Devour: Death & Decay Book 1 (11 page)

Day 2
5:16 pm

Liv had done nothing but pace since turning off the radio. The walls were confining. The clock seemed to be moving slower than ever. More than anything, she wanted to do something.

Elli pattered around the house with Pappy in tow. She seemed content to explore every nook and cranny of her new surroundings. Pappy was content to shadow the small child, making sure she didn’t get into too much trouble. Each object was new and exciting. It might be similar to something she had seen at home but it wasn’t hers.

Elli picked up a magazine off the coffee table and began looking through the pages. The shiny pieces of paper tore and crumpled under her clumsy fingers. She tore a few pages out before closing it back up. As she became bored with the pages, she took up the whole book.

“Mama!” she cried out as she toddled over to Liv. The paper crackled and protested as she mercilessly pulled on it. As Elli approached Liv, she held out the magazine.

“Thank you!” Liv took the magazine. The pages were crumpled but the magazine was still, for the most part, whole. An idea dawned on Liv as she looked at the battered reading material. Collectively, they were strong enough to withstand what the individual pages couldn’t.

Liv ran to the table and dug through the items she had deemed necessary for survival. What she found was a silvery roll of duct tape. She pulled up her sleeve and wrapped the magazine tightly around her arm. The edge of the pages chaffed at her wrist and elbow.

In the kitchen, Liv pulled hand towels from a small drawer by the sink. She used the duct tape to secure the towel around her forearm. As she rewrapped the magazine, it slipped around on the towel. The towel didn’t provide the grip her skin did. As she sat back down at the table, she tore off a long strip of duct tape. Again she wrapped it around her arm, leaving the excess. She laid the magazine against the towel and continued to wrap the duct tape around it.

As she finished, Liv sat back and looked at her work. It wasn’t pretty but the magazine was held firmly in place. Finally, Liv bit down as hard as she could on the papers. Underneath she could feel the pressure her jaw exerted on her arm but the papers didn’t budge.

She had protection. The magazines couldn’t be placed everywhere, but some protection was better than none. With her forearms protected, she could push back the monsters.

Elated, Liv grabbed an armload of towels from the drawer and deposited them on the sofa. The stack of magazines was large and she would have more than enough. She stripped down to her underwear and set to work placing the pieces of her makeshift armor.

As each piece was secured, Liv tested to ensure its placement wouldn’t hinder her movement. Overall, the pieces weren’t entirely comfortable, but the additional security was worth the discomfort. With the added layers, her clothes wouldn’t fit. The clothes that belonged to the home’s owner, though, fit perfectly around her now enlarged size.

The armor would be a permanent addition, at least until she could reach somewhere safe. Her work hadn’t been perfect and usually resulted in having to use extra layers of duct tape to ensure nothing would move or come undone. This meant that removing the armor would take time and more than likely destroy the magazines underneath.

With the armor in place, Liv returned to her supplies. They lay scattered about haphazardly on the dining room table. She had been in the process of organizing and packing them earlier when she had been interrupted. The items had to be packed just right. During rest breaks, she couldn’t afford to remove all the contents to find one item. She had sorted and re-sorted the items into piles as she tried to figure out how to best arrange them in the bag.

Elli’s things were in one pile. Liv looked over the toys in the diaper bag. Most of them made noise. The levers were big and easily movable so that young children could manipulate them. They would be a risk to carry. There were a few small cars in the bottom of the diaper bag, and Liv put them with the things they would take.

The food was in another pile. The medicine and first-aid kit had their own pile as well. The spare change of clothes also lay out on the table, ready to be packed away.

Liv looked over the array of weapons she had amassed: two knives, a screwdriver, the baton, a wrench, and the mallet. On her own, she couldn’t defend herself against more than a few of them, but now she had something to defend herself with. The weapons would do no good, though, if they were packed away in her bag. They had to be easily accessible so she could grab them with only a split second’s notice.

