The Infected (Book 2): Karen's First Day (17 page)

They trekked back towards the locker room. By the time
they entered the locker, Leon was already waiting for them by an unmarked door
on the far wall.

Leon held open the door that led to a hallway, “Come on
Mama’s waiting.”

They followed him down the hall. Doors labeled ELECTRICAL
and CLEANING SUPPLIES lined the hall. By the door labeled electrical there was
a glass case that held a fire axe.

“Jackpot.” Leon pointed to the gunstock in Troy’s hand.
“Do you mind?”

CRACK! Troy busted out the safety glass.

Leon was now the proud owner of a razor sharp axe. Its
red handle matched the color of the bag slung over his shoulder. They picked up
the pace as they headed for the door at the end of the hall. Leon checked
through the window in the door. It was the back of the police station. A dozen
cruisers faced them. Farther into the lot was an area for the officers to park
their personal vehicles. An eight-foot fence topped with razor wire surrounded
the entire area.

Zero infected roamed the grounds.

“Perfect.” Leon spotted something out there he liked.

“What are we doing?” Karen asked as she readied her gun. 

“Stealing a car,” Leon said as he spun the scissors on
his index finger and popped open the door.

With Robin strapped to Karen’s back it was easier to keep
up a steady jog across the police parking lot. Her right hand throbbed with
every step, but it was manageable. The air outside smelled of smoke and
gasoline. The street next to the station had become a flaming graveyard for
fleeing vehicles. People screamed for help. The cries seemed to be coming from
everywhere.

Troy kept his shotgun pulled in tight to his shoulder. He
could already feel the bruise forming in his armpit and deltoid from the shots
he fired earlier. As he crept across the lot he turned and pivoted to keep a
watchful eye on their six.

Leon jogged with a skip in his step. He was riding high
on his early release. He bolted straight for a cruiser. It was a brand new
Dodge Charger decked out with a massive black push bumper on the front. Behind the
bumper the front grill looked like an angry beast. The car had been recently
waxed and it shined like a showroom hotrod.

“I’ve always wanted to do this.” Leon’s excitement was
contagious. He settled up next to the driver’s side window.

“You’re stealing a cop car?” Karen’s words were difficult
to form. The wrap and heavy jogging was squeezing the life out of her lungs.

“
We
are stealing a cruiser.” Leon smashed the
window with his axe.

“Won’t it be harder to hotwire?” Troy kept an eye on the
fence.

Leon popped open the door and used the head of the axe to
scoop out the large chunks of glass, “You’d think so, right? With all the
gadgets and hardware they add to these rides.” Leon unlocked the doors and
Karen opened the passenger’s side.

She took a seat at an angle to keep from squishing Robin.

Leon twisted his body into the front seat and ducked his
head under the wheel. The front console had the typical radio and computer you
would expect to find in a cruiser.

Leon worked and pulled at the wires under the dash, “You
see it’s just a standard Dodge. The police force feels the black and white
paint is enough of a deterrent to ward off thieves and they are totally
correct. I’d never even think to make off with one of these bad boys.” He
grunted and worked as he prattled on. “There is no market for stolen cruisers
and you’d stick out like a pink elephant on safari.” He used the scissors to
cut a wire and strip back the plastic cover. “Here we go.” Leon rubbed the two
wires together. The cruiser roared. His fingers moved quickly to clean up the
mess of wires under the dash. Once it was all set he popped up into the seat.
Leon ran his fingers over all of the buttons and controls, “Tell me all your
secrets.” He whispered to the Dodge. He found the button that opened the back
doors and pressed it.

“Climb on in partner.” Leon called to Troy. “We have not
properly introduced ourselves. What are everyone’s names?”

Troy pulled the lever and opened the door to the back of
the cruiser, “I’m Troy and that’s my sister, Karen.” Troy lowered himself into
the back seat. It was his first time he had ever sat in the back of a cop car.
It was just as unpleasant as he thought it would be. The seat was covered in a
hard plastic. The windows were barred and a cage separated him from his sister,
but it was better than being out in the open.

“The little ones are Valerie and Robin.” Karen
reorganized her bags and set the dog bag in her lap.

