Die Trying: A Zombie Apocalypse (14 page)

“Enough of this shit,” he said, without a hint of emotion in his voice. He was completely cool. “We’ve got enough to deal with, without you two trying to rip each other’s throats out. You’re brothers, for fuck’s sake. Why don’t you try acting like it?”

Jed thought that was
bitterly ironic. He huffed and puffed for another minute in silence until the tension went out of his expression. But he stayed up on the balls of his feet, his big fists bunched.

“Now we need to decide what to do next. We need to come up with a plan – and that
ain’t going to happen until you two calm the fuck down.” Walker looked long and hard at Jed.

Jed grunted. “I’m calm.”

Walker turned on me. “I’m calm,” I said.

But I wasn’t.

We went back into the living room, and found Harrigan standing in the middle of the floor with my gun raised uncertainly. He looked agitated.

“Everything all right?” he asked quickly. “I heard raised voices.” Walker’s daughter was standing behind him, shielded by the weighty expanse of his heavy frame. “I… I thought maybe…”

I waved away his fear. “Relax, Clinton. Everything’s okay. Jed and I were just having a brotherly discussion, and Mr Walker was offering his opinion.”

“That’s all it was? I… I thought…”

“That’s all it was,” I assured him. “There’s nothing going on outside. We’ve been checking the windows while we searched the house.”

I crossed the room and took the gun from
Harrigan. The sudden storm of noise in the kitchen had really rattled him.

Slowly, the girl emerged from hiding. She went and stood beside her father, like she was glued to his hip.

I dropped down to the floor and rubbed at my face like it was frozen and I was trying to get the blood circulating. I was suddenly very tired. I felt it in my bones – the weary ache of exhaustion and nerves that had been strung taut for too long. The tension was getting to all of us – and I realized it wasn’t likely to get any easier.

“We need to decide what we’re going to do,” I sighed, echoing Walker’s comment in the kitchen. “We can’t stay here forever, and we know help is unlikely to arrive. We’re on our own, people. We’ve got to make the best of it.”

One by one the others got comfortable on the floor around me. Only Harrigan stayed on his feet. He stood in the hallway entrance like he was unsure what to do – join the conversation, or keep watch through the kitchen window.

I waved him down. “
This is important, Clinton. You should have a say. It’s your life – and our lives – we’re talking about. I don’t want anyone to complain that they didn’t have a chance to speak, once we reach a decision.”

Harrigan
stayed in the hallway opening, but reluctantly slid his back down the wall until he was sitting. But he wasn’t at all relaxed. He looked like he was poised to spring to his feet at the slightest sound.

Half a minute passed in total silence, thirty seconds before I spoke. When at last, I did, my voice was flat and devoid of any emotion, a low monotone in the eerie hush that was broken only by the sound of breathing.

“This meeting isn’t to decide if we should move from this house,” I said. “It’s to decide which way we go when we leave – and whether we should stay as a group, or separate.”

I hadn’t thought about that second option – hadn’t thought about it at all until the instant the words slipped from my mouth. It caught me – and everyone else by surprise.

The silence in the room was a heavy melancholy gloom, the tension becoming more palpable. I saw Jed’s eyes narrow into cunning, calculating little slits, and I saw Harrigan inhale a sudden sharp breath. Only Walker seemed not to react. It was like the man was carved from stone.

“Sep
arating would be a bad idea,” Walker said, and his voice dropped to a low rumble like distant thunder. He leaned forward, his face intent and serious. “There’s strength in numbers. More guns – more eyes. There are enough of us for the group to rest while others guard. We will stand a better chance,” he said. “If we separate, we will all die.” Walker was worried all right – I could hear it in his voice – but he wasn’t scared. In fact he didn’t look like the kind of man that scared easily.

I saw
Harrigan from the corner of my eye. He was nodding his head. I glanced at Jed. He glared back at me.

“That makes sense,” I conceded. I remembered the terror of those first days of the apoca
lypse before Jed and I had stumbled upon the safe house. They were dark horrifying days and nights filled with nerve-wracking anxiety. There hadn’t been a single moment to relax, or a moment to rest. It was a waking nightmare of constant fear that went on without end.

There were still problems that needed answers. My eyes made another searching sweep across the faces gathered around, and then I started with the biggest question of all. “Where do we go?”

Walker spoke immediately, which surprised me. I had formed the opinion that he was the kind of man who sat back and watched, and only intervened or became involved after carefully assessing a situation. But now his voice had a restrained measure of urgency to it.

“We
head towards Pentelle,” he said. Emphatic.

For several seconds the room
remained silent. Finally it was Jed who spoke.

“Why?” he asked, his attitude petulant and simmering with rebellion. “Why not head towards Richmond? Or why don’t we get onto the 64 and make a run towards West Virginia?” He got to his feet quite suddenly and stabbed his finger in Walker’s direction
but his question was aimed squarely at me and Harrigan. “Why are we just going where this guy wants us to go?”

“It’s not where I want to go,” Walker’s
calm restraint slipped a notch. “It’s the only place left to go,” he said. He came to his feet like a cat, surprisingly agile for a big man. Secretly, I guessed that Walker and Jed would be a good physical match for each other. Jed was an inch taller, and maybe a few pounds of muscle heavier, but Walker moved like he knew how to fight. He carried his strength in his shoulders and thighs, and looked like he was more than capable of trading blows in a fist-fight.

“Richmond is a slaughter-house. And West Virginia is a waste
land. There’s nothing left, man,” Walker said. “Life no longer exists the way it once did. There are only the undead, those about to become undead – and a few thousand survivors, aboard navy vessels in the Atlantic, east of Norfolk. There’s nothing else,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

I turned to
Harrigan. So far he hadn’t said a word. “Clinton? You’re part of this group. What do you think?”

