Curse of the Immune (4 page)

“Well, that’s all I got for now. This station runs on a generator, so I’ve got to conserve the fuel. I’ll be back on air tonight, say nine, for another hour or so. So if anybody’s out there and wants to hear my babble, talk to ya then.”

Once static replaces Avril, I turn off the radio and remove the batteries so the digital display won’t drain them. Then I listened for zombies Roger and Ellen. I hear nothing. They seem to have calmed down. I then think of Avril’s words and warnings. It’s all stuff I already knew, but it helps me to remain calm to know I’m not alone in being trapped. Who knows how many people out there are in our predicament? It’s like they say: misery loves company, and I sure am miserable.

I think of something Avril said that sent off a flare in my mind. She mentioned she had foster parents. Coincidence perhaps, but I’m gonna assume it isn’t. I’m also not so foolish to think simply being a foster kid is enough to become immune to the zombie pandemic. No, I think it must have to do with how we became fostered. Something we encountered in our past that made us unaffected by the asteroid’s poison. Maybe we both ate the same brand of cereal for breakfast.

The more I think about it, the more being foster kids seems like a coincidence. Whatever. It kept my mind busy and off my present situation, which I realize I need to get back to and make a decision.

I think of the reason I came up here in the first place—to find a rope of some sort. I go on all fours and searched with my hands and a little with my eyes as they’ve adjusted to the darkness and can make out some shapes. I find some boxes, open one and feel round, light objects with hooks on them, Christmas decorations. I dig deeper and feel a rolled-up cord, Christmas lights.

Yes, that’ll do it. I pull the lights out of the box and go back to my spot by the hatch. I sit and unravel the string. Measure five arm lengths, which I figure to be about ten feet. Should be enough to hang out my window and get me to the ground without breaking something. Now all I need is to muster up some courage and go back into my room and out the window.

Chapter Seven

Bravery has never been my thing. The closest example would be going to the bathroom after one of Luke’s long sitting sessions. So instead, I decide desperation will have to do. I know I’m on my own. Luke’s been gone way too long, and I don’t want to stay trapped like Avril.

Yup, I certainly am desperate. I slowly open the hatch and its creak disturbs the silence enough to cause my captors to resume the scratching and moaning.

I quickly climb down and start looking for something to tie the Christmas lights to, something close to the window. The bed is up against the door and I’m not about to move it. My desk doesn’t have any bars to wrap the cord around. I look into my closet and see the wooden rod my clothes hang on. That would work, but the closet’s too far from the window.

That’s when I have a moment of eureka-ness in my brain. I pull my clothes off the wooden dowel and pop it out of its brackets. The noise I make excites Ma and Pa Zombie, and they proceed to pound and slam up against my door. Lucky for me, the undead apparently can’t work a doorknob, but I’m afraid the door might come off its hinges at any moment.

I quickly put the rod across the window. It overlaps the opening by about a foot on either side.
Good, it’ll work
. It has to work.

I tie the electrical cord to the dowel and tie a fist-sized mess knot. My door pops open, but my bed keeps it from opening more than a few inches. Zombie Roger’s creepy glowing eyes look into mine. Fear shoots down my spine like an electric current.

I shut my eyes to think for a second.
Shoes, I need shoes.

I grab a pair of sneakers and throw them out the window. I’ll put them on when I get out of this house. I put one leg out and lean. In one hand, I hold the bar and the other I wrap around the electrical cord. I sit on the sill and sling out my other leg. Propping the bar across the opening, I lean forward.

Smash!
The zombies are in. I don’t look. Instead, I let go of the bar once I have enough tension on the cord to hold it in place. I grab the sill with my hand and lower myself to hang from the window. My other hand is wrapped in the cord and tightens as I try to lower myself.

I didn’t think this through. My hand is stuck in the cord. I try to raise myself with the other hand and loosen the cord, but as I do, Roger appears and grabs my hand on the windowsill. He tries to bite me, but the bar holds him back.

I just panic. I mean, I really freak out. Roger starts to lift my hand off the sill toward his mouth. I flail and kick myself away from the house. Just as I pull my hand from Roger’s grip, I hear a snap. I fall butt first onto the bulkhead.

