Preservation (12 page)

“Right out back,” Gene said.

Charlene told us the rest of her plan. It wasn’t the best idea, but might prove the only plan plausible enough to work.

Chapter Eighteen

It looked like it might come down to a vicious game of Rocks, Paper, Scissors. Gene was an automatic because it was his car, and his bus we were going to retrieve. Initially, Robert called shotgun, but Andy wanted to go, too. Seemed safer if all three went. We figured the rest of us would be safe in the school until they returned.

“You
be careful, okay?” Melissa said. She hugged her man tight. I knew she wasn’t comfortable with him going on this quest without her. “If those roads are bad, you drive on lawns, you got me? No getting out of the car, at all.”

“I’ll be gone and back before you know it.” He patted her back and rested his chin on top of her head.

“I love you.” She looked up into his eyes and kissed him.

“Love you more,” he said.

I felt odd watching the exchange. The cafeteria was only so large. I turned away, but it was after the fact, and shook hands with Andy and Robert. I planned to do the same with Gene, but he pulled me in for a hug.

“If we don’t return, you watch over these people. You take care of my Melissa.” He pulled out of the hug and clapped me on the shoulders.

I nodded, letting him know I understood. There was no use in telling him not to worry, that he’d return, and we’d all be reunited. In truth, the chances of them returning with the bus were not good. Not good at all. He knew it. I knew it. Everyone here knew it. I still had to say something. “You just hurry back. No joy riding with that crazy bus of yours. I’m anxious to see this thing.”

“You got it!” Gene laughed. “And you’re going to love it. Tell him,
Melissa, tell him how much he’s going to love it.”

“You’re going to love it,” she said. Her words were not convincing. She barely made eye contact. I didn’t think it had anything to do with the bus.

#  #  #

Kia and Michelle held rifles. They sat perched on the sink counter in the kitchen, just under
the small rectangle windows.

“This is going to sound so damned obvious, but when I give the word, you two start shooting.
Hit as many as you can in the head. The gunshots are going to attract more to the back of the school over here,” Dave said. He made a gun with his fingers and aimed it at his own skull. “Don’t stop until there’s either none left as a threat, or you’re out of ammo. Got it?”

I wished there was more I could do. We only had the two windows over the sink. They were small.
Rectangle. Wasn’t room enough for more than one person stationed at each.

Charlene stood at the back door, her hand on the knob. This was her idea. She wanted to be part of the execution as well. I couldn’t blame her.

“Then, when I say so, Charlene, you pull open the door.” Dave pointed at Gene, Andy and Robert. “You three run like the fucking wind to the car. Gene, you have the keys?” Dave said.

“Yes.”

“Check,” Dave said.

“Sorry,” Gene said. “Check.”

“No,” Dave shook his head. “I mean,
check
. Physically check.”

Gene held up a key ring. “Check.”

Dave took a deep breath, held it and sighed. He nodded toward Kia and Michelle. “Ladies, start shooting…now!”

Kia and Michelle fired their rifles. The recoil kicked their bodies back after each shot fired. They didn’t stop or complain. They kept shooting. I hoped they were hitting targets. I could hear the creatures. The moaning and groaning was loud, hollow. It ate through me, pierced my skin. I couldn’t take much more of it, of them,
of all of this
.

“And, Charlene, now!”
Dave said, and she pulled open the door. “Run Gene, run!”

I watched Gene, Andy and Robert flee out the doorway. Kia and Michelle fired more rapidly. Megan and Melissa loaded secondary rifles with ammo.

“I’m out,” Kia said. She held out her rifle. Melissa swapped the empty out with the one she’d just loaded.

“Me, too,” Michelle said. Megan gave her a loaded rifle, too.

“They’re at the car,” Kia said, and resumed firing.

I needed to see what was happening.
Events being fed to me was not cutting it. It was like listening to a ballgame on the radio when there was a TV right in the next room.

“Robert!” Michelle said.

“I got him, I got him!” Kia squeezed off shot after shot. She leaned back, shook hair out of her face and fired again. “Robert!”

“Dad?”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said.

“Charlene, no!”
Allison said.

Dave reached for my daughter as Char opened the door and disappeared outside.

“What the fuck is she doing?” I ran around the register, past the ladies perched on the sink, and followed both Allison and Dave outside.

