Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (18 page)

Off balanced and strong-armed, she tumbled over and was tangled with both of her attackers in the process. The beasts weren’t necessarily strong, but they were relentless. Meghan was awash in their mildewy, briny pungency. She pressed away the face that was lunging at her with chomping, brown-and-yellow-teethed jaws, kicking blindly toward the other clawing at her waist. She fought desperately, but she couldn’t possibly forestall their attacks indefinitely.

She cried out desperately, “Heelllllllp!”

Realizing what was happening, Della was trying to come to Meghan’s assistance. Her door was locked and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out how to open the damned thing. She adjusted the mirror and lowered her window, but none of the buttons she pressed seemed to have the desired effect. She pawed at the lock itself with her thick fingers, but the knob was too narrow and embedded too deeply into the door. She could feel the growl beginning to grow deep down in her chest as the frustration and helplessness continued to build.

Alec too was unable to immediately come to Meghan’s rescue. He was trying to extricate himself from his position, but he was not having much more luck than Della. He wiggled right and left, but he had so wedged himself in the narrow opening that he was finding it nearly impossible to pull himself free. His struggling and squirming was in fact cutting nasty gashes into his sides as he struggled.

Claire too tried to lift herself from her position. She was having the best luck but she was also the least likely to be able to deliver Meghan any help. Claire got herself onto her aching elbows and was finding it difficult to do anything more. She could almost see Meghan but she was unfortunately of no assistance beyond being a witness.

Meghan was completely on her own for the moment, which was her worst fear. She didn’t like being alone under normal circumstances before the apocalypse. She typically craved company to feel secure. Since their world had so drastically changed, Meghan made it a point of never being far from others. She hated how exposed and afraid isolation made her feel.

And lying on the ground outside the truck, she couldn’t have been more alone. She was fighting for her life with little hope of anyone arriving to deliver her from the tight spot in which she found herself. Swallowing her fear, she grasped onto the reality that if she had any hope of staying alive, it was up to her to fight. Unfortunately, fighting was something in which she had neither experience nor skill. She kicked with her feet and pushed with her hands and arms, but she did so without coordination and therefore without much effect. Sometimes her foot found its target and bought her a little room to maneuver and sometimes her foot and leg became more entangled with her attackers. Meghan finally got what appeared to be a break and pushed the snapping attacker closest to her face backward and away for a moment. With the weight across her temporarily lifted, she pulled herself on her backside out of the knot of legs and arms. Her breaths were coming so rapidly and so shallowly, she was flirting with hyperventilating, but she scooted herself regardless. In her blind haste, she neglected to see the bared teeth descending toward her exposed left hand and arm.

Della was frantically pulling on the door handle when she heard the scream. Like an icy dagger, Meghan’s shriek stabbed each of them sitting in the truck. Della had heard that scream many times in the past and too many times much too recently for comfort. And now she was hearing it from that pretty red-headed girl who was so nice to them kids. She didn’t deserve it any more than any of them folks back at the hotel. But that was just how it was these days.

As if Meghan’s painful howls were the divining rod for the lock control, she looked over and hit the right button finally. She spilled out of the truck like a dark, threatening wave and diffused around the truck toward the fatally wounded girl.

Della grunted deeply as she went to work. She had a garden hatchet in her left hand and a tire iron in her right, both of which she used to great effect. In a handful of swings, she had dispatched Meghan’s assailants, removing scalps and collapsing skulls.

With the two devils no longer moving and the immediate vicinity clear of any more of them, Della was finally free to pull the motionless bodies from the young woman. Once the gray-skinned husks were moved aside, Della could see the damage they had wrought on this once vibrant young woman.

Meghan’s left wrist, mangled with freshly chewed gore, pumped out a steady pool of crimson, though the current was dissipating as her heart struggled to find enough blood to fill her veins. Her face, normally as white as talc, was fading to an opaque shade of gray blue, making her eyes shimmer all the more. They looked as if they were crackling with electric charge they were so blue. Her neck and shoulder had also been chewed, but the real damage was to her wrist.

Della realized there was nothing she could do for this girl except provide her with comfort and prepare her for the final journey. Della searched her memory and found an ancient culling song she’d heard her mother sing a lifetime ago whenever the woman set about butchering a chicken or some other barnyard animal. Hearing her mother’s voice from the past, Della began to hum the resonating low tune. She stroked the young woman’s red hair and held her right hand.

Meghan was confused by what had happened and what was happening. Much of the attack was a blur and most of her pain had been dulled by the surge of endorphins her adrenal gland had pumped into her blood. She could guess the reason for the sadness in Della’s eyes, but she couldn’t be sure whether it was for her or not. She was unable or perhaps unwilling to connect all of this to herself. She just couldn’t believe that she had been...bitten.

Was that what happened? Am I going to become one of those things?

She wasn’t ready to die but she certainly wasn’t ready for what came next.

She looked up at Della. “Neil...” she said softly, struggling to find enough breath to form any words, but she forced herself to continue. “Neil won’t be able to.... you’re gonna have to.... don’t let me....” Her eyes flooded with tears, choking her words to unintelligible mumbles.

A spasm shook her body as shock began to ripple through her extremities. Della held her hand and continued to hum the culling song, seeking to connect with its wisdom and its peace. Meghan’s grip tightened for a few seconds and her legs began to work in feverish jerks. Her dying body was struggling to hold the scant few seconds of life still within reach. And then her legs went slack and her hand limp as her final breath escaped from between her lips.

By this time, both Alec and Danny had joined Della. Both boys were crying as they watched Meghan’s life pass before them. Della sat there motionless for a breath or two, but realized she had very limited time in which to work. Some of the things were back on their feet in just minutes while others took longer, or so she had heard. There was no telling what to expect.

