Desolation (38 page)

Jerri got up, briefly massaged her swollen ankle, and started to
run up the stairs once again. She glanced down below and nearly froze in
shock–

Lt. Willow and the officer were scaling up the side of the spiral
staircase tenaciously fast. They were pulling themselves up along the
handrails and leaping from one side of the spiral to the other, black foam
gurgling from their mouth.

Jerri let out a terrified gasp and kept running, nearly tripping and
falling with each stride as her leg muscles started to fatigue. Out of breath,
she finally reached the top of the stairs and found herself standing by an
iron-wrung ladder that led up to an iron hatch in the ceiling. The hatch
had a red circular wheel on it that was used to open it or seal it.

As Jerri ascended the ladder, a clammy hand grabbed her ankle
and pulled her down.

 

She landed hard on her back and the air whooshed out of her
lungs.

The officer who had pulled her down started to climb on top of
her, dribbling black goo on her shirt as his tongue lolled out of his mouth.
He leaned down closer… ready to bite.

Jerri shoved the man hard in the chest and sent him tumbling
backwards off of her. She quickly got on her feet and started towards the
ladder–

Lt. Willow grabbed Jerri by the wrist and pulled her back towards
him, grinning as he stared at her with listless black eyes. Black bile seeped
out from his mouth and dark blood ran out of his ears.

Jerri struggled to get away but his grip was steadfast. She punched
him in the chest repeatedly but to no avail.

 

The officer she knocked down rebounded back on his feet and
quickly ran towards her, snarling rabidly.

 

Jerri kicked the officer in the chest and sent him sprawling
backwards off-kilter.

The officer tumbled over the edge of the handrail and plunged
down to the bottom of the spiral staircase. He struck the cement ground
hard and his body erupted like a rotten squash, covering the bottom of
the stairs in a strange mixture of black goo and blood.

Lt. Willow kept his attention focused squarely on Jerri as she
kicked and squirmed, trying to get out of his grasp. He leaned close and
regurgitated black bile towards her face.

Jerri twisted her head away just in time to miss the onslaught of
filth. She tried desperately to pull her hand free from his grasp but it just
wasn’t any use.

Lt. Willow leaned back and made a gurgling noise as he got ready
to fire another volley…

Jerri reached up with her other hand and jabbed her thumb into
each of his eye sockets, digging deep enough to feel his retinas tear to
shreds.

Lt. Willow let out a ghastly cry and let her go as blood poured out
of his hollowed eye sockets. He swept madly towards her, clawing blindly
at the air.

Jerri backed away and started climbing up the ladder towards the
iron hatch.

Lt. Willow froze and looked up at her as his eyes started to
regenerate inside of their sockets. He let out a guttural growl and ran
towards the ladder.

Jerri reached the top of the ladder and pushed the hatch.
It was sealed shut.

She frantically spun the circular wheel in the center of the hatch
and heard it squeak as the hatch unlocked.

 

Lt. Willow was right on her heels. He stopped and tried to bite at
her ankle–

 

Jerri kicked Lt. Willow as hard as she could in the head and sent
him tumbling down the ladder.

Lt. Willow struck the ground at the base of the ladder hard. His
leg made a loud
SNAP
as it broke and contorted into an unnatural
position. He howled in pain and anguish.

Jerri pushed the hatch open and crawled topside. She squinted –
the sun was rising. She took one last look down at Lt. Willow–
His leg was straightening itself and he was already starting to
ascend the ladder again.

 

–and closed the hatch, spinning the wheel shut to seal it.
She stepped away from the hatch and looked around in
bewilderment.

She found herself in an alleyway overgrown with weeds. The alley
was behind a rather tall building that looked in disrepair; it looked like the
back of the warehouse she saw earlier. A handful of bullet-riddled civilians
lay strewn across the ground.

A jeep sat parked idling nearby. A few sacks of provisions and
two red cans of fuel sat in the back of the vehicle.