Charlene had her sword drawn and was chopping into zombies. There were so many, too many.

Robert was down. The things encircled him. Gene and Andy were inside the car already.

“Go,” Dave yelled at Gene, vigorously waving them off. “Get out of here!”

The engine revved.

I used my sword, too. Allison, Char and I fought the things on Robert. We weren’t going to be able to save him. I heard continu
ous shots fired from the windows. I kept waiting for a stray bullet to rip through my back. I felt that fate was inevitable at this point, and that I was a heartbeat away from dying.

“Robert!” Kia’s yelling only added to the confusion. Her shouts would attract even more zombies to
the back of the school.

“Back inside!” Dave pulled the remaining things off Robert.
“Inside, now!”

I swung my sword around and beheaded a female zombie. Her hands kept reaching out for me.  Her fingers curled in and out as if silently b
eckoning me forward. “Charlene!”

She continued to fight.

“Chase!” Allison called me.

“Alley?”
She was not beside me. I could not see her. “Alley?”

“Over there,” Dave said. “She’s over there!”

I couldn’t look around. Charlene and I defended our space, but that did not stop more zombies from closing in on us. Robert was gone, eaten. Dead. We’d managed to throw creatures off of him, but not before he’d been bitten repeatedly. His entire throat was ripped off of his neck.

“We have to get back in the school,” I said. It was going to be easier said than done. I didn’t want to be around when Robert re-animated. I didn’t have it in me right now to drive a blade into his brain. “Charlene, make a break
for the school!”

“Not without you!”

“I’m right behind you,” I said. I wouldn’t be. I needed to get to Allison. She’d been backed up against the dumpster. She used her sidearm and was shooting zombies in the head. There were too many. I couldn’t worry about both of them at the same time. “Dave, get Char!”

“I got her!” Dave used a cinderblock as a weapon and crushed skulls with single blows. “Get to the school. Go. Go. I’ll get her!”

Charlene was not listening to me. I was not listening to Dave.

Thankfully, Michelle and Kia continued dropping zombies with each shot they fired. I gave up worrying about being accidentally hit by friendly-fire. I
needed
to trust them right now, so I did. As best I could. With that one less thing to worry about, I was able to concentrate on my fight. “Charlene!”

She didn’t answer me.
Instead, she let out yells and grunts in bursts as she swung her sword, cutting legs off at the knees. She sliced off arms and hands, noses, ears and heads, as she made her way toward Dave, who kept getting closer to Allison.

I followed my daughter’s lead, both with wild sword swings, and moving toward Allison.

It snowed large white flakes. The temperature must have dropped drastically in the last day or so, and it felt like twice as cold since the fight started. The wind felt painful against exposed flesh. It bit my hands to the point they felt numb. I could smell winter. Pine trees and fireplaces. Only it wasn’t lit fireplaces that I smelled. More than likely it was just Pennsylvania burning.

Allison disappeared from my line of sight; had gone around the side of the
dumpster, as if driven further away by the horde of zombies encroaching ever forward. “Alley! Allison!”

Dave held the block in the rectangle holes and spun round and round clocking anything in his way.  The heavy grey brick was a ruthless weapon for the bear of a man.

Charlene worked her way closer to the dumpster. She just stepped forward and thrust her blade into whatever was near. Seemed like she wasn’t concerned with killing zombies as long as she stopped or slowed them down.

The zombies screamed and roared as we fought them. They were extremely animated.
Strong. They kept coming at us. More rounded the corners. I had no idea how much ammo Kia and Michelle had. They were doing a great job at taking out the creatures.

There were just too many. The constant gunshots, the noises the zombies made, the screaming we did as we fought them
…it had to be like a giant dinner bell being rung.

“Allison!” I’d reached the
dumpster. Charlene and Dave defended Allison as best they could.

“I have her, Chase! Cover me!” Dave threw the cinderblock at the crowd of zombies. He squatted and lifted Allison up over his shoulder. I saw blood flow from wounds on her arm
. It sprayed, staining Dave’s clothing.

“Let’s go, Charlene! Get back inside!” I said. I spun right and left and leapt forward, and jumped back. I let my blade cut into everything around us. Anything close, I
cut, chopped and severed. My eye was on Charlene, who was now beside me, and we fended off creatures as we protected Dave on the few yards we needed to cover in order to get back inside the safety of the school.

