High Water (9 page)

From his vantage point, the old casino billboard could be seen in all its glory. The ad’s pair of painted breasts watched over the carnage. Partygoers milled around the parking lot, snarling and occasionally clawing at each other. Strangely, there was no action among them to hurt the fellow infected.

Pete reflected momentarily on the common cause between the disease carriers. A young woman wearing jean shorts and a belly-revealing t-shirt milled around a group of infected. Her swollen eyes were devoid of expression. Why was there a sympathetic reaction to the other infected? Perhaps it was the aggressive stature that characterized the infected, a quivering spasticity hinting at violence bubbling right under the surface. Or it could be the swelling of the eyes and the foul smell. Something cued the victims off to each other’s infection. Any organism that wanted to spread and spread widely couldn’t kill off other hosts. Not for the first time that night, Pete longed to be able to mount a lab slide and subject the disease to microscopic scrutiny.

Further on, the SWAT van that likely belonged to the ill-fated expedition which breached Tahitian was abandoned but the diesel engine was still humming away. Past the SWAT van, a fire truck was being pounded on by several infected partygoers. They appeared to be gathering around the cab and trying to get at someone inside. Red and white lights continued to pulse and spin.

Walter rolled to a stop. “Fortunate for us these things are fucking stupid.”

Pete nodded at Walter’s eyes in the mirror. “We got an up close look at them, including a tooth in my arm. They don’t have anything on Shaolin, though.”

One partygoer, a girl in a string bikini with very short brown hair, was part of the fire truck mob. She saw them and began to run directly at their car. Walter kept his eyes locked on her, but chewed his lip, “Never trained for this.”

“I figured this was our black belt test and nobody told us.”

“
Sifu
might try something less dramatic next time,” Walter replied.

“You should tell Kyle that when we get back,” Pete said. Without emphasizing the ‘when’, he felt the significance of it. Walter slammed on the gas. Before Pete could object, the Cutlass accelerated at the girl, engine snarling. The car bounced angrily, once, twice, and then picked up speed. They continued to cross the parking lot, leaving behind the girl’s corpse and, ironically, Walter’s bumper.

“Jesus, Walt!”

Stoic-faced, Walter gunned the engine again, but the car grumbled and didn’t pick up much speed. Some of the infected crowd around the fire truck started fast in their direction. Walter responded by beginning to drift away from them, a choking noise coming from under the car.

“Don’t worry, I got this,” Walter said, the engine sputtering and heaving.

“Walter, they’re coming,” Pete said loudly. “Something’s wrong with your car.”

“I got this, just a hiccup.”

“You don’t
have this
, that’s what you said this morn—” Before Pete could finish, a suicidal infected dove head first into the wheel well of the left front tire. There was a thump, then a loud snap. The car began to fishtail.

“You idiot, can you not drive this fucking car either?” Pete yelled. The pursuers were catching up to the slowing car.

“What do you mean?” Walter exclaimed, the wheel bobbing in his hands.

“Hello, the fucking moving truck, Walter?”

“You’re making me nervous!” Walter shouted.

Liz yelled over both of them, “Come on, Walter, go faster.”

The car, seemingly responding to Liz’s advice, made a grinding noise. There was a snap, and the engine stopped completely. Pete felt his mind hammer down the hope that had inspired him only a moment ago.

“
Shit
, not my car too,” Walter said, sounding almost puzzled. 

Pete could see the mascara dripping from the eyes of a girl in a purple bathing suit now just a few paces away.

“God,” Liz muttered, almost in wonderment as she watched the pursuers close in.

“Shit shit shit, get out! We’ll be trapped, come on!” He grabbed Liz’s hand and opened the passenger door on the opposite side the infected. The car limped along at a slow roll.

Walter pulled the emergency brake and brought the car to a lurching stop. He climbed over the center console as the infected closed in on the car. They were frighteningly fast and slammed themselves against the driver’s side. One lifted itself onto the roof as Pete exited. Belly-flopping onto Pete without any regard for his own safety, it forced Pete violently to the pavement.

