Trudge: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (2 page)

As Cade sat on the hard concrete floor pondering his deed and wondering what to do next, Lisa began to twitch.

Turning her head ever so slightly, her lidless eyes honed in on him. As she arose, with few muscles left to support it, her neck listed to the side nearly resting on her shoulder. She moved faster than he anticipated, teeth clicking, trying to take a bite of him.

He scrambled to his feet still brandishing the ice axe. Keeping his center of gravity low he worked his way around the little MG. The ghoul that was once Lisa followed steadily after. He rounded the hood of the car, planted his feet and waited for the abomination to get within reach. She lurched nearer, her numb hands reaching for his neck. With blinding speed Cade plunged the ice axe into her temple. All of her compromised motor functions ceased and she crumpled to the garage floor.

Cade put some distance between him and the two dead bodies. His mind raced and he asked himself what had just happened.

There was a cordless phone hanging on the wall next to the side door. Cade put the phone to his ear but there was no dial tone. Calling the police was what he aimed to do, but at this point, his only option was to leave and sort it out later.

With the running water as hot as he could stand he washed the bodily fluids from his hands into the utility sink. Mesmerized by the rivulets of bloody water slowly spiraling down the drain he thought his options through.
Ted and Lisa’s bodies will have to stay where they fell. It would do me no good to mess with the…. I almost said crime scene. I need to remember what I did was purely self-defense. Something wasn’t right Lisa had to have been dead before she stood back up
. It brought back memories of the young insurgent in the Shah-I-Kot valley in Afghanistan that had absorbed a full magazine worth of bullets. He had somehow gotten right back up and then made it ten steps before falling dead. This was a very different situation. That terrorist had been jacked up on drugs and adrenaline. He was no expert, but judging by the amount of blood on the floor Lisa had definitely bled to death while Ted was eating her.

Still stunned by the recent turn of events he decided to head for home. He would make another attempt to call the authorities and then his wife Brook when he got back to his house.

With troubling thoughts still weaving through his brain he exited the garage. His shoes left bloody splotches on the drive as he set out for his street.

The adrenaline still coursed through his body, his senses were now attuned to every sight, sound and smell. Distant sirens blared from multiple directions; the smell of smoke was on the air. It also just occurred to him that he hadn’t heard any airplanes all afternoon. Cade’s home was just a few miles from the airport and frequent over flights were normal. He also had a sixth sense tingle telling him there was more to this than his neighbor suddenly turning homicidal and cannibalistic.

Cade realized that he was still holding the ice axe as he trudged up his front walk. What a sight that would be to responding officers, if he had been able to get ahold of any. He sat down heavily on the stoop and fished his cell phone from his pocket. All that he heard was static when he tried to make a call. Inside the house the result was the same with the land line. He began to worry.

Cade turned on the television for the first time since his family left. He selected one of the local news stations. The previously recorded footage was from Pioneer Courthouse Square, it was also known as Portland’s living room. They were covering an impromptu rally that happened earlier this morning. The pierced, tatted, black clad anarchists were stirred up. They were rallying against the government and everything else they weren’t happy about. Judging by the signs and placards that the protesters carried they believed that the mutated H1-N1 virus being reported was man made. Beyond a shadow of a doubt they were convinced that the government had released it on the unsuspecting “sheeple”. Their theory was that the powers that be would be forced to intervene, thus giving “The man” more power and total control when martial law is eventually declared. They feared that Homeland Security and FEMA wanted it implemented to restrict the rights of the American population. Paranoia was rooted deep in anarchist circles.

Cade noticed that the police and National Guard had a heavier presence than usual for one of these gatherings.

While the reporter was telling his audience about the damage these same thugs had caused last year at the WHO conference, a huge opening suddenly appeared in the middle of the hundred plus anarchists occupying the center of the brick square. It looked like a fight had started within the crowd. As the human sea parted, two figures on the ground arose and started grabbing and biting anyone within reach. The footage lasted four or five minutes; in that time many more joined the first two attackers and panic swept the rest of the crowd. Police and guardsman stood dumbstruck as the bloody melee escalated. Guardsman fired the first warning shots over the heads of the frantic out of control throng. Their gunfire merely attracted the attention of the newly infected.

Cade stood transfixed on the screen as the troops started shooting their M4 rifles into the surging group of rioters, infected and innocents. Newly turned undead were now attacking soldiers and the gawking bystanders standing near the outskirts.

Pioneer Courthouse Square became the flash-point for the outbreak in Portland.

Within minutes there were so many wounded and dead that they had to be transported not only to the closest hospitals downtown but to the suburbs as well. This created satellite centers of infection and helped it spread faster and further from ground zero.

The recorded footage ended and the station ran a snippet reporting violence and cannibalism at the Alamo in San Antonio. There were scores of deaths and hundreds of casualties there as well. The pace of news coming in was frenetic. Abruptly the station went to a live feed from a nearby hospital.

The petite brunette news lady from Channel 8 had just arrived on scene at Providence Hospital and started reporting live. Behind her the emergency room was very crowded and hectic. Nurses, doctors and other personnel were performing triage or actively attending to the injured. In the background four hospital workers hovered around an ambulance gurney, working on a man with horrible lacerations crisscrossing his face. One person continually did chest compressions. On three different occasions one of the four workers hollered “clear”, and everyone stood back as the paddles were placed on the man’s chest and he was administered an electric shock. His heart failed to restart. A short time passed and then they pulled a thin white sheet over the man.

