Hollowland (2 page)

Something was happening, and I couldn’t see anything. I just heard a lot of yelling, death groans, and gun fire.

When the guns fell silent, I leaned forward so I could see around the trophy case. About a dozen or more zombies lurched up the stairs. They moved in a pack, something I’d never seen them do before.

But that’s not what made my stomach twist up. They had gotten past whoever was shooting at them, meaning that the soldiers we’d heard yelling were already dead.
 

“They’re going upstairs!” Harlow whispered frantically. “Everyone is hiding up there!”

I pursed my lips but didn’t say anything. The gun felt heavy in my hands. If I fired at them, I might kill one or two, but I couldn’t kill them all. The soldiers hadn’t been a match for them. A couple kids with guns wouldn’t stand a chance.

“They’re going to kill everyone!” Harlow looked at me, and I shook my head. We were lucky they were going upstairs and not down here after us.

“Getting ourselves killed won’t save them,” I said thickly. “Besides, they locked the door. They might be safe.”

Once all of the zombies had disappeared up the stairs, I walked the opposite way down the hall. I didn’t want to hear everyone upstairs dying. And everyone up there was dead. They didn’t have any guns or any real protection. Eventually, the zombies would break down the doors. They always did.

I felt sick but I kept walking, stepping carefully over the bodies. I’d never seen a massacre this bad.

When the virus popped up almost a year ago, it spread like wild fire, but I had never seen so many zombies together. Even the ones that had gotten my mom and dad had only been in a group of three. This had to be hundreds. Something different was happening.

We had to round another corner before we made it to the gym. I heard one gun shot, and then silence. I raised my gun and slowly turned the corner, afraid to find another pack of the infected.

Instead, I saw a single soldier. He stood in the middle of the hall, his gun pointed down at the zombie corpses. He watched to see if they were still alive, and then he killed them if they were.

I lowered my weapon and stepped out.

“Hey!” I announced myself before he shot us.

He turned to me, automatically pointing the rifle at me, and my heart surged. Even at that distance with a gun in front of his face, I’d recognize him anywhere.

“Remy?” Beck asked, sounding just as relieved and surprised as I felt, and he lowered the gun. “What are you doing?”

“I heard the zombies knocking, so I thought I’d come down and let them in,” I said with a wry smirk. I walked down the hall, fighting the urge to run to him, and checked behind to make sure Harlow and Sommer were following me quickly.

“Your brother’s fine,” Beck said, knowing exactly what had drawn me out. “They already evacuated him.”

“What do you mean they evacuated Max?” I asked, not sure if I should feel relieved or anxious. This wasn’t the safest place anymore, but the open road wasn’t that great either.

“As soon as the quarantine was compromised, they got all the medical out,” Beck said and looked uneasily at Harlow and Sommer. “You shouldn’t be out here. You should’ve stayed in your rooms.”

“The second floor has been compromised too.” I lowered my eyes. “We just saw the zombies rush up there.”

Beck stared down the hall towards the stairwell, debating whether or not he should go help them, or if he should stay to help us. If I’d been a more selfless person, I would’ve sent him up there. But I needed his help, and I didn’t want him on a suicide mission.

“You’ve got to get out of here,” Beck said. He nodded in the other direction and put his hand on my back to usher us away.

“Where are they taking Max? I need to go with him.” I looked up at Beck, but he didn’t answer. He was too focused on getting us out of the school alive.

Three zombies stood by the exit. They hung out there, as if they were waiting to stop people from escaping. Since there was only three of them, Beck shot them down quickly.

“What are they doing?” Harlow asked, referring to the zombies’ unusual behavior.

“I don’t know,” Beck said, his voice cracking.

I looked up at him, sensing something more than the trauma going on around us. In the months I had known him, I’d never seen anything rattle him.

The glass doors had been broken in, blood staining the remaining shards poking out from the frame. Beck leaned out first, but I heard the death groans. I looked past his shoulder, and I could see them, massed around the outside of the school, moving like a very slow mosh pit.

 
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
 

“It’s like they were drawn here or something.” Beck straightened up and looked at me. “They’ve trampled the fence for the most part. If I distract them, you can make a run for it.”

“You can’t stay here,” I said. “Zombies have overtaken the place.”

“It’s my job,” Beck brushed me off. “I’m not entirely sure where they took your brother. There is another quarantine near Wyoming, so maybe there. If you keep going north from here, you’ll find something.”

“I don’t even really know where north is.” I was only half-lying. I wasn’t great at directions, but I didn’t want to leave Beck behind to die here.

“When I open these doors, I’m going to run towards the zombies, shooting,” Beck said, ignoring me. “The three of you need to run for an opening in the fence and keep running. You can’t stop, no matter what happens.”

“No, you can’t do that,” I shook my head.

“I have to stay here.” Beck eyed the zombies outside.

I could hear soldiers, somewhere on the lawn outside of my vision, and a lot of the zombies were busy trying to take them out. The rest kind of wandered around, occasionally fighting amongst each other.

“They might not even notice if we’re real quiet,” I said.

“No, I can’t go with you.” He looked down at me gravely.

I still didn’t understand, so he pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing the crescent shape of teeth marks in his arm. My heart clenched but I tried to keep my face blank.

I stared at him, trying to reconcile this. He’d been invincible since I met him. Without him, Max and I never would’ve survived. He made sure we were both safe and helped us as long as we’d been here. And through everything he’d seen and done, he always had an easy smile.

“They’re getting restless.” Harlow pulled me from my thoughts. The gaggle of zombies seemed to be making their way towards the door.