I don’t feel anything, though. Must be the adrenalin high I’m experiencing. I scramble to my feet, untangle my hand, and grab my shoes. The cloud of orange dust I kicked up makes me start coughing. I jog away from the house and look up at the window. Zombie Roger is hanging out with his eyes fixed on me.

I grab my sneakers and run around to the street to sit on the curb to put on my shoes. Yeow, I feel my butt now, and man did I do a number on it. I slip my feet into the shoes just before I hear a loud smashing sound. Roger must have made it out the window. Better move.

I stand and look around to decide what to do and where to go. The neighbors across the street, the Andersons, are friends of Roger and Ellen and are of similar age. Maybe they’re okay like me. I run, slipping on dust, but I manage to stay on my feet. When I get to the Andersons’s front door, I let out a loud cough, trying to get the dust particles out of my lungs.

Roger and Ellen are still in their yard, but they’re coming for me at the slow pace Avril mentioned. It’s still terrifying.

I ring the doorbell and pound on the door. “Hello? Please help me!”

I hear something moving inside. “Please, open the door! They’re after me!”

To the left of the door is a narrow window. I look inside and see orange eyes looking back at me. I leap back and fall down the front steps. A crashing noise resonates from the house. The zombified Mrs. Anderson tumbles out the picture window.

I scamper back and jump to my feet, hurrying to get away. When I glance back, I find Mrs. Zombie Anderson with shards of glass sticking out of her chest, shoulders, and face as she ambles after me, but she isn’t bleeding. Mr. Zombie Anderson comes face first out the same window.

I meet back with Ellen as I get to the road, and see she has a gash across her head. It glows orange but doesn’t ooze. The things don’t bleed! How do you fight something that doesn’t even bleed?

I can feel myself start to panic, so I run as fast as I can toward the adjoining street, which is a sort of main road. Once I get there, I try to stop abruptly, but I slide halfway across the street and end up on my butt again. The pain from my previous injury shoots up my spine, and I curse the dust.

“Dust is very slippery, so try to remember, stupid.” I look behind me and see my four pursuers are just getting off their lawns and onto the street. “Okay, Avril, your right again. They’re very slow.” I decide to walk swiftly toward Pine Swamp Road. Once I get there, I take a right. A left will take me into Woonsocket and, as Avril mentioned, more zombies.

The road I walk on has few houses and is mostly wooded. Less houses, less zombies. As I walk, I try to decide where to go. I want to find Luke, but Chloe’s is on the other end of Cumberland. I figure I’ll head that way and maybe find help. The police station is on the way. If there’s one place I can find some help, it’ll be there.

Chapter Eight

I walk for what seems like forever. When I walk, I think, and right now, I don’t want to think. The obvious questions are running through my head, like what if Luke didn’t make it to Chloe’s or did make it and didn’t make it back? What if he turned into one of those things? Chances are something happened to him, but what?

No lea, stop it. Stop the ‘what-if’ questions.
Luke is all right.
He has to be. He’s at Chloe’s and they’re holed up there. I’m going to the police station, and they’ll help me get to my bro and rescue him and Chloe. Everything will be okay. They’ll then take us to a safe spot where we’ll be protected.

Yeah, I know. It sounds farfetched, but I need to feel it’s all possible. I need hope. My emotions are in a state of flux, and if I stop to consider reality, I think I’ll break down. I mean crawl into a ball in the middle of this street and just lose all control. I have to hit the pause button on my brain and concentrate on the moment.

I turn to check on my pursuers. Pine Swamp Road is a long straightaway with few turns, unlike most of the winding roads in the Blackstone Valley, so I can still see the zombies. They seem to have found company as well. I count ten of the beasts hungry for my flesh and shudder at the thought.

I look forward with the feeling of incredible loneliness. Walking in the middle of a usually well-traveled road without any cars, trucks, or bikes flying by will do that to a person. I suppose it would be appropriate to say it’s dead out here.

I finally come to a fork and turn right. Diamond Hill State Park is coming up on the left. I travel on past it and come to a neighborhood on my right. It’s a small development made up of several side streets with one-story cookie-cutter houses. I walk faster as I remember Avril’s warning to beware of places where people reside. Where there are people is where the zombies are.