The mallet was a bit of a puzzle. Liv wanted to keep her hands free but keep it easily accessible. It wasn’t something small that she could easily store. As she looked over the spread of valuable resources laid out on the table, a solution dawned on her. She snipped off a short piece of the rope she had found in the garage. With a quick simple knot, she secured the six inches of rope around the belt loop by her right hip. Liv set the mallet in place and wiggled it around to make sure the loop was tight enough that it wouldn’t fall through, but not so tight that it couldn’t be easily pulled free.

It would do for now.

A thump just on the other side of the door sent Liv’s heart racing. Pappy immediately tensed, his lip curling back as a low growl rumbled in his chest.

With the mallet gripped tightly in her hand, Liv stood up and cautiously approached the front of the house. All was quiet, though, as she reached the window.

Tentatively, she stuck her fingers through the blinds and peeked out. One of the infected clamored against the porch railing. He had no features. Instead, his face was a patchwork of charred flesh. Flames engulfed the creature, but he didn’t even seem to notice them. He seemed more perturbed by the railing that blocked his path than the flames that ate away at his flesh.

Liv didn’t think he knew that they were there. His actions were slow and without purpose, not the craze that she had seen when prey was in sight.

She was about to turn away when something caught her eye. From a lower spot in the blinds, she peered out at it again.

She hadn’t realized it at first, but the creature was standing in the piles of dead honeysuckle. The dried vines, acting like kindling, had started the blaze around it once more. The dead vines had produced enough heat to set fire to the live vines, and flames were now steadily working their way up the trellis towards the roof.

Liv threw herself back from the window. She gathered up the knives and threw them into the front pocket of the satchel and secured the top. In large bounding steps, she cleared the stairs two at a time and dove for the bedroom. She snatched up the baby carrier and ran back down the stairs as fast as her feet could carry her.

Elli looked at Liv with wide, scared eyes. She had her fingers crammed into her mouth, sucking on them nervously as she watched Liv. Upon seeing her own fear reflected in Elli’s tiny face, Liv forced herself to slow down a bit. She had to hurry but she forced her movements to be purposeful, not panicked. It wouldn’t do any good to get Elli all worked up before they had to venture out into the world again.

All the items Liv needed to take with her lay on the dining room table. Her fingers trembled as she pulled on the work gloves and zipped the leather jacket over her makeshift armor. The duty belt needed to be adjusted before it would stay in place around her waist.

The straps were stiff as she tugged them into place. She picked up the handful of belt keepers and tried to place them where she remembered removing them as she secured the belt around her waist.

The thought of walking out into the world again made a cold sweat break out over her skin. She didn’t want to go outside. But they couldn’t stay inside as the house burned to the ground around them.

With the duty belt secured so the pistol was within easy reach of her right hand, Liv picked up the satchel and swung it over her shoulder so it sat against her left side. Elli eyed the carrier as Liv approached her. With quick, deft hands, she lifted Elli into the carrier and pulled the straps into place. She set Elli, in the carrier, on the couch and sat down in front of her as she pulled the shoulder straps in place.

As she secured the last few buckles, the smell of smoke reached her nostrils. Pappy paced nervously, his tail tucked between his legs.

Liv grabbed the sled and slipped it over her head. She fumbled a bit to get the last hook in place as she headed for the back door. The mallet leaned against the wall next to the dining room table and she picked it up.

In the few steps to the back door, Liv rolled her shoulders. She didn’t want to go outside. They couldn’t stay here, but to step outside had become a terrifying feat. The everyday dangers of car accidents, falling down the stairs, or the threat of a terrorist attack was nothing compared to the fear elicited by simply walking out the door now.

Her hands were clammy and shaking as Liv gripped the doorknob. She took one last deep breath and prepared herself for what lay beyond it. With that, she pulled open the door. A quick look revealed that the backyard was still empty. The police officer still lay where she had left him.

After one final, furtive glance around, Liv stepped outside. But Pappy didn’t follow. Instead, he pranced nervously in the kitchen.