Jerri quickly crawled into the jeep and started to drive away. It
had been a long time since she had driven a vehicle and it showed. The
jeep swerved from side-to-side and she kept over-accelerating. It took her
a few minutes but she soon found her rarely used skill quickly improving.

She flew down the alley, crushing a few shambling freshlyinfected corpses in her wake. She banked around the corner and the tires
squealed as the jeep veered onto one of the main roads.

As she looked around her surroundings she realized just how
badly things had fallen apart while she was under.

Most of the tenements were ablaze and infected meandered
mindlessly in the street. Evidence of the bloodshed earlier made itself
known by the dead bodies lying in the street and the numerous spent
brass casings.

A small cadre of engulfed police cruisers and Humvees
surrounded a small building adorned with watchtowers on the roof.
'Central Command' was engraved in the building's marble facade. The seal
of the United States of America was fastened over the building's open
front doors and a tattered flag with fifty stars hung next to the seal.

The building's watchtowers were empty and all of the windows
were dark.

 

Camp 7 belonged to the dead.

As Jerri sped down the road the meandering corpses nearby
turned towards her and started to shuffle after her with their arms
outstretched.

She turned another corner and found herself on the main drag,
weaving in-between small herds of reanimated corpses. At the far end of
the road she saw the exit gate next to a large empty gatehouse.

The chain-link gate was closed and padlocked shut. A sign on the
gate read 'Stop and Turn OFF Engine – All Vehicles Must Be Cleared by
Control'.

She took a deep breath and floored the accelerator.
The jeep barreled through the chain-link gate and sent sparks
flying as the rolling gate flew off of its tracks and bent outwards.

Jerri's body jolted as the jeep swerved from the impact but she
quickly regained control and kept driving. From what she could see the
only damage was a battered front-end and two shattered headlamps.

She glanced behind her and saw that a cluster of determined
corpses had followed her through the breached gate and were shambling
after her jeep.

It didn't matter; they'd never catch up as the distance grew
exponentially each passing second.

She looked ahead and let out a bated breath. The flat North
Dakota road seamed to go on forever. When she glanced in her rear-view
mirror again she saw that Camp 7 had turned into a distant speck against
the rising morning sun.

A short while later, nothing.
A
fter hours of driving up highway 82 Jerri was finally nearing
the Canadian boarder. It surprised her just how clear the roads were aside
from the occasional abandoned car. She had driven through Minot around
noon; it was a desolate ghost-town not populated by the living or the
dead. It was there that she made the prudent decision to stop at a looted
convenience store. She filled up her tank with one of the fuel canisters in
the back of her vehicle and then decided to poke around in the store...

It embarrassed her just how much she had missed junk food.

She gobbled down three Butterfingers and was working on some
Twinkies. She really hoped that the old rumor she once heard about them
not having an expiration date was true.

The best part? She didn't see a single soul since she escaped
Camp 7. Living or dead.

Feeling the crisp autumn wind in her hair, relishing the sun on
her skin, and having her belly full was absolutely divine. She even
managed to find some CDs in the store. She was listening to charttopping nonsensical pop from before the outbreak but she just didn't
care. It felt great. She felt
alive
. She had no shame in blaring Katy Perry as
she drove well past the speed limit.

She opened a warm bottle of coke with her teeth and started
chugging. Within a few minutes the coke was gone and she hurled the
glass bottle out the window.

She let out a loud burp and then giggled at herself.
For once everything felt normal...

And then she saw the boarder-crossing in the distance and reality
struck her once again. The road became clogged with bullet-peppered
abandoned cars loaded with luggage.

She drove on the shoulder of the road to bypass the traffic and
slowed the jeep to a stop and stared at the abandoned customs shack.

It reminded her of a large tollbooth. The concrete sign overhead
read 'United States Department of Homeland Security – Customs and
Border Protection'. The road was barricaded by rolls of barbwire and
concrete highway dividers. Large signage dominated the center of the
highway and read 'Closed Due to Pandemic'. Two tanks, covered in vines,
sat next to the customs checkpoint.

