WorldLost- Week 1: An Infected Novel (13 page)

Plus, who hasn’t wanted to taste an expensive scotch like a
Macallan?

I reached around the bar and grabbed some plastic bags to put
the canned goods in that Amy had sat on the bar counter. I threw in a couple
extra bottles of booze, just because they were there.

Following behind Amy, I made my way to the kitchen where
Butch was already cleaning out the canned and dry foods from the storage closet,
so I move to the cleaning closet looking for broom handles. I removed the
brooms and mops, breaking the ends off and creating a few more spears. After ten
minutes of bagging the supplies, we moved to the back door, ready to leave.

Amy opened the door slowly with caution just in case there
was a horde of infected waiting for us on the other side. She saw the truck
where we had left it but there was a couple infected pawing at it trying to
figure out if anything was inside to eat.

Amy closed the door quietly and we moved back into the bar
area to regrouped. Whenever possible, it's always good to go through a plan
before executing it, so I was happy she just didn’t take off without talking to
us first.

“Let’s save the ammo and use the spears. There’s only two of
them, so Butch and I will take care of them, you focus on getting the supplies
into the truck.” Amy looked at me whispering the instructions. I nodded my
confirmation.

“He’s going to have to deal with this fear of his soon,”
Butch said looking at me. I nodded my understanding which seemed to appease
him.

Amy grabbed her sword and we headed back to the rear
entrance. She slowly opened the door again and confirmed that there were still
only two fo the infected outside.

Butch and Amy both moved out ahead of me and went after the
two infected, Amy taking the one on the driver’s side and Butch taking the one
on the passenger side. Neither of the infected had a chance to react.

I moved to the truck bed and placed the first arm full of
bags in, going back into the building to get the rest of the supplies. It took
me a few trips to get everything we had grabbed.

Amy and Butch waited inside the truck as I did all of the
heavy liftings with the whole process taking just a few minutes to get it all
loaded. After loading, I opened the driver’s door and pushed Butch to the
middle. I liked to drive.

“I think we should head over to the Sports Authority down the
street and look for some sports armor we could use. Something we can use to protect
our arms and legs, maybe a helmet.” I said to the group.

Neither of them had any objections since it was just down the
street. With any luck, the store would be in good shape and we could get in and
out without problems.

As we pulled up to the sporting goods store, we realized that
our luck had run out. The place was crawling with infected and a banner hung
out of one of one of the second-floor windows that read “Help! We are Alive
Inside”.

We drove the truck slowly past the store and turned right
onto Madison Street heading east. “What are doing, that’s the wrong way to get
to my parent's place,” Butch said as he looked through the back window at the
store.

“There are people in the building that need help. If we don’t
help, then what kind of people are we?” I said back to him.

I knew deep down it was the right thing to do. Leaving
someone behind, that was asking for help would not sit well with me. We had to
help those asking for help.

“You don’t even know if they are still there or even alive.”
He said back to me. He had turned back around and was looking forward when he
wasn’t giving me the evil eye.

“Doesn’t matter at this point, we’ve got to try. I’ve made my
choice” I said as I turn down 14th street and head south.

“Then at least tell us the plan,” Amy said.

“I’m going to drive by the store again, this time, slower and
see if I can draw the crowd away. If they follow the truck then we can draw
them further away, speeding up so we can get back to the store and try to see
what is going on before they return.”

“This is crazy.” Butch says as he shakes his head, “Just
fucking crazy.”

“I agree with Matt.” Amy piped in. “We have to do everything
we can to help others, even when it puts us in danger.”

I turn on Kennedy Avenue heading West and turning north on
the 13th street again. Already the infected crowd was smaller than before which
meant that my plan had worked. As we got closer, we noticed a couple of women
hanging out the second-floor window waving at us.

I slow down enough so that the entire group of infected in
front of the building turned and started to follow the truck. I turned on
Madison Street again but this time, I headed west. This would break the crowd
up on two different routes. After crossing 12th street and Eleventh Street, I
turn south on Eleventh Street and waited till they were all around the corner
before I punched the truck gas pedal and sped down the street.

I finally turned the corner on 13th street and head north once
again. As I approach the building I saw that the crowd was all gone and that the
women were climbing out the window using a rope to hang onto. As the second
women let’s go of the window seal, an infected reached out of the window and grabbed
the second women’s wrist. The women were trying to get out of the building as
the infected were trying to get in the room from inside the building.

