Mad World (Book 2): Sanctuary (9 page)

Jacob stood up. “I hope you’re telling the truth finally. Because DeAndre and I did save you, ‘a complete stranger,’ from those zombies. While you were willing to sacrifice my family, and my son, because you ‘didn’t know’ us.” He spat in disgust. “Listen to me. I want you to take off south on this road. You take off, and I don’t want to ever see you again. And if you tell them anything about us…”

“I won’t,” he said quickly, “I promise. On my honor, I promise I won’t.”

Jacob looked at him in disgust.

“Stanley, if you did tell them you quit, thank you. My family’s life was hanging in the balance. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find my son.” And with jaw set, Jacob walked away from Stanley, and the gas station, leaving the man just standing there, mouth open, feeling very ashamed. After a few minutes, Stanley started walking south along the road, his heart heavy as he went to face his fate. The stars stood mute in witness.

Jake walked back the way he’d come, heading toward the forest. Something told him his son was in that direction.

___

While all this was happening,
Caitlyn
had been searching in another part of the forest, walking in a zigzag pattern as she searched for Luke. She was worried he’d been injured in the forest, which seemed to be full of pitfalls. “Lu-uke!” she called every few minutes. She was worried about encountering the zombie, so after calling for Luke she’d stop and listen. So far, she hadn’t come across either, and had found nothing of interest in the forest. Not so much as a broken branch or a tennis shoe from Luke.

He must have been running so fast, he probably made it through this forest in just 5-10 minutes
, she thought, pushing through yet another huge bush. Her foot became tangled in the brush, and she half-turned to pull it out. As it came free, she over balanced and fell off to the side. “Oh!” she cried in pain. Her ankle was twisted.

Caitlyn sat on the ground to examine her foot. “Well, dang it, Caitlyn,” she said to herself in a soft voice laced with disgust, “that was a smart thing to do.” Pulling off her boot and sock, she saw with relief the ankle wasn’t broken or sprained. It was red but wasn’t swelling hardly at all. Reaching into her backpack, she pulled out a rolled elastic bandage and wrapped her ankle snugly, but not too tightly, and then put her sock and boot back on.

Within ten minutes she was back on her feet and hobbling forward. The more she walked, putting her weight on her injured foot a little more every time, the better it worked. It would be sore for a while, but it least she could walk on it. She cursed her own clumsiness and swore to be more careful as she made her way through the northern part of the forest.

___

Risa had had the most luck of us all, although she didn’t know it at the time. She’d run into the forest at the point where she thought her brother had gone. Figuring he’d run from near where we’d found Jake, and run fast, Risa began trotting through the forest at that spot and directly away from the barn. She ran all the way through the forest and found the edge of the meadow. Seeing a slightly trampled
moonlit
path through the meadow flowers and grasses, she sensed Luke had gone that way. Shining her flashlight, she saw signs that someone had forged a slight but definite path through the meadow.

Risa began following the line of small indents in the meadow grass that indicated the path her brother had taken. She jogged through the meadow, calling and shining her flashlight back and forth. At the far end of the meadow, the trees began again. Looking back the way she had come, then forward to the edge of the meadow and beyond, through the trees, Risa saw that the path Luke had created seemed to run straight through a dense tree. Ducking and peering into the tree, she saw the branches began about 4 feet off the ground. To a child, the way was clear, but to a taller adult, the path was impassable.

“The little stinker ran straight through the meadow and right under this tree,” Risa said in a quiet voice. She smiled and straightened. Looking back again toward the meadow and then forward, she ran around the tree and then forward again, following the straight line the path had implied to that point. Trotting again through the trees, she could see how Luke had probably run, and she again took off after him.

___

Luke, meanwhile, had indeed run through the meadow and toward the tree, scampering directly under the branches, which were just a few inches over his head. He ran through this second section of forest, beginning to breathe heavily and looking around wildly. I’d taught him it was not safe for such a small boy to be out in the open, and so as he ran, Luke looked for a hiding place far away from the danger.
 
