The Infected (Book 1): Jim's First Day (12 page)

“What
the hell are you people doing?” he readjusts his baseball cap.

“Start
the four-wheeler,” I shriek at him.

“You
people shouldn’t be here!” he catches a full view of the disgusting army of the
dead that are on our heels. The horde splits up and chase after the cows.
Devon, Sara and I reach the four-wheeler.

“Come
on man!” Devon says to the farmer. He climbs onto his ride and the three of us
jump up onto the racks. The guy turns a key and hits the ignition. He punches the
gas and the tires spin out as we take off. The infected chow down on a few of
the cows. They swarm them, tearing at their flesh. One cow trips on a dead
person, falls to its side and they tear into it. Some of the other livestock
get away but suffer a few bites from the infected. The farmer heads for a small
house and barn that sits at the end of the pasture. The horde has forgotten
about us and is focused on this easy prey.  

The
farmer pulls into the barn and kills the vehicle’s engine. He hops off and runs
for one of the barn doors. Devon and I run over to the other door and pull it
closed.

“What
in God’s name is going on? The girls have been going crazy for the last hour. I
see smoke in the sky. I heard the God-awful noise. It sounded like a plane
crash,” the farmer pulls off his baseball cap and wipes the sweat from his
forehead. He stares at us waiting for some kind of rational answer.

“I
don’t know what to tell you. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. There is a
horrible infection spreading quickly,” I tell him. He snaps his cap back on.

“The
noise and the smoke?” he asks.

“A
few planes have crashed. They took out the bridge, Cascade Station and the
airport. Is there a way out of here?” I press. I notice Devon is right behind
me. He shadows every move I make. I didn’t notice it before now.

“Yeah.
Back door.”

“Do
you have a boat?” asks Sara.   

“You
want to go out there?” he drops his hands onto his hips in disbelief.     

“Hey,”
I put my hand out and he shakes it on instinct. “My name’s Jim, what’s yours?”

“Bob,”
he says.

“Bob,
we can’t hang around here. Those things will find a way in or they’ll surround
us and we’ll never get out,” he does not believe me. “Bob, we gotta move now.
If this is happening everywhere, then there’s no rescue. Do you have a boat off
this island?” I let go of his hand. He looks the three of us over and makes eye
contact with each of us. It sinks in. How could we possibly make this up? He
nods his head.

“I
got a boat tied up at the dock. It’s north of here. Keys are in the house.”

“Okay.
Lead the way.”

Bob
heads to the back door of the barn. He slowly pops it open and peeks outside.
The coast is clear so we follow him out. He walks quickly.

“Let’s
pick up the pace,” I jog past him. Out in the pasture, four dead cows are on
the ground. The infected chase after the rest of the animals. I hope they stay
occupied with the herd and give us time to get off this island.   

We
get to the front door and Bob unlocks it. We slide through the door and into
the small entryway. Bob locks the door behind us. I keep watch at the window as
he hunts for his keys.

“I
got a rifle. Should I grab it?”

“Whatever
you want. Just move fast,” says Sara.

“I
recommend a blade,” I tell him. Bob finds the keys to the boat in a drawer.

“I’m
going to grab my rifle. Where are we going?” Bob goes to get his gun.

“Vancouver,”
says Sara. Bob returns from down the hall and loads a handful of rounds into
the old Winchester.

“Why?”

“My
family. Keep it down,” I whisper. The infected are close.

“I
can drop you off on the shore, but I’m heading upriver. I got a cabin in
Stevenson.”

Out
in the pasture something horrible has happened. I thought this was a people
disease, but I was wrong. One of the cattle has turned and it is pissed off.

Devon
looks over my shoulder outside. “What the hell?” he whispers to me. Bob fills a
backpack with canned food. His rifle is slung over his forearm. He turns
quickly and the barrel of the gun hits a quart jar full of coins. The jar
slides off the kitchen counter and crashes to the ground. Glass and coins hit
the hardwood floor and the jar explodes. It could not have been louder. The
infected out in the pasture hear the noise and move for us.

