Transformation (2 page)

“He was infected.” Ellen looked troubled.

Cooper took a step back.

“His fever started to spike and he started acting, you know, all happy. I dropped a bunch of sleeping pills into a drink to subdue him but it only made him drowsy. That was enough for me to tie him down.”

Trevor stood, swaying as Ellen spoke. He moaned a little.

“I used bags of ice, frozen towels, whatever I could to keep his fever down.”

“Yeah.” Tom awkwardly interjected. “I always bitched about being on the fourth floor but that’s what saved us.”

“So Karen and Tom helped me keep Trevor iced down until the fever passed. Then he started screaming and flailing. We had to gag him and tie him down tighter but eventually the fever broke.”

“And you stuck a cage on his head and made him walk around like that?” Cooper gestured.

At that moment Trevor dropped to his knees and fell sideways on the concrete. Ellen knelt by his side.

“Is he still breathing?” Cooper knelt too. “He’s been gagged for how long? Have you tried talking to him?”

“No, he’s been fighting us and acting angry.”

“Damn.” Hector laughed. “Tie me up and gag me and see how I act.”

Cooper shot him an amused glance,
I know, right,
then he pulled his knife and started cutting the ropes and rags that bound Trevor’s’ arms. He pulled the cage off and cut the cloth gag. The chain was knotted in his hair and beard. He smelled like shit.

“So what were you going to do with him?” Cooper looked at Ellen and the others.

She shrugged. “I guess eventually I was going to . . . I don’t know.”

Cooper pulled up one of his guns. “If he’s not OK then we have no choice.”

“What?” Ellen jumped at Cooper’s unexpected action. “You’re going to kill him?” She pushed Cooper’s arm to the side.

“There’s no other option. If he attacks us he’s not Trevor anymore. If he’s just sick, he probably needs help.”

“Did you see his eyes?” Hector asked. ““Shit, dude looks like a monster.”

Cooper knelt and started slapping Trevor in the face. He didn’t take his eyes off him, not wanting to be caught by surprise should he suddenly come to.

“I’m so glad you are OK. What have you been doing all this time?” he asked.

“Well, I decided to come here to check on you. Tom and Karen insisted on coming too. We had to go through Watsonville to check on Tom’s brother.”

The fact that there was no brother present said everything to Cooper.

“What have you been up to?”

Cooper looked up at his sister. He’d tell her everything later. “Nothing really.” He said absentmindedly as he took a moment to scan the surroundings. He was surprised how unaware of their surroundings the others were.
How’d they survive this long?
He wondered.

Trevor started to moan.

Hector’s eyes widened and he almost tripped as he jumped backwards. “Shoot him!”

“Wait.” Cooper pulled both guns up and out and pointed them at Trevor’s head.

“Two guns? Really?” Ellen said.

His sister could roll her eyes and make him feel stupid about winning a Nobel Prize—in the past that is. Now he found it easy to ignore her. She was just scared and tired like everyone else and was falling back on old habits.

Trevor moaned and rocked from side to side. He lightly put his foot on Trevor’s arm and held him still.

Trevor stopped moaning and looked up at Cooper and croaked weakly.

“Cooper?”

“Trevor, are you OK?”

“I’m dying of thirst.” He closed his eyes.

Cooper looked at Ellen with a
who’s-stupid-now
expression.

“Well I didn’t know! Look at his eyes. He was fighting like . . . “

“Like he wanted to eat and breathe?” Cooper said.

“OK.” Karen walked over to Trevor. “We need to get him somewhere safe so he can recuperate. C’mon Tom get over here and help.”

Ellen noticed that the previously cowed Karen was now the one barking orders. Tom obeyed and helped the others lift Trevor. Despite noticeable weight loss, Trevor was still a big guy. It took all of them to lift him into the SUV. Ellen also watched as Tom stepped aside and let Hector take his spot so he could jump into the passenger seat. She was left with Karen, Cooper, and Hector to push Trevor into the vehicle. She looked over at Hector who was looking at her and shaking his head with a look of disdain on his face.

