The Infected (Book 3): Nightfall (14 page)

His hands moved as he
talked. They added extra emphasis to the peak moments, “Okay, most cars older
than nineteen nineties are really easy. Look for Toyota’s especially. A lot of
the models only need a flathead screwdriver, knife or scissors to be jammed
into the ignition. You give it a turn and bingo you got a ride.” Leon looked
over Karen’s expressions. She wasn’t listening. Her thoughts were off thinking
about her mom or her husband. “You alright?” He knew the answer but couldn’t
stop himself from asking the question.

Karen spoke with a dark
and soft tone, “It will be a very long time before any of us are, alright.”

At a very low point in
Leon’s life, and purely out of desperation to find love, he attended a seminar
at a local YMCA. The subject was how to get women to fall in love with you
superfast and super easy. When he arrived at the seminar, it was sparsely
populated with a group of what he called “Mega Losers”. Leon looked around the
gymnasium where the seminar was to take place and thought:

I’m not like these guys
or like that one lesbian sitting front and center.

I’m better than this.

I can find true love
all by myself.

He turned to leave the gym
and hoped he could get his hundred bucks back from the front desk. Inspirational
rock music filled the gym and a good looking, well-dressed man took the small
stage with an infectious enthusiasm. His tanned skin screamed that he just got
back from vacation somewhere hot and exotic. He sported an earpiece microphone
headset.

When he spoke, it was with
authority. “Gentlemen!” he noticed the lady at the front, “and lady!” He paused
for a very long time and looked every one of the pathetic losers in their sad
faces. “Confidence!” he held his index finger high in the air. “Confidence is
rule number one! Confidence is king! Confidence is the difference between a
winner and a loser and I don’t see any losers here.” He paused for extreme
dramatic effect. “I see people that need to turn their confidence up to the max
and take control of their lives!” He had Leon’s full attention and he took a
seat at the back of the room.

The man held a clicker in
his hand and he pointed to a TV screen that sat at the corner of the stage.
“Look what confidence can get you.” He clicked the button and the TV flipped
over to a picture of him with a beautiful woman on each arm. “Let me introduce
you to Vivica and Samantha. I don’t want to get lewd or crude, but I tagged and
bagged both of those ladies that night. How did I do it? How did I talk these
ladies into making sweet passionate love to me and each other?” he clicked
through the photos of them having an amazing night out on the town. Champagne
flowed, a fancy dinner at a five star restaurant, dancing and the photos
concluded with him shutting the door of a hotel room on the camera. The two
ladies stood in the background and were helping each other out of their slinky
black cocktail dresses. “I didn’t hypnotize them or rent them from a pimp. I
showed them confidence…and they showed me…a really good time.” The crowd
laughed with him as he chuckled.

Most of the seminar
revolved around how to look like you possessed confidence so you could win a
lady over. It was all about spending money to look richer than you were to
trick them into sex in the hope that they might fall in love with you and not
care that you were a broke ass loser.

That seminar flashed
through Leon’s mind as he sat in the front seat next to Karen. He knew what he
needed to do.

Hit her with
confidence.

Make her feel safe.

“I know we are going to be
okay. You know how I know this?” Leon picked up his drink and took a sip.

“How?”

“We survived today and we
will keep surviving. Like you said we have to keep our heads.” He placed the
glass back on the dash.

“How does that keep us
from getting torn apart and turned into one of those things?” Karen asked with
skepticism in her voice.

“Most of surviving is
about knowing the rules, right?” She nodded at him, but wasn’t quite sure what
he meant. “If you know that something is dangerous you will keep your distance
and avoid it. We as a species have learned this over tens of thousands of
years. Well now we know the rules. I guarantee most of the people lost today
were taken down because they didn’t understand how this new world works,
right?”

She nodded at him again.
His picture was becoming clearer.

“Well we know what the
rules are. We know what to avoid and how to deal with these… monsters. We can
set up a base of operation here that will keep you and the girls safe.”

“What do you mean?”
Karen’s interest was peeked.   

The booze was hitting him
really hard, but it only fueled his creativity. He took another sip of his glass
to do his own dramatic pause, “We find a few more healthy people tomorrow that
need a place to stay. They can help us guard the perimeter. We set up a sniper’s
nest on the roof and get a rifle. We scavenge more supplies and build up our
defenses. A day or two of hard work and we can turn this place into a Fort Knox
against those infected bastards. I know we can do it. What do you think?”

He could see a slight
shift in her features, “I hope so. I really hope we can do all of that, but I
mostly hope that I find Jim. The girls and I need him. Otherwise I don’t know
if I will make it.”