“Troy and Karen. Valerie and Robin.” Leon said it out
loud only to help himself memorize the names. He pulled his door closed and
slid the seatbelt over his lap. “Well kids, buckle up. This is a Hemi V8 and it
has three hundred and seventy horses under the hood itching to stretch their
legs. We also got a beefed up suspension system and the heaviest brakes ever
put on a Dodge.” Leon tapped the gas and the whole car shook. “Oh, Mama!” Leon
bit at his lower lip. The engine sounded pissed off, like
The Incredible
Hulk
was growling at them.

Troy pulled the seatbelt around him and Valerie. The belt
was almost stretched to its limit to get around both of them. Troy sat sideways
on the center of the bench seat. Valerie patted him on the shoulder to let him
know she was okay.

Karen worked the belt over her and Robin, “Please drive
safely. I’ve already been in one crash today.” She pointed to her wrist.

“Got it. I will keep my hands ten and two and exercise extreme
caution with the gas pedal.” Leon found a pair of mirrored sunglasses hanging
from the visor. He placed the newfound shades carefully onto his face. “Now,
lets get home to Mama!” He slammed it into gear and punched the gas. White
smoke poured out from the back tires as he lurched forward. Valerie let out a
playful scream as they got pushed back into the seat by the g-forces.

Leon’s skills behind the wheel were quite impressive. It
was clear that the man had spent a lot of time racing. The Dodge was rear wheel
drive and Leon could get the beast to drift and power slide in and out of
corners like it was nobody’s business.

“I feel like Bo Duke!” Leon exclaimed at the top of his
lungs.

Does that make me Daisy?
 Thought Karen.

Was Troy Luke?

The silly thought passed as quickly as it appeared. Leon
did as he promised and kept the cruiser under control. Karen never felt like he
was putting their lives in danger. In fact he never even got the car past sixty
miles an hour. He just got up to sixty in about six seconds.

The major streets had been blocked with wrecks and fires.
The infected hordes roamed free and moved like a plague across the city. The
devastation and chaos was more than they could comprehend and the chatty Leon
fell silent after only a few blocks, but in those first few blocks he chewed
off both their ears.

They found out that he was an only child and both parents
had passed five years ago while on vacation in Hawaii. According to his story
the same shark had eaten both of them. His girlfriend of ten years had recently
left him for a woman that was scheduled to have a sex change operation and
before she left him she made it very clear that her new “boyfriend” would have
a bigger “Eiffel Tower” than he could ever afford to have a doctor build him. “Isn’t
science crazy?” was how he finished that story. He had also been fired from his
job at a telemarketing firm that year because he was tweeting company secrets
to his legion of followers.

Karen and Troy had a difficult time telling if any of his
stories were true. If they were, his life was more like a comic book than that
of a normal man. They were pretty sure that the stories were based on some
facts but spruced up for dramatic flare.

He was not lying, only making the stories more
interesting. His rapid-fire ramblings came to a stop after they zoomed by a
nightmarish scene. He had seen the gore on Sergeant Poole’s TV. It looked more
like Hollywood special effects than real life disaster, but when he saw an
infected child eating the face off of another human being his light and fun
demeanor changed to dark and somber. The apocalyptic reality and the horrifying
thought that things might never be the same again was more than he was ready to
accept and a part of him wished he were back in his cell.

The Charger roared across backyards, parks and abandoned
lots to avoid the other fleeing vehicles. They finally got to some clear side
streets and skirted around the edge of Vancouver. One of the intersections was
so clogged with infected humans it forced them further east out of Vancouver
and into the town of Camas.

Botchy scratched at the door on her bag. Karen pulled
open the Velcro door and let the little half blind dog’s head out.

“Botchy,” Robin said as she pointed down at the little fuzzy
head.

“Botchy?” Leon asked with a smile on his lips.

“Her name is Paris, but Robin started calling her Botchy
a year ago.” Karen let the old lap dog lick at her fingers.

“Cute.” Leon reached over and gave Botchy a little
scratch behind the ears.

They blasted down a road that looked like the kind of
road you would take on a lazy Sunday afternoon drive. More farms and forests
than urban sprawl and it only had the occasional housing development.

Karen spotted an enchanting white house and beautiful red
barn on a small dairy farm. It looked completely untouched by the infected
disease that was terrorizing their world.  

We should find a farm to live on.

Karen’s heart lifted slightly after the thought occurred
to her.

Fresh food and the ability to see the infected coming
from a long ways off would be amazing.
If we could find a place way
outside of town it would feel so much safer.