“Oops,”
Bob says as he slings his pack up onto his shoulder.

The
cow charges at the house as Bob opens the front door. Its ribs are exposed and
it is missing its jaw. Bob raises his rifle and fires, hitting its chest. The
round does nothing but alert all of the infected to our location.

“Hit
them in the head!” Sara roars. He fires another round and hits the neck. The
cow moves so fast, faster than the rest of the infected. Two more beasts have
turned and head our way. The first one is at the door. Bob slams it shut. The
animal blasts the front door off its hinges. Its head and neck stick into the
living room, but it is too wide. The doorway stops it. Bob fires another round
and misses completely. Its head rears up and down as it fights to get inside. I
stab at it and slice off an ear. Devon takes his spear and slices downward into
its neck. He cuts the head halfway off. I hit it the same way on my side and
the damn thing’s head falls to the floor. Gallon after gallon of cow blood pour
out of its neck. The body drops onto the porch. The eyes and tongue move in the
severed head. It is still alive. Sara forces her machete down into its brain.
That does it.

Four
infected humans climb over the dead cow’s body. Bob shoots one in the head and
I slice at another. Another turned cow crashes through the big front window,
but it gets high centered on the windowsill. We back into the kitchen. The
infected smash through the windows and front door. Their blood soaked mouths
snap closed. Bob fires until his rifle clicks empty. If we do not move we will
be surrounded. I do not want to face a turned cow in the open.    

We
move further into the kitchen. I see a full bottle of whiskey on the counter. I
pull open a drawer next to the sink and find a dish rag. I grab the whiskey and
jam the rag into the mouth of the bottle.

“That
won’t kill them!” hollers Devon. I pull the Zippo from my pocket and light the
rag.

“I
know, but it’ll slow them down,” I give the rag a few seconds and then I throw
it into the living room. It hits one of the infected and bounces off and rolls
to the floor. Nothing happens. “What the hell?” I groan.

“Now
what?” Sara looks around the kitchen for something else to throw, but there is
nothing. One of the infected steps on the flaming rag and it snuffs out the
fire. Bob franticly reloads his rifle. Devon takes down one that entered the
kitchen. A turned cow has somehow shoved itself through the window and it
smashes around the living room. I pass a bookshelf as we leave the kitchen. I
stick the blade of my spear between it and the wall and give my spear a good
hard push. The bookshelf tips over and comes crashing down onto the kitchen
counter.

“Let’s
move our asses!” Bob leads us to the bedroom and slides open the window. It is
barely big enough for us to climb out. This side of the house is on a slope so
it is a ten-foot drop out the window. Devon goes first. He sits on the sill and
dangles his legs out. When he hits the ground he slides down the grassy hill
and comes to a stop fifteen feet away from the house.

“I
made it!” he calls up to us. Two of the infected have climbed over the
bookshelf. I stab them right away. Sara jumps next and makes it. Bob climbs up
into the window. As he fights to get his legs out I take down a couple more
freaks. The livestock or I guess, the deadstock now, smash through the house. I
am back to back with Bob as he readies himself. Four more infected stumble into
the bedroom and I take down the first one. My spear is stuck in its face and
the three others are right on top of me. I rip the spear out and swing it hard
and it slices off the head of one of them. The last two have their hands on me
so I use the shaft of the spear to block them. I catch them under their arms
and put the shaft right up into their sternums. They force me back and I knock
Bob out of the window. When he hits the ground the rifle goes off.

“AHHHAH!
SON OF A BITCH!” Bob screeches in pain.

The
infected push my head and shoulders out the open window. The spear is caught
against the frame and the wall. It stops them. They can’t reach me with their
blood caked mouths. I look down at Bob and he has shot himself in the leg. The
infected put all of their weight on me. The spear bows under the pressure. I am
stuck halfway in and out of this window. I let go of the spear and pull the
knife from my hip. I stab the one on my right and its body falls to the floor.
I shove against the last one. I am able to get the handle of the spear out the
window and I begin to fall. It is ten feet to the ground and I am going to land
hard on my back. Awesome.