He felt himself falling.

Part of Pete’s training had been focused on the correct way to fall. Humanity’s panache for pavement meant it was common for a fight to end with someone knocked out cold by the hard surface. In an almost instinctual reaction before meeting the pavement, he managed to throw up his arm and expose his side to the ground. He took the brunt of the damage in a non-vital area.

The reflex didn’t do Pete any favors in stopping the man from assailing him. Two angry eyes encrusted in a scrawny teenage boy’s face were now only inches away. The kid’s outrageous bleached bangs touched Pete’s brow and the smell of the yellow ocular discharge was sickly sweet. Liz clutched at the boy’s back, but the angle was wrong and she had no leverage to pull him off.

Pinned
. The boy raised a fist to punch as the sound of broken glass reached Pete’s ears. More of them were coming, they were going to be overrun.

But the signaling of the punch was the teen’s undoing. Blocking the blow was easy and reacting was even easier. Pete remembered the two word phrase to get him out of his predicament:
hip check
. Clutching the caught hand and bending one of his knees, he threw up his hip, sending the surprised assailant onto the pavement beside him.

Using momentum from the hip check, he whipped all his weight into his fist, bringing it down like a hammer onto the solar plexus of the infected teenager. The boy sputtered and struggled. Scrambling to standing, Pete brought his foot down repeatedly on the face of the teen. Each blow brought a bellow from Pete. Bleached blonde bangs hung limply on the forehead of the young man’s crushed face; the front of the skull caved in. It was a shocking, wretched act of violence with no technique involved, but his heart felt nothing by the time it was done.

Behind him, there was a piercing wail. Fear and dismay seemed to freeze his pumping heart.
Liz
.
Deep panic made his skin tingle as he turned to look.

A few feet away, Liz had been grabbed in a bear hug by an enormous Samoan man. Her attacker was wearing cargo pants and an undersized t-shirt soaked through with sweat. With a rasp, the Samoan whined “BIG. BEAR. HUG,” in a high-pitched voice. He shook his head and sobbed as he crushed the breath out of Liz.

Liz’s pained blue eyes found Pete’s. Her red lips moved as she tried to speak, and her scream or mercy was a pitiful wheeze. Crying out her name, Pete threw himself at the pair. Before he could reach them, the Samoan saw his approach and tossed Liz to the ground. Her head hit the parking lot pavement with a meaty thud.

An atavistic sound escaped Pete’s lips, his training forgotten for a furious instant. Throwing a punch that was swatted out of the way by the man’s meaty arm, he could barely stop the Samoan’s other arm, following in a wide swing from the side. The force of the blow put him off balance and the man’s belly further put him on one foot. The Samoan grabbed him in the same tight bear hug he’d had Liz in before Pete could reorient himself.

Adding injury to insult, the Samoan bit hard into Pete’s shoulder. The pain was intense. He screamed, his voice cracking like an adolescent. The man used his great neck to tear his head away from Pete, taking a chunk of flesh with it. Howling, Pete chanced to look into face of the Samoan. The infected man gazed at him hungrily, like he was a choice cut of meat missing a good sauce.

“
Big…. hug…”
came a whisper through teeth blooded with bits of Pete’s torn flesh. The body odor and rancid smell of the infected man made him want to retch, but he couldn’t breathe to do it. He seemed defenseless without leverage for his arms or his legs.

Winding up, Pete head butted his new best friend with one of the last weapons available to him. A pig squeal whistled through the Samoan’s split lips. Pete struggled with his captor and tried to slam his foot down on the Samoan’s knee, but he was being held up in the air by the giant man. He could see the neon sign of Tahitian, still glowing in the mild night.

The hug intensified and Pete started to lose consciousness.

