The Plague Unto The End (30 page)

I covered my mouth and started to look around inside the building.  I looked through all of the boxes of wires in the shop, but could not find a cable that matched the camera.  I was frustrated to the point that I was about to walk out of the building when I noticed a similar camera sitting on a table behind some boxes.  I grabbed the camera from behind the boxes and pressed the power button.  A little green light told me that the camera was working.  I pulled out the tape from my video camera and put it inside.  I flipped open the viewfinder only to see that the display was shattered.  I stood staring at the camera for a couple seconds in disbelief.  I pulled the battery out of my camera and compared it to the new camera, but they were not interchangeable.

I sat on the floor of the shop holding the camera and tried to think of another way to watch the tape, but I couldn’t think of any other way.  I looked all over the shop for another battery or another camera, but that was the only one.  I turned on the camera one last time and hit the play button.  I stared at the shattered screen hoping that I could see something.  The screen was useless, but the speaker worked.

“Dad?” I heard Thomas say through the damaged speaker.

I sat as quietly as I could to hear what dad said to Thomas on the phone, but I couldn’t make out any of it.

“Okay, I don’t think I’m doing too good, Dad.  Yeah.  One came through the front door.  I’m in the garage.  Yeah, I…locked the door.  Okay, but he’s not here.  He...he left.  He’s at school.  Where are you? Okay.  Are you going to come get me?  I need to get to a hospital Dad.  Okay, I’ll be waiting and I’ll let him know when he gets home.  Okay bye,” Thomas said as he hung up the phone.

I heard the camera being moved and Thomas start to talk again.

“Hey, um...dad says...eh...he was at work and one of the crazy people started to...hurt some other people.  Dad went to...mom’s office and...all the power was off...but the phones were working.  He’s at mom’s office.  He can’t find her.  The military was moving people to the base...eh, dad’s going to check...there.  I’m going to rest for a minute.  I’m feeling...pretty sleepy....” Thomas then slipped away.  I could hear him fall to the floor in the garage.

I turned the camera off and sat up.  I had a whole new energy coming over me.  I knew where mom and dad might be.  I didn’t have time to sit and rest.  I needed to go find them.  I pulled the tape out of the camera and put it into my pocket.  I walked out to the workbench in the outer hallway and pulled the empty magazine out of my pocket.  I refilled my magazines and slid my magazine into my gun.

My heart sank as I heard the squeak of the front door of the shop as it opened.  I sat still for a few seconds just listening.  Through the small window I could see movement inside of the small outer room.  I slowly stood up and inched my way to the door.  I kept the Glock sighted at head level ready to take the shot as soon as I had it.

“Ty?” said Matt from just outside the door, sounding very weak.  “Are you in here?”

“Matt?” I said as I ran to the outer room and pushed the door open.

Matt didn’t look well at all.  He had a large gash to the left side of his head and his shirt was soaked in blood.  He could barely stand and was using the wall to hold himself up.  I helped him to the floor and opened my bag to get my medical supplies.

“What happened?  I thought you were dead.  I would have tried to help you there but, Sid and Jim and Rev and...and Beth were all...” I rambled.

“Tyler, it’s...okay.  I know.  You got out,” said Matt.

“How did you get here?  Did you drive the van?” I asked.

“No, I walked.  I actually...ah...just missed you.  I saw you leave in the car.”  He winced in pain.

“You walked?  How did you make it through the crowd?” I asked.

“With this...” said Matt as he lifted my pipe sword.  “I took it from Curtis.  He didn’t look like he needed it anymore.”

I half-chuckled for a moment, but then I noticed something.  Matt was losing a lot of blood and, more than that...he had a bite on his forearm.

“Oh yeah....you noticed that,” said Matt.  “I wasn’t fast enough...ah...they finally got me.  Well, at least...AH...it wasn’t that prick Curtis.”

I leaned over to try to bandage his wounds and he reached out to grab my arm.

“Don’t waste it, Ty.  You and I both know what will happen to me.”

I dropped my arm and realized that he was right.  There was nothing I could do to keep him alive.

