Apocalypse Atlanta (81 page)

When the girl reached the bottom step, the last one before the bottom, she paused for nearly a minute.  Jessica could see her peering around over and over, but said nothing.  Candice finally took that last step down, and went over to the door.  She looked up once at Jessica, who smiled and nodded in an exaggerated motion.  Candice nodded back, and looked at the door.

Raising her little hands, she pounded on the door like she was pitching a fit over being denied some privilege.  It was very loud, especially in the enclosed confines of the stairwell.  She stopped beating her hands against the door after about five seconds, then put her head against it.  Jessica waited, feeling the grips on the gun biting into her palms a little as she squeezed on it tightly.  When her fingers started to tingle a bit she made herself relax her hands.

After about ninety seconds by the count in Jessica’s head, Candice lifted her head from the door and used her hands to pound on it some more.  This time her daughter listened for nearly two minutes, before she stepped back a little and reached for the door handle.  Jessica caught her breath, and raised the gun.

‘Please God.’
she prayed. 
‘Please watch over my daughter.’
she whispered soundlessly as she raised the gun and aimed down at the door.  Candice pushed it open.  She seemed to be standing much too close to it as she did so, but Jessica realized with a fresh surge of fear the girl’s strength was too slight to be able to do it without putting a good amount of her body weight into pushing on it.  She was only ten-years-old.

Just as Jessica opened her mouth to say something, Candice stepped back from the door.  Jessica started to put her index finger on the trigger, but paused when the door swung shut without incident.  Candice moved back up after about ten seconds and opened the door again.  This time she stood there, holding it open.  Jessica waited, gripping the gun anxiously, as seconds dragged past on their way to a full minute.

Finally she felt reasonably confident the hallway beyond was empty.  “Candice.” Jessica called down.

At the sound of Jessica’s voice, Candice leapt back from the door with a squeak of fright.  She was on the fourth step before the door even began closing, and had made it all the way back up by the time it had.  She arrived panting and breathless, clinging to the railing next to Jessica.

“I was just going to say come back up here.” Jessica said gently, suppressing the urge to laugh.

“You said come back up if I heard anything.” Candice said in a loud whisper.  “Don’t stop to think, just run.”

“That’s my girl.” Jessica clicked the pistol’s safety back on, then holstered it before giving Candice’s shoulder a squeeze.  “Okay, I think it’s clear down there, so let’s go down together.”

Jessica gave Candice the bat to carry, and went down using the left side railing to support herself, taking each step slowly and carefully.  Perversely, she though going down was harder than going up had been.  Maybe that was just nerves, she didn’t know.  But she was sweating by the time she made it to the bottom, and her left hand trembled from the strain she’d placed on it.

“Mommy needs to rest a minute.” Jessica said quietly, deciding to take this moment.  Who knew what was going to happen after they went out that door.  Here was safe.  She waited until her breath was coming evenly, and her arm wasn’t trembling anymore.  Then she took the bat back from Candice and limped forward to the door.  She did the knock and listen routine before opening it, just in case, but she still heard nothing.

The door opened easily at her touch.  Jessica waited, ready to stumble back if something lurched out at her, but nothing did.  She leaned her head out after a few moments and studied the hallway beyond.  It was lit by the red glow of the exit sign above, and a scattering of moonlight coming through the building’s front door just beyond the end of this corridor.  Jessica spoke quietly.

“Candice, hold the door open so I can go out, then stay behind me.”

“Okay.”

“Remember how I had you keep a watch for me yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  I want you to do that again.  Until I tell you to stop, or until we get somewhere I say is safe, I want you to look around at least every ten seconds, okay?  Keep watch behind us and to the sides.  I can’t look around very well with my leg like this, not and still keep moving, so you’ll have to be my eyes.”

“I can do that.” Candice said, sounding very certain.

“Good.  Okay, hold the door then.”

Candice moved up next to Jessica and took over the door, which left Jessica free to put her right hand down on the holstered pistol and limp out.  She stopped almost immediately, looking behind the door, but there was just the end of the corridor.  Terrified, but slightly satisfied, she headed for the main hallway.

At the corner she paused and listened, then peered around it in both directions quickly.  She saw only empty hallway in one direction, and the parking lot outside and Peachtree Industrial beyond that in the other.  Well, and two zombies.  One was in the parking lot.  The other was out on the road.  Both looked to be wandering aimlessly.  She was sure that would change.  She was also sure those weren’t the only two in the area.  There had been more earlier, they couldn’t have all just left.

Taking a fresh grip on the bat, Jessica hobbled around the corner and toward the front door.  Shards of glass crunched beneath her foot and the bat as she went across them, and crunched louder still when she ducked through the empty doorframe and ground the shards against the concrete.  Jessica glanced around quickly, and turned right.

There were about ten zombies in view, but when she reached the end of the building, she saw another ten staggering about in the parking lots deeper within the complex of office buildings.  Jessica eyed them all, calculating furiously.  Only two had noticed Candice and herself just now, but she knew that would change.  Even so, as long as she was able to maintain this speed, she would be able to cut across them before they could turn and close the distance.

She headed for the cross street at the edge of the complex.  By the time she was almost to it her knee was throbbing, but Jessica ignored the discomfort.  Unless she wanted to flee back into one of the buildings and get treed by the zombies again, they were committed.  Her intention had been to try to follow the road, but two things changed her mind as she stepped up onto the landscaped border separating parking lot from the cross street.

First, she knew that was the longer path.  Going by road would involve going several blocks down to Highway-120, then following it north-ish.  She couldn’t summon the exact route in her head, but she remembered the road meandered a bit, which would add to the trip’s time.