It was an unusual experience, almost as though he was observing his own demise. Spots overtook his vision quickly. Liz’s face lying against the pavement was the last thing he saw. His eyes closed, that final, heartrending image lost to a nothingness that yawned. The abyss stretched out below was deep, hungry, and had a gravity all its own. Pete could feel it dragging him down.

More of the world slipped away. Muscle memory he had gained from months of kung fu instruction and put to lethal use for the first time today, tumbled away. With the training gone, cares left him. All that remained was a deathly calm.

The fight had been too much. Not all tests were meant to be passed, he reflected with some regret. Liz was not trained and was his responsibility. Accepting failure, he relaxed and felt himself slip down into the void.

A great reduction in pressure on Pete’s chest triggered the oldest reflex he had, his breath. A single wheeze brought him back from the brink. The saturnine darkness fled back underneath his consciousness like roaches fleeing into the walls.  A short panting breath gave Pete the strength to feel the Samoan’s grip had loosened. Another breath, a deep lungful, gave him the strength to shove out his arms. Muscles renewed themselves with oxygen and were charged with vitality once again. He felt the ground beneath his feet. He squatted down in triumph, breaking the Samoan’s hold easily.

Mental faculties came online. Pete knew from the prickling sensations in his hands and feet that he should be dead. A pitiful roll away from the Samoan gave him the vantage point to see a large boot closed around a black leg execute a downward kick to the back of the fleshy kneecap of the Samoan.

Walter’s kick brought the gargantuan man to his knees with a thud. A squeal escaped from the bloodied mouth of the fat man just as Walter wrapped the thick neck in a powerful chokehold. The Samoan’s chunky limbs flapped in its death throes, and a spurt of blood gushed from one of burly man’s encrusted eyes as it popped out forcefully. If he didn’t feel like he was about to die, Pete thought he would have found it comical that the infected eyes always seemed to pop out. The organ dangled, stretching nerve fibers long, looking at him accusingly.

Beyond Walter and the Samoan lay Liz, unmoving. Trusting Walter to finish the fight, Pete crawled an agonizing few feet to her body.  Her face was turned away from him but he could see a deep gash that marred her head.

“Come on baby, come on Liz, no no no, Liz,
please…
” Pete pleaded, cradling the woman he loved. She did not respond, the gash on her head soaking her light hair with thick red blood. He let out a sob. A vision of their life together was suddenly unimaginable.

A shadow fell over Pete. He had enough time to see a foot swung at his face before it connected, knocking him onto his side. There was no trained fall for this move. The hour old scab on his ear tore away on the pavement with a flare up of scorching pain and his brain cage rattled violently. A kick to the ribs quickly followed, then another, harder. Something popped deep inside his torso.

He was being kicked to death.

Lights flashed in his vision. Pete knew the next kick was coming and unconsciousness lurked, insatiable, deadly close again. Pete recognized that if he didn’t want to die he had no room for error in the next few seconds. A last surge of concentration and energy as the foot sailed toward him allowed Pete to throw the leg. He turned his opponent enough to grab their other foot. Pain stabbed through injured fingers, but he pulled as hard as he could. He upended the kicker and watched them fall face first into the pavement, a cartilage crunch the sound of the person’s nose shattering on the hard surface.

Before his attacker could get up, Pete furiously slammed woman’s head into the pavement, repeating the action until he felt the legs and arms stop struggling. Bright red was spattered on her pale neck, wicking away into soft black hair. The blood might have been his own because blood was always the same color.

Pete slid off the twitching body, gasping and drooling. His shoulders and neck seized up in spasms. Cruel draggers of pain were driven deep into his innards, something within clearly broken. Liz lay still. Nearby, the now blue-faced Samoan knelt as if in prayer. Walter was slumped against the big man’s back, still clutching the Samoan’s neck tightly. Grabbing blindly, Pete’s hand found something on the ground.

Liz’s fingers were still warm.

