Mad World (Book 2): Sanctuary (18 page)

As I pulled down the drive I heard from the back~

“Yes.”

“Yep.”

“Always.”

Yes, Alyssa.”

Yes, Mom.”

Yes, Babe.” That one was Jacob. I smiled at him. He winked at me from the right front seat. Always my right-hand man. I laughed.

“Okay then, we’re off,” I said.

Winnipeg had become something of a war zone itself. There had been outbreaks of Plague through the city for many years. The latest had been reported just a week ago. You never knew when one would occur, or where.

We drove south through the city and were soon on Pembina Highway. Cruising along like this made me feel like it was old times. I was 38 years old, and in some ways I felt younger. I was still in great shape, thanks to chasing zombies and fighting for my life on a regular basis; I still wore combat boots and now wore a black leather jacket (it kept me warmer during the cold Winnipeg winters). But in some ways I felt older. I took longer to react than I had when I was 17, when this mess all started. I was more sore after a fight, and I took longer to heal, as well. But I still think I was in tip-top shape. Well, at least for a 38-year-old lady. I grinned to myself.

“What’s that grin for, Gorgeous?” Jake asked.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “I’m just thinking I still feel in shape and ready for anything.”

“Alyssa, you fight like a pro,” he said. “Best in the whole crew.” He rubbed my arm.

I glanced back at Luke. I was very proud of the man he’d become. Jacob and I had taught him to fight, and he was more adept than either of us. And he could handle his shotgun like he had been born with it.

I sighed. I had a good feeling about this trip. It was going to go smoothly, I could feel it. …

I shouldn’t have let down my guard. That’s when stuff happens.

I should’ve known.

We were cruising along and had just passed the Trans-Canada Highway when it happened.

All of a sudden a car came flying out from the left-hand side. It ran the stop sign at Cartier Road just as we hit the intersection. Fortunately, it just grazed us. I managed to keep the SUV under control and pulled over.

Putting the vehicle in park, I turned around to look at the others. “Anybody hurt?”

“No, I think we’re all okay,” DeAndre said. “That car just scraped us.”

“Yes, we’re fine, Alyssa,” said Risa.

“Oh, man!” Jonathan said, looking out the back window.

The car had flipped more than once and skidded down an embankment; now smoke was curling up from it.

“I’ll get the fire extinguisher,” Jacob said grimly.

We all piled out and ran back along the road. The vehicle that had hit us was about ten car lengths behind us, and we were joined by other people who had pulled over when they saw the crash. A few came running from nearby businesses.

“Is he okay?”

“How many people are in there?”

“I think I saw three.”

It had tumbled down into a marshy area, and my boots made splooshing sounds as I ran on the wet ground. Jacob and Luke were right behind me with the fire extinguisher. DeAndre, Caitlyn, Risa and Jonathan were not far behind.

We all ran up to the car. It was upside down. I could hear moaning coming from inside. Another man was already there on the ground, hands in front, head down.

“Hey, are you guys okay?” he asked.

“Noooo…” came the reply.

The man looked up at us. “
There are
two of them, and I think they’re trapped.”

“I’ll call the fire department,” said someone in the crowd.

Fire was curling up from the underside engine compartment.

“Oh, no!” someone said.

Jacob brought out the extinguisher and pulled the key on it.

“Stand back,” he said, and began spraying the fire. It was out in just a few seconds.

Everyone seemed relieved.

“Great job, bringing that,” someone said.

I looked out into the crowd. There must have been eight or nine people gathered there, and our group was seven, making about fifteen people standing next to the car on sopping wet ground in the early morning fog.

“Did you call the fire department?” I asked the woman who’d said she would.

“Yes, they’re on their way,” she said.

“Did you know to tell them where we were?” I asked.

“Well, yes, I think so,” she said. “Isn’t this Promenade Red River?”

“No. It’s Cartier,” I said, looking into her face. “Promenade is two and a half kilometers north of here. You’d better call them back.” I turned my attention back to the flipped car.

Five of the people were trying to turn it back over. They were making a loud commotion and were on either side of it, rocking it back and forth. I heard a scream come from inside.

“I think you’d better stop,” Jacob said. “There are injured people inside there.”

The people stopped and Jacob said under his breath,
“idiots.”

I smiled.

Suddenly, I heard the sound I hated most in the world.

“GRRRRRRRR…………..”

“GRRRRROARRRRRRR…..”

“….MRRRRRRBBBLLLMMRRRRR”

“Oh God!” someone yelled.

“AIIEEE!!!!!!” someone else screamed.

They were everywhere. Zombies. They’d been using the marsh as their home, we found out later. The marsh went on for dozens of miles. We’d find out later it was home to hundreds if not thousands of the things.

Right now there were maybe 25 of them, creeping up on us. They’d probably been attracted by all the sound. They were on all sides of us. I don’t know if this was by coincidence or by design, but they circled us and were closing in.

It was chaos.

I saw the woman who was calling the fire department back, to tell them our correct location. She was on hold when she was jumped by a zombie and went down. The fire department never did find us, not until it was far too late.

Zombies jumped at us everywhere. We had stupidly (stupid, Alyssa, just utterly stupid!) left our guns in the SUV and we were naked without them.

Screams came from all around us as the zombies attacked and tore open any living human they could get their hands on.

I saw two of them crawl into the overturned car. The occupants let out multiple blood-curdling screams as the zombies feasted uninterrupted.

Luke jumped right into the fray. The zombies were ignoring him, as usual, and he was nearly as strong as they were. Add to that strength his training – and the element of surprise – and he was a force to be reckoned with. He tried to put himself between me and the zombies, but it was hard even for him to stand his ground as he tried to take on more than one of the creatures. Try as he might, he couldn’t protect all of us from all of them.

