The Infected (Book 1): Jim's First Day (18 page)

“Feel
better?” he goes back to loading the clip.

“No,
I don’t. I shouldn’t have hit you. I’m sorry.”

“That
love tap? Don’t worry about it,” he smiles back at me and tosses his bag up
onto his shoulder.

“Your
wife’s going to be fine. I know it,” Devon chimes in from the living room. Bits
of jerky fall from his mouth as he talks. I turn my back to him and I piss in
the sink. I know Sara is only feet from me, but I have to go so badly. She does
not seem to care. She didn’t even turn away.

“How
do you know?” I have to talk louder over the noise from the sink.

“You
told her to stay in the bedroom, get the gun and don’t let anyone know she’s
there,” he pours the last of the bag into his mouth and tosses the empty
plastic to the floor. I finish pissing in the sink and rinse it out as I wash
my hands. I fill the bladder for my pack. “Look around. Like, they aren’t
beating down this lady’s door to get in here. She could’ve been fine and I don’t
see a husband in any of the pictures. She didn’t have anyone coming home like
Karen does. It was her and the kids and she lost hope. She lost it fast,” Devon
smiles brightly at me, his lip is swollen, but he still manages a smile to make
me feel better.

I
finish filling my water bladder. I face my friends. “You’re right,” I reconnect
the bladder to my pack.

“You
boys okay now?” Sara pats me on the shoulder. Frank and I nod. I sling my bag
onto my back and snap it secure. Frank is ready. Sara slides her machete into
the sheath on her hip and picks up her new blade bat. Devon and I grab our
spears and head for the door.

I
look out the peephole. “There’s two out there,” I whisper. Frank is right
behind me. “Let Devon and I take those two. Then we head north.” Frank and
Devon switch spots behind me. I unlock the bolt and swing the door open. The
two monsters do not know what hit them. We are out the door with spears jammed
in the back of their heads in under two seconds. We take the same triangle
position as before with Frank in the lead. The four of us sprint hard across
the lot. A car sits ahead of us, its front windows smashed in. The driver and
his passenger have turned. They are strapped into the front seats and their
arms claw out the window at us. They were bitten on their arms and hands. Both
are missing most of their fingers and the bones of their forearms are exposed.

“We
should put them down. If they get out they could hurt someone,” Sara readies
her weapon.

“She’s
right. We should put down every one of them we come across,” Frank leads us
over to the car.

“I’ll
take the passenger,” I split off from the group to the passenger side. I get my
spear up and ready to stab. I know this person. She works at the local Trader
Joe’s. I put her out of her misery. Sara uses the blade bat and it destroys the
man’s face.

We
regroup and head for another gap between the last buildings on this lot. When
we get to the edge of the building we pause for a moment. Ahead of us is a
major intersection. From here I can see my apartment complex. My heart skips a
beat. The intersection is an absolute mess. It is filled with cars. Some have
flipped over on their sides, a few are on fire and a couple are just burnt out
shells. There are black skeletons seared to the car seats and they move like
bad animatronic robots. The tight skin and loss of muscle control give the
bodies a herky jerky movement. There is a good sized horde around the
intersection. I glance over to the right and there’s a church. As far as I can
tell there is only a couple to get through if we head for the church. We dart
across this little chunk of grass. It is covered in trees and scrubs. The
plants keep us hidden from the infected. There is a fence that separates this
apartment complex from the street. We follow the fence to the edge of the
property.

I
peek around the fence and the street is clear. Dead ahead of us is a minivan
that is flipped over and resting on its roof. The van is laid out across two
lanes. We stay low and sprint across the sidewalk and hide behind the van. I
pause for a second to catch my breath. In the next lane is a U-haul truck. That
is the next spot to get to, but there is a fifteen foot chunk of concrete to
cross where we will have nothing to hide behind. A set of infected hands reach
out from the overturned van. They grab Frank’s leg. He screams in shock. I drop
down to the ground and come face to face with a young girl. Thirteen maybe, and
beside the bite marks on her hand she looks totally fine.  

“Oh
God, she’s a kid,” I look up at the others. Frank pulls his leg out of her
hands.

“They’ve
heard us!” Sara taps me on the back.

“Kill
it man!” Devon is ready to move. I know she is a vicious killer now, but hours
ago she was someone’s little girl. I jab my spear into its face. A little piece
of me dies every damn time I have to do this. Like most American males I was
born and raised on violent movies. Over the years I have heard groups complain
that it desensitizes kids to violence, and maybe it does. Right now, I am glad
I watched those movies. I am glad I am slightly desensitized. If I was any more
sensitive to the kinds of horrible acts I have had to commit today, I would be
a blob of jelly curled up on the ground. We cross into the empty parking lot
and make for the front doors. This church was not as prepared for the end, as
Brother Paul’s. It is a ghost town.

We
hit the doors and they are locked. Frank lets off a round and the glass pours
to the ground. We enter quickly into the large foyer. To our right is where
mass is held. In front of us is a door. I pull up on the handle and it opens up
to a large Sunday school room. We scramble in and slam the door behind us. I
lock the doorknob. Sara already has a chair dragged over to the door. We quietly
slide the back of the chair up under the knob. We hear the crackling sound of
broken glass underfoot on the other side of the door. They have lost track of
us. There is another door across the classroom. Frank has his ear up against
it. We tiptoe across the room. Frank slowly opens the door and it is another
entryway. There is the same kind of glass doors that lead to the outside. This
place has two main entrances. They must have really packed them in here on
Sundays. To our right is the place of worship. A few of our dead friends have
found their way into the room. They take off, tripping over the pews the second
they see us.