He pulled himself close to his girl, and -

- the hand, his hand, reached for a handle.  The tarnished brass was cool, the latch clicked and turned cleanly. He stepped into the empty house where the angular shadows and dancing lights within were disorienting.

“Nobody is home,” he thought. There was nobody to tell.

Out of habit, Pete went to close the door behind him and felt a sudden jab of pain. A miles-long splinter jutted from his finger, squirming like a bee’s stinger. Burrowing into his flesh, the sliver of white hot pain broke into fibers. Each fiber fragmented again, tunneling deeper in his skin.

“Tetanus
and
lead poisoning,” he said, not knowing why. Intrigued and unafraid, he watched his entire hand turn the color of the night sky.

With an injured finger, he changed the way he turned on a light switch and created workarounds for the most mundane activities to avoid risking tactile sensing. Pain only really presented itself when you challenged it.

He stopped short of pulling out the splinter and halting the pain.

Inaction was the easiest way to bear tenderness in mind and body. That was the path of least resistance. Aches and hurts could lay dormant, subdued, but only until they weren’t. We all learned that the hard way, sooner or later.

A muffled voice came from outside the door: “Piece of garbage!” she said. He knew that voice.

There were many ways to endure. The house wasn’t his, at least not yet. It was time to go, to challenge pain, to not give in. Pete used his injured hand to turn the doorknob.

The key was to accept injury and hardship with mindfulness. You’d know the way when you go there.

“Wing D Wireless 2A, signal strength: Excellent.”

Life flooded in through the doorway. For a moment, he was falling back into his body from a distance.

“… Well then why won’t you
just connect
?”

The pillow felt so soft. He tried to turn his head but pain pressed outward from behind his eyes.

“Pete? PETE!”

Someone was moaning at that selfsame pain. That was
me
, Pete realized. Awareness spread a little bit. Something landed on him, hard. It was warm, familiar. Liz. Sleep faded away with the various body pains created by her tackle. 

“Ughhhhh,” was all he managed.

“Oh my god, baby, you’re awake, you’re okay, oh my god,” Liz said. Tears ran from her gorgeous eyes, blessedly without any sign of the infection. Her hair was glinting red in the sunlight.

“Mmmmppphh,” his tongue was a stale dinner roll in his mouth, dry and flaky.

Liz nuzzled her face into his chest. Crusty drool caked a beard that was much longer than Pete remembered. The pain in his neck and head was excruciating, but Pete held Liz tight. Warm, supple skin felt like silk to his sore hands. After a long moment she broke off and kissed him. Her full, soft lips tasted like green tea.  His own lips felt dry, chapped, and scratchy in comparison. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re awake. You’ve been asleep for a week and a half, are you feeling okay?”

Pete considered the pain that now registered itself in his legs and arms. Deep inside his torso twisted and burned.  Broken ribs he guessed. He squinted against the midday light that streamed in the window as Liz wiped strange tears from his eyes. The thought of being asleep for that long didn’t compute, so he focused on her question.

“Hmmm… No.”

Liz grabbed his sore hand, running her fingers lightly over a scar. “Well you shouldn’t.  The doctor says you had a vicious concussion, broken ribs, some internal bleeding.”

Parts of his brain turned on, one by one. He managed to get some saliva flowing in his mouth, allowing him to enunciate. “The good doctor went to medical school for that opinion?”

She laughed lightly, “I know, these people are insufferable. And the wireless doesn’t work.”

“Did you try new drivers?” Everything was so bright. He tried to squint through swollen eyes.

“You always say that. It works if I’m standing outside the hospital, but not inside. What is a driver, anyway?”

“Not Walter.”

They both laughed. Laughing felt good, despite the pain in his ribs.

“Well that’s a given,” she replied. “He’s awake too. He’s actually somewhere around here and just came by to see you. He’s been bringing everyone’s wishes to you from the studio. They miss you so much, it’s so cute.”