Leon’s hurt feelings
seeped out of his features. He pouted only a little but it was clear he felt
unappreciated, again. It was mostly the booze affecting his emotions. Mostly.

“I wouldn’t have made it
this far without you Leon. I’m grateful for all of your help, but Jim is their
Daddy and the girls need their Daddy and I need him too,” Karen’s head dropped.

Leon fought hard against
his raging feelings. He gave himself an internal pep talk.

Put on a brave face!
Don’t let her see that the mention of Jim’s name affects you!

Stay solid buddy! Fight
the good fight!

In a few days she will
see how strong a man you really are!

Then she will be all
like, Jim who?

Leon muscled a smile onto
his face, “I’m sure we will find him tomorrow. I’m going to…find a place to
crash, pour myself one last strong drink, fall asleep and recharge for
tomorrow. We have a lot of work to do.” He picked up his glass, nodded good
night to her and slipped out of the Subaru. He snagged the bottle, poured his
drink and headed for the spare bedroom.

“Goodnight Leon. I’ll see
you in the morning,” Karen called after him.

Leon gave her a thumbs up
as he reentered the house. He didn’t look back at her. He just left her there
in the car. All alone.

Karen took a deep breath.
She felt exhausted. It was time. She had promised herself a good hard cry when
she fell asleep tonight and it was time to cash in and hit the sack. Both girls
should be knocked out by now. She felt like she could bust out those salty
tears completely uninterrupted. It was at least a start for her mourning
process. Karen knew that she wouldn’t get a chance to properly grieve over her
Mama. They had too much work to get finished to keep them safe and not enough
manpower or time to do it. Karen popped open the car door and drug herself out
into the garage. The muscles in her legs ached as she stepped back into the
house. She checked on Troy in the living room.

He winked at her and said,
“I’m feeling a lot better. I’m gonna get some sleep. See you in the morning.”
Troy made himself comfy on the couch.

 Karen turned off the
TV and all of the lights in the house.

She navigated her Mama’s
bedroom in the dark. She laid her Ruger down on the night stand, pulled the
covers over her fully clothed body and let the tears fall. It was the hardest
cry of her life. Her pillow was quickly soaked in moisture and her nose clogged
with snot. She could hardly breathe and most of her thoughts focused on how she
just wanted it to be over and wished she was dead already so she could be with
her Mama.

Jim laid on the floor of
Cliff and Tina’s apartment. His body ached and the hard carpeted floor gave no
comfort. His very own comfortable bed sat only fifty-feet from the spot he was
laying, but with the back door busted out of his place it was not safe. He
wished he could talk Frank into helping him go back down to his apartment and
drag his queen sized bed up the flight of stairs, but it seemed like a pointless
risk for just one good night of sleep.

The living room of Cliff
and Tina’s place was dark and filled with the sound of Morgan’s snores. The lady
had passed out in her wheelchair with an empty beer can in her hand. Right
before she conked out she had told them she was fine in the chair and that she
had slept in it many times.

Devon’s vitals had been
good all evening and Tina said his youth would aid in his fast recovery. He had
been asleep ever since they finished stitching up his leg so they left him up
on the counter.

Frank and Jim let Sara
have the couch to sleep on. She had crashed minutes after her head hit the
pillow. Tina had applied a fresh set of bandages to Jim’s forehead and calf
before they went to bed and Cliff had given everyone a spare pillow and a
blanket. Unfortunately they didn’t have anything better than the floor for them
to sleep on. Jim shifted from his back to his side and then back to his back,
but couldn’t get comfortable. He double and triple checked that his spear and
backpack were next to him on the floor. Frank had also given Jim a good tour of
his new sidearm and rifle. He felt fairly confident that he had their workings
figured out. He left the handgun strapped to the back of his bag and the rifle
next to his spear. Jim didn’t want to take any chances so he made damn sure
that they were ready to roll in a moment’s notice. He spent a few minutes just
trying to figure out which one he would grab first. The rifle or the spear.
After a well fought internal battle, the spear won out by only a slight margin.
Jim figured the more he used the gun the better he would feel about it, but for
now if a pack of beasts busted down the door. He would have a better chance of
surviving with his trusty spear than with the rifle or handgun. The odds he
would miss every single headshot was too high.   

Ten minutes after they
shut all of the lights out and said their goodnights, Cliff and Tina started in
on each other. A full day worth of pent up emotion had spilled over into their
bedroom and they got to finish what Jim and his crew had interrupted earlier.

It was one hell of a
wrestling match and they didn’t seem to give a fuck that there was a room full
of strangers listening to them. It sounded like Cliff was wielding the powerful
Hammer of Thor
in there and
Mjölnir
was hammering out orgasms like machine gun fire.

