Haven (18 page)

In the distance, Old Boy’s beep-beep-beep disturbed the night, shattering its beautiful tranquility. The Infecteds’ heads not only jerked in its direction, but their bodies lurched into a spring toward him. Right now, Harrison was doing the same thing. I could guarantee it.

I ran for the gate, rammed the key into the lock, and yanked the lever down. It loosened. I slid it open and slipped through. On the other side, I paused to close and lock the gate before sprinting across the parking lot and up against the side of the buildings. Then I turned off Old Boy’s alarm and took in a deep breath to calm my racing heart.

I was in enemy territory now. Unarmed, alone, and without intel. All I had was a route, which I took as fast as humanly possible.

A slim section between two of the commercial buildings, which I assumed had been created from a property line dispute, had never held much interest for me. I’d passed it countless times on my way to Mr. Packard’s car when he had driven me to school, before I got over my qualms about using Old Boy. Now, I was acutely aware of it. The ten paces it took to reach it made me feel like I was hiking through quicksand. Once there, I slipped into the narrow space and inched my way to the other side, stretching and snapping spider webs with my face along the way. At the end, I paused and searched for any indication of life. The strip mall I now stood on the verge of held a stop-n-rob, a dry cleaner, a frozen yogurt shop, and an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. Every single one of them showed signs of demise. If they didn’t have a shattered storefront then they had at least one victim slumped over inside its doors. On the curb outside the dry cleaners, one Infected was on his knees picking through someone’s torso. I assumed the victim had been attempting to make it to one of the multitude of cars still in the parking lot. I also assumed that those same cars could provide me cover. Realizing it was now or never, I tore across and crouched behind the passenger door of a Honda Civic. Ducking down, I peered in the direction of the Infected and didn’t find him coming for me. After reminding myself to breath, and to keep it up, I took the same caution and crossed the lot, running until I made it across the street and into a residential neighborhood. From there, I stuck mostly to the sides of houses and front porches, taking extra care with those that had their front doors still open. With the lights out, it was impossible to tell if anyone was inside those dark entryways. And I did come across someone, but she was in a home across the street. After stumbling through the door, she swiveled her head from one end of the street to the next. I wasn’t sure if the hedge I was hiding behind was dense enough so my defensive maneuver was already planned by the time she was staggering back inside. I crossed a park where a police car had collided with a school bus. Thankfully, there were no bodies visible. When I reached the heart of our little township, it was slow moving at that point. I used alleyways and hopped up on walls separating properties to pass unseen. Still, I couldn’t avoid the Infected altogether. Large, loose groups of them roamed the streets. Sometimes they ran, their feet slapping lazily down on the pavement or dragging a wounded limb behind them as they rushed for someone or something they thought was of interest. The first one I came closer to then I would have preferred was an elderly woman in a hospital gown wandering down the street with an arm half-bitten off. I slipped into the shadows of an alley and she kept going. As I passed a nail salon, a woman whose mouth was mostly eaten off slammed into the rear window of her store, a back office maybe. Luckily, she couldn’t make it through. Her collision and the clawing of her beautifully manicured fingers against the glass was enough to drive others toward me, so I took a quick detour down a small side street. Then I came across an entire group of them, dead, piled up next to a brick wall that separated the other subdivision. Someone had made a stand there and had been pretty successful. The Infected were stacked waist-high with gas cans strewn around them. But the bodies were not burnt, giving me a clear view of the injuries that had turned them. At that point, my stomach began to grow queasy. I had to focus on the one thing driving me…our defense against them. It got me moving faster and with heightened focus.

When I reached Mr. Chow’s store I was moving at a good pace, slipping down the alleyway behind it with the intention of entering through the back door. The screen was ripped in half, a split large enough to fit an adult body through, so I only had to step inside. Once I did, I came to an immediate stop…for several reasons. First, it was dark. Dawn was approaching, but the sun hadn’t breached the horizon yet. Only the dull half-light of morning drifting through the windows gave me any indication of what lay in my path. Second, the warning Mr. Chow had given during our last conversation came back to me and his heavily accented voice echoed in the back of my mind.
Today no good. You take refuge.
He had insisted on it, in fact, and had only let me go once I conceded. Somehow, he knew, and he had tried to tell me. Of course, I was missing the inherent ability to heed warnings, and that always worked against me. A wave of guilt washed over me in that moment, because I hadn’t listened and because I stood there alive and uninfected and that didn’t appear to be the fate for Mr. Chow. Third, a square piece of cardboard lay just inside and I recognized the words written in undeveloped penmanship instantly.

The end is near. Redeam yourself. Give to the needee.

A blood smear on one corner gave me a pretty good idea of what happened to its owner, who I’d last seen sleeping outside, completely exposed to the end that his sign had warned was coming. Finally, a stomach-churning odor of decomposing tissue permeated the air. None of these observations were particularly calming.

As I quietly moved down the hall, I didn’t neglect the fact that either of them could be somewhere in the store. Unfortunately, the stacks of boxes that traditionally lined both sides of the back entry had toppled and created an obstacle course that slowed my progress and made me take my eyes off the shadows. I was surprised when I reached the corridor’s end without someone charging me. Taking a second to evaluate the store, I noted that the two windows on both sides of the front entrance were gone, shattered by some force that had either been trying to get in or get out in a hurry. My guess it was “in” because a majority of the firearms typically mounted to the walls were gone and the weapon cases at the register were broken and pillaged. My heart sank at the sight and I instantly wondered if this trip had been for nothing, just a nice little stroll into the bowels of the Infecteds’ dominion. Wonderful. I mentally crossed my fingers that whoever had looted Mr. Chow’s store didn’t know about the reserve of weapons in his office. From my vantage point, I could see through to it where his desk had been turned upside down and felt my expression shift into a frown.