The
fall was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. The impact itself was not
what hurt. The grass was soft and I hit it at a good angle and I slid easily
down the hill on my back. What hurt was the sharp rock that sliced down the
side of my right calf. It tore through my new pants and left a three inch gash.

When
I was twenty years old, I thought it was time I got a tattoo. So I put a
Chinese symbol on my right leg. It was the symbol for money or so I was told. I
could be a walking advertisement for Chinese laundry detergent. I do not really
know. It sits a couple inches above my ankle and it’s the only tattoo on my
body. I never liked it. A couple years ago I met a lady in her mid fifties and
she had almost the exact tattoo in the same spot. After that I really hated my
ink. The rock cut it in two. Slit it right down the middle. Now if I live
through all of this I will have an ugly scar to go with my bad tattoo. I get to
the bottom of the hill and crash into Bob. He lets out a squeal.

“We’ve
got to stop the bleeding!” Sara holds his wound.

“With
what?” Devon is in a panic.

“I
don’t know,” she walks over to Bob then cuts and tears off a strip from his t-shirt
and pulls off his belt. She shoves the rag onto the wound, wraps the belt
around his leg then pulls the belt tight and ties it off. Up in the window an
infected climbs out after us. It falls and tumbles down the hill. I roll to my
stomach and get to my knees. It falls head over heels. I ready myself, get my
spear up and aim it at the monster. I stab him right in the chest and the force
of it jams my handle down deep into the dirt behind me. My spear is stuck in
the ground and its chest. Sara gets to her feet and gives it a chop to the
head. Its skull splits in half. Another infected falls out the window and lands
on Bob. Devon moves quickly and stabs down into the back of its head, but in
his haste he did not see Bob’s leg was underneath. Devon’s spear goes right
into Bob’s thigh. Black blood pours into Bob’s open wound. He lets out a high
pitch screech. Devon pulls out the spear and kicks the infected off of Bob and
sees what he has done.

“Oh,
God! I’m so sorry!” Devon puts pressure on the new wound.

“YOU
IDIOT!” Bob shouts through clenched teeth. I slowly get to my feet and test my
leg. It hurts like hell but I can at least walk. Bob has shot off a chunk of
his calf. It looks like Devon hit an artery. Bob’s blood pumps onto the grass.
It seeps through Devon’s fingers. Behind the house is another forest, thick
with trees. I do not want to face one of those turned cows out here in the
open, it would run right over us. Bob’s face has gone white. He does not have
long.

“Get
him up!” I lift up Bob’s arm and pull him to his feet. Devon gets under his
other arm. It is tough to hold both him and my spear.

“I
can’t believe I stabbed him!”

“It
was an accident! We gotta move. Head for the forest.”

“Should
we leave him? We can’t fix him now!” Sara jumps out ahead of us for the woods.

“You
know where his boat is docked?”

We
move as fast as we can for the edge of the woods. I hope that we can get there
and maybe they will lose track of us. We move slower than the infected as we
cross the field. It is a hundred yards until we hit the trees. Carrying Bob
like this reminds me of high school wrestling. Every year during Christmas
break it was a tradition to run up Tukes Mountain. It is more of a super tall
hill than a mountain. It sat a couple miles from the high school and was paved
all the way to the top. You had to do the run if you wanted to letter in
wrestling. On top of that you got your name on the wall with your finish time.
They had over ten years worth of names up there by the time I entered high
school so it was a badge of honor to run it. We ran it once on Christmas Eve
morning. It was freezing out and my lungs burned with every breath. The run
started at the high school, then down Main Street and up the hill. The thing
that reminds me of this horrible walk is you had to make the run with one of
your teammates on your back. You would pair up with someone in your weight
class and run as fast as you can, for as long as you can, then you would
switch. You would think being carried would be easy, but it was not. You still
had to engage your arms and legs to help stay on their back. I can’t remember
how long it took to get to the top of the mountain but it felt like forever. As
I drag Bob I wonder when is it my turn to be carried?