In the little moonlight there was, the trees were dark shadows and the branches all looked menacing. He ran for another 50 yards or so, until the trees began to thin out. At this point, Luke could see, in the distance, the faint lights of the next farmhouse. Seizing on the sight as a place where he might find safety, he ran past the final trees and into the pastureland that bordered the farm.
It was several hundred yards before he came closer and could see the individual buildings in the near distance. In the night, they look black and scary. As Luke ran, he saw a fenced-in pasture with some cows off to his right. They lowed and rumbled to each other and chewed their cud as they settled in for the night. It was very dark, and the few cows he saw had lain down for the night. As he ran passed them, he spied a small wooden shed with just three sides and a roof. Inside the shed were stacked bales of sweet alfalfa hay, stored there for the cows. Luke ran to this shed and saw there was just enough space between the bales for a small boy to squeeze through. He turned sideways and wriggled his way into the stacks of aromatic hay, trying not to sneeze, and saw that behind the last
stack there was a bit of a gap, just enough room for him to hide, and not an inch more. He shimmied into this gap and sat down, his tennis shoes wedged tightly between the tightly pack alfalfa bales, and his knees drawn up tight against his chest. He wrapped his arms around his legs and made himself as comfortable as he could in his little hidey hole. Luke found that if he tilted his head back and moved it to the left a few inches, he could see the stars and the rising moon over the tops of the hay bales through a gap. Bits of hay clung to his hair and smaller flecks floated in the air around him. He spied an old burlap sack wedged between the bottom bale of alfalfa and the wooden wall, dried oats still clinging to it, and he grabbed it and pulled until it came out from between the space. Luke pulled this sack over his knees and covered himself with it, until, if you had looked into the shed and peered behind the bales of hay, you might just barely see a small, round face peeking out.
Luke listened to the gentle lowing of the cows and the crickets in the nearby field, and slowly his breathing calmed and he began to feel a little safer. As his adrenaline levels came down, he felt an exhaustion overcome his small body and, after his long flight from the Summers barn, he soon fell fast asleep.

___

I had run through the meadow a few minutes ahead of Risa, and in fact I’d made the path Luke had taken a little bit bigger. I ran through the trees on the other side of the meadow, not pausing, but running, swinging my flashlight to and fro and calling as I ran, “LU-UKE!!!!”

I came out onto the pastureland Luke had found and saw the lights from the distant farm. Without hesitation I ran toward them. I hoped Luke had seen them and had headed in that direction. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I ran right past the little shed where he was sleeping. A few minutes later, so did Risa.

___

Risa ran through the trees until she came to the pastureland next to the neighbor’s farm. Moonlight helped a bit, as the tree cover ended, and she could see out across the open land. Beyond the empty field, she saw pastures with cows, another with horses, and beyond those the farmhouse and barns. Some lights still glowed in the buildings, even at this late hour. She decided to see whether anyone in those buildings might be able to help in her search for Luke, and she was soon jogging toward them.

After a few minutes, she slowed to a walk and stared hard into the night. “Alyssa!” she cried, as she saw me approaching the buildings. She began running toward me again.

“Risa! I’m glad to see you,” I said, running up to her and giving her a hug. “Did you find anything?”

“Not really. I found a path through the meadow,” she gestured behind her, “but no real sign of him. I was hoping he had come this way. When did you get here?”

“Just a few minutes ago, actually,” I said. “Come on, let’s go see if these people have seen Luke.” I put my arm around her shoulders and we both walked toward the farmhouse together.

Chapter Twelve

Approaching the first building, which I’d already walked entirely around, I called, “Hello? Hell-llo?” but got no answer. Looking at each other, and then at the lights blazing in the house and in the far barn, we both thought this was very strange.

“Maybe they went to bed and forgot to turn the lights off?” said Risa, shrugging. We both looked at each other grimly. We knew that didn’t fit.

I walked up to the front door and reached out to knock. Before my knuckles could hit the wooden door, it slowly swung open on its own.

“Oh, man,” I said, peering inside. “Hello? Anybody home?”

“I don’t think I want to go in there. Let’s check the barn,” Risa said.

Walking down the steps and across the long yard to the barn, we could see the animals in the distant corrals and pastures. They seemed unconcerned, but that didn’t mean much. As long as farm animals weren’t directly affected, they usually didn’t freak out. Even at zombies.

I shuddered, looking around and rubbing my arms. I didn’t feel good about this at all, but we had to find Luke.

“LU-UKE!!!” I called, trying to confront my fears.

“LU-UKE!!!” called Risa.

We were about 50 feet from the barn when suddenly the lights inside went out.

“Oh, that is so not good,” I said under my breath.

Risa stopped completely and stared, trying to see any danger before she got to it. I stopped, too, and we just stood there for the space of a few heartbeats. This night was getting creepier by the hour. After a minute, Risa shrugged and said, “Well, whatever. I can’t just sit here waiting. Let’s go see what scary horrors lie in wait for us in there.”

At this I burst out laughing, and hung my arm over her shoulders. She had broken the tension, and I felt immensely better. Laughing together we walked toward the now dark barn.

We got to the barn door and peered in. It was pitch dark, so we switched our flashlights on and tried to illuminate the massive interior.

“Hmmmm,” I said, trying to see in the darkness beyond the twin beams of light. The barn was too big to see; there was nothing for it, we would have to search the dark expanse cubic yard by cubic yard.

We split up and began searching and calling every few minutes. I heard a snuffling in the dark reaches, but it was Risa who said, “Awww, hi there little guy.” And then, “Alyssa, come look at this.”

