Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (9 page)

His attention returned to me. “Are you ready?”

“Will the Infected be asking me that same question?”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Good point.”

No sooner had he finished speaking did his body lunge forward. I had stopped a foot away, giving him an advantage with the narrow distance, but I was ready for him and shifted my weight to the outside as my forearms came up to push him aside. He trudged to a stop and spun around.

“You’re quick.”

I didn’t bother holding back my smirk. “You’re surprised?”

He chuckled, leaned in, and charged me again. This time I met him head on using varying disciplines’ techniques in defense, and found myself on the ground with Harrison hovering over me.

“You know Hapkido,” he mused, his breath brushing along my cheeks.

I had to fight myself not to raise my lips to him. As diversion, I asked, “But the real question is, how do you know it? They teach that to you down on the range?”

He only grinned, leaned down and kissed me on the nose before hauling me up.

“Again,” he said, and we repeated the spar, this time using traditional karate. He met me with equal ability and speed, making it the first sparring session I had with anyone since my dad who had even a small measure of ability. Each time from then on Harrison defended himself with the same style I used on him, leaving delicate kisses on me whenever he’d successfully pinned me to the ground.

On the fifth spar, Beverly loosened the disapproving pinch of her lips just long enough to protest. “Okay, I’m going to stretch our imaginations a little and just
suggest
that the Infected
won’t
be fighting us with martial arts.”

I would have laughed if I wasn’t so tired. Harrison, to my shame, looked like we hadn’t even started.

“What you’re seeing…,” he said, “what you will learn…is how to block, throw, punch and kick the Infected attacking you. This might give you enough time to evade and free yourself from your situation.”

“Then let’s get on with it,” she said rising to her feet. “I’m tired of watching you two show off.”

I felt a frown coming on but it gave way to stark humility when Doc, who was hauling himself up by the rail, replied under his breath. “Oh, that wasn’t showing off…That was revving up.”

Harrison caught it too, his back tensing at the realization of what we’d been doing, and that we’d done it with an audience.

Mei, who had preserved her innocence, tilted her head and squinted her eyes in confusion. “Revving up for what?” she asked.

“Tonight…,” Beverly replied smugly, seeming to enjoy the discomfort that had settled over Harrison and me.

He snuck a look my way but it was gone before I could meet it.

“All right,” he bellowed in a commanding tone. “Let’s pair up!”

Apparently, he recovered quicker than me.

That was the last time Harrison and I sparred together, choosing instead to work with Doc, Mei, or Beverly. I missed his hidden caresses and subtle kisses, but it was obvious we needed to separate. Not because we were already skilled, not because our interest in each other was getting in the way, but because we were training our friends, our teammates to fight for their lives. We were reminded of how much we had to do to prepare them once they began to train. Mei, it turned out, was the fastest. While she didn’t have the strength for physical confrontation, her small frame could dodge any of us coming at her in one fluid motion. Evasion was her best tactic. Doc was the slowest due to his size but his brute force gave him the power to punch and kick, making muscle strength his best asset. When delving into her deep-seeded anger, Beverly was excellent at blocking and throwing. Calling on that fury gave her the extra strength she needed to knock any of us off our feet when she wanted.

Harrison and I didn’t finish on the roof that night what we’d started on the ground earlier that day, but the tension was there, fluidly running between us. During the days that followed, the tension never subsided, and we were gradually forced to channel it into our training time with the others.

Within a few weeks, we could sense the tone in each other’s voices and finish each other’s sentences. When we moved, we did it as a unit, anticipating each other’s next steps.

When we found ourselves ready to leave it was well-timed because when we woke up our last morning we were greeted by a pod of Infected coming down the driveway.

CHAPTER 5

I
T WAS THEIR MOVEMENT, THE CRUNCH
of their weight against the freshly fallen snow, which alerted Harrison. He heard them on the main road, and again when they wandered onto the Nielsen’s driveway. By the time I was on my feet, they were within eyesight.

As Harrison raced through the house, stirring everyone else awake, I peered out the bedroom window overlooking the front yard to find the world had turned white. The trees and ground were covered with snowfall for as far as the eye could see. The view had become a stunning winter wonderland marred by twenty or thirty dark, dirty, hunched figures and the brown trail they left behind them. From my view above, it looked ominous, like jagged claws ripping down a solid white canvas.

I heard Harrison stop at my bedroom door and was about to join him when one of the Infected stretched her neck into the air, sniffed, and broke into a sprint for the house.

“We have less than a minute,” Harrison announced. “Kennedy, we have to go.”

As I turned away from the window, the others began their dash for the house, reminding me of a pack of rabid animals zeroing in on their prey.

I entered the hallway to find Doc, Mei, and Beverly dressed and heading down the stairs. We moved quietly but with speed, a formed unit that would have made my dad proud. On the first floor, we went straight for the front door. There was no hesitation in our maneuvering around the furniture, no shrieks of fear over what we were about to encounter. Our intentions were deliberate, planned. I watched our team, realizing that we had shed our teenage personas. We were no longer the frightened kids huddled in the main hallway of our high school waiting for our parents or the authorities to rescue us. Now,
we
were the authority.

Doc opened the door and went through it, giving us a clear view of the Infected. They had reached the edge of the yard and were equal distance between us and the sedan.

It was a game of chicken now.

We ran as fast as our legs allowed but they seemed to run faster. Only by Harrison’s foresight, to move the car toward the road so that the doors opened to us, were we able to save the vital seconds we needed. Only two Infected were faster, coming down on the passenger’s side to target their closest prey: Doc and Beverly.