“Besides that...you don’t have time for that.  Remember...I walked.  They are right behind me,” said Matt with a smirk.

I ran over to the door and could see them beginning to flow into the parking lot.

“I’ve made it longer...than most and I’m happy with that.  I’m ready to go see my sister and my parents.  I can’t run any more, Tyler, but I can help you get out of here.  Go find your parents,” said Matt with a sad look on his face.

I knew Matt. I knew there was no way to talk him out of it.  He was right.

I reached into my bag and pulled out Jim’s .45.  I walked over to the bench at the far end of the hall and set it down along with the magazines and the ammo.  I returned to Matt and helped him back to his feet.

“You wouldn’t want to just let them eat you, now, would you?” I said as I helped him to the table.

I picked up my bag and started to walk back to the door with the small window.

“Good luck, Tyler,” said Matt from behind me.

“Say hi to your sister and your parents for me,” I replied.

Matt gave me one of his smirks, “I will and I’ll tell your brother...you’re alive and fighting.”

“This sucks Matt,” I said as I fully accepted what was happening.

Matt struggled to reposition himself to better face the outer door, “Yeah, you’re telling me,” replied Matt with a painful snicker.

“There is a ladder in here and some high windows.  I’m going to try to get out through there.  Just give me enough time to get through the window.”

“You got it,” said Matt as he began to load one of the magazines.

I walked back into the main room of the repair shop and grabbed the ladder.  I moved it over to the window furthest from the door and climbed to the top.  I opened the window and peered outside.  None of them had made it to that side of the building yet.  I dropped my bag and my sword out of the window and shoved my Glock into the holster.

I looked over at the door leading to where Matt was and heard the outer door squeaking open again.  Through the small window I could see one of them stumbling into the small room.  I could see its face through the dirty glass.  It was missing its lower jaw and appeared to be wearing a suit.  It started to lumber toward Matt, each step a little faster than the last.  It made it halfway into the room and Matt had not fired the gun yet.  I was worried that he had fainted.  I panicked and started to get down from the ladder when I heard the first shot.  I heard two more quick shots and what sounded like the corpse hitting the floor.  I saw Matt stagger toward the door to the outside and open it.

I realized that I was wasting the time that he was buying me.  I scrambled up the ladder and squeezed through the window.

I dropped to the ground and quickly put on my backpack.  I started to run into a wooded area behind the building when I heard one last shot.  I could hear the horde becoming frantic on the other side of the shop.  I could not let Matt’s sacrifice be a waste. My leg was on fire and I was exhausted, but I forced myself to keep running.

I had no idea what was on the other side of the trees, or how much longer I could run, but I did know where to look for my parents.  With the morning sun at my back and an agitated mass of carriers following me, I wove my way through the trees.

Epilogue – Thomas…

He knew how long to wait.  He knew how long it took for me to get to my truck, throw my stuff in the back and pull out of the driveway.  As soon as he was sure that I had left, Thomas walked to the front room, looked out the window and, with a sigh of relief, walked over to the TV and pressed the power button.  He looked through the drawer of the entertainment center for a few minutes before he found just the right game.  Of course it belonged to me and I had told him not to play it until I had beaten it, but he played it anyway.  He always made sure to take the game out of the system before I was supposed to come home though.

Thomas popped the game into the system and pushed the power button.  But he couldn’t play on an empty stomach.  He needed his Hostess snacks while he played.  Mom told us we could have one for lunch.  I think Thomas understood that to mean one box for lunch.  He walked casually into the kitchen to rifle through the snack cabinet and let the game play through the opening credits.   Thomas opened the light brown wooden cabinet door, and grabbed the small snack box from the shelf.  As he held the box he realized that the box felt very light, almost as though it were…that was when he remembered that he ate the last snack in the box before he went to bed the previous night.  But Thomas was not the type of person to get upset about something like that.  He threw the empty box back onto the shelf and walked across the kitchen to the refrigerator.  Inside the fridge Thomas found a bottle of lemon-lime soda that he had drunk most of, the day before.

This will have to do until mom goes shopping tonight
, Thomas thought.