All the sexy noise
didn’t make it any easier for Jim to fall asleep. He rolled over again and
covered his ears with the pillow. Jim’s eyes had adjusted to the dark and he
could see Frank looking in his direction.

“Don’t get any
ideas,” Frank grunted out. Jim huffed out a chuckle and then rolled over to his
other shoulder. He faced the wall and stared at the nothingness of the white
sheetrock. He tried to clear his mind. If he started to think about what might
have happened to Karen and the girls he knew he would lose it, fall apart and
start sobbing like a baby. Cliff and Tina got to their final orgasm. The windows
shook and the walls creaked at the peak of Cliff and Tina’s joint sexual explosion.

“How are they going to walk
tomorrow?” Frank joked. “I need a cigarette after that last one. Jesus fucking
Christ.” Frank rubbed at the stubble on his chin and then he fluffed his
pillow.

Jim turned his head to
look back at Frank, “It sounded like they were making a porno in there. I don’t
know if I’ve ever gone that hard or that long before. It kind of made me feel
bad about myself, like I haven’t been doing it right all these years.”

“Tomorrow we’ll find your
wife. I bet you can match the performance.”

Jim could just make out
the smile on Frank’s face, “Thank you again for helping me.”

“All right, all right,
you’re welcome. Now go to sleep.” Frank stretched his body, adjusted his
blanket and within a few minutes he was out and snoring like a misfiring chainsaw.
There was almost no rhythm to his breathing. It was unnerving to Jim. Frank
must suffer from sleep apnea. 

“Shit, I should have gone
to sleep first.” Jim cursed the short nap he took earlier. He was never into
napping. It always made that night’s sleep near impossible.  

A couple of minutes of
Frank’s horrible unsexy noise and Jim couldn’t take it anymore. He sat up,
pulled back his blanket and got to his feet. He headed straight for the back
balcony. He needed some fresh air. Jim gently slid the door open in order to
not wake anyone up and stepped out into the cool night air. He gripped the rail
and leaned over it to look out into the grass covered backyard of the apartment
building. He could hear the shuffling sounds of the infected below but it was
pitch black on this side of the unit. There was no telling how many of them
were down there, but it sounded like a lot. They had wiped out most of the
monsters on the way back from RS Medical, but others had appeared. There seemed
to be an endless supply of infected humans. Gunfire cracked in the distance and
if Jim concentrated he could hear the cries of terror on the wind.  

“Someone, please save
me!!!” A scared voice pleaded for help, but there was no way of knowing where
it came from. No way to save them and Jim could not, would not risk his life
for that stranger. Going out in the daylight was chaos. Trying to survive in
the dark would be impossible. The sounds of humans meeting their end made the
cool spring night feel even colder. Goosebumps populated the exposed parts of
Jim’s skin and he needed to get back inside. The last thing he needed now was
the dreaded “Man Cold” to hit him. His broken nose tried to take in one last
fresh lungful of air, but the devastated passageways of his sinuses were swollen
and the foul stench of the creeps below made it even more difficult to inhale
the oxygen.

He got back into his
makeshift bed and a tear wiggled its way out of the ducts in his eye. He could
not stop himself, his heart ached. He didn’t remember the last time he cried
himself to sleep. It might have been more than a decade, maybe even two since
he last fell asleep with a stream of tears racing down his face, but finally
there was darkness. Jim drifted off to sleep.

BOOM! The floor of the apartment
shook under Jim’s body, he jerked awake and reached for his flashlight. As he
sat up he clicked the button on the Mag-Lite. The cone of bright white zipped
around the room.

Frank sat up and said,
“What the hell? What time is it?”

Jim’s light flashed passed
the clock on the wall. “It’s three-fifteen in the morning.” Jim answered.

Sara fell off the couch
and crashed to the floor, “Fuck me! What now!”

The door to Cliff and
Tina’s room flung open and they raced down the hall to the living room. Cliff turned
on every light switch that he passed.

“What was that?” yelled
Tina.

Jim moved out onto the
balcony and it was much brighter than it was the last time he had stepped
outside. An orange and yellow glow filled the air. He leaned over the rail
again and looked down the back of the building to see where the light was
coming from. Heat blasted Jim’s face like a furnace. The smell of smoke fused
with the stench of the infected was intense. It was forty degrees hotter
outside than it was four hours ago.

The next building over was
set ablaze!

