Dead Sector: Miami: The James' Strain (4 page)

Time to Go

Despite all the noise, Remington stays in his office. Tom can still walk, so we push the desks back in front of the door. None of us say a word. I am doing everything I can not to shake. We get back to Remington’s office and the first thing he says is, ‘where is Anne?”

“She did not make it,” says Katrina.

“There more of them in the stairwell,” I say. Tom sits on the couch and props up his leg to examine it.

Remington is frantic. “How is she dead? She had that gun and I heard her fire it.  Did you not help her?”

“We did everything we could. She killed three of them, thought that was all, and got distracted. Either way, she is gone, and we will be out of food tomorrow,” says Katrina.

He begins to argue, but the three of us all give him a look that makes him stop.  Tom has his pants leg rolled up and there is very clearly a slight bite wound just above his sock line. It broke the skin, but just barely.

“Why I am not a zombie?” he asks.

“Good question, but you need to get out of here before that changes,” says Remington.

“I think I know,” I say, “when the zombie bit LeBron, it took him a full two days to change. But when LeBron became a zombie, his bite immediately created another zombie and so on. The things were so fast too. But now, they move much slower. Instead of turning Anne immediately, they ate her.  I think when a zombie is new, it’s biological imperative is to reproduce.  It is only interested in creating more zombies as quickly as possible. But these things still live by some of the same rules as we do, and they need to eat.  When they don’t eat, they slow down. The virus, or whatever, begins to consume the very flesh of the host. The biological imperative changes to eating. After the zombie eats, it is possible that the biological imperative will change back to breeding, but you likely have a form of the virus that needs to eat before it cannot reproduce quickly.”

“So I am still going to turn into one of those things, and I have maybe a day, but could also change at any time?”

“You have the right of it. I am sorry.”

“Katrina, give me that gun so I can end it before that happens,” he says.

“What, no,” she says.

“Now wait a minute, do as the man says,” says Remington.

“Hold on. Tom, I hate to ask, but we need you. We have to get to the building across the street and I think we will need your help to do it,” I say.

We sit in silence until he responds.  “Okay, but when we get over there, you shoot me?”

“Yes, if that is what you want.”

“Wait, how are you getting anywhere? You said the stairwell is full of them and how would we even make it across the street,” says Remington.

“There are maybe six left in the stairwell. We open the door, and let them in.  The floor plan of this place is a big square. We lead them around it, and by the time we get back to the stairwell, hopefully it is empty. The streets have way less of them now and they are slow. We sprint to the building and are inside before they even notice us,” I say.

“I am not going anywhere,” says Remington, “and I won’t let you lure zombies throughout my office.”

“You don’t really have a choice,” says Katrina, “you either come or we leave you here.” She is still holding the gun. It is hers now.

“We have to do this why Tom is still healthy. We need him,” I say, “the other option is to go to the water and find a boat, but I feel we should at least try to get to the guy in the building before we do that.”

“Okay, I see that I can’t stop you,” Remington says pointing at the gun, “but I am staying here.  Just bring me the rest of the food and I will barricade myself in here until someone shows up.”

“Remington, that is …” I say.

“We don’t have time for this Phillip. If he wants to stay, let him,” says Katrina.

“She’s right. Our window is closing,” says Tom.

We bring Remington the rest of the food and push the desk most of the way to the door. I want to ask him again to come, but his eyes show me that it is not that he does not want to leave-he cannot leave this office. He has barely left it since we arrived. His mind has assigned it as the only safe place, and if I force him to go, he won’t make it. I push two desks against his door from the outside too, just to help as much as I can.

“Remember, don’t engage. Save your bullets. I will open the door, get their attention, and we have to get as many of them as we can to follow us around the square. We need to make a lot of noise,” I say. Tom and I move the barricades and Tom joins Katrina maybe fifty feet back from the door. Anne still lies off to the side, lifeless. I can’t help but think of the life that could have been if none of this happened. Perhaps I would have an offer by now and I would be two years away from becoming a lawyer. Maybe Anne and I would have dated. Maybe not. But that is not the world I live in.