This meant that the building was compromised and we wouldn’t
be able to look for the protective gear I wanted.

I pulled the truck up under the rope stopping so the rope
hung over the roof of the truck. The rope was short by a few yards, so the drop
was going to be tricky. Amy got out of the truck and climbed into the bed. Butch
opened the rear window as Amy said. ‘Pull up a bit more so they can drop on the
back of the roof and then into the truck bed.”

I pulled up a little more and held in that spot as the first
of the two women dropped onto the roof and then fell into the truck bed. Amy
grabbed her and moved her out of the way so the other women didn’t fall on her.

The other woman was struggling with the infected that had a
hold of her wrist. The infected was trying to get its head out of the window to
bite her hand but was having trouble. The last woman had been smart and closed
the window as much as she could so the infected couldn’t just hang out of it,
but it also meant that if enough of them were inside and pushing, that the
window would give and we could have a problem.

We needed to get this resolved ASAP before the window gave
away and the infected tumbled out of the window landing on the truck and us. We
also needed to get going before the infected we had drawn away from the store
made their way back.

“Shoot the infected in the window,” I said to Butch. He
didn’t hesitate. He climbed out of the truck, pulled his rifle around and rested
it on the roof of the truck. After a short breath out, he took the shot.

The noise was loud inside the cab of the truck, my ears rang
and hearing what was being said was difficult. It would also attract any infected
in the area and we could very soon have a major problem on our hands.

We really needed to leave I thought. I looked in the rearview
mirror and saw the crowd of infected we had drawn away rounding the corner.

Luckily the rifle shot was right on hitting the infected that
had a hold of the woman’s wrist in the head through the glass. The glass
shattered falling on the woman hanging on the rope and onto the truck. Even
more, noise, just what we needed.

The infected that was shot immediately released the woman who
fell from the second-floor window to the bed of the truck, landing in an
awkward way. The shock of the shot and the window breaking must have scared her
and she let go of the rope.

Amy tapped the top of the truck and yelled to go which I
barely heard since my ears were still ringing.

Butch jumped in the truck and I punched the gas pedal
speeding away before it started to rain infected or the horde behind us was
much closer. Thank God there weren’t any fast ones in the horde. I sped away
turning left on Madison Street, heading west.

Amy was in the bed of the truck with the women trying to help
the one that had fallen. My ears were clearing up and I could hear Amy talking
to them trying to figure out what happened if there were any others in the
building and how badly hurt the second woman was.

The women both were talking at once and it was hard to tell
what happened, but what I got and what Butch said he got was that they were
employees of the store and were just getting the store ready to open when
everything seemed to happen all at once.

The store manager, hunting manager, and a stock boy were also
at the store, all performing their morning tasks. As they worked, they watched
the news on the TV;’s that hung around the store. They started to see that
something major was happening and decided to not open and to keep the security gates
closed.

The stock boy didn’t want to stay and took off out the back
door trying to get to his car. He was scared and really wanted to get home to
help his ailing mother. He didn’t make it, he was attacked the minute he
stepped out the back door.

The store manager was lucky to get the back door closed and
locked. They had been inside the store ever since, watching the news till the
electricity went out. None of them were able to talk to their own families and
there were too many infected outsiders to try to get out.

They had been living off the junk food and bottled drinks in
the store for the last three days and had even broken into the dry freeze
camping foods.

On the second day, the infected broke through the front door
and somehow got past the gates. They managed to escape up the stairs and
barricaded themselves in a storage room. They locked the doors and used some of
the merchandise and shelves to help block the door.

The two men had killed about ten of the infected on their way
up the stairs, but they had been using the guns from the hunting department and
the noise just drew more of the infected into the building. This morning the
hunting manager didn’t hear any of the infected outside the door and thought it
would be safe to open the door. They moved the merchandise and other things
away from the door.

They only moved the merchandise blocking the door a little,
just enough for them to open the door just a bit to look outside. They thought
it was safe, but once they had the door open just a crack an infected grabbed the
hunting manager’s wrist and quickly took a chunk out of him. They were able to
get the door closed again, but now they had someone on the inside that had been
bitten.