He walked back into the front room, ready to relax for a little while.  Through the large window in the front room Thomas could see out into the front yard.  The sky was steadily getting darker and he could hear raindrops tapping on the roof.  Thomas stared out the window for a couple of seconds in a daze of boredom, until he was snapped out of the daze by the movement of a single figure walking in the street about a quarter of a mile away from our house.  It was not unusual for the older people who lived in our neighborhood to go for walks in the morning, so Thomas thought nothing of it.  He watched the person for a couple seconds, until the individual walked passed a trashcan placed out at the end of someone’s driveway.  Then it struck Thomas, like a bolt of lightning.  “Today is trash day!” he said out loud.

Hoping that the trash truck had not come yet, he ran to the front door, opened it up and quickly ran to the side of the house where we kept our trashcan.  Thomas grabbed the handle to the wheeled, trash receptacle and tried to gently tilt it back, but the can was packed full and was very heavy.  He gave it a sudden tug and managed to get it rolling.  He quickly moved it to the street and set it against the curb.  In the distance Thomas heard the rumble of a diesel engine heading his way.  He felt relieved thinking that he had not missed the garbage truck yet.  Thomas then turned to head back into the house and casually walked to the front door.

Once inside, Thomas shut the door behind him and flopped onto the couch in front of his still-running game.  He half-sat-up on the couch with the controller in hand, pressed the “start” button and heard the familiar sound the game played as a new game was initiated.  Outside Thomas could hear the wind blowing through the trees and the sunlight would come through the front room window when the clouds cleared the way.  Thomas preferred to have some light in the room while he played, but the game did not feature very many brightly lit settings and the light from the window was making it difficult to play.  He reached over the couch and grabbed hold of the shade to the large window, pulled it most of the way down and locked it there.

Thomas was quite pleased with his performance level on the game and was very much glued to the screen.  The wind outside would blow ever so often and sometimes the storm door would bang against the doorframe.  Thomas heard the wind rustle the leaves outside and rattle the storm door again and again.  Then Thomas heard something different.  He heard what sounded like some of the branches cracking on the bushes directly outside of the front room window.

The wind must be picking up
, he thought.

Then he heard it again without and wind noise at all.  Thomas put down the controller and peaked through the small opening between the top of the couch and the bottom of the shade.  He couldn’t see much; the bushes had gone without being trimmed for quite some time and blocked most of his view.  Thomas got up off of the couch and walked over to the front door.  He peered through the peephole but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.  Thomas opened the door and looked through the grimy glass of the storm door.  There was something in front of the bush nearest to the front porch steps.

Thomas leaned a little closer to the door to try to get a closer look.  It appeared to be the person he had seen walking earlier had somehow walked into our yard and fell into the bushes.  Still standing behind the glass door, Thomas said “Are you alright?”  The clumsy person extracted himself from the bush and began walking toward the steps.  Thomas could see the right side of the man’s face now.  He was wearing a pharmacy uniform and had a nametag that read “Greg.”  The man had a well-maintained goatee and shoulder length brown hair mostly pulled back into a ponytail.  “Are you OK?”  Thomas asked.  The man then turned to face the door. 

Thomas could see almost his entire face now.  The man stood still for a few seconds, just staring at the door.  Thomas could see that something was wrong with the man’s left eye, but couldn’t make out what was strange about it.

As Thomas waved his hand back and forth again he said, “Are you OK?

The man’s eyes widened and he appeared to become excited.  Thomas could see what was wrong with his eye now.  He had a huge gash that started at his hairline, slashed through his left eye and continued through his cheek.  The man suddenly moved up the stairs and tried to grab Thomas though the glass.  His first attempt only bounced off of the glass, sending him stumbling back.  Thomas was startled and shocked at what he was seeing and for a moment he stood still.  The man came back a second time and shattered the glass.

A shard of glass from the top of the door snapped off and flew back toward Thomas.  Thomas only felt something hit him on the left side of his face.  He didn’t realize what had happened until he saw drops of blood on the floor at his feet.  The man came crashing through the door, sending Thomas to the hardwood floor.  Thomas struggled to get up while the man continued to grab at Thomas’ feet.  Thomas managed to get just far enough away from the crazed man to stand up.  Before Thomas could completely turn around, he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder.  The man had bitten Thomas on the shoulder and was clamped on.  Fighting the desire to panic and scream, Thomas pushed and hit the man with everything he had until he was able to get the man off for just long enough to distance himself.