I open the door and run to Tom and Anne. The zombies are behind me immediately, but they are slow enough that I easily remain in front of them.  I reach Tom and Anne and turn to see at least ten of them coming down the hallway. I begin scream and hollering. I pound on the wall. More of them come out of the stairwell. There are more of them than I thought. When they get within 20 feet, we turn and run. Every 20 feet or so, we turn and make as much noise as we can.  After our first turn, the hallway is full of them. 

“There are too many,” says Katrina. 

“Just stick with the plan,” I say.

We make our second turn around a corner. There are no more turns that will not put us in the hallway with the doorway. If zombies are still coming out of the stairwell when we make the turn, we are finished. They are picking up speed, but not enough to be a threat. We stop making noise and approach the final turn. The hallway is mostly clear. There are maybe three stragglers. Tom goes right at them like a man with no fear. He immediately brains one with the baseball bat. He hits another in the shoulder, and ends up hitting the wall. The bat cracks but does not break.  Katrina has the golf club and gets the third zombie why Tom finishes off the one he missed. I stay in view of the zombies in the hallway as long as possible.  If they turn around, the zombies at the end of the line will be on us. I run to join them and take point as we enter the stairwell. There are no signs of anymore of them, so we enter quickly  Katrina shuts the door behind us.

“What, no.  That traps all of them in with Remington,” I say.

“If we leave it open, they will be in the stairwell in seconds. He made his choice,” she says. We are running down the stairs, now being as quiet as possible.  Katrina is right behind me and Tom is in the back. There are a few of them on the way down, but I stab each in the head with little fanfare. We reach the landing to the lobby and it is clear. The bookshelf is there, but because it did not fit all the way, the zombies were able to force the door open a couple of feet.

“There might be some in the lobby.  I don’t think we should go out the front door if we can avoid it.  Is there a backdoor, Tom?” I say.

“Yes, it’s right by the janitor’s closet.”

“Okay, you take point and we will follow. Everyone remember the code?” 

“1408,” they both respond.

Tom squeezes through the door and we both follow. There are no zombies in sight. We walk into the lobby and I can see the front of the building. The glass did not break, the zombies literally pushed it out of its frame.  The lobby is empty, but I see at least 10 or 20 zombies in front of the building. They do not see us. We follow Tom towards a hallway that I surmise contains the backdoor. This is going to work great. The backdoor to this building should literally be facing the backdoor to the other building. It is going to take five seconds to make the run. Tom has stopped in the middle of the lobby. He must see something we don’t see, so I begin to look around.  Katrina does the same. Neither of us can see anything, and the zombies in the street are mulling a little too close for my taste. I touch Tom on the shoulder and ask “what is it, Tom?” Tom turns and grabs my head. He pushes toward me with all his force and I fall backwards.  I had the sword in my hand when we fall, and it has impaled Tom.  Despite this, he is trying to bite me. He snaps rapidly, over and over again, at my face and neck.  His eyes are still his, but they have lost anything that made him “Tom.”  Katrina hits him with the golf club, but it breaks and he barely moves.  The only thing keeping him from getting me is the sword, but he is sliding down the blade getting close to me.  I see Katrina pull out the gun.

“No, you will call the zombies,” I say.

“We don’t have a choice,” she says. In that moment, despite what she has done to show me she can be calculating when it comes to survival, she said “we.” She cannot imagine just leaving me, and I love her for it. She pushes the gun directly against Tom’s temple and blows his brains onto the floor next to us. He immediately becomes lifeless and she helps me push him off of me. 

“I guess we are even,” I say.

“No, I still owe you one,” she says. She grabs me and presses her lips against mine. “Don’t die, okay?” she says. I look at the front and the zombies are making their way towards the building. There are probably forty of them by now.

We run down the hallway Tom had originally pointed us too and find an exit door.  We open it and I tell her to wait.

“What, why?”

“We need to use the same trick as upstairs, get them all coming at us so there is more room out there.”

“Okay.”

We wait until the zombies are 15 feet away and go through the door. I close it behind us.

From House to House

There are no zombies in the alley.  In the first stroke of good luck since we made it into the building, the alley is actually completely open. It will take us maybe twenty seconds to get into the other building. Katrina begins to run that way, and I grab her wrist.

“I am not sure about this.”

“We don’t have time for a debate, we do this now.”