She saw no sign of infected and didn't see any emerging from the
ground.

Maybe the rumors were true.
Maybe the ones up north did die off during the harsh winter.

She carefully veered off of the road and drove through the field
to clear the customs screening area.

 

On the opposite side of the customs area the highway was clear.
Jerri veered back onto the highway and saw the Canadian border
checkpoint a little over a mile ahead.

 

She drove past a large green sign that read 'Welcome
To/Bienvenue Au Canada'.

 

“I made it,” she said to herself, smiling yet unsure.

The Canadian side of the border checkpoint was just as
convoluted as the American side so she elected to go off road and bypass
the mess altogether again.

As she drove through the field next to the Canadian border patrol
she read a hand-painted sign that contradicted the first sign she read–
CLOSED – TURN AROUND OR WILL SHOOT

She saw that the Canadians had a variable arsenal of weaponry
and tanks pointed towards the American checkpoint. However, like the
Americans, the derelict tanks and the turrets were unmanned and covered
in vines.

Jerri steered clear of the checkpoint and made it back onto the
highway.

The road was clear.
She floored the accelerator and frowned.

She turned off the CD just as another song she once remembered
came on.

 

For some reason she just didn't feel like listening to music
anymore and drove in somber silence.

 

A sign on the side of the road read 'Regina – 320 km'.
She didn't really know where she was going or what she was
looking for exactly but Regina seemed like a good place to start.

I
t was nighttime and navigating the roads were difficult at best
without any headlights.
The air had become frigid and her teeth were chattering as her
hands gripped the steering wheel. She narrowed her eyes and tried to peer
through the consuming darkness but couldn't make out much of anything
during the moonless night.
She wasn't sure how far she had driven but she knew she had just
gone through the last of her fuel canisters and her tank was nearing
empty. She expected to run through some small towns at least but all she
passed in her hours of driving were a few farms.
It surprised her just how rural central Canada really was.

Still, Regina had to be close.

 

Seemingly out of nowhere a pair of headlights showed up in her
rear-view mirror and badly startled her.

 

She didn't come across a single person, living or dead, all trip but
she knew her luck was bound to end sooner or later.

Gut-wrenching paranoia overtook her and set her into panic
mode. She didn't have any weapons on her and she wasn't exactly driving
a race car...

The car behind her closed the distance quick and was riding on
her bumper.

 

Jerri floored the accelerator and tried to pull away but the jeep
sputtered and the engine trembled.

 

“No! No! NO!” Jerri shouted as she pounded her closed fists
against the steering wheel.

 

Despite her objections the fuel-less vehicle sputtered out and
coasted to a stop in the middle of the road.

 

The car behind her slowed and stopped a few yards away.

Jerri contemplated getting out and running but she knew she
couldn't outrun a vehicle. In truth she was tried of running. She was tired
of it all. She simply put her powerless car in 'P' and closed her eyes,
defeated. She folded her arms across her chest, shivering, and tried not to
cry.

A man stepped out of the car behind her and cautiously
approached. He was holding a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the
other.

“Are you okay?” the man yelled, pointing his flashlight at her.
“You're not sick or anything are you?”

 

Jerri slowly turned and looked over at him, squinting in the light.
“No and I'd be better if you got that light out of my face,” she
answered.

“Ah, yeah... sorry,” the man said with a chuckle. He turned off
the light and holstered his pistol. He walked towards her jeep and stared
at her with a smile. “Where are you headed?”

Jerri eyed the man with suspicion. He was tall, rather handsome,
and wore a policeman's uniform. His complexion was clear and his brown
hair was neatly trimmed. She turned and looked at the car. To her surprise
it was a Regina police cruiser.

“Or I guess I could ask you for your provisional travel papers but
I doubt you have those,” the man said with a laugh.

 

Jerri looked back at the man and shook her head, taken a little by
disbelief.

 

“I'm from America,” she said hoarsely.

 

“I figured as much,” the man said as he pointed at her jeep. “But
the question is whose interests do you have?”