They sat Trevor behind the passenger seat and Cooper took the wheel. Ellen slid into the center of the back seat. Karen was next and finally Hector sat next to the window. He could barely get the door closed. He had to sit sideways. Four adults were crammed in the backseat while Tom, looking out the window, was sprawled in the front passenger seat.

“Wait!” It was Hector. He jumped from the SUV and picked up the weapons dropped by the three men. “Only the rifle has ammo in it. The two shotguns look like they don’t even work.”

“That explains why those two ran.” Cooper got out of the SUV. “ I guess we should check on this guy.”

But Cooper could see the man had already pissed himself. He knelt by him to check for a pulse and gagged. Even in the stiff wind he could smell the man shit himself. He had no pulse. His eyes were half closed. Cooper was sure he was dead.

“OK, let’s go.”

“Where to now?” Cooper asked but was already heading down the highway. “I’m going to see what’s available down here. Maybe the grocery’s still ok.”

A little farther down the highway they saw a dozen or so corpses all hunched over an object on the road. Hector rolled up his window. Tom was oblivious and had his arm half out of the vehicle. Hector debated not telling him anything, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He tapped the back of the passenger seat.

“You might want to roll up your window.”

As they drove past they could see that the object was in fact two objects, two bodies. The men that had fled were torn to pieces.

Everyone looked away and no one said a word.

Cooper took the SUV down the ramp and into Seaside, a small town just north of Monterey. It was its own town, or city, like many on the peninsula, but they were basically all one with no clear borders between them.

The wide streets were quiet. The wind blew small drifts of sand across the road from the dunes. The small bit of sand would have previously been blown away by traffic but now it was collecting in odd patches here and there on the streets by the bay and making the world look all the more abandoned. He drove several blocks to the large grocery store and as he went inland, the sand patches thinned out and disappeared.

As they drove passed the familiar, it was hard not to feel like things were normal, or going to return to normal soon. Cooper had to remind himself things were rapidly going in the other direction. Already there was trash spotting the streets, small sprouts of grass and weeds were starting to become noticeable, and of course there were no people anywhere within eyeshot. He looked down into the deep ravines next to the roads and they were packed with thousands of standing corpses. It looked like the dead had mostly trickled downhill. At the next intersection he slowed and looked up and down the street—deserted, except a few of the dead still meandering about.

He drove slowly to the front of the grocery. The windows were busted out and trash littered the ground. There were several bodies there too, a sight so common no one gave it a second thought. The wind lifted a few strands of toilet paper in graceful arcs and bits of trash rolled along the ground. Everyone sat blank faced and emotionless. This dismal apocalyptic scene was the new norm.

Cooper cut the engine to listen. After a moment he heard nothing and saw nothing coming towards them. He popped the door open.

“Stay here.”

“What? No, we need to get stuff for Trevor.” Ellen was opening her door as she spoke and Karen followed. Tom didn’t make a move.

“I’m going to stay and keep an eye on our patient.” He feigned a smile. But he never looked back at Trevor.

“I’ll catch up.” Hector walked to the edge of the parking lot, looking left and right as he approached the bushes that lined the lot. He was fumbling with his pants as he approached.

§

The grocery store was silent and gloomy. It was hot and the smell of rotting food, and god knows what else, hung thickly in the darkness and gagged them. Cooper silently led the way followed by Ellen. Karen was making a racket. Her shoes squeaked as they scuffed the floor. She stepped on and kicked various objects as she walked. Cooper winced at the noise and finally brought them all to a stop so he could listen. They were far enough into the store that no light reached them from the outside. He pulled one of the small flashlights from his pocket and clicked it on. Although he could now see the immediate area in front of him quite well, the rest of the store dropped into total darkness.

