No Easy Hope - 01 (23 page)

Ethan was silent for a moment before continuing. Andrea refilled everyone’s wine, and took Ethan’s hand into her own as she sat down next to him. I was starting to get a little buzz from the alcohol.

“So I lay down on the floor,” Ethan continued, “and low crawl over to where I left the duffel bag. I take it with me back down to the basement and fill it with as many boxes of bullets as I can carry. As it turns out, I can carry a lot.”

Andrea smiled at that, and shifted closer to Ethan. He placed an arm around her shoulders as she laid her head on his broad chest.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re all super gorilla big-balls retarded monkey strong. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t swoon.” Justin joked. “So what happened next?”

Ethan chuckled, and gave his young friend a one-finger salute.

“After I filled the bag with the ammo and a few guns, I carried it up the stairs and did another low crawl to the door, pushing the bag in front of me. I nabbed the .22 magnum rifle I gave to Emily from one of the shelves at the back of the store, then set to work moving the dead creeps out of the way so I could get the damn door open. Finally, I get it open and check the parking lot. It looked clear, so I drag the duffel bag outside and take a look around. I didn’t see any creeps, and I couldn’t hear any nearby.

I couldn’t go back up the hill the way I came because the bag was too heavy. There was no way I could get it to the top without making a lot of noise. I picked it up and started making my way back to the highway one building at a time, staying quiet and out of sight. I could see the creeps wandering around the main road that went through the center of town, but there weren’t any near where I was going. I was about a hundred yards from freedom when everything went to shit.

I came around a corner and stumbled over some broken concrete. Normally, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but because I had over two hundred pounds of gear on my back, I overbalanced and fell over. I hit a trashcan as I went down and knocked it over. It clatters to the ground, and makes a hell of a racket. So much for being quiet. As I get to my feet and pick up the bag, about five hundred or so creeps start moaning and stumbling in my direction. I gave up on stealth and just started running. I made it to the parking lot of the Burger King, but the highway was crawling with the dead.

There was no way I would make it through, there were just too many of them. At this point, I’m starting to panic a little, because there is no way forward, and a huge horde of creeps is following behind me. I look around, and I see an old work truck in the parking lot with an extendable ladder lashed to the roof rack. That gave me an idea. I run over to the truck, get the ladder, and use it to climb on top of the Burger King.”

“You carried a two hundred pound bag of bullets up a ladder?” I asked.

“Yes.” Ethan replied. “It wasn’t easy, and honestly, if not for the adrenaline pumping through my veins at the time, I’m not sure I could have done it. Somehow I got it up there, though, and none too soon. I pulled the ladder up after me just as the creeps arrived. After a minute or two, the whole damn parking lot is swarming with dead people. I was safe for the moment, but I was also trapped. The only option I had was to use the weapons I brought with me to thin out the herd. I figured that if I put enough of them down, I could open up an avenue of escape. I started shooting them, one by one, but for every one I put down, two more took its place. I had no idea that many people
lived
in Alexis before the outbreak.

Right as I’m starting to wonder if I have enough ammo to put them all down, this crazy guy in a silver pickup truck comes along and starts shooting the creeps. He yells out to me to get down and stay quiet, then he draws them away from me with his truck. He gets to the end of the street and doubles back, I carried the duffel bag to the truck, and we got the hell out of dodge.”  Ethan grinned at me as he concluded his story.

Andrea looked at me for a moment, then stood up and came around the coffee table. She reached down and gently took the empty wine cup from my hand before setting it on the table.

“Could you please stand up for a second?” She asks.

“Uh…sure.” I replied.

I rose to my feet, a little unsteady from the wine, and Andrea wrapped her arms around my neck in a fierce, surprisingly strong hug. I awkwardly hugged her back, not quite sure how to react.

“Thank you.” She whispered in my ear. She gave me a peck on the cheek before releasing the hug and taking my hands in to hers.

“You risked your life to help my husband. If you ever need anything from us, anything at all, all you have to do is ask.”

“Really, it wasn’t that big of a deal.” I said. Everyone was looking at me and smiling. I felt a little embarrassed by the attention.

“Saving someone’s life is always a big deal. Especially when that person is my husband.” Andrea replied, staring me with a steady blue-eyed gaze. She really was quite lovely. Ethan was a lucky man. Andrea squeezed my hands one last time before sitting back down beside her husband.

“Can I give you a refill?” She asked, opening up the third bottle of wine.

I smiled and sat back down. “Please, that would great.”

“So what’s your story?” Emily asked me.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“How did you find Ethan?”

“Oh, right. I had stopped my truck on top of a hill that overlooked the highway, and I was using a pair of binoculars to try and find a way through without stirring up the undead. All of a sudden, I hear gunshots in the distance. I looked around with the bino’s and spotted this guy on a roof.” I said, gesturing toward Ethan.

“So rather than use the commotion as a distraction to get through town unscathed, you risked your life to help an armed stranger.” Andrea said, smiling a little.

I stared at her for a moment, startled. She had just said exactly what was going through my mind when I spotted Ethan. Her smile widened at my surprise.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, I would have been thinking the same thing.” She said.

“You’re a sharp one, Andrea. Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

 I saluted her with my cup and drained the last of my wine. I had a warm, buzzy feeling in my head. Andrea picked up the wine bottle and held it out to me. I held out my cup while she refilled hit.

