WorldLost- Week 1: An Infected Novel (4 page)

I really didn’t have a choice at this point;I couldn’t sit
there and wait it out. I was crouching behind an SUV, with no real cover. At
any moment another infected could appear from another direction and I’d be boxed
in with no exit. As it was, I was already in a pickle since the group of infected
I had been watching was now directly across the street from where I was crouched
behind the SUV.

I took a deep breath, making the decision to move, stood up
and took off like a bat out of hell. A moan came from the infected closest to
the SUV I had been hiding behind which made all the other infected across the
street turn to see what was for dinner. The moan was their dinner bell and every
one of them was ready for a meal.

I took off down the street away from the group but in the
direction of Amy’s building. The infected headed right after me, albeit some
were staggering, others were shambling, and some just ran into the side of
cars, telephone poles, and things, but lucky for me, none of them seemed like a
fast one.

As I got to the entrance of Ford Street heading east, I
jumped into the bed of a truck that I thought would be a good shortcut, from
the bed I climbed onto the roof of the truck and then slid on my backside down
to the hood. Just as I landed on the hood and was beginning to stand back up,
something moved fast from the doorway of the penny saver store that the truck
was parked in front of.

It was one of the fast infected. He was in front of the
truck, reaching for me before I could react and get away from him. His hand
grabbed my ankle and started to yank me further off the hood. I grabbed a hold
of the end of the hood by the windshield and used my free foot to plant a heal
in the infected shoulder causing him to release my leg. I quickly scrambled up
the hood, over the windshield and onto the roof of the truck.

I stood on the roof, catching my breath and watched as the infected
that were chasing me reached the truck and surrounded me. Thankfully I was up
high on the roof and it seemed like they were having problems climbing on the
truck. This was a new fact that we needed to remember, they couldn’t climb
straight up, which meant that they wouldn’t be able to reach me on top of the
truck. Even the fast one wasn’t able to climb onto the truck; all it could do
was move around the parameter of the truck, looking for a way up.

There was definitely too many of them for me to defend myself
against and to be honest, fighting was not something I wasn’t interested in
doing. The thought of having to fight my way out of this situation really
bothered me. I’m not a violent person, to begin with, never have been, and I
didn’t believe in killing, especially another human being. When you killed, you
did it for food or protection from a predator.

I really didn’t see these infected people as predators and I
couldn’t figure out why that was the case. They were chasing me, they did want
to hurt me and they would do anything to get to me. Maybe Frank was right,
maybe I had to change what I believed in to survive in this new world.

By now I had a large crowd of the infected around the truck,
pushing each other, trying to get to me. If I could get them to move to the
rear of the truck I just might be quick enough to jump the roof, slide down the
hood and take off running.

But run to where? That was the next question.

If I ran to Amy’s I would just draw them to her place right
after me and that could mean bigger problems for everyone.

As I was looking around for a potential place to run and hide,
I heard an engine rumbling towards me, from around a corner appeared a large
red fire truck taking the corner at speed. It swerved across the two lane road
heading down the street. It was on a crash course directly for a group of cars
just ahead of where I was trapped on the roof of the truck.

The infected were now all watching the fast approaching
vehicle. The siren had them fully fixated with their attention no longer on me.
This might be the distraction I needed.

The fire truck swerved and ran through a small pileup of cars,
pushing the abandoned cars to the side of the road. The additional sound of the
crash got the full attention of the infected around my truck island. I stood
still and waited for my opportunity.

The fast infected took off running towards the fire truck and
the slower infected began to shamble after it. A small opening was now at the
front of the truck, so I slowly moved to the hood as the remaining infected
walked towards the fire truck that was heading their way.

The fire truck was now only 50 yards away and it had changed
course heading straight for the truck I was standing on. With all of the
strength I had, I jumped to the sidewalk, over a couple of infected, just
barely missing them.

My feet were moving before they hit the sidewalk and I was
able to just get past two cars when the fire truck rammed into the front of the
truck I had just jumped off of. The force of the crash pushed the truck and
every one of the infected into the penny saver shops front window. Another
second and I would have been surfing that truck through the window and to my
death.

I didn’t stop, I just kept running and out of nowhere a body just
barely missed me as it flew by me. The infected woman, I assume from the crash,
passed me like she was superwoman flying tot eh rescue, only this one ended up wrapped
around a light pole in front of me. The woman slid down the pole trying to grab
me as I ran past her. Even after a trauma such as that, she was still trying to
get to me.

What kind of disease could drive someone to ignore that level
of pain and only focus on getting to its next meal?

The impact had so much force, that her blood and guts
splattered all over the sidewalk. The site was something my stomach couldn’t handle
and I began to throw up. It took everything I had to suppress the urge as I
didn’t have time to stop. I had to get away before any of the infected saw me.

I did have to slow down a bit to control the urge, but I was
able to keep up a good pace since I didn’t have to stop to puke my guts up. I
took the next alley which thankfully would lead me to Amy’s apartment building.

Going through the alley would bring me to the parking garage
for her building and I knew the passcode to get in, so that’s where I was
heading. Once in, I could use the same passcode to get into the elevator or the
stairwell and then make my way up to her apartment. Safe and sound, that was
the plan.