Then
we were inside, door closed, locked.

We were safe.

Except Robert was dead.

Robert was dead, and Allison had been bitten.

Chapter Nineteen

1216 hours

“Chase!” Allison held out a hand.

Dave used an arm to swipe a cash register to the ground before he laid Alley down on the checkout counter. The register shattered on red tiles. I saw fear in her face. I
felt
that fear like a fire inside my own chest. “Hang on, honey.”

Everyone stood back. The windows over the sink were now closed. Michelle sat on the counter, her back to the wall, her knees up. The rifle rested between her legs. Megan, Kia and Melissa stood huddled close together.

Charlene cried, silently. Tears left clean streaks down a blood and dirt covered face. Her body shook as Dave placed an arm over her shoulder.

“It’s bad?” Allison’s lower lip trembled. Her eyes were opened wide. They looked at me, looked around me, and then back into my eyes. “This is bad.”

“I’m going to need water. Lots of water? And towels,” I said. “Light the stove and find a spatula. A metal one, not plastic.”

“A spatula?”
Alley said. “Chase?”

Kia grabbed a silver bowl and filled it with water, as Dave tore hand-towels into strips
that we could wet and use to wipe up the wound.  I took Dave to the side, and whispered, “I want you to hold her down.”

“Chase,” Alley said, again.

“I’m right here,” I said. “I want you to stay calm. Charlene, help me get her coat and shirt off.”

I needed to see if she’d been bitten anywhere else beside the arm. For what I had in mind, the water, the towels, we could use those
supplies after. The deep breath I sucked in made me wince. It felt like a fist suddenly closed over my heart.

Charlene helped Allison shrug out of her coat, and pull off her shirt. The bra she wore was stained with blood. I poured water onto her chest. The blood washed away. I looked for bite marks. I did not see any.

“Only on my arm,” she said. “I got bitten once. On my arm.”

I whispered to my daughter
, “Heat the end of the spatula up on the flame. Get that metal glowing.”

The bite on her arm was severe. It started at the forearm, and flesh was pulled loose up past the elbow. The blood spilled from the wound. The school kitchen was so silent, except for an occasional sob. I heard my own breathing. It filled my ears. “Lie back down,” I said. “I want you to hold still. Hold out your arm.”

Dave stood at the head of the counter. I nodded to him. He held her by the shoulders.

“Chase
…”

“Just do it, Alley.” I pulled the machete from the sheath and held it with both hands. The sword was contaminated with fresh zombie blood. If I severed her arm using the sword, it might not help at all when her blood mixed with the infected blood on the blade. This might not work anyway. I only had seconds before it was possibly too late to do anything.

“Chase!”

There was no time for waiting, for talking her through it. I swung the machete fast, hard and screamed when I felt the metal make contact, and chop through skin, and muscle and bone.

Her arm fell from her body. It plopped into the formed pool of blood on the kitchen tiles. Blood splattered. The severed limb was coated red. More blood sputtered from the stub of an arm.

“The spatula,” I said.

Charlene removed the flipping end from the flame and handed it to me.

Allison yelled. She did not seem able to form any words. It looked like she was being electrocuted the way her head kept going from side to side. Almost worried I might need to stick something in her mouth to keep her from biting off her tongue.

I pressed the heated utensil against the stump, hoping it would immediately cauterize the wound and stop the bleeding. The spatula sizzled against the flesh. I think I screamed. The putrid odor of cooking human meat filled my nostrils. I vomited. My stomach bile mixed with her blood and severed arm.

Alley let out a single scream as well, and then went abruptly silent.

Her eyes were closed. The pain must have been too much. She had to have passed out. I hope she passed out. I wished it had been earlier. I didn’t want her to remember all of this. It was something I’d never forget. The images were seared into my brain. Seared forever into my memory.

I just kept hearing one phrase replayed over and over inside my head:
I cut off her arm. I cut off her arm. I cut off her arm
.

Melissa and Kia came over. They dipped the torn strips of towel into water and washed the blood around the Alley’s wound. I backed away, letting them tend to Alley for now.

“Are you okay?” Charlene put a hand on my arm.

The simple touch was not enough. I pulled her in for a hug. “I thought I lost both of you out there.”