“Listen, please. Biscayne Bay is two blocks that way. I can see it from here and the way is clear. We could be there in less than two minutes if we sprint.  If we go in this building, maybe we will be safe for a time. But I have been thinking about my conversation with Sarah. She spent the entire first night running from house to house. As the zombies got into one house, they would run to the next.  If we go in that building, that will be us. Eventually, the zombies will get in. Eventually, the food will run out. And what happens if when that happens, the way is not clear?”

“What about the guy in the building?”

“That guy is not ‘you,’ and that is who I care about now. We have no idea what is happening in there. We know the way is clear to the Bay.  I believe we will be able to find a boat. Sail boats are always just anchored out there.  We will have to swim, but I doubt the zombies are able to swim. The water should be safe. A boat gets us out of Florida, and I think Florida is gone.”

“Okay.” She smiles. We sprint towards the Bay. I have only run that fast one other time in my entire life-the day I saved Katrina. As we run by the opening to the building, the zombies begin heading our way. They begin coming out of all the buildings they have breached. They come from the side streets as well.  But they amble and will not be able to catch us. We make it to the Bay and I spot the boat we need instantly. It is a green and white sail boat. It even has a little motor on the back for when the wind is not cooperating-if we can find the key, that is. 

“That one,” I say pointing. Katrina jumps into the water before me and begins swimming. I turn around and see the entire street covered with zombies. They are still hundreds of feet away, but I do not wait. Holding onto my sword, and it is my sword now, I jump into the water. It is warm.  The swim is not long and soon I join Katrina next to the boat. I climb up first and help her in.  I look towards land, and the zombies have stopped at water’s edge. A couple fall in every once in a while when the crowd pushes them, but you can tell it is not on purpose. The ones that fall in do not resurface.  Apparently I was right. Zombies can’t swim.

We clear the boat quickly. Not surprisingly it is empty. The sail boat will be tricky to operate with two people, especially one who has never done this before.  But there is no choice and we should be able to pull it off.

“Do we leave tonight?” asks Katrina. The sun is out on the horizon, but lowering quickly.

“I have never operated a boat at night, but I think yes. I would rather use the onboard motor, but without a key, I am not sure we can.”

“So let’s look.”  We do, and not to my surprise, we do not find it.

“Sailing it is.” A plane zooms overhead. Several of them. I am pretty sure they are jets. We sit and wait for bombs to be dropped. Nothing happens, but still I think this a bad sign.

“Are they going to bomb the city?”

“Maybe.  Can’t say I blame them if they do, but we definitely want to get out of here before that happens.  At the minimum, the entirety of south Florida is probably under a military quarantine. I am a bit worried about that to be honest.”

“You think they may stop us?”

“Yeah, that or worse. It is one of the reasons I want to do this at night. We have a better chance of sneaking through.”

“Yeah.” She hugs me and we kiss again. I begin adjusting the mainsheet and the jibsheet to get this cruise underway. I tell Katrina what to do and she helps. After a bit, we slowly begin to sail away from Brickell Avenue.

I look back at the Remington Flagler building. I think about Remington and wonder if he is still alive. I think about Miami. A city so full of life and color, truly an American icon. For all purposes, it is gone. Even if they took it back, it will never be the same. I think about Danny and Sarah, and Anne and Tom, and the guy across the street. All dead or headed that way. I wonder if that lady whose head I smashed in the arena was a lady or a zombie, and I wonder if it even matters anymore. 

I think about how going to the building across the street would have been going “from house to house,” with no real chance for safety. I think the boat avoids that problem, but I am not sure.  Is anywhere really “safe” now?  Can the military really hold the James’ Strain in check? If we make it out of Florida, will the rest of the world still be okay? Was the lack of news a blackout or had the zombie horde already won?

And I wonder if us leaving Miami is the thing that spreads this version of the zombie horde. I don’t really know if we are infected. I have to admit to myself that I am willing to take that risk. For Katrina, sure, but also for myself. People have always had survival instincts, but with the rise of our comfortable way of life, those instincts became less important. In my world, those instincts are what separate the living from the dead.

I started by telling you this was not another one of those zombie stories were nobody had ever heard of the word “zombie.”  That much is true. My story is different because of that, but as we sail in the darkness, I try to think of a zombie story that has a happy ending. I have seen them all. I can’t think of even one.

END