Fear of the Dead (13 page)

Erin strafed to the right, moving around the chair to meet her victim. Now, as she was further away from the door, Linus tossed the leather seat in her face, then stormed out the room. His footsteps echoed along the narrow corridor, the noise increasing two-fold only once he sensed Erin chasing behind his tail. She screamed, and Linus suddenly lost control. His right foot failed to meet the carpet floor, causing his entire body to drop.

The infected landed on top, forcing her weight down his torso. Linus squirmed her off her balance, then backed away. He coiled his left foot backwards, then sprung it to meet Erin's jaw. She was finally knocked off by his force, giving Linus more than enough time to amble back up and run. Erin continued to give chase, but Linus had the head start advantage. The only problem now rested on the fact that he didn't know where to go. Which way to move, where to turn, and which door to hide behind. His body moved on fear and instinct, heeding no mind to thought.

Linus turned a blind corner to where the station's commemorative merits stood encased in glass. He saw briefly a woman that looked like Erin, smiling at the group shot frame while holding a golden trophy. In the corner of his eye, another picture of Erin, but here with another, shorter man. He was Hispanic, had short black hair, and a fairly large nose.

Linus didn't catch the man's portrait for much longer than a second. He dismissed it almost as soon as he passed it by, but remembered it once again when at the end of the ensuing hallway, Linus saw the same man standing crooked, staring at him with a pair of fiery red irises.

He stopped, his pace ceasing into a standstill. He back-pedaled two steps behind him when a voracious force sunk hard against his arm. Linus screamed. Turned around. He could feel Erin’s hair as she bit down his skin, sinking her teeth into his muscle. He threw her off and delivered a swift jab to her chin. Erin turned and hit her head on the wall. But she came back. The other man was getting closer now as well. They had him surrounded on either sides. Whichever way he looked, there was simply no avoiding them. The only alternative was a janitor’s closet on the door in front of him. Linus made haste and ran inside.

As he slammed the door, he felt two sets of hands smack against it. Loud. Angry. Desperate. They screamed together in a discordant outcry, neither one acknowledging the voice of the other.

Linus touched the spot where he’d been bit. It was less painful than it looked, but his arm was bleeding.

“
Fuck!”

He held his back against the door, all whilst removing his shirt and using it to stop the bleeding. In time he realized that despite their best efforts at plowing through the door, it hadn’t and wouldn’t occur to them to try the knob. Good for him, because the door didn’t lock from the inside.

He let go of the door. They banged and pushed and shoved and smacked. But it was pointless. They weren’t getting in no matter how hard they tried.

Not having to worry about them getting in gave Linus the chance to turn his mind other, greater worries. Namely the fact that now he was as good as dead.

4:32 PM

I guess I might not be making it after all. There are two of them outside. They’ve been banging on that door like their lives depend on it. And they bit me.

So what now?
4:38 PM

If you had a million dollars, what would you do? Me, I'd buy myself some cheap farmland. Probably in a state where I could get the most amount of acres for the price. I don’t know. Maybe Texas, or a place like that.

I think it'd be pretty cool. I’d get the chance to grow my own crops. And I’d make them the way I want them. Real organic crops. No pesticides, no monkeying around with mother nature. None of that stuff.

I think it’d be nice to finally live in a place that isn’t a city. I don’t know how Kerry’d feel about it, but she could definitely get used to it. Because I’m tired of seeing concrete wherever I go. I think a home on the hillside would be nice for a change.

5:13 PM
It's been a little rough getting used to the idea that I'll be dying soon. After going through all this shit for four months, is this really how it's all going to end? 34 years of living, and all for this one fucked up moment?

Maybe Grace was right. Maybe things would have been a lot better if I'd stayed.

I hope she’s doing well for herself.

Ahh God. How long does this take anyway? Hours? Days? Months?
It's already been about an hour and a half. Aside from the pain and fucking misery of being bitten, I can't tell that anything inside me has changed. I've been losing my mind, but I'm still myself. Not like I need to convince you of that though. I am still talking aren't I?

6:08 PM

My father used to be a cop. I guess you could say it was back in the days when kids started losing respect for their elders. He said he worked a lot of riot control jobs in the city, swinging batons at college kids. Hippies. Black people. You name it. He told me all about it when I was all grown up. When I didn’t think I could have resented him any more.

But that’s not the point. He told me all about it to make the case that life was all about making the hard decisions. He told me that, even though he didn’t feel proud of what he did, what he did was survive, and life was all about survival.

It was hard times back then. Cops had to be vicious to keep their jobs, especially with all these kids on the streets. Protestors left and right turning against every part of society. He told me the story about a few cops in his precinct who didn’t want anything to do with those protestors. They saw what the other cops were doing to those kids, and they didn’t want any part of it. My dad. He called them a bunch of prude softies. And you know what happened to them? Fired. Just like that. They lost their jobs in the blink of an eye.

Commissioner didn’t have much patience for dissent. Anyone that wasn’t willing to do their jobs lost it on the spot. My father, he told me that it was men like that that had the conviction of their beliefs. And where did it get them?

He said that if he ever had to relive that experience again, to choose whether to keep his conscience, and quit, or to go back out and put kids in hospitals, he said he’d be the first man out with a stick.

Survival is all that matters. That’s what he told me.
Nature doesn’t acknowledge humanity. Nature doesn’t shine on kindness.
Only strength.
You can be a bleeding heart till the cows come home, but it won’t get you any closer to what you want. To what you need. Sometimes there are things you just gotta do. Like chores. And he did call his job a chore. How fucked up is that?