The hunting manager knew what would happen and asked them to
tie him up and end him once he turned. The store manager killed him since
neither of the women was willing to do it. The noise from the gun got the
infected outside the door all agitated again and that's when the store manager started
to shoot through the door out of frustration and anger, trying to protect them.

Had we been an hour earlier, we might of have saved them all.

We were headed down Madison Street trying to make it to 8
^th
Street which would take us north out of the city. Eventually and without
incident, we made it to the corner of 8
^th
street.

I didn’t see any infected around us, so I stopped to take a
quick check on everyone.

“Why are we stopping?” Amy asked poking her head through the
pen cab window.

“Just want to make sure that everyone is ok and to see what
our new passengers want to do,” I said.

“They are ok with coming with us, they said they didn’t have
anything to go back to. Let’s move out.” Amy said returning to the back of the
truck and the two women.

I turned the truck north on 8
^th
street and got
moving.

As I drove, I thought about how lucky we had been so far;
even though we had failed to get the gear from the sporting goods store, we
really had quite a bit of supply. We were really hoping to get a chance at some
more guns, ammo, and protective gear, but we’d have to try for those things
when the chance came up. Somewhere along the line, I had to come up with the protective
gear we could wear, as I truly believed that this was a must have. If the
infected couldn’t bite you, then you had an increased rate of survival.

We continued on 8th street, which turned to SH 8, heading out
of town, dodging infected and abandoned cars along the way. Multiple times we
had to stop and backtrack to a side street due to all of the wrecks on the
road.

Butch had taken this route for many years and knew every back
road to cut through bypassing any obstacles. We still had a couple of hours of
driving and we wouldn't reach Butch’s parent's place by nightfall so we agreed
that we had to find a place to spend the night or risk drawing every infected
in the area with the sound of the car and the lights.

“We should keep driving till we reach Severance and then find
a place to stay the night,” Butch suggested.

“OK. Let Amy know, just in case she has an objection.” Butch
spoke to Amy through the back window and Amy let Butch know that Mary, the
women that fell, had a sprained ankle, a bruised hip and maybe a broken wrist.
Butch grabbed his backpack and pulled out the various bandage wraps and other
medical supplies he thought she could use. He handed them to her through the
window.

The sooner we felt good about pulling off, the better for
Mary. I’m sure the bouncing around didn’t help with her pain.

“Think an electric car would be a better vehicle for the
apocalypse?” I asked Butch.

“Yeah. But there’s no electricity to recharge the batteries.”
He replied. “Anyway, soon the gas and diesel will be gone or bad, and we’ll all
be using horses, bikes and our feet.”

We both fell silent for a few minutes as we thought about
this new world.

“So, explain what your problem is with killing the infected?”
Butch finally said to me, shifting in his seat to face me. “Tell old Doctor
Butch your problems and let me help you.”

I really don’t know how to explain this to him; I was still
struggling with it myself. The only reason that I could think of was that the
infected were still people. Even if they didn’t look alive anymore, I still saw
what they were once. Everything else I killed in my life was for food or
clothing. I never had an experience where my life was in danger or where I had
to protect myself, let alone a situation where I killed something just for the
sport. My dad would never allow a sports killing. We ate all the meat, we used
the fur to sell, trade or wear. Killing a person or someone who once was a
person didn’t fit what I knew as right. I didn’t have another explanation, so I
told Butch exactly that.

“OK. I get it, but your reluctance to kill these things, and
they are things, they are not people anymore, will cause us problems. You are
really putting us all in danger, not just yourself. So far you have not
stabbed, ran over, shot or beat any of these things to save any of us.”

“I did kill them; I led at least 15 of them to their end when
I drew them away from you guys and off the balcony,” I replied. “Just like the
Pied Piper.” I winked and smiled at him before returning my eye to the road.

“The only reason they ended up on the ground, was because the
rail gave way. If it hadn’t, they would still be in the apartment wondering
around looking for someone to eat.”

Butch was right, I didn’t actually cause them to fall, they
bunched up against the rail and it gave. I only gave them a reason to bunch up
like that.

“When we get to Severance and we find a place to stay, you’re
going to clear it. You have to get this over with and get comfortable with
this. It’s us or them.” He said, turning back to the front of the truck and
looking out his window.