The man staggered for a few seconds before he could regain his balance, but as soon as he did he was back on the attack.  Thomas turned and ran through the hallway, past the kitchen and into the den where he had just enough time to grab a fire iron from the rack, but as he ripped it away from the rack, the rest of the fire irons tipped over and fell to the floor.  Thomas spun back around to aim his weapon.  The stumbling pasty-looking figure did not seem to have any concern for Thomas’ retaliation and came at Thomas with arms outstretched.  Thomas swung the iron fire poker with all of the force he could deliver.  The poker connected solidly with the left side of the man’s jaw.  A very noticeable, mushy, crunching sound let Thomas know he had broken his attacker’s jaw.  But as Thomas struck the ravenous intruder, the sweat on Thomas’ palms caused the poker to slip from his hand, fly across the room, bounce off of the couch, and land on the plush tan carpet.  The force of the blow sent the man to the floor and stunned him for the moment.

Thomas quickly ran to the door that led to the mudroom, pulled it open, and slammed it behind himself.  He did not want to see if the stunned insane person on the floor in the den was going to try to follow him.  So Thomas ran out the back door, shut it behind himself and sprinted to the garage.  When Thomas got to the garage door, he noticed that he was starting to feel sick, but this was a kind of sick that he had never felt before.  He felt like his shoulder was on fire and he started to feel dizzy.  His vision was beginning to blur slightly and his skin was becoming numb.  Thomas grabbed the garage doorknob and went inside. 

He looked around the large detached garage and saw several things that could be used as weapons.  He remembered that dad kept a small hatchet in the bottom drawer of his workbench and, given how he was feeling, he thought it would be best if he had something light.  Thomas staggered over to the drawer and pulled it open.  Inside were several different hammers, but the hatchet was not inside.  Thomas then noticed that the small wooden-handled hatchet was lying on top of the workbench right in front of him.  Thomas took the hatchet and walked back to dad’s desk and sat in the old torn chair set in front of it.  Thomas wanted to call someone for help, but all the phones were inside the house.  Dad had once talked about getting a phone line set up in the garage but it had just never happened.

He sat staring at the desk for a few seconds, wondering what he was going to do.  Then he thought about his face where that shard of glass had struck him—thought about the bite on his shoulder.  Across the garage, dad had a mirror mounted to another workbench.  Thomas walked over to the bench and slowly brought his face into view on the mirror.

The glass had sliced his cheek wide open and also cut through his upper and lower lip on that side of his face.  Thomas couldn’t believe what he was seeing and then he looked at his shoulder.  At first he couldn’t tell what it looked like through the dark, blood-soaked shirt, but as he looked closer he could see that the bite had taken a part of his shirt and a small chunk from his shoulder.  Thomas dropped the hatchet he had been clenching to the floor.  He covered his face with one hand and covered his shoulder with the other hand.  Thomas stumbled back to the chair and sat down as quickly as he could.  He sat, staring at the desk, dumfounded, trying to figure out what he would do.

“Dad must have a first-aid kit out here somewhere,” Thomas thought as he stood up slowly.

Throughout the entire garage, all Thomas could find was a stack of small white napkins and some duct tape.  He placed the napkins on his shoulder and wrapped duct tape over the napkins.  The duct tape went all the way around his shirt and his arm.  He couldn’t wrap his facial wounds though.  The tape wouldn’t stick on top of all the blood on his face.

During his search for medical supplies, Thomas found dad’s video camera inside of one of the cabinets.  He didn’t know why, but he felt like recording a message on the camera.  At first he just sat and stared at the lens and the small flashing red light as the eight-millimeter tape was recorded.  He thought of several things to say, but as he spoke, his speech became slower and more difficult to understand.  Finally Thomas’s energy was gone and he couldn’t even sit up in the chair anymore.

Thomas closed his eyes and fell to the cold concrete floor.