I
am not in the same kind of shape I was in high school and Bob is not a hundred
and forty pound teenager. We are only thirty yards from the tree line when I hear
it. I look over my shoulder. One of the turned cows has fallen out of Bob’s
window and crash-landed down the hill behind the house. It must have broken a
limb in the fall because it drags its rear leg as it limps toward us.

“Push
it!” Devon and I pick up the pace. We are so close to the woods. Another cow
and a few more infected humans fall down the hill behind us. Shit.

The
woods slow us down even more. The underbrush is so thick we are moving at a
snails pace.

“Bob,
is there a faster way to the boat?” Sara chops at the brush with her machete.
He looks up and glances around. Then motions to our right. We head in that
direction. The three legged cow smashes through the woods behind us. The
underbrush is no problem for her. The forest is so thick I can’t see it but I
know the beast is there.

It
is a slog. Every step we take is a fight. I hurt all over. My clothes are still
wet and Bob’s dead weight dragging me down. 

My
mind flashes to
Young Frankenstein
when Gene Wilder digs up the dead
body with Igor and he says “What a filthy job.” Igor- “Could be worse.”
Frankenstein- “How?” Igor- “Could be raining.” Lightning cracks and down comes
the rain. It is a great scene. Made me laugh even as a child.
Can’t get any
worse
I think to myself. Then Bob pukes blood on me. That is twice in one
day. So it did technically get a little worse, but at least it is not raining.
My wife is always telling me me stop complaining. She says I am always
complaining about this pain or that pain and most of the time she is right.
After ten years of marriage you can run out of stuff to talk about and my back
hurting badly from a heavy workout seems like a good topic. After a long hard
walk we get to a small path.

“Bob!
Which way?”

No
response.

“BOB!”

His
head pops up and he looks up and down the path. He is fading. We don’t have
much time. He will turn from the sick blood that poured into his leg or bleed
to death and try and bite my ear off. I reach into his front pocket and dig out
the keys to the boat. Bob nods to the left towards north. Down the path we go.
Something smashes around the forest. It is the three-legged beast. On the right
side of the path there is a large log, three and a half feet high and it has
been down for a long time. It is covered in moss and rotted from the elements.

“Get
down,” I mouth to the group. We duck behind the old dead growth. It completely
hides us from what is about to come. The monster emerges. Step, step, step,
drag. I fight to get my breath under control. I do not want it to hear me. It
creeps down the gravel road behind us. We don’t move. We don’t breathe. It
doesn’t know we are here. Bob has passed out, but his leg twitches. He is about
to change. I lean over and put my forearm across his legs to stop the noise. I
don’t think it heard us. I pull out my knife and get ready to take Bob out. I
keep the tip of the blade under his chin. His body shakes. I know that stupid
cow heard us. I force the knife up into Bob’s brain. I pull it out and wipe the
blood off on Bob’s shirt.

It
is silent for a few seconds, but then a set of hooves slam down onto the log.
Out of the three of us, I scream the loudest. We crab walk and twist away from
the creature while trying to stab it. It tries to climb over the tree, but its
busted leg makes it impossible. We slash at its face. Large chunks of meat fall
from its skull. Devon lands the killshot and its massive body falls dead onto
the log. He pulls the spear from its big head and wipes the blood off on its
cowhide. I love this kid. What a funny thing to copy. No time to celebrate, we
have got to move. I give Bob’s body one last look. Another person I could not
save. The bodies are piling up in the “I could not save” pile. I can’t dwell on
it but every time it happens I feel a deep sorrow. I make sure I have his boat
keys and we are off.