A cluster of Infected ran by on the street outside, but thankfully remained oblivious to me in the shadows. Once they had all passed by, I got moving again, ducking and sprinting for Mr. Chow’s office door. I crossed the store in seconds to find myself inside a room no bigger than a closet. It had space for only a desk, a chair, and a body, which was slumped in the corner. Instantly, I turned my eyes away, but the image was already seared into my consciousness. Even while blinking in an effort to erase it, my mind conjured it back up and I saw Mr. Chow’s signature, long white moustache doused in blood and his skin chowed down on in a way that resembled a piranha attack. But I had to bring my eyes back to him because he had something I needed.

It was still gripped in one of his hands.

Bending down, carefully avoiding contact with his body, I reached for it, feeling lucky that the Infected wanted flesh far more than they wanted keys. Then I stood and pulled aside the painted canvas of a Chinese countryside to reveal the safe Mr. Chow kept embedded in the wall. The key turned in the lock without issue and I opened the door. Peering in, I drew in a breath and instantly felt a small measure of relief wash over me. There were fewer weapons than I’d anticipated. In fact, only one was resting against the safe’s cold, hard steel, but it had excellent stopping power. I pulled out the AR-15 with its 7-inch barrel and magnifier scope, and then shoved its eight 30-round magazines, filled to capacity, into my pockets. I then checked the magazine already inserted in the rifle, ensuring it was ready for use, clicked off the safety and turned on the scope before preparing to leave. Before I did, though, I stopped beside Mr. Chow and nodded to him in a show of respect.

“Thank you,” I whispered, tensing at the realization that he wasn’t there to actually hear it. “Mission accomplished, Mr. Chow. I’m still alive.” Even if he couldn’t hear it, I needed to say it. Call it closure or catharsis or the need to retain the humanity that seemed in such great peril by giving credit where credit was due. Whatever…it was necessary.

I left the store the same way I’d arrived, although this time, I held a muzzle out in front of me as I passed through. Keeping that muzzle in place, I started to retrace my route only to be detoured when I realized I was about to play a game of chicken with a pack of Infected. Not being in the mood, I stayed out of sight by taking a shortcut through an unoccupied UPS store. And it was this alternate direction that led me to the National Guard truck abandoned in the center of the street. Realizing they may have left something of value along with the truck, I made a run for it. Successfully reaching it in just a few seconds, I swung open the door, hauled myself up to the driver’s seat, and shut it as gently as I could manage, hoping no sound alerted the Infected to my location.

Once enclosed, I registered the smell of metal and immediately felt at ease, which I attributed to my dad. Being a military man, he was strong and durable, just like the big piece of metal I found myself sitting in. After a quick search of the passenger seats, I found nothing and turned to the console. There were no keys and unfortunately, hotwiring a vehicle was one thing my dad hadn’t taught me. But I did discover a small medic pack. While I pushed it into my pocket, my gaze wandered around the inside of the cab, landing directly on the paperwork that had slid off the passenger seat and ended up on the floor. If it hadn’t been for the growing light of dawn and its hazy beams drifting through the windshield, I might have missed it entirely. But I didn’t, and I reached down completely unprepared for whose face I would see when I flipped the paperwork over.

My breathing stopped as I stared down at the handsome familiarity of it. I quickly scanned the paragraphs below the picture and specific words stood out as I launched into a rush to skim the page. And with each phrase my chest only tightened further.

…Highest Priority…

…T1L2 Virus…

…Find and retrieve…

…Harrison Hutchinson…

…Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL…

…student at Woodrow Wilson High School…

…Deliver to Marion Kremil…

…CDC, Building 12, Corporate Square Boulevard, Atlanta…

Suddenly, I felt very hot and my pulse began to throb in my ears. My fingers pinched the paper with steadily more force as the pain in my forearms began to scream at them. But it wasn’t until my head began to swim that I finally sucked in a breath and got my head under control. As I sat there, gawking and calming my nerves, I attempted to make sense of the information. Right away, I processed a few details that I could accept with absolute confidence. First, what I held in my hands was a military briefing memo. Second, the briefing came at the request of the CDC. Third, both the military and the CDC had been trying to find Harrison. Fourth and final, they hadn’t succeeded. They’d never made it to our school. Then a series of questions started flooding my mind.
Why were they looking for Harrison? Who was Marion Kremil? What did either of them have to do with the T1L2 virus?
So many questions were beginning to surface…and they would have continued were it not for the sound of a muffled growl that immediately broke my trance.

I lifted my head and peered through the passenger window trying to source its location. It wasn’t hard. A movement at the corner of the street, no more than a hundred yards away, was an Infected…running right for me.

My stomach sank. My nerves flared. My hand was on the door handle before I could turn away; the other was shoving the memo into my pocket. By the time I left the vehicle, my heart was hammering my chest, giving me the extra juice to lurch into a sprint.

Shoot
, one part of my brain demanded. My hand clutching the rifle actually tightened at the thought as it instinctively prepared to lift it to my shoulder. But the other part was more rational:
Shoot and you’ll have a hundred Infected to deal with instead of just one.

My eyes swept the street for an escape, a diversion, a deterrent, though I could find nothing but storefronts where more Infected could be wallowing. So I took an immediate right, crossed an empty parking lot, and headed across an undeveloped field. Fields were usually surrounded by chain link fencing, which would make an effective ambush point and ultimately a good-sized, open-aired coffin for me. This one was no different, except for the twisted metal that beckoned to me from the other end. Someone, bless their heart, had cut through it to create an easy path to the stores I’d just left behind. An industrial complex of old brick buildings stood on the opposite side. The names painted on them had faded and the windows were either missing or boarded up, so I knew they wouldn’t be occupied. But they were in the direction of the school, so I wasn’t going to second-guess myself.