“He’s already back training?”

“Well sweetie, we weren’t going to all wait up for you,” Liz said, crossing her arms and frowning.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I’m done with Tahitian, obviously, so I’ve been unemployed. With all my spare time, I moved our things into the new place. Your parents helped me out; they’re staying there right now.” Seeing his incredulous look, Liz continued without the serious expression leaving her face, “I also called Century Research Corporation and told them that you were involved in the Incident.” The ‘
I
’ was capitalized in his mind.

“Oh man, Mom and Dad are going to be apoplectic.” There was a pause as he thought it through. “What did Century say?” he asked, grimacing. Work was not what he wanted to think about now.

“Oh they were fine with it. Especially when I told them that there was a sample from Tahitian that wasn’t part of the evidence in the pending trial against Tahitian’s holding company. I still have your sample bottle. They told me to put it in the fridge.”

His eyes opened wide and he sat up despite himself. “Wait, what do you--”

“They were waffling about your job after you missed your first day.”

“Was having some issues getting in,” he replied, sardonic.

“
I
know that, but it wasn’t easy to explain. My whistleblower status with Tahitian and the sample got them interested, though. Then I demanded that they had to say, in writing, that you’d be on the project if they wanted in. Their general counsel was in touch with me in no time.  Things got pretty hectic and they were almost begging. I must have made a good case and I’m glad I had my textbooks. You were here for the whole thing, actually. I did most of the calling from right over there. Your dad has been helping me with the paperwork. Never hurts to have a bureaucrat in the family.”

“Damn, that’s something.”

Liz grinned. “They also got me in touch with their HR department. And I have an appointment with their counsel on Monday. A job interview, actually.”

“Damn, that’s something!” he shouted, too loudly. Liz shook her head and laughed. A frumpy nurse passing by the door gave him a look.

There was an organic break in their conversation. The pause became ten seconds, then twenty seconds long. Both of them stared at one another silently before Liz broke the silence first.

“It was fatal, you know, the infection. The people that got it were dead a day later, they say from brain swelling.”

“Encephalitis.”

“That’s the word on the street. That bit of information actually just came out yesterday. The news said the contagion was some parasite having to do with cats,
toxo-
”

“-
plasma gondii.
I had a feeling. That is bizarre. The neurological manifestations were unreal. For me, it was the eyes.”

“Yeah. You were right about it being protozoa too and cats apparently.”

“Filthy animals, they’re as bad as seagulls.”

“There’s still no definitive body count,” Liz said, turning her head to look out the window. Light reflecting from something outside danced on her shoulder for a moment. “Walter rescued us. He’s told me the story at least a hundred times.” She broke out into a hearty laugh, then continued, “The first thing he did when I was awake was to come and tell me.” She recounted what he had said in her best impression of Walter, “Don’t talk to the cops, yo, don’t tell them
nothin’.”

Laughing, Pete already knew she hadn’t said a thing. “There are probably plenty of other people to interview.”

“Exactly, local PD was, uh, gone, so these are state troopers and FBI and all kinds of government scientists. I’m just glad we smoked up our weed before they found us. By the way, as a member of your legal counsel’s office, I advise you to smoke
all the weed you have
as part of your recovery, of course.”

“Do you mean…?”

“I have the vape right here.”

Vaporizing was the healthiest way to consume cannabis outside of eating it. Through chapped lips, Pete sipped the vapor from the pen-shaped device. He relaxed as the sweet taste of cannabis became honey on his tongue. Liz had closed the door and she sat next to him on the bed as he vaped.

“You want some?” He offered it to her.

Liz shook her head, “Nope, I’m good. You’re the one with the injuries. Feel better?”

Before he could respond, the door slammed open. He almost dropped the vape, until he saw that it was Walter.

“For fuck’s sake dude, do you knock?” Pete asked, ecstatic and surprised at the same time.

