He could see what appeared to be a woman eating the remains of a child on the sidewalk.
I must being seeing things
. After climbing over the trunk of the downed palm tree he noticed that the passenger door was wide open.

“Kathrine!” he yelled as he ran to the open door. “Kathrine! Can you hear me?” He didn’t receive a response. KATHRINE!” he screamed it this time. All sound stopped. The distant rustling of feet and pained moans dissipated. Then Deacon realized that everyone within sight of him was watching him with curiosity, and then they moved toward him.

Chapter 11

“I never saw Kathrine after that. Those damned people chased after me the whole way back to the fire house. I managed to hide out there for a while, at least until things settled in a bit and I ran out of food. If only we had paid more attention to the reports. I initially thought it was just a bunch of drug addicts attackin’ everybody. After all, they get doped up on a pharmacy list of drugs and they’ll eat your damn face or arms off,” he said before putting the piece of rabbit back onto his plate and pushing it aside.

After filling up on the freshly cooked meat and the vegetables that Guillermo had brought, they began to plan their group’s move to the attic. Bradley and Roger would head back for Emalynn and the children, and Guillermo would stay and scout further south. When they made it back with the children they would eat and sleep. In the morning they would move along.

Guillermo set out first, shaking Bradley’s hand before parting ways. He moved to the south. Movement was much quicker now. He had been moving around on his own for a while. From here on out it was only houses. Yard after yard, Guillermo moved along quietly.

Although he checked the yard before dropping down from the wall, the fiend came from out of nowhere. The hand grabbed his shirt, causing him to spin around, losing his balance, and landing on his back. He kicked into the fiend’s stomach with all his strength. The dead man fell to the ground with his thick stomach contents oozing from his mouth, but he was soon back to his feet.

Guillermo retrieved his blade from his pack and swung at the man, slicing through his fingers, which did nothing to slow him down. He continued his relentless pursuit. Guillermo kept swinging until the swinging turned to chopping. Both of the man’s mutilated arms flopped down in front of him like short fat snakes in tall grass. As the fiend came closer the chops started landing in his face. Even after he lay in the grass no longer moving, Guillermo continued to chop into his head.

He took a moment to rest against the wall. He wasn’t entirely sure where he was, but he knew he had made it quite a ways from the attic Deacon lived in. The sun was high overhead, making it hard to determine direction. He knew visibility would be at its best right now, however, and he knew his way around this area well once he had his bearings back.

Climbing back to his feet, he continued to the end of the yard. The wall around the yard was roughly five feet tall. Guillermo easily lifted himself up with his strong arms and looked at the street on the other side.

Fiends were moving around all over. He wasn’t sure what the best plan would be from here. He walked to the wall facing into the next yard and peeked over it. This yard was empty, so he pulled himself over and dropped down gently into the soft grass. He continued to make his way through the yard, thinking to himself how easy it will be to move from yard to yard behind the wall.

As he approached the end of the house on his way through the yard three fiends stood there facing the other direction. Guillermo stopped and backed up against the house. A fourth fiend came out of the door behind him and grabbed his arm.

Guillermo spun around to face the fiend and jumped back. The short girl was missing her right eye and her lips were gone. Left in their place was gruesome teeth marks and bits of hanging flesh. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen when she was killed. Her eye probably gouged out while a close friend or family member chewed her lips off.

The blade cut through the dead flesh on the fiend’s arm, slicing clean through the bone. He let out a low grunt as he plunged the blade deep into her good eye. Her body instantly fell lifeless to the concrete-tile patio, which was enough to alert the others to his presence.

Instead of fighting the remaining three, Guillermo decided it would be best to just make a run for the wall and hop into the next yard. He jumped hard, grabbing the top of the wall and propelling himself over.

Unfortunately, he came down into a filthy swimming pool. The water tasted putrid as it found its way into his mouth and rushed up his nose. He flailed around trying to right himself and make his way above the water. As his head broke the plane, a filmy layer of slime stuck to his face. He spit out the water and inhaled a deep breath.

Much of the slime on his face was sucked into his mouth. It was like eating a ball of snot. Before he could clear his eyes of the gross membrane, a hand grabbed ahold of his ankle and pulled him back under the water. He found himself staring through the murky liquid and into the decayed face of a dead woman. It was obvious from the way her lose skin seemed to float away from her body that she had been under the water for quite some time.

Guillermo kicked as hard as he could, but it wasn’t enough to cause the woman to release her grip on his ankle. He lifted his head above the water to take a breath. Then plunged himself down and grabbed the skin on the woman’s hand, it slid from her bones like a glove, revealing the soft muscle underneath. He was able to shake his ankle free of the skin-gloved hand and surface once again.

He looked around into a yard full of fiends, and they were all making their way toward the pool. He swam to the only opening he could see and climbed out quickly. He reached back to grab his blade, only to discover he had dropped it when he fell into the pool. His only option now was to make another run for the next yard and pray there was no water-filled death-hole.

He pushed hard into the closest fiend, knocking him into the water, and he ran straight to the wall. He jumped and used that momentum to help carry him over. The grass was soft as he landed on the ground, but it still knocked some of the wind out of him. He lifted himself up onto his knees and looked around the yard as he held his stomach. The problem with this yard is there was no wall around it. He had landed on a corner lot, and every fiend on the block had stopped to look at him.