I couldn’t hold back my tears. I didn’t try. I hugged Charlene tight, with my hands tangled in her hair. I couldn’t press her close enough to me. I needed that, her close, as reassurance that she was real. That I had not lost her.

“Is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t know.”

“You’re bleeding, too. Your side,” she said.

I lifted my shirt and felt it peel off my stomach. “Stitches must have come out during the fighting. I’ll be alright.”

“Let me take a look. I’m sure I can fix it up,” she said. And I let her.

#  #  #

I did not see who had done it, but after my daughter led me to the cafeteria area, someone cleaned the mess under the cash register counter.
They must have disposed of Alley’s arm and mopped up the blood and vomit.

My daughter and I stood at the threshold and looked at Alley, who was still out cold.
“Anything?” I said.

“She’s breathing,” Kia said. “It’s steady. But she hasn’t moved at all. Her eyes haven’t opened.”

“I appreciate you looking after her for me,” I said, and remembered how, when we first arrived, she’d told stories to take my mind off the stitches Gene had first given to close my deep cuts. I touched my side, and let out a wince.

“It’s nothing.”

“Melissa, how far away is your house, where the bus is, from the school?” I said.

“Ten minutes.
Fifteen in heavy traffic. We’re pretty close. About three miles out on McCarren Street, by the hospital,” she said.

By the Hospital
meant nothing to me. Ten minutes, three miles. That I understood. “How long have Gene and Andy been gone?”

Robert was outside. Had he re-animated? Was he a zombie now?

Dave looked at the clock on the wall by the door to the freezer. “An hour.”

An hour.
“That’s not bad. Roads are littered with disabled vehicles,” I said. Getting from 9-1-1 to my kids had been a journey, as well. “It took us, what Dave…days to go just over fifteen miles.”

“That’s right, it did,” he said.

Melissa smiled. It was like she wanted what Dave and I implied to be an acceptable reason for why Gene and Andy weren’t back yet. It wasn’t. Not really. “I told him not to get out of that car. You remember. So it may just be taking a bit longer for them to get to the house. Once they get there though, he’ll be back in minutes with the bus. It’s just a matter of getting out to the house. That’s all.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said. “And I can’t wait to see this thing!”

This time, Melissa lit up. “It really is spectacular. When he was building it, I’ll admit, I did a lot of eye rolling. I mean, we work hard. We’re still a paycheck to paycheck kind of couple. He just would dump any extra pennies we had into making this bus. But I never told him to stop. It was his thing. It made him happy, so I just let him. I even helped building it, from time to time, too.”

Alley coughed.

I looked at her. Stood there motionless for a moment before I ran to the side of the counter. Kia took a step back. She pursed her lips at me. Not quite a smile. She looked about as apprehensive as I felt. This was going to be touch and go. Alley would need some prescription strength drugs to fight any infections that are associated with amputation. At least that was what I was thinking.

“Alley?”
I said. “Allison?”

She coughed again. It sounded like her throat was filled with phlegm. I turned her onto her side. She faced the doorway to the cafeteria where Charlene still stood.

I patted Alley on the back. “It’s okay. We’re here. We’re with you.”

“Dad,” Charlene said. “Dave, grab my dad.”

I looked up from patting Allison’s back. I was behind my girlfriend.

Dave came at me. He didn’t question my daughter’s command. Part of me knew what must be happening. There was something I couldn’t see from where I stood.
“Char?” I said.

Dave took me by the arms and walked me away from Allison. It couldn’t go down this way. Not with my daughter and not with Allison.

I saw Charlene come forward. She’d drawn her hunting knife. “Char, wait. Wait, Charlene!”

My daughter cupped her hand behind Allison’s head and thrust the serrated blade into her skull. I heard the knife saw through skull. With both her hands being used, my daughter could not wipe away her tears. Her lip trembled as she tugged and pulled until her knife came out of
Allison’s head.

I’d done nothing. I didn’t save her, couldn’t save her. Cutting off her arm, having her pass out--it prevented me from spending last moments together. It stopped me from telling her I loved her. I never got to thank her for
…for everything. I failed you, Allison.

My daughter should not have been the one to end it. That she was strong and brave enough was not lost on me, but the fact that she had to did not make it any easier. I continue to fail you, Charlene. Continue to fail you.

Ah shit. I dropped to my knees. Just, shit.