“You’ve got to go,” Beck said emphatically.

“You’re not infected yet,” I said. I did not want to leave him, and I wasn’t even sure that I could.

“Go.” His eyes were moist. “You don’t have any more time if you want to make it out alive, and Max needs you.”

I nodded, unable to think of something to say. I knew this would be the last time I’d ever speak to him, but I had nothing. I just turned and pushed open the shattered doors.

His gun started blasting, and I couldn’t look back. I ran as fast as my legs would move.

Mangled fencing and barbwire bent all over the ground at the edge of the lawn. I stumbled on it, but I caught myself before I fell. Tears threatened my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Zombies growled behind me, and I didn’t have any time to waste on emotions.

The school lay on the edge of town, and nothing but desert stretched out before us. My feet pounded on the dirt, and my legs burned from running. A pain shot down my side, and I felt like throwing up.

I didn’t stop until I heard Harlow yelling my name. Even then, I only slowed down.

“Remy!” Harlow yelled. “Remy! Wait!”

Reluctantly, I stopped and turned around. I gasped for breath, but I liked that better. I liked it when my body hurt so bad I couldn’t feel anything else. It was almost freeing.

In the moonlight, I saw Harlow and Sommer trailing behind. Way off in the distance, I could see the quarantine. I’d run much farther than I thought.

The only reason I could still see the school was because it was on fire. To contain the infection, they'd burned it to the ground, and burned up any survivors who might still be in there.

I was so mesmerized by the fire and trying not to think about Beck that I didn’t notice the shadow creeping up behind Harlow and Sommer. We were all breathing too loud to hear anything.

I didn’t see anything until the zombie dove at Sommer, and she started to scream.

 
– 2 –

By the time I raised my gun, he was already on her.

 
Sommer tumbled to the ground with the monster clinging to her back. His claws raked down her arms, and his frothy drool spilled over her. Just before his teeth sunk into the soft flesh of her neck, I fired at him.

Gelatinous blood sprayed out from the wound, and his head tilted back. He slumped down, drooling and bleeding all over Sommer’s fresh cuts. She was still screaming when she scrambled out from underneath him.

But it was already too late.

“Sommer, you’re okay!” Harlow ran to her aide.

Harlow’d been standing off to the side, stricken and shocked while the zombie attacked, with her gun forgotten in her hand. As soon as my gun had gone off, she burst into motion. She dropped her gun and rushed over to Sommer.

Harlow put her hands on her shoulders, mindful of the scratches, and tried to snap Sommer out of it. When
Sommer
finally stopped screaming, she just stared vacantly, and I’m not sure how much better that was.

The zombie made a hollow breathing sound, so I walked over to make sure it was dead. I had blown off half its face, thanks to the close range, and it stood no chance of getting up again. It kept breathing. Part of me
really
wanted to shoot it again, but I couldn’t waste the bullets.

I stepped back and scanned the darkness. The land around us was barren, save a few shrubs and rocks. The whole world felt more deserted than ever before, and the vegetation seemed happy to accommodate.

The flames from the quarantine billowed higher, making it easier to see that nothing was coming. Most of the zombies had been in a hurry to get there. The one that had gone after Sommer had been a straggler, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

“Are more coming?” Sommer asked.

“I think they’re all at the barbecue,” I said and lowered my gun.

Harlow had let go of Sommer, and she wiped her hands on her skirt, getting the blood off. Sommer looked around to make sure we weren’t surrounded. She didn’t realize the bigger issue at hand.

“Do you have any cuts on your hands?” I asked Harlow quietly. It occurred to her what I was asking, so she started wiping her hands more roughly.

“No, I don’t,” she shook her head but kept her eyes locked on Sommer, the sadness setting in.

“Come on. We have to keep moving.” I started walking away. Harlow shot a confused look between me and Sommer, then picked up the revolver and followed me.

“Where are we going?” Sommer jogged after us, but I stopped. Swallowing, I turned back to face her.

“No,” I said softly. “You can’t come with us.”

I motioned to the scratches on her arm. The way the zombie had drooled and bled all over her, she had to be infected.

“What?” Sommer didn’t understand at first, then frantically wiped at her arm, as if she could clean out the infection. “No. It’s just a scratch. I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I can’t take the risk.”

“You can’t just leave me out in the middle of the desert!” Sommer cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She was a small, fragile girl, and she’d just been injured. I didn’t want to leave her out here, but I had only two options in this situation, and she would like the second one even less.

“I’m sorry.” I turned away from her, but she kept following us.

“What if more zombies come?” Sommer asked.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. Fighting back tears, I kept my voice even. I still had the shotgun in my hand, and when she kept approaching, I aimed at her. “You can’t come with us.”

“But what if I’m not infected?” Sommer pled with me, and I felt Harlow watching me.

“I have to get to my brother, and I can’t do that if you turn into a zombie and kill us. I don’t want to kill you, so I’d rather leave you here now, with a chance of survival.”

“But…” Sommer didn’t have an argument for that, and her whole body slacked.

She stared helplessly at me, and I wished I had something better to offer her. I knew she wouldn’t try to follow us this time, so I turned my back on her and kept walking north.

“I’m sorry, Sommer,” Harlow said, waiting behind me a moment longer. “I’ll never forget you.”

Sommer didn’t say anything, but I don’t know how anybody could respond to that. We’d just left her in the desert to die.

I’d just created another vessel to spread the damn virus. I made the zombie problem worse, but I couldn’t bring myself to kill her. Not when she was still a person, with rational thought and emotions. I wouldn’t hesitate once she was a zombie, though, and I hoped I didn’t run into her then.