The news lady continued talking about the large number of patients suffering from bite wounds and head trauma from the “Riot in Square” as it had been dubbed by the media.

Cade watched intently as the camera panned left and zoomed in on the twitching, sheet covered man on the gurney. He sat up, the sheet cascaded from his upper torso, revealing his body, pale and bruised from deaths onset. Sluggishly he turned only his head, his lifeless staring eyes fixed on the woman reporter.

He wanted to yell and warn the woman on the television but he knew that that was futile. Before the cameraman could react, or anyone else in the busy trauma center noticed, the risen corpse had planted two bare feet on the avocado green linoleum floor and covered the short distance to the unsuspecting anchor lady.

Wondering why she no longer held the shocked cameraman’s undivided attention; she paused mid-sentence, glaring at him.

 The ghoul opened its mouth wide and attached itself to her neck on live television. A crimson fan of blood pulsed, spraying in front of the still recording camera.

Hospital security guards rushed the attacker and wrestled him to the ground. He thrashed about wildly, hissing and moaning, mouth snapping. The guards and orderlies had their hands full. The newly turned corpse summoned enough strength to inflict bite wounds on two of the men that struggled to subdue it.

While the tussle ensued the veteran reporter lay face down spread eagled and bled to death. The scene was broadcast live in full HD, on thousands of televisions.

The image on the screen switched from the live remote feed to the ashen, stunned and speechless anchors in the studio. A male reporter stammered and said a few words about his fallen co-worker before he composed himself. The network promptly went to commercial.

It was astonishing that the cameraman failed to warn the news reporter before her graphic demise had been captured on the live feed. Cade scanned the other news channels and saw that violence was breaking out in other cities. He was astounded as he watched people stand rooted, overwhelmed by fear as the infected over ran them. Their fight or flight impulses switched off by the improbable scenario that their eyes and brain were trying to register.

Chapter 2

Southeast Portland

Cade didn’t sleep at all that night. He was worried sick for his wife and daughter. For the first few hours after the sun had gone down he kept watch out of Raven’s upstairs bedroom window. The trickle of undead ambling up and down his street had increased. After closing all of the curtains and extinguishing the lights he tried to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he saw his dead neighbors. Cade got out of bed, dressed and went downstairs. He didn’t want to but he was drawn to it. He turned on the television and watched all night. So far, the satellite hadn’t failed. He didn’t want to rely on the Portland news anchors for all of his information, given the incessant, high-strung babble and hyperbole coming from them since their colleague’s death.

At first the cable news channels were no better, CNN, FOX and MSNBC were reporting that the outbreak was similar to SARS or H1N1. Their idea of useful information included the use of face masks, plastic sheeting and duct tape to secure against an airborne pathogen. All of the other alphabet news stations were the same. Speculation, guessing and second guessing passed for news. Tensions were at their highest as nations pointed fingers and missiles at each other. Threat levels were raised and armies mobilized. The only consensus was that the origin of the pathogen was still unknown and that every nation’s survival depended on quick thinking and immediate action.

Cade noticed that so far Portland as well as the central Rockies and Colorado weren’t being mentioned very much in the news. The massacre in the square was only big news locally.

Looking at the big picture the world was in a mess of trouble.

Chapter 3

Day 2 Portland, Oregon

As dawn broke, revealing a bluebird sky, a sortie of F-15E Strike Eagles from Portland International Airport roared overhead. They were on full afterburner and flying very low. Windows rattled and car alarms were triggered by the over flight. Two of the fighters peeled off and climbed higher and then resumed CAP (combat air patrol) in a circling series of laps over the city.

In the days following the 9/11 attacks, there was a constant rumbling of National Guard fighter jets on CAP over Portland.  It was apparent that things had deteriorated very rapidly overnight.

Not being able to contact his loved ones or any of his other neighbors forced him to make the decision to leave the house and go reconnoiter the neighborhood. Cade stepped up into the old rusty wheelbarrow, poked his head over the top of the fence, and slowly scanned the alley left to right checking for any of the walking dead.

After concluding he was alone, quietly as possible he eased his aluminum mountain bike over the six foot wooden fence that enclosed his back yard. Getting around on the bike was faster than foot and quieter than car. 

He vaulted over the fence to join his bike and crouched down, then inhaled and exhaled through his nose several times. The air smelled of smoke mingled with the distinctive stench of decaying flesh. The odor was most likely from one of his many dead neighbors that he had observed ambling about the streets the last day and a half.

Still crouched down, he swiveled his head slowly, intent on picking up any sounds coming from the grass and dirt alley that ran between the block of houses in the rear. With the back of his hand he wiped the sweat forming on his brow. He didn’t detect any sounds nearby. In the distance a siren wailed.

Since the start of the outbreak the traffic on his street dwindled to nothing and the undead began appearing in larger numbers. The neighborhood had become eerily quiet except for the raspy moans of the walking dead. When one of them spotted anything living they would begin their low pitched moaning and alert the other walkers within earshot. It was akin to how dogs started barking at night, one starts howling and soon a string of baying dogs would all join in on the chorus.

 In the big sandbox in the Middle East, situational awareness and constant training is what kept him alive. It was especially important now given the fact that the dead were walking the streets. Cade knew that they greatly outnumbered him; therefore he was very careful to avoid any contact.

Cade was an average size man, with the exception of his intense hard eyes, he didn’t look like the Tier 1 Operator that he had been. Most of the soldiers that he had trained with and gone to war with looked unassuming as well. There were a few of the moose sized, action star lookers in the teams. During operations they usually paid the price and humped the big guns.