I’m halfway through the development when I hear the loud sound of shattering glass from a house I’m in front of. A zombie woman starts crawling out of a bay window with her eyes fixed on me. Startled, I begin to run with caution so as not to fall on my aching butt.

Just get me outta this place!

I rush away and nearly run right into a group of the moaning undead. I slide to a stop but stay standing and run back to the she-zombie. When I arrive at her house, she’s there along with the rest of her family. Others from the surrounding houses are either already outside, crawling out their windows, or smashing their way out. It’s a chain reaction brought on by little ol’ me.

My stomach sinks as I run past them. I’m heading back the way I came and know more of the same is coming for me up ahead. I have to get off the road, away from every one of these things.

Diamond Hill is perfect. I can lose them on the hill and woods there.

I arrive and run into the deteriorated parking lot, only to find more zombies coming at me from the park.

Oh crap!
I didn’t figure on this. I turn to find on both corners of the parking lot two groups of zombies have caught up with me. I’m out of places to run and ideas.

I feel like just crying and giving up. This is impossible to get out of, and even if I do, I’ll just get into trouble at the next turn. But I can’t surrender and die. My bro is out there and might need help, so I have to find help for him and myself. This can’t be all that’s left of the planet. Not to mention, I’m not keen on the idea of being eaten alive. That’s probably really gotta hurt. I’m just sayin’.

So with renewed spirit, I search the area beyond the mobs closing in. I see a stage in front of a manmade pond. A small bridge over a stream leads to it and is clear of ghouls. I just have to make it past the row of zombies that is tightening as they get closer.

I stop thinking and run to the bridge. I come to the line of undead and fly past it. I feel an arm brush against me, but I’m too fast for it to grab me. I make it on the bridge and turn to see the reaction.

Zombies begin adjusting their bodies to pursue me. Every eye is fixed on mine. A sharp bolt of fear shoots up my spine, and I just want to get the heck out of there.

I run across the bridge and onto the stage and head stage right to exit and be free to make for the hill. No sooner do I look right than I see a group of zombies making it my way. I turn for the direction I came and see the creatures just stepping onto the bridge. At the back of the stage stands a small structure with two doors. I tried them, but they’re locked. I try to kick in one door, but it won’t budge.

Once again, I’m trapped with zombies on all sides except the front of the stage bordered by the disgusting-looking swampy pond. Yup, it looks like I’m getting wet. Gross.

I stand center stage ‘til the undead begin coming too close. Moving to the front of the platform, I hesitate. The ghouls are crowding onto the stage, and feeling the pins and needles in my spine, I know I have to jump in. Problem is, I can’t swim, which only adds to my terror. I hope the murky water is only knee high, but it’s impossible to tell the depth. It could be inches or feet.

Suddenly, a zombie lunges and I jump into the greenish-black water, holding my nose and closing my eyes. I land in waste-high, thank God. I try to wade my way to the rock retainer wall opposite the stage, but my feet are stuck in the mud below. I fight to free them, but they won’t budge. I try to pull my feet out of the high-top sneakers, but I laced them up and tied them tight.

“Oh, what the freakin’ hell?” I turn and see zombies coming for me over the front of the stage. I hold my breath and submerge to try and quickly untie my shoes. It seems a wasted effort, as the ghouls begin falling into the water.

I hear muffled splashes and feel legs falling on and all around me. I wait to be pulled out of the water and eaten. I shut my eyes tight. The splashing continues, but nothing grabs or bites me. The water must be so dark they can’t see me.

Soon the splashing stops, and I fear the zombies are all just standing around, waiting for me to rise so they can attack.

I work on my laces and untie them, pulling out one foot. I then hear another noise through the water. Swishing. The things are moving. Which way I don’t know, but I hope it’s away and out of the water.

I begin feeling an urgent, burning need to breathe. I no longer care for my safety. I just have to have oxygen. I try to calm myself just a few seconds longer. Those seconds are the longest of my life. Fear of drowning creates a growing panic ‘til I can’t take it any longer.

I rise from the water slowly and take a wonderful breath, then open my eyes. The creatures are making their way out of the pond, and the ones on the stage are walking off. I stay there frozen with my nostrils barely above the water’s surface, trying to decide my next move.