Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (13 page)

The vast majority of the horde was
distracted by Nakissha’s escape attempt, which allowed the group to
move further away. They ran hard and fast with no other option in
front of them. The road was narrow, the slope’s incline was
sharper, everything angled down in front of them as if they were
being drawn in that direction.

There was a widening gap between William and
his group and those things, watching hungrily as Nakissha and
Olivia climbed.

They were getting away without incident when
two of the gray-skinned creatures clambered from the open door of
the last apartment. William unknowingly hit one of them with all of
his size and momentum. Unprepared for the encounter, William, quite
a bit larger than the person with whom he had become entangled,
fell along with the person he had just sacked. Despite the size
inequality, William’s smaller assailant managed to get the upper
hand and roll William onto his back. The big black man was holding
the person’s snapping jaws away from himself but he was struggling.
Getting a hand free, William balled his fist and struck his
attacker’s head. He hit it again and again, until doing so
threatened his own hold on the thing’s neck, clutched tightly with
his opposite hand. There couldn’t be any air getting through its
windpipe but still it pressed its attack.

Gus swung his axe and struck the attacker
who had found his way on top of William. The blade sank deeper into
the decaying man’s back, splitting and crushing bones and organs.
Unfortunately, the blow had no effect at all other than to force
the creature further down onto William, struggling to hold at bay
its chomping yellow teeth.

William pushed with all his might, but his
assailant was too firmly set on his attack, its bony fingers were
wrapped too tightly around William’s arms. Gus couldn’t extricate
the buried blade from the thing’s back no matter how he tried.

Meanwhile, the other creature had spun about
and was moving intently toward Danielle and the other woman with
them, Sandra, who let out an involuntary scream when she realized
she was in the beast’s crosshairs. Backing away, Sandra lost her
footing on the still struggling William.

Not missing its opportunity, the ghoul still
on its feet leapt forward onto Sandra and immediately sank its
teeth into her shoulder. Its powerful maw tore through jacket,
shirt, and flesh as it drove deeper and deeper, grinding back and
forth like a powerful set of saw blades. Bright red blood spurted
onto its cheek and Sandra’s neck in powerful geyser-like jets.
Sandra continued to struggle but her efforts slackened as shock
began to take its toll.

Thinking quickly, Danielle pulled a
filleting knife from her belt and drove it into Sandra’s attacker’s
temple. Dark, thick blood spilled from the wound onto Danielle’s
hand, which she pulled away, leaving the knife where it was.

By that time, Gus had gotten the axe free
and had sunk it into the back of the other’s skull, successfully
silencing it as well. Poor William’s face and upper chest were
spattered with thick, gooey blood and brain matter, trailing down
his cheeks and neck in sticky clumps. William rolled the now
motionless corpse from atop him and accepted Gus’ hand to help him
get back to his feet. Wiping the gore away from his face, William
gave Gus a glare that hovered between gratitude and annoyance.

The fifth member of their group, the tall
gangly man named Allen, pointed down from where they had come. “I
think they’re on to us.”

The crowd they had been avoiding had heard
Sandra’s piteous yelp and was moving steadily toward them. The
amorphous mass of moaning, reaching undead oozing gray rot caused
Danielle’s heart to skip a beat. She had to stifle an urge to turn
and run, leaving Sandra and the three men to their own devices.
Danielle’s fear was threatening to paralyze her reason and sense of
duty. Her breathing, shallow and quick, robbed her brain of oxygen,
which made control of her emotions buzzing with fear harder to
control still.

In a voice that started as a whisper but
ended as a desperate scream, Danielle demanded, “C’mon goddamnit!
We have to go! Nowwwwww!”

She could see the shock starting to settle
deeper into Sandra’s eyes. Rather than stoking Danielle’s
compassion, Sandra’s growing dependence only frustrated Danielle
all the more until she wore the anger on her face like a mask. With
each step, she was finding it more difficult to stay with them.

She could break into a sprint and use them
as the distraction to allow her to escape. It wouldn’t have taken
much convincing on her part. She was nearing that point with each
painfully slow step. Sandra struggled to keep her head aloft, a
steady flow of spittle dripping from her lower lip in a unending,
gooey stream. To Danielle, it looked like Sandra had already given
up; she didn’t look like she wanted to live.

The five of them finally cleared the last
few feet of the long apartment complex and found themselves facing
worsening options. In front of them sat a few rows of shipping
containers stacked atop one another two or three high, forming an
elongated maze.

They had to descend another slope, taking
them closer to the waterline and a definitive dead end, before they
were amongst the rusting metal hulks painted in flaking shades of
light green, dark blue, and dingy white. From their vantage point,
Danielle could see well into the maze and was thankful to see that
there didn’t weren’t any of those things already there waiting for
them.

She looked further out to her left. From her
position, she could see into the harbor and all the fishing and
pleasure boats still tethered to the stout piers. Her brother had
lucked into one of the few coveted permanent slips in the harbor.
His boat would be easy to spot. She had only a second to decide and
her curiosity won out. When that single, indecisive moment quickly
passed, she looked and immediately wished she hadn’t.

The other option they had was to hook around
the front of the apartment complex and make their way the other
direction, hoping that the fiends didn’t cut them off along the
narrow road. It really wasn’t much of a decision for any of them.
Looking over their shoulders one last time, they began the
descent.

William, too, looked over at the forest of
masts. He couldn’t see either of his boats. He knew they were there
though. He did, however, see that the piers were overrun with the
things stalking back and forth. It looked like an exceptionally
busy day of tourism but something about the inorganic way the
creatures moved stood out to him. He hadn’t the time to analyze the
monsters because the sharp tilt of their path required his entire
attention.