I raised my rifle over the roof.

“Get in the car,” Harrison bellowed.

I took aim.

“Kennedy!” he yelled.

Then I realized the severity of our situation.

I had only one round left, one bullet. And I had two targets.

Doc and Beverly were
both
fighting for their lives, using the techniques we’d taught them, but it was a messy fight, with the Infected biting at them and craning their neck around Doc and Beverly’s blocks.

Harrison disappeared from my view, moving behind me, and then came back into sight on the opposite side of the car. Knowing he wouldn’t find me in the car until Beverly and Doc were safely inside, he began to intervene.

Beverly got the superior position, braced herself against the car and planted a punch into the Infected’s chest, sending him to the ground. It was a Wing Chun technique and I’d seen her practicing it relentlessly the past few weeks. And as The Infected fell away and I lost sight of him, I was proud of her. She remained standing just long enough to duck inside the sedan and slam the door shut. When the Infected sprang back to his feet, my heart tightened. Harrison was a foot away, but this didn’t seem to bother him. He effortlessly took the Infected’s head and snapped it entirely backward. He did this casually, like the Infected had been nothing more than an irritating obstacle in his way, before swiftly shifting around the car door and heading for Doc.

His attacker was still going at it, so I rotated the muzzle and aimed before realizing Doc was in the middle of throwing the Infected aside, also using a technique we’d taught him. Pride swelled in me as he dove inside. It was stifled by Doc’s attacker bouncing up and charging Harrison. Again, fear pulsed through me, but there seemed to be no reason for it as Harrison easily finished off this Infected too.

He was already marching back around the car to the driver’s side when he yelled, “Get inside, Kennedy!”

We closed the doors just as the next Infected slammed into the hood. She did this full force, shaking the car and splattering her grime across the windshield.

This was the first opportunity I got for a close look at the Infected since leaving our high school. There had been no time for it at Ezekiel Labs or Milton’s Coffee Shop, not when we were running for our lives, or in the woods when Harrison put the gun to his head, or in the cone on the freeway when Beverly went temporarily insane. Each time, I had been distracted. Not now. Not in the car as Harrison turned the key in the ignition. In that brief moment, I got an up close and personal view of how the Infected had evolved.

Her balding scalp was thick with leaves and clumps of dirt. What teeth she had left had begun to rot, turning a pretty blend of black, yellow, and green. Her skin was now loosening over the muscles beneath it, drooping into piled wrinkles around her eye sockets and jawbone. In short, she resembled a walking corpse.

None of that disturbed me nearly as much as what I saw next. So much so, that I happened to vocalize my thoughts without realizing it.

“What’s that?” Doc shouted from the front seat, visibly stressed.

“She’s-She’s partially decapitated…,” I repeated, unable to look away.

He didn’t respond and I knew it wasn’t important enough to him at the moment. It was to me, because it meant her blood flow had stopped.

She plowed her fist into the window, tearing off two fingers and leaving a two inch crack from the impact. Others were doing almost as much damage, leaving deep dents in the hood and roof as they tried to get in. The car was rocking violently from one side to the other now, forcing me to grab hold of the dashboard.

Doc, whose typical response in situations like this had been to shout shrilly, “Go! Go! Go!”, toned it down this time.

“Let’s go, Harrison,” he urged, staring warily at the Infected who completely surrounded the car, hissing, growling, moaning.

Harrison had been trying, turning the key repeatedly in an effort to get the engine running, but each attempt ended with the rumble dying out.

“It’s cold,” I said. “Keep trying.”

He tried again, but it grumbled and fell silent.

Another fist hit the window, this one next to Beverly’s head.

“Let’s go!” she barked.

“Try it again,” I said.

He was already in the middle of another attempt, cursing under his breath as the car emitted the same sluggish scratching noise. He sighed, bit down in frustration, and dropped his head to think of another solution. But it caught this time and his head sprang back up, wide-eyed. He hit the gas and we lurched forward, knocking into the hips of those bent over the hood. He pressed the pedal again, slower, and we began to move. The bodies shifted, gradually, by the sheer force of our weight but never stopped their clawing or lost their concentration on finding a way inside. We were halfway down the driveway, the Infected doing their best to chase us across the powdery white ground, before anyone spoke up.

“Whew,” Doc exhaled. “Anyone else’s heart racing?”

And the rest of us broke into nervous laughter.

“Is everyone all right?” Harrison asked, as I saw his eyes land on me in the rear-view mirror.

“All good,” I replied.

Doc, Beverly, and Mei used the same word to confirm, as if they were moving down a checklist. Afterward there was only the crunch of the snow as we plowed back to the main road.

At the corner, Harrison glanced in the rearview mirror again, this time confirming we were a safe distance from the Infected following us, and then asked, “Left, everyone?”

It felt odd, and unsafe, to be idling so we spoke in unison, “Left.”

The roads, which hadn’t been cleared in months, were blanketed in snow. Beneath were fallen leaves and tree branches. So Harrison was cautious with his driving while maintaining a steady speed.

“The sky was blue yesterday,” Mei remarked. It seemed offhand unless you knew why she was mentioning it. In survival situations, you pick up on details you miss in situations where you feel you have more control.

“You’re watching the weather closer too, huh?” I asked.

She gave me a dull smile. “I like to know what’s coming.”

Beverly snorted suddenly and tipped her head toward the Nielsen’s and the Infected we left behind. “Well, you missed
that
one coming.”