When I was young I thought he was the coldest asshole alive. And trust me, I’ve got no love for him. I still hate him to this day. But in a way, he was right. Sometimes the only choices we have in life are the wrong ones.

I’ve never killed anyone before. Not even an animal. I’ve never had anyone, or anything’s blood, on my hands.

I don’t want to go out there and face them. They might not be human anymore. But it’s hard to kill something when their face looks so much like yours. Makes me wonder how much of them is still there, trapped inside their body.

There’s a broom in here. It’s wooden, so if I manage to break it in half the tip should be sharp enough to use as a stake.

I’m leaving my recorder here. If you find it, then chances are I didn’t make it out. To anyone who’s listening to this, please, find out what happened to Kerry Baxter.

Thank you.

6:16 PM

The banging on the walls had stopped. The infected must have finally realized they weren’t getting in. They retreated, left until he could no longer sense their presence from underneath the door. He couldn’t tell where they might have gone. All he knew was that wherever they were, they were far enough that things were quiet again. At least for the time being.

But then again, how certain of that could he be?

The infected were smart creatures. It wouldn’t have been above them to wait behind a corner for him to come out. If they were doing that now, Linus worried that he might not have stood a chance against them at all. The infected had the upper hand in every way. There were two of them, and they were stronger, faster, more ferocious. All Linus had was a broken broomstick, and an injured arm.

If his father was with him right now, he would have told him that that was all he needed. For what it was worth, he hoped he was right.

Linus swallowed down, and slowly unfurled the knob. The spiked end of his broomstick remained at steady, poised to stab at the tiniest hint to danger. Much to his silent optimism, the infected were gone. The hallway was empty. There was no telling where they were, or if they had moved on. It was all too quiet to tell.

He tip-toed his way outside, leaving the door ajar just in case. Linus heard static in the distance as what sounded like his radio transceiver came to life.

“…
Hello….Hello…Anyone out there….This is Alcatraz Island come over…We received your distress call come over…”

Linus couldn’t believe it. He stormed almost immediately toward the radio. The garbled transmission became clearer and clearer with each step he took. He trotted away as fast as he could, following the sound of the electric voice.

Linus grabbed the receiver.

“
Hello. Hello. Can you hear me?”

His heart wrapped, and his hands shook with overwhelming excitement.

“
I repeat, this is Linus Baxter. Can you hear me?”

“…
We read you….loud and….clear. There’s a bit of interference….but we…hear you just fine. Over.”

Linus simpered until he laughed.

“
That is great news. Hey, listen man. There are people out here that need some help.”

“
Are you….in the mainland…?”

“
In San Francisco. Where are you?”

“
We’re taking…shelter…in Alcatraz Island prison.”

“
Who? Are you government?”

“…
.That’s a negative…government’s…gone…there’s no one here but us civilians and a few rangers…a little less than a hundred in…numbers…”

Linus imagined the number.

“
That’s plenty more than there is down here I gotta tell you.”

As soon as the words left his mouth he reconsidered what he’d said. Evacuations were always contingent on how many people they thought they could save. Counting the others in his group, all he knew of were five names. What if five names weren’t enough to save?

“
How many survivors are… currently with you?”

“
There’s twelve of us,” he said, full-knowing that exaggeration wouldn’t hurt. If anything, it would only help his chances.

“
Are they with you…right now?”

“
Yes. We’re all here, and we’re all waiting for evac.”

“
Copy…that. We’ll be going over your request. Ha…ng tight. We’ll be with you in a f…ew minutes.”

The voice signed off. Linus could hear his heart thumping in his ears. Then the noise of footsteps. He turned around. The infected weren’t there, but they were coming. He hurried to shut the door, but as he swung it against the hinge, the infected, male, blocked its path with his hands. He pushed the door back, and ran towards Linus.

Linus stretched the broom in front of him. He pushed it into his torso. The broom went in, but it didn’t slow him down. Not enough. He didn’t react with pain, but rather with vengeful irritation.

“
Jesus Christ.”

He motioned closer to his prey, the force of his movements combined with his inhuman momentum. With his back against the table, Linus propped his leg in between him, using it to keep the infected at bay. Linus pushed, causing the man to trip behind the leather chair and fall.

Linus ran out, searching desperately for the nearest makeshift weapon. He entered the lunch room, where the sharpest object he found was a blunt butter knife. The infected backed him against a corner until t
hey met at opposite ends of a lunch table. The infected gave chase from one end, leaving Linus room to run from another. With his shirt tightened around his arm as a bandage, Linus was finding it hard to exert himself for much longer. He had to end it soon.

One of the office rooms he passed by had a baseball bat hanging over a display case. A plaque beside it read
Fred Hamilton
, and a signature on the bat itself read the same two words, just in cursive.

Linus grabbed the bat off the shelf, smashed it against the infected's face. Its head came clean off, or it would have had it not had a spinal column. Linus felt the metal clench with bone, leaving ripples of noise in the air. The infected fell. And he didn’t get up.

Two seconds later, Erin entered the scene. She came in from the opposite end of the hall and worked her way towards Linus. Linus backed away from the corpse for space. He stood with the bat in his hands, ready, shifting all muscle power into his next swing. Erin ran bearing her face before the rest of her body. She flashed her teeth, spreading her mouth wide open, arms outstretched.