One zombie jumped at Jacob, and he kicked it away. He’d been studying Jiu-Jitsu and Kickboxing with me, and we took turns kicking and flipping zombies away from us.

The trouble was, I thought later, that zombies that are kicked or flipped fall down and then get right back up again. We were smarter. More focused. But they were a lot stronger and a heck of a lot more resilient. After a while we were getting tired, and they just kept coming.

The civilians were going down fast. DeAndre grabbed a zombie from the back as it attacked one of the women in the crowd. Risa, fearless as ever, kicked several away, but again, they just kept coming back.

“We’re going to have to leave them,” yelled DeAndre. “We have to make a run for it. There’s no other way.”

Jacob grimly fought back against two more zombies, but he nodded at D.

Caitlyn was the farthest from the road. She was trying to fight off four zombies … and she was losing.

Jacob struggled to get to her. He flipped one zombie and then kicked two more away.

DeAndre was trying to get to Caitlyn as well.

All of us were fighting at least two zombies each, but I saw Caitlyn’s predicament and, pushing back the zombie closest to me, I ran to help her.

That was my undoing.

Turning my back on the second zombie, I began to run. The ground was muddy and sloshy, and I stumbled a bit, and then regained my footing. That was all it took for the second zombie to leap and land on my back.

I crashed to the ground.

Dammit, Alyssa, that was sloppy…
I thought.

And then I felt it.

The zombie clamped its jaws down on my right upper arm, right up by the shoulder, and bit down.

“AIIEEEAARRRRRRR!!!!!!” I screamed in rage at the damned thing.

It bit down harder, and I felt the bone crack.

For some reason the audacity of this crummy zombie to dare attack and bite me was enraging me, and that’s what probably saved me from further injury.

I felt the adrenaline surge in me, and I gathered myself and flipped over. The thing was still clamped down on my arm, like a pit bull. I grabbed its head with my free hand and tried to pry it off. It was slick and slippery and gooey, like zombies always are, and my hand just slid over its nose and eyes. Trying to grab its hair was futile, it was too short. I reached again and hooked my fingers in its eye sockets.

“AHA!” I think I actually said that out loud. My adrenaline was flowing so much I didn’t feel any pain, only rage and annoyance, and now triumph as my fingers found purchase, and I dug them in deeper.

We were in a battle. The thing was clamping its teeth down harder, but now I started to pull. I put all my strength in pulling with those three fingers hooked in the zombie’s eye sockets. The thing was so slippery! Ugh. I pulled harder, putting my muscle into it.

Wiggling my hips, I tried to get on top of the thing, but I could only manage to get sideways, as the thing ground its rotten teeth in my arm.

Finally, I felt something give. It was not what I first thought would give when I started pulling. It was not its mouth that came off from my arm. It was the top of its head coming partly off.

Apparently part of its skull had been knocked in by some kind stranger at one point in its miserable zombie life, and when I really put my back into pulling from its eye sockets, the rest of its rotted skull cracked and the top of its head pulled away.

Unbelievably, it was still biting me.

“You creep, get off of me!” I yelled, tossing the piece of skull away. I reached back with my hand again and put it into its head and grabbed a handful of black, rotted zombie brains.

Oh, gross,
I thought, borrowing Risa’s favorite phrase.

I withdrew my hand and flung the stuff far from me, and reached in again.

Believe it or not, it took four scoops to make the thing go still.

“Ugh,” I said, getting up on my knees, and looking around. The zombie’s teeth were still on my arm, and it took a bit of pulling to get loose. I was still running on pure adrenaline, and I felt no pain at all.

Looking down at my arm, I saw the bloody mess it was. Without thinking, I splashed water on it, and rubbed the gore off. I looked at it again. I totally didn’t hurt, so I shrugged and got up.

I saw that Jacob, DeAndre, Risa, Luke and Jonathan were fighting the zombies off Caitlyn. She was nowhere to be seen, so I ran over to them.

“Oh, Caitlyn,” I said, running up to see her in the mud at their feet. Blood soaked her neck and chest. “Oh, God no. No.”

The others were fighting zombies with their bare hands, and I was afraid one more of them would get bitten. Looking down at Caitlyn, I grabbed her hand and called out to the nearest of my friends.

“Risa, help me!”

Risa turned and saw I was trying to drag Caitlyn away from the zombies and back to the street. She grabbed Caitlyn’s other hand, and together we began pulling our downed friend to safety. We got within fifteen feet of the road, and I saw we were going to make it, so I called the others.

“Guys! GUYS!” They turned. “COME ON, MAKE A RUN FOR IT!” I called.

Risa and I had Caitlyn almost to the pavement. The last part was steeply uphill. We were pulling and having a hard time when DeAndre ran up and just grabbed his woman, put her in a fireman
’s carry and sprinted up the sho
rt embankment. The rest of our group ran up, and I looked back at the chaos then.

The zombies had overtaken every one of those civilians. I looked up the road to the north. No fire truck was in sight. They were probably at Promenade Red River, I thought. Looking back to the zombies, I saw half of them were loping after us.

“Come on!” I said, running to the SUV and around to the driver’s side and getting in. I turned the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life.

I slammed the door and looked back into the vehicle. All of us were in, including DeAndre and Caitlyn, so I gunned the SUV back onto the highway and drove down a mile before making a U-turn and speeding back north. We had to get back home. Caitlyn. Oh, God, Caitlyn.

DeAndre was moaning in the back. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw him cradling Caitlyn in his arm, tears streaming down his face. “Nooooo…” he moaned.