There
is a large set of double doors pinned open to this room. Frank grabs one of the
doors. I take the other door. I kick up the stopper and push the door closed. We
slam them shut right in the face of a dead cop. His heavy body crashes into the
door and it pops back open. Devon mashes his body up against the door and it
slams back shut.

“Why
didn’t you shoot it?” I ask Frank.

He
furrows his brow at me, “It’s a church!” That was not the response I was
expecting.

“Find
something to jam into the handles!” I call to Sara. Body after body hits the
other side of the door. She scans the room and it is practically empty. Against
the far wall is a hip high table with some bibles on it. She grabs the table
and drags it over to us. Bibles fall as it shimmies across the carpet. She tips
the table over and the rest of the bibles fall. If one more body hits this door
it is going to open. She gets the end of the table up and slides one of the
legs through the two handles. The back corner of the table anchors into the
carpet, the front corner jams into the door. I do not feel any pressure from
the monsters on the other side. It worked! I grab the leg and give it a good
pull. The aluminum bends and it locks the leg into the door handles. We race
for the exit. The door pops open and we run. Frank guns down two in the north
parking lot of the church.

We
sprint across the parking lot and head for 136
^th
. On the other side
of this street is a park, baseball and football fields. It is one large chunk
of grass that surrounds a middle school. We come to a stop once we hit the
grass.

“My
God.” Devon’s voice cracks.

“We
can’t…it’s too many…kids,” Sara stutters. This all started around one o’clock
and school was in session. They must have tried to evacuate the kids. There are
two buses out front of the school and they are smeared with blood. Most of the
little ones are around the front of the school. There are a hundred pint sized
bloody bodies and at least twenty faculty members blocking our way. It is by
far the most heartbreaking, horrific sight we have come across today.

“Should
we go around?” Devon groans.

“If
we go around we might run into even more and they could all be full sized. We
have to go straight through,” Frank pops out his clip and reloads the couple of
shots he fired.

“We
can’t do that. They’re kids!” Sara turns her back to them.

“My
place is right there,” I point. “My family is waiting for me.”

“We
should go around,” Devon pleads.

“They’re
not human anymore. They’re killers like the rest of them,” Frank pops his clip
back in.

“Frank’s
right. There’s too many. We can’t leave them this close to my place. Oh, I can’t
believe I’m gonna say this,” I drop my head. “It shouldn’t be as hard. We’re
faster, stronger and have a better reach than most of them.”

Sara
can’t believe I said it either, “Come on,” she stabs her blade bat into the
turf.

“If
we do this we all have to agree. I don’t want to get bit because someone went
soft,” Frank turns to face us.

“Devon,
I need your help for a little longer. We are so close,” I grab his arm and give
it a tug.

“Fine,”
he shakes his head.

“Sara,
are you good?” Frank reaches out and gently spins her back around. She
nervously jumps up and down on her toes. Like a fighter going into the ring.

“Fuck
it. Let’s go,” she raises her blade bat, ready to kill.

“What’s
the plan?” Frank spits his gum onto the grass.

“Move
fast. Don’t get bit. Kill them all,” I speak the truth. Frank looks at me from
the corner of his eye.

“Great
plan,” Frank takes the lead. We move quickly across the park and into the
baseball field. Frank guns down a couple out in the field.

They
hear the gunshots and head our way. Their hero and princess backpacks flop
around as they run. It is a parent’s greatest fear.

There
is a covered basketball court that is connected to the school’s gym. The lights
are still on in the building. I take a good look at the gym doors. They are steel
and glass and the glass has wire mesh built into it. It gives me an idea.

“This
way!” I run for the gym. Frank has gunned down another fifteen.

We
get to the basketball court and Frank’s shots echo even louder with a roof
overhead. I slam up against the door and look around inside.

“What
are we doing?!” Sara yells. The gym is empty. I pull on the door and it opens.

“Get
inside!” I tell them. Devon is first, followed by Sara. Frank empties his clip
into the leaders. I grab him by his shoulder strap and pull him into the
building. The door shuts behind us. 

“Hold
the other door,” I hold on tight to the handle. Devon and Sara grab and hold
the other door. Seconds later the little bodies and a few of the big ones crash
into the gym doors. Frank flips around his clip and he is ready to go. It does not
take long and there is thirty plus crammed up against the doors. Their own
bodies have locked the doors and now they can’t get in.

“Alright
Frank.”

“What?”

I
point out the window, “This glass isn’t bullet proof.” I step away from the
door. He slowly walks up to the window and raises his gun. Little fingers claw
at the window. He is slow to pull the trigger. The muzzle of his gun is right
next to the glass. He opens fire and his rounds rip a hole through the window.
It doesn’t take him long to get through his clip. When he is done there are
still a lot of them out there but the hole in the glass is large enough I can
fit my spear through it. I pat Frank on his shoulder. He steps to the side and
I raise my spear up to the hole. Frank walks over to a wall, backs up to it and
slides down to his butt. I make sure the lanyard is wrapped around my wrist,
take aim and quickly take down the stragglers. The bodies pile up by the door with
each strike of my spear. I have taken down ten before I feel the tears stream
down my face. There are more than twenty left out there. They stumble and trip
over their fallen classmates and students. There are so many bodies they can’t
get close enough to the door for my spear to reach them. Frank unzips his bag
and pulls out another box of ammo. He reloads slowly.

“Let’s
take five,” Devon says as he gets down next to Frank. I wipe my eyes on my
sleeve. There is a lone basketball on the floor of the gym.

“Wanna
shoot hoops?” I ask. I get a few chuckles out of them. The kind of laughs you
get when someone says something funny but very inappropriate. I feel a madness
growing inside. In a handful of hours I have seen so much destruction that I
feel changed. I could take a hundred showers and never feel clean.

“Let’s
see if we can make it through the school and pop out a door close to the
apartment.” I take a sip of water.