I trotted over to where Risa was standing at a stall door, shining her flashlight on the interior. Peering over the tall wooden door, I looked inside the stall and saw a mare with what appeared to be her newborn foal. The baby teetered over to its mother on long legs and then ducked its head under and began to nurse.

“Awww,” I said softly, smiling. We watched the two for a while, marveling at the wonderful sight. It was so adorable. A reminded that life goes on, that the plague hadn’t affected this little family one bit.

We didn’t hear what had just entered the barn until it was almost upon us. As we watched the mother and baby, the mare’s head shot up and she snorted nervously. At the same time, we heard the low growls, several of them, coming from the direction of the door we’d just come in not five minutes ago.

“Oh, crud,” Risa said as she turned. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as they did every time I heard those growls when I wasn’t expecting them.

“Quick, switch off your flashlight,” I whispered. “Maybe it’ll help.” I switched mine off as I said it, and then ducked and ran softly on the hay-covered floor to the far end of the huge barn. Risa followed me, making hardly any sound. We tiptoed along the side of the stalls and tried to make ourselves as small as possible. After we got to the last of the doors, we crouched there in the darkness. I was unwilling to go inside a stall to hide; I didn’t want to be caught in one, with no way out.

The growling became intermittent, and I thought I could make out at least three different voices. So, at least three zombies now shared this barn with Risa and
me
, and the mare and her foal. Somehow, I didn’t think the horses had much to worry about.

In the five-plus years since the epidemic began, scientists had been studying the problem and testing different theories. In the process, they had discovered a few interesting facts about the people infected by the plague. The zombies. First of all, they didn’t seem to be attracted to animals. Lucky for us people, they seemed to only want to taste us. Great, huh?

Second. They seemed to have very poor vision. Guess that might have had something to do with the way their eyes quickly went milky, as if they had cataracts. Gross. Anyway, they seemed to hunt by smell mostly, and also used their sense of hearing to find their prey. Speaking of prey, we were it. That’s right, our own people, who had been ravished and zombie-fied by this terrible plague, turned back on us and hunted the humans who had yet to be infected.

Smell. Sounds. These things were on our minds as we huddled there in the dark in the corner of that strange barn. We knew the zombies acted mostly on instinct; they weren’t too smart. But then again, they weren’t too dumb, either. We’d seem zombies duck shots fired at them, and think things through in their seemingly insatiable quest for human flesh. They would attack strategically, looking
for
any weakness. If we were barricaded in the van, locking the doors on one side, they’d come around to the other side of a car to try the windows there. Luckily, the barn we were in was full of smells other than ourselves. The big pile of horse manure in the corner, for instance.

We had no choice but to try to find a way out of our predicament, while making as little noise as possible. The three zombies we knew of were growling and shuffling around toward the front of the barn again, while we crouched in the back. I began searching for any back door or window we could
use as an escape route, and Risa, seeing what I was doing, began looking with me. We must have been about 8 feet apart, at the back wall of the barn, when the zombie we didn’t know was there jumped down from the loft and onto … me.

“AHHHHH!!!!!!” I yelled, startled, as I tumbled to the ground. Luckily, the zombie had fallen more than ten feet, so when it landed on me, it rolled off to the side and was momentarily stunned. I quickly scrambled to my feet and unholstered my shotgun, bringing it forward and leveling it at the figure on the ground.

Risa reacted quickly as well, bringing her the .33 up and training it on the creature. One thing we had learned fast in the last five years was not to hesitate. So I walked up to the figure that was starting to rise, and I fired at its head, the muzzle of my sawed off not a foot away. It quickly dropped to the ground and was still, but the shot, that had been deafening in the closed area, had alerted the other zombies to our presence.

We both looked up toward the barn door and heard the low growling become even more menacing, if that were at all possible.

“Oh, to heck with this,” I mumbled, and turning behind me, I shot out the nearest wooden board in the wall of the barn. With Risa covering me, I kicked out a hole large enough so we could get through. I scrambled through the 2-by-3-foot hole I’d made, and Risa emerged after me, with a zombie hot on her heels. The thing actually stuck its head through the hole, and stretched an arm out too, reaching. Big mistake. Huge.

Quickly holstering my shotgun, I brought my bowie knife up and then down, slashing the thing trying to eat us. The sharp blade sliced cleanly through its neck, and its head rolled free at Risa’s feet, dripping black blood. Hey, what can I say? I liked to keep my blades razor sharp.

“Oh, gross,” Risa said softly.

Laughing, I quickly switched back to my shotgun, reloading it in less than 30 seconds. “We need the men here,” I said, pointing my shotgun to the sky. I let off three rounds, at five second intervals. POP!! POP!! POP!! The shots echoed across the farmyard. We heard the growls stop on the other side of the barn wall, and then resume, sounding angrier than ever.