I figured that the back way would be less of a problem, fewer
chances of any infected hanging around and I could easily make my way to her apartment
on the second floor without having to deal with any of them.

I passed the first two buildings in the alley on my way to
Amy’s garage, running at half speed and
slid to
a stop in front of the garage gate entrance. I punched in the code, hearing the
beep as I punched in each number and waited for the garage door start to open.

As I was standing there waiting for the door
to open enough for me to slide into the garage, I saw a pair of legs on the
other side of the garage door.

The fact that the person wasn’t moving, just waiting at the
door told me I had a problem. What kind of person would just stand there and
not say anything or move when the door started to open. It had to be an
infected person. I was sure anyone else would have said something.

I moved away from the garage door and found a dumpster close
by, sliding down behind the dumpster as the door finally made it past the head
of the infected. The guy moved out of the garage once the door was fully open
and looked around the alley. I’m sure he had sensed me at some point, but he
couldn’t place me.

I looked around me; trying to find something I could use as a
distraction and found an empty beer bottle. I picked it up and throw it down
the opposite end of the alley towards the main street. Once the bottle crashed
to the ground, causing a loud noise down the alley, the infected turned and
headed in the direction of the noise. The sound was louder than I expected and I
knew that it would attract other infected, so I had to make my move now and get
into the garage with the door closed very quickly.

The infected man turned and headed towards
the sound of the broken bottle. I moved swiftly into the underground garage and
prayed to God that there weren’t others waiting inside for me. I assume there
weren’t sine they had not reacted to the bottle breaking.

As I passed through the door, I hit the close button on the
panel and the large solid garage door started to close. I could see the infected
man in the alley turn and look in the direction of the closing door. He
immediately let out a low moan when he saw me and changed his direction,
starting to head back my way.

All I could think was ‘come on door’. I silently wished it to
move faster, come on, close I thought to myself. Please close. Close, you son
of a bitch.

The infected man bumped into the garage door just as it
latched closed and I found myself in the apartment building garage looking
around for any other threats.

Not seeing anything I started to move slowly from car to car,
using the walls and the pillars to keep in the shadows as I made my way to the
elevator. Since the automatic garage door had worked, I assumed I had a pretty
good chance that the elevator would work also. The electricity must have been
working, so it would be easier to use the elevator versus the stairs.

I hit the up button for the elevator and waited, finally hearing
the whine of the elevator as it started to come down to the garage level. Not
wanting to be surprised, I stood to the left of the elevator door and waited
for it to land and the door to open.

As I waited, I remembered a time when I was going to meet Amy
in the garage and I thought it might be fun to scare her when she exited the
elevator. I thought it would be a great prank, unfortunately, it quickly turned
on me. Just as I was about to jump out at Amy, an older lady stepped out of the
elevator. I was already moving and could stop, so I jumped out in front of her
and screamed at the top of my lungs.

Of course,
she was surprised when she saw and heard me, but not so surprised that
she didn’t place a solid foot, squarely to my balls. I immediately struck the
classic pose of someone having their balls shoved into his stomach.

My eyes popped out of my head, my jaw immediately hit the
ground, my hands moved quickly to where my balls once were hanging and I was standing
on my tippy toes, like MJ during his Thriller days.

I was pretty sure we could have won the contest for funniest
video on AFV.

The old lady just looked at me with a look of disgust for
scaring her. She shook her head at me and then used her hand to push me down to
the pavement as she walked by me.

I’m sure I heard a slight giggle as she made her way to her
car.

I, of course, did not giggle. All I could do was lay there
and catch my breath.

As I was standing there, remember that learning moment, I
started to hear more of the infected at the garage door and fencing that
protected the garage from the alley. It seemed the single infected now had other
infected interested in what he saw and the dinner bell was on for everyone.

Come on elevator. Let’s get a move on I thought.

The bell for the elevator finally rang, announcing the
elevator had arrived at the garage floor and then the doors opened, shining
part of the garage in light.

This time,
I stayed hidden and waited to see if anything walked out of the elevator.
I figured that any infected in the elevator would move out once it heard the
moans of the other infected at the garage door. They were really creating a
racket at the door and before long there would be a horde of infected trying to
get in.

I could only hope that once I was gone, they would lose interest
since they wouldn’t be able to sense or hear me and would move on to find new
prey.

When nothing came out of the elevator, I made my move.

I moved to the elevator door and then stepped into the elevator
compartment. I pressed the second-floor button and the door started to close. I
was hoping there wouldn’t be a stop on the first floor, but I could not tell.

I wasn’t sure what might be waiting for me when the elevator doors
opened, either on the first floor or on Amy’s floor, but I figured I could deal
with it. So far, I had been lucky and made it to Amy’s without really having to
deal with the infected. I had spent all my energy trying to outrun them instead
of having to fight or kill them. I figured I could continue to duck and run if an
infected bad was waiting on the other side of the elevator doors when they
opened. I could use the bat I was still carrying to push any infected away from
me as long as they weren’t the fast kind.

They fast kind were agiler, they had better balance and they
were quick to change directions when their prey tried to shake them off their
scent.

As the elevator moved slowly up, the two floors, passing the
first floor without incident, I thought about my aversion to dealing with the infected.

This was a problem for me and would be a problem for any
companions that might be with me. I wondered if I would be able to defend
myself when the time came that I had no other choice.