 Even out here on the edge of town Karen could feel
the shift from constant doom to a slightly better feeling of only intermittent
doom. The thought faded as reality set in.

Who the hell knows how to raise livestock and plant
vegetables?

The lighter populace and fewer intersections made for a
quicker trip, even with the detour into Camas. They cruised down a little
traveled street that took them out of Camas and back into Vancouver. It was a straight
a shot to Penny’s house now. They sped down the hill and back into the city. A
dozen black pillars of smoke rose above their town turned the day into night.

Troy spoke softly, “Where are the locusts? I thought they
were the first sign of the end times?”

Karen couldn’t tell if Troy was trying to lighten the
mood with dark humor or he honestly thought this was the end. She didn’t have
time to dwell on it. Her attention was grabbed by a small group of people
firing automatic rifles into a horse that lay across the street fifty yards in front
of them. They finally landed a kill shot and a majestic creature dropped dead.

Leon slowed to maneuver past the group. Curiosity got the
better of him, “Why did you gun down the horse?” he asked as they passed the
people reloading their guns in the middle of the street.

“Animals can get it too!” A woman answered. Her eyes were
filled with tears. Her hands stained red. Karen watched in her side mirror as
the group ran off the road and towards the woods. They disappeared into the
trees.

Steam rose off the fresh kill. Its head was caved in.
Brains spilled out onto the street.

What a waste.

It was only horsemeat but it was still meat and Karen
felt the empty pit in her stomach. She realized that the only thing she had
eaten in the last three hours was sitting on the floorboard of Troy’s truck. It
was time for lunch again.

Penny lived on the east side of Vancouver. The back of
her house was nestled up against a little stretch of forest and on the other
side of the woods was a small shopping center. They had a few corporate
restaurants and one that was locally owned, a salon, two Starbucks and a QFC.

Leon pulled into Penny’s neighborhood. Windows and doors
were busted out of some of the homes. Blood was smeared like sloppy paint on
the doorknobs and along the walls. Through Leon’s open window they could hear
the chorus of human suffering.

Karen couldn’t believe how quickly the infection had
already spread. She had hoped that this little corner of Vancouver would still
have been untouched by the infected.

A little luck was too much to ask for?

Small groups of the infected were forming around the
houses with the most damage and the Dodge’s Hemi was alerting all of the recently
turned humans to their presence. Leon pulled his axe over into his lap. Troy
reset himself in the back seat so he was ready to charge out the door the
second Leon clicked it open.

Karen tried to block out Robin’s view of the destruction.
She used her hand and the cars headrest to corner the child and protect her
from the intense images. They rolled slowly towards Penny’s house at the back
of the development. Karen counted all of the houses with busted doors or new
bloody paint jobs on the exterior. She stopped counting the busted up houses
when she hit fifty. It meant there was a possible hundred or more infected
monsters in this neighborhood.

Shit balls!

And fuck a duck!

This wasn’t any safer than the apartment. If they fired
off every round of ammo they had at the infected it would only put a dent in
the problem. Karen plotted and schemed. There would be no rest or safe feeling,
knowing that an army of dead people could bust down the door and eat you in the
middle of the night. There was only one option that she could conceive. They
needed to clear out these streets and there was only one tool big enough for
the job. She knew it was a risky plan, but her options were limited. Karen
leaned over to the control console and found a switch labeled sirens and she
flipped it. The cruiser spewed its high-pitched wail.

“What are you doing?” Troy pulled himself closer to the
cage that separated them.

“We need to clear this neighborhood out.”

Leon looked over and locked eyes with Karen. He read her
intent in a second.

“No. We can’t. I just got her. There has to be another
way!” He gave her the most sincere puppy dog eyes he could muster.

“You got a better plan?” She was ready to hear any other
ideas. The two men thought about it and they couldn’t come up with a better
one. The sirens called to the infected. Beckoning them to come and play. They
stumbled out of their homes and crawled from their cars. Leon made another loop
around the neighborhood. He kept the Charger at a smooth fifteen miles an hour.
He honked his horn and Karen yelled from her cracked open window. At this speed
it allowed the infected to follow, but never catch up to them. In a short time
they had a marching army of dead people chasing after them. They totaled a
hundred lost souls.

“Make another lap.” Karen watched from her side mirror as
the infected monsters struggled to keep pace with the cruiser. “I want to make
sure we got them all before we get to Mama’s.”