She said to Alec, “Steve, why don’t you take the other boy on around to the other side of the truck. I gotta do somethin’ she asked me to take care of.”

“What...?” Danny asked through his sniffles and tears. “What are you gonna do?”

“I gots to do what I gots to do. You go on around t’other side for just a quick second. Go on now.”

Once the boys were out of sight, Della removed from her boot a long, narrow, pointed instrument that resembled Satan’s knitting needle. She kissed Meghan’s cooling forehead and drove the stainless steel tool into the dead woman’s ear. Once in significantly deep, Della gripped the rubberized handle and swiveled the pike forcefully until she was satisfied the gray matter inside would not harbor any remnants of the infection. She withdrew the slick, glistening needle from the wound, wiped it generously on one of the other body’s jackets, and then put it back in her boot. She looked around with the eyes of an inmate to make sure the coast was still clear.

“Okay boys. Ya’ll can come back over here.”

Della looked down at the still motionless woman. The hole she created was well disguised and hidden by its placement through Meghan’s ear. Most of her blood had already seeped from her body, so the new wound on Meghan’s head was virtually blood free. Della was satisfied that Meghan’s last wish had been granted. It was the least she could do for the dying girl and more than most could expect.

There was nothing that could be done by the time Neil and Jerry came running back out from their foray ahead. He didn’t see Meghan lying on the ground at first, but when he did, Neil broke into a full sprint. He stopped cold about five feet from her supine form. He was having a hard time bringing himself to close the distance, both physically and emotionally.

Despite Della’s best efforts at arranging the corpse to appear as natural as possible, Meghan was still just a corpse. Neil didn’t say anything for a long time. He didn’t appear to even breathe, and he may not have been. He scarcely had any more animation than did Meghan. The bat clutched in his right hand seemed to fall to the road of its own accord, its clanging, metallic voice punctuating the silence all the more. Neil seemed to be incapable of anything at the moment. The fact that he was still on his feet was astonishing. Every fear...every anxiety...every painful failure in his life came screaming back at him in his mind. The cacophony of accusing voices drowned out all the other stimulus around him. He focused on Meghan’s legs because he couldn’t force his eyes to look at her face. Perhaps, in his mind, he was trying to convince himself that if he didn’t acknowledge her death, then maybe it wouldn’t be real.

The periphery of Neil’s vision’s clouded and became opaque, as if he were gazing through a frosty, icy window. The masking distortion also impacted his hearing as well; voices muted and slowed, floating around him in an unintelligible soup. Almost blind and nearly deaf, Neil was forced to endure that moment as a statue.

Emma and DB emerged next and walked briskly toward the gathering crowd. Emma could see legs and feet on the road but nothing more. She could, however, see from Neil’s slouched and defeated body language that it was someone special on the ground and she was quick to surmise who it likely was. She walked up and stood next to Neil but said nothing. She sighed deeply as she looked down on her friend’s lifeless body. Meghan seemed to be at peace, though her end had been met violently.

After a few quiet moments, Emma slipped her arm around Neil’s slouched shoulders and led him over to the truck.

Claire, conscious again but still lying down in the truck bed, was leaning over the side of the truck despite the pain in her back and shoulder. She was sobbing quietly. Through her sniffling she said, “I am so sorry, Neil. I just... I tried but I couldn’t. I wanted to help her. I just couldn’t... Oh God, I’m sorry Meghan.” She looked at Meghan’s cooling corpse and burst forth a loud, painful, sorrowful wail.

Neil abruptly halted and resisted Emma’s efforts to move him forward. He looked at Claire’s concerned, watery expression and was momentarily confused about her comment. In fact, he was struck with short-term amnesia that robbed him of any memories from the moment he climbed out of the truck. He didn’t remember navigating his way through the packed automobiles or dispatching the lone zombie. He couldn’t remember the scream he and Jerry had heard that had drawn them back to the others. It had all vanished from his thoughts as if none of it had happened. He was lost in the exact moment in which he stood and couldn’t remember why he was standing there in the road.

In his doubt and confusion, Neil once again allowed himself to be led to the open driver’s side door. He sat heavily and exhaled a long, deep breath that reached out beyond all of them. The sigh ventured blindly into the past and hopefully into the future, seeking understanding and sympathy. It sought answers to questions that had been asked thousands of times by millions of voices but never satisfied. And, just as in every case in the past, the sigh came back empty-handed but sorry.

With nothing else to do, Neil lowered his face into his hands, drew in a deep, full breath and screamed to the world a resounding and echoing, “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!”

Kneeling next to Meghan’s body, Neil asked no one in particular, “Can someone get me the shovel?”

Anyone could have asked it, but Jerry was the first to actually say, “What?”

“I said, bring me the shovel.”

Shaking his head doubtfully, DB remarked, “What are you plannin’ to do, boss?”

“Well, what do ya think I’m gonna do?”

Jerry shot back at Neil, “This is a bad idea, man.”

“She deserves to be buried. I gotta do it.”

Jerry hated to have to argue the point with Neil, but it needed to be done. He typically trusted Neil and his instincts, but this was different. They weren’t safe; not yet. Meghan’s dying only illustrated that point all the more. They’d created an opportunity...a window, and now they needed to make the most of it. They needed to get away. They were so close to the end of the road and next steps; they couldn’t afford to stall for even a moment.

“Neil, please,” Jerry begged. “It’s just not practical.”

Neil’s mood had remained largely flat. His voice was smooth and steady, if a little empty. Like an echo of an echo, the words were all there but there was virtually no human emotion. He said, “It’s not about practicality. Not this time anyway. It’s about doing what’s right.”