For a long time
Harrigan said nothing. There was no sound at all. Everyone’s head turned towards him, and he got slowly to his feet, almost statesman-like, as though he were burdened with some dreadful news he was about to share.

His eyes swept across our faces, and then finally he said, “I vote that we attempt to rea
ch Pentelle,” he said slowly, “– but it won’t make any difference. We’re all going to die.”

He didn’t say it with his words filled with panic. He didn’t say it with his face twisted in fear or despair. He said it like it was a simple, unavoidable statement of fact. That’s what scared me.

I stared at him, stunned. “What?”

He slid his hand deep inside the pocket of his trousers and pulled out the small worn copy of his Bible. He had a page marked and the book fell open.

“And this shall be the plague
wherewithin the Lord will smite all the people

That have
fought against Jerusalem;

Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,

And their eyes shall consume away in their holes,

And their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.”

He closed the book, and tucked it back into his pocket. “That was Zechariah 14:12,”
Harrigan explained.

I didn’t know what to say. None of us did. We all stared at
Harrigan for half a minute, and he stared right back at us, his gaze level and steady. Even Jed seemed stunned to silence.

I frowned. “Then why vote for trying to reach
Pentelle, Clinton?” I asked gently. “Why didn’t you vote to stay here – to hide and wait it out? If you think the Bible has predicted doomsday, then why are you in favor of trying to travel forty miles through hordes of infected ghouls?”

Harrigan
smiled – but it was a listless, tired gesture, like he had already considered the question himself, and already knew the answer. “Because,” he said softly, “it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees. And if we’re going to die – if the good Lord has turned His back on a world filled with sinners – then I want to die trying.”

Harrigan
sounded like a wise old prophet who had just come down from the mountaintop. It surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. He was a thoughtful, intelligent man. He never said much, but I had learned during the last week that when he spoke, he was a man worth listening to.

I turned back to Jed. “Do you still vote in favor of heading to Richmond, or West Virginia?”

He glared at me and screwed up his face. “Is there any point?”

“No,” I shook my head. “Not really. Not unless you want to go alone, because it seems that the rest of us are heading south – to
Pentelle.”

I looked back to Walker. “When?”

He looked a little bemused. “Why are you handing all these decisions to me?” he asked slowly. “Have you finally decided that I’m trustworthy?”

I smiled coldly. “No,” I said. “But I’m trusting you to make the best decisions for your daughter
’s safety. You’re the military guy, and you’re the one who knows about the Jaws virus. You’re the most likely one amongst us to make good choices.”

He sat back down and thought for a moment. “If we go tonight, we would be travelling in the dark,” he said. “We’d need to find a car and navigate our way through the suburbs until we could get onto the highway.” He made a sound like he was sucking air through his teeth. “On the one hand, we have the cover of darkness, but on the other hand, we’ll never see what’s coming. We won’t have time for alternative options.”

“But surely the cover of dark is a big advantage,” I said. “Especially if we can stay quiet.”

“In a car?” Walker shook his head. “Any undead within a mile will be drawn by the sound of the engine. And
remember, the cover of darkness only conceals us until we find a car. From the moment we gun the engine, we’re going to become targets.”

I sat back.
“So it’s daylight. Tomorrow.”

“Walker nodded. “We’ll be at risk from the moment we leave this house until the moment we find a car,” he said. “But after that we’ll have the advantage of daylight. If the road is blocked with wrecked debris, we might be able to go around.
Once we make it to the freeway, the going will get easier.” Then he shrugged, as if to say,
‘well it’s a plan, but it’s not a very good plan’.

I glanced over my shoulder at
Harrigan. He nodded, but said nothing more. Jed huffed and blustered for a few seconds and then stormed out into the kitchen.

The discussion washed away into heavy silence.
Harrigan disappeared down the hallway. I guess I became grim and reflective. In twenty-four hours we were going to burst out of the house and make a mad, desperate dash for a car – supposing we could find one before the undead filled the streets and we were torn to pieces. But I had no illusions that our escape would be the romantic stuff of movies. This wouldn’t be a guns-blazing charge into legend – it was going to be a terrifying, stomach-churning scramble.

Harrigan
was gone for some time, and when he finally came back into the living room, there was something in his face. Maybe frustration, or concern – I couldn’t tell. He was carrying a couple of cans of soda. He handed me one without saying a word and offered the other to Walker. Walker shook his head curtly. Clearly, there were more important things on his mind. His face was pale and full of worry.

“Best-case scenario is that we find a
n SUV nearby,” Walker said. “One with the keys in the ignition, and a full tank of gas.”

I almost laughed, but feared if I did, I might sound slightly hysterical. “I don’t like your chances,” I said.

“No, neither do I,” Walker admitted. “But even a mid-sized sedan will do until we can get clear to the freeway,” he said. “Half a tank of gas would be enough. Once we’re in the clear, we’ll have time to look for a better option.”

“Have you thought about a driver?” I asked.

He stared at me. “You.”

“Me?” I was appalled. “My driving record isn’t too good,” I reminded him. “I crashed
the first car Jed and I escaped in, and I killed the second one.”

Walker seemed deaf. “You,” he said again. “And your brother
up front beside you.”

I frowned at that. “Maybe Jed should be in the driver’s seat…”

Walker shook his head. “No,” he said. “At least you are mentally stable. I’m not so sure about your brother – and besides, he looks like he would enjoy the violence of blazing away at the undead. I’d hate to deny him the opportunity if it comes to that.”