They ran into problems almost immediately. A
lingering frost clung to the grass, turning the incline into a
slippery slide. Danielle caught herself when she started to lose
her footing but Gus was not as lucky. He slipped, and his right
foot shot out in front of him. He fell onto his posterior with a
thud and slid uncomfortably to the bottom, stopping only when his
feet hit the gravel surface below.

Sandra lost her footing a couple of times,
but William and Allen were able to catch her and keep her and
themselves from falling onto their faces. Within a short few
seconds, they were all down and starting to venture into the wide
paths created by the shipping container walls.

Lucky for them, the undead were not adept at
adapting themselves to the changing conditions caused by varying
weather patterns. Their limited reasoning did not equip them to
accommodate the frost on the grass. If Gus’ descent was less than
graceful, then the collective, rolling ball of arms and legs
crashing down the hill, was a disaster. Limbs were crushed, necks
were shattered, and their momentum was checked as they tangled
together like a bucket of crabs.

Limping from his fall, Gus led them to the
first intersection and turned left, heading them toward the water.
Quickly they came to another cross path perpendicular to the way in
which they had been running. He looked both ways but could only see
more shipping containers. Gus led them to another intersection.
This time, he looked at everyone else.

It was apparent that where he led, they
would follow. The problem was that he had no interest in leading
them anywhere. “Which way?” he asked breathlessly.

“Doesn’t matter,” William said, desperately
trying to hold up the struggling Sandra. “Just keep running. I can
still hear them behind us.”

They turned right and then made another
right. Gus could hear those things behind them too. He was having a
hard time processing what he was seeing. He hadn’t been out in the
midst of the crowds in the first days and he obviously didn’t know
what to expect.

He kept rolling through his mind images of
driving his axe into that person’s back. That person...that
thing
didn’t even notice. That other one
that had bitten Sandra was unhinged with rage. In all his years,
Gus had never seen a wild animal attack its victim with such
ugliness and disregard.
Was
it a human
being? He couldn’t be sure. There wasn’t much that was human about
it, especially when its face and teeth were painted in Sandra’s
blood.

Gus wanted to run, but his legs weren’t
responding to his brain’s commands. He leaned mightily but couldn’t
bring himself to take a step. Danielle was not so encumbered. She
stepped around him and started to run. Gus found it much easier to
follow than to lead and so began to move again. William and Allen,
with Sandra draped between them, did their best to keep pace.

When they emerged from the maze, they were
at the exact point where they had started. The area at the foot of
the incline was now empty of the creatures, all of which had
followed them into and then become lost in the maze. On the ground
in a heap were three of the fiends with bodies too broken to move
but intact enough to hunger, the infection unwilling to release
them from its grip.

His arms burning from carrying Sandra, who
was becoming heavier with each passing moment, Allen asked “Now
what? We’re runnin’ in circles.”

Danielle motioned to the slope. “Back up. I
bet those things won’t be able to follow us.”

They climbed the hill as quickly as they
could manage with the disabled Sandra, and reached the top before
any of their pursuers reemerged. Once back up and looking down, the
four of them paused to catch their breaths. Sandra even managed to
open her eyes for a few moments, though they were filled with
confused exhaustion.

While everyone else looked back over their
shoulders, Danielle was scanning the path in front of them. She
could see more of those things further up the hill toward the
looming Begich Tower housing complex, but luckily there were none
of them in their immediate vicinity. From where she was standing
she couldn’t see around the Anchor Inn to Whittier Street, running
in front of it, so there was no telling what might be waiting for
them around the bend.

It was around the bend where the community’s
lone store sat with its shelves of food and, more importantly for
Danielle, medicine. She knew there wouldn’t be insulin on the
shelves but she hoped to find some of the glucose sticks which many
stores carried in their over-the-counter medicine aisle. Across the
street, she remembered there was a sign for a Public Safety office
of some kind. If she was lucky, she could get into there without
being seen and get what she needed. Danielle accepted that the
store was their first objective because the most needs could be met
in one stop.

Close to their right was an old looking
building with more painting peeling from its walls that was still
clinging to them. Parked in haphazard fashion behind the rusty
brown structure were several boats of varying sizes. The back lot
had once been enclosed by a wire and wood plank fence but the
barrier had long since laid itself to rest in the overgrown grass
and weeds. Parts of the fence still poked themselves up from the
ground but most of it had surrendered to the weight of the
world.

Danielle led the five of them into the yard
between the boats. Sandra was leaned against a trailer with grass
growing up around and through it. She moaned as she came to rest,
her eyes never opening. Allen wiped the cloud of bubbly white
spittle from the corner of Sandra’s mouth.

Allen thought Sandra had been so pretty
before, in a slightly damaged kind of way. He had always been drawn
to women like her; women who had seen dark times of some sort that
had left marks in her expression and her outlook upon life, like a
permanent shadow across her countenance. Her beauty had a hint of
sadness to it which, to Allen, made her face shine.

None of that was there now. She didn’t look
like the same person anymore. Her skin looked so thin and frail,
like it could simply peel away to the softer tissue underneath at
any moment. He thought he could see the veins in her cheeks,
especially following each shallow breath.

While Allen watched and cared for Sandra,
William and Gus checked the back door of the shop, thankfully
finding it unlocked but closed. Danielle watched despairingly when
the two men disappeared into the building. She was still kneeling
where she had stopped after leading them there. She was shaking all
over, and couldn’t find the will to reign in her fright. She
couldn’t have gone with the two men regardless. When all was said
and done though, it didn’t matter.

William was quickly out and running back to
their hiding spot next to the dry rotted fishing boat. Grabbing
Danielle’s arm roughly, he hoisted her to her feet. She shot him a
look but acknowledged what he communicated with his eyes. Stepping
forward a couple of feet, she peered in both directions and then
sprinted across the gravel lot to the still open door.