“So how did you survive the outbreak?” Emily asked me.

I looked at her for a moment, then stared down at my wine, swirling it around in the cup.

“If it’s all the same, I’d rather not talk about it right now.”

Emily opened her mouth to say something else, but Andrea cut her off.

“That’s fine Eric. I know it’s hard, dealing with everything that’s happened.”

I nodded in reply, still staring into my wine. The room went silent as everyone brooded over where they were, and what had they lost. Justin broke the silence by clapping his hands together and leaning forward.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but in my opinion hard times are best dealt with by imbibing of large amounts of alcohol. I’ll be back in a minute.” He said as he stood up and left the room. Andrea poured everyone else more wine, and a minute or two later, Justin came into the room with a bottle of Casadores tequila.

“Oh, no you didn’t.” Emily said, laughing.

“You sure you want to drink the hard stuff after all that wine?” Andrea asked.

“Why the hell not?” I said. “If it’s the end of the world, then I for one intend to have a little fun before I go.”

“Fuck yeah, that’s what I like to hear.” Justin said, clapping me on the shoulder.

Andrea frowned. “Alright, fine, but keep the noise down. If you wake up the baby, I’ll bust that bottle over your head.”

Justin, Emily and I took a couple of shots, but Ethan and Andrea declined. The two teenagers started pawing at each other as they got drunk, and the conversation shifted to other topics. Ethan and Andrea finished off the last bottle of wine. Ethan stifled a yawn with one big hand, and stretched his arms over his head. The storm outside was in full swing. Thunder rumbled and boomed outside as rain lashed the building. I hoped that whoever was on guard duty had a poncho or something.

Andrea slid forward on the couch and collected all the empty cups.

“I’m getting tired, I think I’m going to turn in.” She said.

Ethan stood up and took off his bush jacket. “I’m not far behind you, I just need to talk to Eric about a couple of things.” He said.

Andrea took the cups and empty wine bottles into the kitchen and put them in a black plastic trash bag. On her way to the bedroom, she sat down in Ethan’s lap and gave her husband a less than gentle, and much less than chaste, kiss.

“I’ve missed you. Don’t stay up too late.”

Ethan’s eyes burned like torches as he watched his wife saunter into the bedroom, swaying her hips and casting a teasing glance back over her shoulder. Emily, meanwhile, was staring hard at Justin and chewing on her bottom lip.

“You know, maybe I should grab my bedroll and get some sleep.” I said.

“Yeah, I guess we can talk in the morning.” Ethan said, then got up and went into the bedroom after Andrea.

Justin stood up and offered me a hand.

“It’s nice to meet you Eric. Thanks for helping Ethan today. I don’t know what would happen to this place without him.” He said.

I shook his hand and nodded in reply.

“Come on,” Emily said, dragging him toward the door, “I’m drunk and horny. Let’s go.”

I waved at them as they left. I heard a feminine giggle come from the bedroom, and the creak of bedsprings. I was about to leave when I noticed the bottle of tequila still sitting on the coffee table. I grabbed it as I left and shut the door behind me. Hopefully, Justin wouldn’t miss it. If he did, maybe I could find something to trade him in exchange.

As I emerged out into the common area, Bill and a few others were cleaning up the remnants of the evening meal. I waved at them, and as I turned to walk to my truck, Earl waved at me from in front of one of the shacks. He was sitting in an Adirondack chair with a tin cup in one hand. There was an empty chair beside him, so I walked over.

“Mind if I join you for a spell?”

“Hell no, long as you don’t mind sharing some o’ that liquor.” He said, smiling.

I sat down and held the bottle out to Earl. He tossed back the rest of whatever was in his cup, and filled it with a generous amount of booze before handing the bottle back to me. I took a pull from the bottle and set it on the ground between us, wincing as the liquor burned me on the way down. Earl sniffed at the tequila.

“Shit, you even brought the good stuff. I’m getting to like you, man.”

“Yeah, well thank Justin. It’s his bottle. I, ah, procured it while he was otherwise occupied.”

Earl laughed. “Justin and Emily seem to be
occupied
a lot here lately. I’ll be sure to thank him in the morning.”

Earl took a long drink from his cup and sat back in his chair.

“So how did all these people come to be here?” I asked. “I mean, did you all get here together, or what?”

“Most of us did, yeah. After the disease hit Charlotte, there were a lot of people trying to get out of town. Problem was, there ain’t but a few major highways that lead away from the city. I-77 was a parking lot, and 85 wasn’t any better. Most of the folks you see here, we all lived in the same neighborhood. Ethan’s daddy, Nathan, was the president of our homeowners association. Real nice guy, if he liked you. Real hardass if he didn’t. Most people he didn’t like were assholes anyway, so me and him got along real good.

He called a meeting the day after the outbreak in Atlanta. What folks were still left in the neighborhood all showed up. Old Nate told us that the outbreak was heading our way, and if we wanted to survive, we needed to work together. He said he knew a place we could go, but it was up north a ways, and we would have to get there on foot. The roads around our neighborhood were so clogged up you couldn’t ride a bicycle on ‘em. Most everybody was willing, but a few thought we should stay and stick it out. Ol’ Nate gave em a mean-eyed glare and told them they were a bunch of damn fools. ‘Fine, stay here and die.’ He says, ‘I’m getting the rest of these people out of here.’”