“Come on,” Liv whispered desperately, patting her thigh. The dog eyed her uneasily. “Pappy, come on. Let’s go.” Finally, with his head ducked, the dog scurried after her.

Liv pulled the door closed and spun back towards the yard. Her sights were set on a cluster of trees behind the house. They weren’t terribly dense but they would hopefully be enough to keep her hidden.

Once in the tree line, she had to find a direction. To the northwest was a hospital. It was close to the highway; signs were posted everywhere. The hospital would be flooded with the infected. Highway 94 was only sparsely marked with buildings, but it was still highly trafficked. It was a connecting highway. Even though Liv wanted to stick as close to Highway 40 as was safe, she was going to have to go a little bit east to avoid the hospital.

They weren’t more than a hundred feet from the house when Pappy fell behind. Liv stopped, looking for the dog. He stood behind them, staring after them.

“Pappy, come on,” she whispered, looking around nervously for any of the infected. Instead of following, Pappy looked back towards the burning house. “Come on,” Liv whispered urgently.

After another moment of consideration, the dog turned back, heading back to his home. Liv’s heart sank as she watched the animal trot away. She had found comfort in his presence, a sense of peace. Now, as he walked away, a black pit of loneliness opened up inside her.

Where would he go now with no home to return to? No one to care for him.

She wondered what would happen to the sweet animal.

Liv crouched among the tall grass that looked out over Highway 94. Elli had fallen silent in the carrier. She might have been asleep but Liv couldn’t be sure. As she suspected, it was congested on both sides with cars. Cars were even jammed into tangled knots of metal along the shoulder of the road and along the grassy median.

None of them moved, and the usual hum that accompanied a busy road was now silent. Parallel to the highway ran a small service road similarly jammed up with cars. She would have to cross that as well before she could reach any decent cover.

A few figures lay lifelessly on the side of the road. Liv wasn’t sure if they were dead or if they had fallen and never put forth the effort to stand back up. Many of the more active infected stalked between the cars as they looked for their next target.

All of her muscles tensed as she looked over the scene in front of her. She imagined this was what the Boone Bridge looked like now.

The infected moved down every row like horrific sentinels. She would have to move through the cars unseen and unheard. If they noticed her, there were more trees on the other side of the highway that she might be able to lose them in, but she wouldn’t be able to outrun all of them.

Some of them could move very fast, and some of them were likely to be a bit more observant than the others. Liv vividly remembered the police officer. If another like him walked among the cars, she might not even make it to the trees.

With a deep breath, Liv took an uncertain step forward. Up against the first car, her heart began to beat wildly and her hands trembled. Her stomach churned as she pressed herself into the car’s shadow. The grass still concealed her as she worked her way through the patchwork of frozen vehicles. The metal was warm beneath her fingers. She had to be crazy to walk into a maze filled with monsters just waiting to take a bite out of her.

It was all she could do to keep moving forward. As she reached the pavement, the rows of cars straightened out as they silently waited to move along down the highway. The space between them was narrow. The traffic had become gridlocked and each car had crept as far forward as it could in hopes of escaping the horrors that were unraveling around them.

The cars were staggered in their rows. To get between the next set of cars, she couldn’t just dash between the rows. She would have to navigate in a zigzag pattern.

Down the next row of cars, one of the infected stood motionless, three cars to her left, with its back to her. To her right, another one was walking away but began to turn back around.

Liv pulled back between the cars and hoped he hadn’t seen her. After a few seconds, when no footsteps came pounding towards her, Liv peeked out again. The one to her right had turned away again and the one to her left had remained motionless.

Slowly, Liv squeezed from between the cars and moved down the row. She quickly slid in between the next two cars. Before her was the grassy median that separated the westbound and eastbound lanes.

The cars were jumbled together, as people had tried to escape by any means necessary. Some of the cars had collided together, some only barely touching. Others had smashed together as if trying to meld from two separate vehicles into one.