“I run this bitch,” Walter said, closing the door and crossing the room to hug him. They pounded on each other’s backs. Pete felt relieved to see his friend.

“You feeling better Pete?” he said, Walter’s normally straight face looking as concerned as he had ever seen it.

“Better now,” Pete said, holding up the vape.

“I heard that. Yo, you need to thank this girl, man.  She’s been here the entire time, and I mean entire.” Liz squeezed Pete’s hand and smiled at Walter.

“Having her here when I first woke up was… well, it was the best thing that could have happened,” he said. He felt himself choking up and switched gears, “Walter, you back training?”

“Yeah homey.” We had China on our side. I ain’t afraid of crusty people from Jersey.”

“I hear I have you to thank about that, too.”

Walter looked panicked for a second. “Did Liz tell you anything?”

“No, not yet,” Pete replied.

“Christ, Walter, I’m not going to tell your story.” Liz said her tone somewhere between mildly annoyed and lazily outraged.

“Good, because I wanted to tell him myself,” he replied, pointing at himself with no small amount of pride. Liz rolled her eyes. Walter stood at the foot of the bed, frowning. A few moments passed. Finally, Pete couldn’t stand it.

“Walter, are you going to tell the fucking story or not?”

“Right, well, when I got over there to take out fatty boom batty,” - Pete guessed Walter meant the Samoan - “I’d already taken out two of those things. One of them had wrenched my arm around bad and my clothes were all bloody. So I watched you take out that girl, and suddenly, I thought I was going to pass out too. Couldn’t see straight, stomach was ready to heave. So then guess what happened.”

“What?” Pete said.

“You got to guess.”

“Walter… No I don’t, just tell me.”

“I shit my pants.”

“No you didn’t,” Pete said, then burst out laughing, despite the pain in his torso.

“Dude, never go to Crescent City Diner and get the burger,” Walter explained gravely.

“Walter, why the fuck would I go there ever again? Remember we went there for the grand re-opening? There was a latex glove in your jambalaya.”

“No,” Walter said, straight-faced, loquacious as ever.

“Never mind. So you shit your pants, continue,” Pete said.

“Don’t tell me what to do Pete. I saved your ass from the zombies. I’ll tell my story when I want to tell my story.”

Pete threw his arms in the air, “What the fuck, dude, okay, you tell the story.”

“Thank you, Pete,” Walter said caustically. Pete folded his arms.

“So my pants are filled with shit. I mean, it’s like, running down my leg and squishing around.”

“Alright already!” Pete and Liz both said simultaneously.

“Yeah, exactly,” Walter agreed. “So I suddenly feel better. Like I feel great, you know? Not nauseous or anything. I go over to you guys. Ya’ll were curled up, cuddly. Pete, your arm was right across Liz’s neck, and Liz, you were sleeping like a baby. If you weren’t covered in blood and dirt, that shit would have been straight up
romantic
.”

“Let me know what you really think, Walt. Let it all out,” Liz said sarcastically.

“Don’t get me started about letting it all out, Elizabeth. Pretty sure you got some smeared on you.”

“Ewww!” Liz cried, looking at Walter with disgust. She evidently hadn’t heard that part of the story yet.

“Shut it and let me tell the story,” he continued. “So anyway, I go over there and neither of you are moving. It’s pretty quiet, so I go and load you both into the back seat of the car.”

“The car was broken, Walter,” Pete said.

“I know but it was better than the open pavement. So I am standing there, you guys passed out in the backseat, pants covered with shit, and I’m trying to call the cops with my rinky dink phone. It’s not working and there’s no cops coming. So
then
I remember that you guys drove there. I ran around the parking lot for about five minutes, dodging these crusty sacks of shit, and finally found your car. Then I realized it was locked. So I had to come back, steal your keys, drive the car back over to my car, and then load you up. Once I got you two in the Corolla, I drove right to the hospital. The cops came here later, looking for survivors with injuries.”