He couldn’t see what
started it or what made the loud explosion. Most of the neighbors had propane
barbeques on their back porches. It could have been one of the tanks. There was
no way of knowing. The explosion had caught a tree that sat between the two
buildings on fire and a dozen infected were lit up like Tiki torches. The
breeze caught a few embers and bits of burning debris were drifting their way.
The infected torches stumbled and brought the cursed fire even closer. Every
mobile body joined Jim on the balcony. They watched as the fire crept like a
demon across the tree and onto their building. The group was speechless. After
only a few moments out on the balcony it was already too hot to stay out there
and watch. They had to move fast.

“We have to pack our shit
and go!” Jim left the rail and headed back inside. Everyone reentered the
apartment and scrambled in a mad dash.

Cliff shook Morgan awake,
“Morgan!”

Her old eyes popped open,
“What Clifford?”

“Building’s on fire! We
have to move!”

“Horse shit,” Morgan
exclaimed. Then she noticed everyone packing up to leave. “Get the girls safe
first! Don’t worry about me!”

“Alright!” Cliff bolted
down the hall after Tina.

The parents headed to
their children’s bedroom. They flipped on the bedroom light and the girls let
out a groan.

“Get up girls, now! We
have to go!” Tina pulled the blanket off of Eve, “Get dressed and help me with
your sisters!”

“What time is it? I’m
sleepy!” Eve rolled over to her stomach and pulled her pillow over her head to
protect her eyes from the bright light.

Tina ripped the pillow off
of her baby, “The apartment is on fire! We have to go now!”

Cliff moved quickly and
got Brea up out of bed. It was like dressing a limp and heavy doll. There was
no way to wake her, the kid could sleep through anything. He found her an
outfit and shoes and got her sleeping body dressed.

Tina helped Alex into her
clothes as Eve dressed herself.

“Where are we going,
Mama?” Eve asked as she pulled a sweatshirt over her head.

“I don’t know!” Tina
yelled. She couldn’t help herself. It was all too much. The dread of leaving
their home in the middle of the night, losing all of their possessions, their
food and heading out into the violent, deadly wasteland that was Vancouver was
more than she could bear. Tina had watched a few hours worth of videos online
about house fires. It was another obsession and a major fear of hers. She gauged
they had thirty minutes if they were lucky before the whole place burned to the
ground. It meant they had fifteen to vacate the place with their lives. Fifteen
minutes to pack what they could and load the van with a parking lot full of
biters. It took a minute to make it down the flight of stairs, drop off
something in the van and race back up the steps. Plus they had to get Morgan
down the steps.

SHIT FUCK!!!!

“We follow Jim!” Cliff
finally spoke.

“And then what?” Tina’s
voice screeched with panic.

“Hope that his
mother-in-law’s place is safe! That’s all we can do!”

They had all three girls
dressed and now they needed to get themselves ready. They ripped on their
clothes lightning fast. Cliff whipped the police belt around his waist. Frank
had helped him load it and its two extra clips. Tina tucked Morgan’s revolver
into her belt. The two of them filled a suitcase with some extra clothes for
the two of them and the girls.

“What about the food?”
Tina asked as she slipped into a leather jacket.

“We have to leave it!”

At the same time Cliff and
Tina got themselves ready, Jim and his crew grabbed their gear.

“Let’s load out the guns,
clear the lot and then come back for Devon. Then we’ll get whatever else we
have time for!” Jim said as he slid on his leather jacket. He quickly worked
the Bert and Ernie dolls into his backpack, pulled it onto his body and secured
it tight. He got his handgun’s holster placed on his belt and filled it with a
pistol. Jim tucked his spear in between his backpack and his back and picked up
his assault rifle.

Sara pulled one of the
duffle bags full of guns and ammo over her shoulder and fit her bat into the
bag. She placed her Glock in its holster and picked up her shotgun. Sara was
ready to hit the road.

Frank fastened his shoulder
harness that held his Berettas to his torso, he got his SKS slung over his
shoulder along with his regular duffle bag. He muscled the new bag with the
hunting rifle and the extra ammo that they got at the gun store onto his other
shoulder. It was as much as he could carry.

Another explosion blasted
into the night’s sky. It launched burning debris onto the balcony of Cliff and
Tina’s apartment. The little storage shed that connected to the back of the
apartment caught on fire. It was now spreading on both sides of the building.

Cliff raced down the hall
and finished getting his jacket on, “We gotta take down the barricade!” He
grabbed the saw that hung by the front door. He flew out onto the landing and
began to chop at the barricade. It was the first time Cliff got to swing the
saw at a solid object and it worked well. He chopped at the braces that held
the wood wall into place. It pulverized the chunks of lumber but it was taking
too long. Tina gathered the girls and their bags at the front door. Right
behind them stood Jim’s crew. Sara pushed past Tina and racked her shotgun.