I
sprint back out onto the path. The path opens onto a beautiful view of my city.
Vancouver is right there. It looks so close, like I can reach out and touch it.
I wipe the sweat from my eyes and take another look. A dark cloud looms above
the city. Smoke from fires burning out of control all over the city. My heart
aches at the thought of my family burning to death. By boat it is a two-minute
ride across the river. If we swim it will take over an hour. The path widens
even farther. The dock is right ahead of us. There is a small fishing boat and
a bigger ski boat tied to the dock. I hope we get to ride in the big boat.

Everything
is clear on the beach. No infected and no devil cows. Our boots smack down onto
the aluminum metal dock. It echoes loudly giving away our position to any
infected in the area. We get to the last leg of the dock. I am ten feet from
the large boat when a rough looking man in his sixties steps out from its
cabin. He holds a revolver in his hand and draws down on us as we come to an
abrupt stop. Our hands go up in the air. I wish I had a gun on me. His face
says it all. He is freaked out and liable to do something stupid. 

“I’m
looking for my brother!” he has similar features to Bob only older. He steps farther
from the cabin and onto the back part of his boat.

“Have
you seen him? His name is Bob. I came to get him when I saw the news.”

“We’ve
seen him. I’m sorry, we tried to help,” I plead.

“Is
that his blood?!”

“Some
of it. He’d taken a bad fall and shot himself,” no need to tell him about what
Devon and I did. Tears form in his eyes. He steps out onto the dock.

“Take
me to him! Now!”

“I’m
sorry, but he’s gone. The island’s covered with the infected. It’s not safe.”

He
pulls back the hammer on his gun. “Take me to his body!” tears trickle down the
deep cracks in his face and he spits when he talks.

“I’ve
got a brother too and I don’t know what’s happened to him either. I’m very
sorry for your loss-”

“He’s
down that path about two hundred yards and behind a large log. Please let us
go!” blurts out Devon.

“Sir,
your brother saved us and we did everything we could for him, but right now we
have to get off this island,” a small horde steps out of the woods. Perfect
timing. They pour out onto the beach. “This place is overrun. We have to get
out of here. Please. My name is Jim,” I hold out my hand to shake his. It
worked with his brother; I hope it will work for him.

“Get
out of my way!”

He
pushes past us and runs down the dock. We watch him as he unloads his revolver
into the first infected reaching the dock. One of the six shots hits it in the
head and it falls face first to the aluminum grate. He quickly reloads his gun,
much faster than I could reload a gun like that.

“Let’s
fire this baby up and get of this shitty island,” Sara heads for the small
boat. She is right. We should leave. I don’t know the man nor owe him anything,
but I feel guilty. I know how much I would miss my brother if something happened
to him. My brother, Don, is a gun nut and works from home. If anyone is doing
okay during all this ridiculous shit, it is him. Sara is in the boat and Devon
has already undone the first mooring rope. Bob’s brother empties his revolver
into another infected and it drops dead. I step off the dock and down into the
boat. I turn the ignition. Nothing happens. The engine is dead maybe the
battery, I have no idea. I look over the rest of the controls and there is
nothing to it. No other buttons or a choke to pull, only the ignition and the
throttle. I turn the key again. Nothing.

Bob’s
brother has gunned down another one. He has it figured out. Headshots are what
it takes. He took down the whole small horde, all ten. It was impressive.

“Battery’s
dead!” he reloads his gun. “You want off this island? You gotta help me get my
brother!”

Damn
it. My choices are to say, “
screw you
”, jump into the Columbia River,
lose an hour and be exhausted or spend ten minutes and help him drag his
brother off this deadly island. Another choice is I wait for him to drop his
guard, kill him then take the keys off his dead body. What is wrong with me? I
shake off that thought.

“Come
on,” I step off the boat and back up onto the dock.

“Let’s
kill him and take the keys,” Sara says quietly. I guess the thought of murder
is contagious. In a few short hours we go from trying to save everyone to lets
kill them if they get in my way.

“No,
let’s go get Bob,” I say, frustrated. Sara and Devon climb out and follow me. I
get to the end of the dock and step over the pile of bodies.