Looking around, I saw a small water tower on stilts, about three stories tall. We could climb the ladder and, if the zombies came, we’d be able to pick them off one by one. We’d be safe up there. Indicating it with a tilt of my head, I holstered my shotgun and we both trotted over to the ladder.

“Up you go,” I said, boosting her up. The water tower ladder started about 5 feet off the ground so we had to scramble a bit. The growls had faded away, but I was worried the zombies were going to come around the corner any minute. Boosting the skinny teenager up, I prepared to hoist myself up after her.

Then I heard the zombies growls, much closer than before. Without stopping to look around at the direction they were coming from, I jumped and grabbed the third rung and hoisted myself up, my foot catching the bottom rung on the first try. There was nothing like being hunted by zombies to hasten your climb up a ladder, I tell ya.

Risa and I clambered up to the ledge on the bottom of the large, barreled, wooden
structure;
it was 10-12 feet up. We stood on it, we didn’t want to sit and then have our legs dangling off the end out into possible grab territory. We waited.

We didn’t have long to wait. It was less than a minute after I started up the ladder that the first zombie shambled into view. It was a female, in an old housecoat that had seen better, non-zombie, days. It walked out into the open, not sure where we were, but definitely smelling us. It was followed by two more zombies, both male, one looked to be an old man and the other a middle aged man. It was almost funny to watch, because the old man zombie appeared to have been a bit crippled by old age before being infected, turned and subsequently infused with zombie strength. So what we were watching was a crooked old zombie that look arthritic, but moving pretty fast and not appearing in pain at all. These three zombies began a zigzag pattern, using their noses to find us.

They were about twenty feet away when things got really nasty. And by really nasty I mean that a dozen or more young zombies, of varying ages, came to join the adult zombies in their hunt for us humans. Apparently, this had been a pretty large family. It looked like a grandfather, a great grandfather, a mother, and at least a dozen youths ranging in age from around ten all the way up to early twenties. I suspected the father might have been one of the two I’d killed by the barn, but I wasn’t sure. Trying to count these things was useless, plus in the end, we couldn’t know how big the family had been, how many members there were. Heck, we could try to mentally calculate the whole family only to miss the Uncle Bob zombie or the Auntie Tweedie zombie or something. In this situation you just had to assess the threat as best you could and meet the danger head on as it came to you. Deal with the zombies you knew about, and never let down your guard.

“Shoot, where’s my extra ammo?” Risa said, fumbling in her side bag.

“I put it in the back pocket, there,” I pointed. I fumbled for my own ammo - we were going to need it. I located the box of cartridges in my side pouch and checked my shotgun. I was ready.

“Okay, hold my belt,” I said, and after Risa hooked her arm around the wooden structure and grabbed hold of the back of my belt, I leaned over and shot out the ladder. Good. Now they had no way of climbing up to us, I hoped.

We watched them come, both of us calm, holding our firearms at the ready. We’d been through over five years of this so we were somewhat used to it. This wasn’t even Risa’s first situation of this type. Three other times, we’d been trapped and either holed up or treed like cats and had to pick off zombies one by one to free ourselves. But this was the first time Risa and I had done it alone. I was really counting on her. Glancing sideways I asked, “You okay?”

Risa looked at me and nodded her head, a look of calm determination on her face. “Absolutely,” she said, then looked down on the advancing horde.

___

We later learned that Jacob had heard my three shots and had begun jogging through the trees toward our location. He was almost a mile and a half away, and there was underbrush to deal with, but he made pretty good time. He had slung his shotgun over his shoulder and was trotting steadily, zigzagging through the trees, following the sound of the shots.

DeAndre had heard the shots, too, but was a bit farther away - over the low hills and south of the water tower. The shots I’d fired sounded faint, but it was closing in on midnight and the night was very quiet and peaceful. The stars were brilliant, and together with the quarter moon, they stood watch as D hiked up through the foothills toward our location.

___

Risa and I stood there, waiting for the zombies to wander closer. My shotgun needed to be fired at close range to knock one out for good. I’d shot from several dozen feet away, and you just got a wide spread. The result was a zombie with a pitted, icky, gross, dripping-with-goo face. No, I would need to wait until they had closed within about 6 feet or less. But that was okay, we were up high. I figured we could pick them off one at a time. Unless by some miracle they decided to work together. I’d heard of this happening sometimes. I hoped it didn’t happen tonight.

“Here comes the first one,” Risa said, taking aim. The zombie shambled up to the water tower and looked up, its eyes all milky and its scalp shredded where it had apparently been bitten when it was a human. It looked like it had once been a teenage girl, maybe 16 or 17. It still wore pedal pushers and a flowery sweater. Growling at us, it stretched its arms upward and jumped, trying to catch the ledge we were on. Risa steadied her .33 and shot off a round: *POP* The bullet caught the zombie right in the temple; it dropped heavily to the ground and was still.