Cooper inched forward. He’d asked Karen to try and be silent and the light helped her with that. He was wondering about Hector and why he hadn’t shown up yet.
Was he OK? Did he chicken out?
He felt good about the guy despite the gang tattoos. He’d heard that many gang members were only members so they could survive, and wondered if that were the case with Hector. A faint scratching sound caught his ear. He peered into the darkness and strained to make out the origin of the noise. Suddenly the sound of cans crashing to the floor exploded in the silence.

“That was behind us,” Karen hissed.

Cooper looked around and saw a figure slowly dragging itself towards them. Eyes glowed in the darkness. He pulled up a gun and walked towards it and stopped stunned—It was Trevor.

“What the hell? Why are you here?” Cooper whispered, picturing hundreds of corpses streaming across the parking lot towards them. Trevor’s voice was weak and hard to hear.

“The asshole . . . “ Was all he could get out. He held onto the shelves nearby and steadied himself.

Cooper raised the light and jumped with fright. The girls screamed. Behind Trevor was a tightly packed crowd of walking corpses as far as the light could illume. The darkness was speckled by hundreds of points of light as the eyes of the dead reflected Cooper’s little light back at him. Something felt sickly about how the light caught their eyes. It was creepy how they all winked in and out as the heads swayed back and forth. Their gasping moans started when the light hit them. Their teeth made a disturbing sound as the dead crashed them together. Cooper was stunned, transfixed by the horror before him.

“Trevor, turn around.” It was Karen.

Trevor looked back and then forward. He spoke so faintly he was practically mouthing the words. “Fuck me.” He started to shake and sink to the ground. The dead pushed forward.

“Trevor!” Ellen yelled. His head shot up and he struggled to right himself. The dead moaned and shuffled at the loud noise.

“Stay on your feet.” She continued. “Can you walk backwards? I think they are either scared of you, or following you.”

“No.” He rasped, eyes wide as he shook his head. “Fuck no.”

Karen was at the rear of the group and let out a loud scream. A corpse had its hands on her and was pulling her backwards. Cooper reacted quickly. He raised a gun, leaned forward and aimed carefully. He took the corpse out with a shot to the head. But there were more behind it, many more.

“You have to try and lead us out of here.” Cooper said to Trevor.

“Is Tom alright?” Karen asked, and then quickly added, “and Hector?”

Trevor just shook his head. Karen began to sob. Cooper had to take action so he stepped up to Trevor and grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around to face away from him. The dead recoiled. Weak with starvation and dehydration Trevor stumbled forward as Cooper pushed him down the aisle. The dead were hissing and backing away. They seemed more confused than angry, if the dead could indeed express emotions. It occurred to Cooper that they always seemed angry. But he’d assumed that was because they were always trying to eat him.

Trevor was stumbling and then he went limp. Coopers knees gave way a little as he nearly dropped him, but he steadied himself, jumping as Karen screamed again. He spun on his heels and his eyes popped open as he saw the mass of dead coming up on his rear. The ones in front were pushing forward. He whipped out his gun and fired two silenced shots. One corpse collapsed to its knees before falling on its face with a thud. He turned back and the others were almost upon him. He had a split second to try and revive Trevor, or drop him and try to fight the dead in the darkness.

He held Trevor’s body up with his left arm around his neck, worried he would strangle him, but he dared not let go. He would never be able to stand him back up. He slapped Trevor in the face with his right hand. Nothing happened. The dead were hesitant but they grabbed at Trevor and tried to pull his body away from Cooper.

Cooper needed to get Trevor awake. He was desperate. He slipped the baton in his right sleeve down into his hand and whipped it open. Mentally apologizing as he whacked Trevor in the crotch. The reaction was immediate. Trevor’s eyes shot open and he bellowed like he’d been . . . like he’d been hit in the nuts with a combat baton. The dead reacted immediately and stumbled backwards. Many fell but quickly rose and shuffled away.