Second, and more important, there were zombies on Peachtree Industrial, which following the roads would require her and Candice to go towards.  And as she limped along, she realized it would be that way every step of the journey.  She didn’t know if such a thing existed, but she knew that even if it did, she wasn’t an expert on zombie behavior.

But what she did know was the zombies seemed attracted by what they could see and to a lesser extent on what they could hear.  Going down the road in full view of God and everyone else screamed danger to Jessica.  When she looked right, north-ish along the cross street, she decided she liked her second plan much better than her initial one.

The little cross street was exactly that, little.  It terminated about two blocks away, existing only to serve as a connector for a miniature neighborhood of small houses.  Beyond them was forest.  Well, trees at least.  She normally wouldn’t think of traipsing off through the trees, at night no less, but these weren’t normal times.  Zombies sure as hell weren’t normal.

Strange as it seemed, she liked the idea of heading off through the forest better.  They very well might end up in amid the trees anyway.  Actually, she was pretty certain of it.  The odds of no zombies being on the street ahead of them as they traveled were certainly non existent.  The damned zombies were everywhere.  So why not just go straight through the trees, and maybe have to deal with fewer of them in the first place?

Decided, Jessica turned north and headed up the cross street.  She eyed the houses they passed half hopefully and half afraid, but they all looked quiet.  No lights, which didn’t surprise her; the power seemed to be out here.  But she didn’t see flashlights or the flicker of candles either.  She wondered idly how many of the occupants were now out wandering around, and how many of them weren’t picky anymore about what they ate when they were hungry.

It didn’t occur to her to stop.  Maybe she might have thought about it if she noticed something in one of the residences that made her certain someone, someone human, was home.  But nothing caught her eye.  And stopping to knock on doors would require her to . . . she didn’t know, lose the zombies some how.  Maybe circling around the houses or something.  It would be a risk.

It was easier to just keep going.  Painful, but easier.  Safer.

“How are we doing Candy Bear?” Jessica asked quietly as they neared the cul-de-sac at the end of the street.

“Fourteen are following us.” Candice answered, sounding scared but like she was handling her anxiety well enough.

“Okay, and are we pulling away or are they catching up?”

“What – oh.  We’re a little faster than they are.”

“Good.  Okay, we’re going to cut through the trees here in a minute.” Jessica said.

“I know.” Candice said.  Then, a moment later.  “Maybe the zombies will be slower there?”

“What makes you think that?” Jessica asked, almost absently, as she studied the houses along the cul-de-sac.

“Well, they don’t seem to walk very good on the road.  I bet they’ll fall down a lot more than we do, trip over things and stuff.”

Jessica smiled.  “I hope so.”  She also hoped she would fare better than the zombies.  To her surprise, when they left the asphalt behind and entered the trees, it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared it might be.  The bat actually got better traction when she leaned on it on grass or dirt than it did on the unyielding pavement.  And the uneven ground seemed to trip the zombies up far more than it did her.

Still, Jessica had to pay close attention to her footing, more so than she would have liked to.  The night seemed dangerous and alive, and she feared what she couldn’t see through the trees.  She tried to move quickly but quietly, so she could hear if anything was approaching, but it wasn’t working as well as she’d like.

Eventually Candice’s voice broke her concentration with a question.  “What’s that?”

Jessica frowned but didn’t look up from watching where she was putting her feet and cane.  Or, rather, foot and bat.  She listened, but she couldn’t hear anything beyond the rustle of Candice’s and her own footsteps.

“Mom, what is that?”

“What’s what?”

“That noise.”

Jessica listened, but she still couldn’t hear much of anything past the rustle of pine needles and sticks beneath her feet.  “I don’t hear anything.”

“It sounds like . . . I don’t know.  Water I think.”

Jessica’s head snapped up straight, and she almost fell over.  Wobbling precariously, she lurched sideways and would have fallen over if there hadn’t been a tree about two steps to her right that she was able to reach just in time.  Leaning against it, Jessica bit her lip as her knee throbbed and protested the sudden motions.

Her injured knee seemed to have settled into a sort of sulk over being forced to walk with a limp and a pseudo cane; but it was apparently prepared to make its dislike of such unstructured activity like staggering sideways without warning abundantly clear.  It didn’t like it.

“Mom, are you okay?” Candice’s voice was afraid.

“Fine.” Jessica panted.  “Fine.”  She pushed off the tree, took a very fast look behind at the three zombies still tracking with them, and started limping again.  As she walked, limped, she was able to distract herself from the pain in her knee with silent recriminations.  How could she have forgotten?  She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten something like that.

Shortly she heard it too, her loud-music abused ears finally catching what Candice’s younger, fresher ones already had.  And a minute or so later, she saw it through the final screen of trees.

“Damnit.” Jessica groaned as she looked at the river.  Of all the things to forget about, the fucking Chattahoochee River wasn’t one she would’ve put high up on the list.  In fact, it was pretty damned important to have remembered it.  Especially when she was on one side and where she needed to be was on the other.  Jessica looked up and down the banks, but no bridge, makeshift or otherwise, appeared.  “Damnit!”

“Mom, how are we getting across?”

Jessica looked back at the zombies following them.  The closest was maybe twenty or twenty-five feet away.  She didn’t have but seconds to decide.  She knew there was a bridge to the left, the one Highway-120 used to cross it.  It would mean detouring all the way over to it though, which might be as much as a mile.  If she went right, she didn’t know how long until they came across a bridge.  And her knee was killing her.

A stick breaking beneath a zombie’s foot caused her to make up her mind.  It was just one river.  There was a current, but not a heavy one.  This was no white water river, and it wasn’t that wide.  Wide enough, but not prohibitively so.  Maybe two hundred feet, probably a bit less.  And the night was warm, so they wouldn’t freeze to death by getting wet.  All they had to do was swim across.