Mad World (Book 3): Desperation (9 page)

Twelve

“Okay,” Dad said as we sped down the Trans Canada Highway. “I am going to speed all the way to Boston. I am not stopping for any reason if I can help it. Maybe if we get to a town or a place to sleep, but ideally let’s try to team drive and keep going.” He glanced back at Jonathan. “How is Risa doing?”

“She is stable for now, but it’s touch and go. She had catastrophic injuries that, if she doesn’t get proper hospital care and surgery to deal with them, could kill her.” He looked at her sleeping form. “As for infection … I don’t know. I don’t think she’s in much danger of turning here in the vehicle right now; it’s been too soon since she was infected, but because of the mass injury and multiple entry wounds, I can’t be sure.” Jonathan looked back up at Dad.

Everything seemed like it was up in the air. Risa was so severely injured it was a toss-up whether her injuries would kill her first or whether the plague infection would turn her. Infection usually took a week to turn a person, but there’d been so many places where she’d been bitten, it was like she’d been super-infected. Plus the jostling of the ride would hasten the incubation period. I felt tears form in my eyes as I looked down at Risa’s still form. She was such a strong person, so much courage, so much to admire. And she was dying now. Just like Mom.

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Luke,” whispered Zach. “I’m so sorry.” He began to rub my shoulders, easing his way behind me. I shifted in my seat so he could rub more.

“Ahhh,” I groaned. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d been. First with the mission to save Alyssa, and then with our ordeal in the caves, I was a mass of stress. Zach seemed to know just where to go on my shoulders and neck, and his strong hands massaged and rubbed the sore muscles there. I felt the tension slowly leak out of me. I must have dozed off, because I suddenly jerked awake and looked out the window, only to find it was dawn.

“What?” I mumbled. “How long did I sleep?”

Jonathan laughed behind me, and Zach chuckled next to me.

“Luke, you slept through the night, got maybe nine hours of sleep,” DeAndre said, smiling.

“Yeah, you snored through most of it,” Zach said, laughing. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he hastily added, “but it was a soft snore. A very cure snore.” He smiled.

I shot him an exasperated grimace and stuck my tongue out at him. He laughed, his head thrown back. Goddamn, but he was good looking. I felt like kissing him, but held back. Instead, I settled for reaching my hand up and softly touching his cheek. He looked at me with a smile and then ducked his head down in shyness.

I looked behind me at Risa. “How’s she doing, Jonathan?” I asked.

“She’s a bit worse than yesterday,” Jonathan said grimly, looking down at his wife. Risa look very pale and very small, wrapped up in bandages and blankets. She shivered slightly in her sleep.

“Has she woken up yet at all?” I asked.

“About two hours ago, she was delirious for a while, but not really awake. She’s fallen back to a light sleep now, but she’s got a fever,” Jonathan said. “I think the plague may not be the only infection she has now. Such deep wounds were bound to start festering. We need to get to a hospital soon.” I looked into his face and saw his eyes were swimming in tears, although his voice was steady. “She’ll make it. She’s a strong woman.”

I nodded and swallowed hard, looking down at Risa again. She looked awful.

“Dad? How much longer do you think?” I asked.

“If we don’t hit any more problems, we should be pulling into Boston before midnight,” he scanned the horizon through the windshield and then out the side window. “We’ve had smooth sailing so far, nothing at all but miles and miles of empty land, so let’s hope that holds.”

Looking out into the landscape, I thought,
This might just work…

“Any chance we can stop for a minute?” I asked.

Dad chuckled. “Sure. You missed the last bathroom stop, about four hours ago,” he said, pulling over. DeAndre, Jonathan and dad all grabbed their shotguns and put their knives into their back holsters as they peered out the windows all around us. Dad wasn’t taking any chances.

I grabbed my knife and shotgun, hopped out of the SUV and slid the knife into my back holster. Eyes scanning the horizon, I checked for any movement be hidden. Nothing, as far as the eye could see. I quickly finish relieving myself and came around the front to join DeAndre. “See anything, D?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, still looking slowly from left to right. We stood there quietly for a minute or so. I felt a prickling on the back of my neck. My sixth sense was tingling. Something… I swung my head around a bit, trying to figure out what my brain was sensing. But… nothing.

“I’m so jumpy. After what happened, I can’t wait to get to Boston,” I said. “Think we’ll have enough time to return home with the serum?” I steeled myself for his answer. I had made some quick calculations in my head and come up with scary answers. After a day and a half delay, we were cutting it very close.

DeAndre squinted at the horizon at something, studying it for a long while before he relaxed and continued scanning back and forth. Without turning to me, he began talking.

“Luke, I want to tell you something. Yesterday when you were taken, Risa was caught between you and the SUV. She chose to go with you. It was a split-second decision, but it was the right one. She could have been killed by her decision. She should have been.” He looked into my eyes. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, why those monsters let you both live, but in the world I know, the war I know, Risa should have been torn apart by that zombie mob.” He looked away again, moving his eyes across the hills, scanning. “She should have been mauled to death. That’s what’s always happened. That’s what happened to my Caitlyn. That’s what nearly happened to Alyssa.”

I nodded. “I don’t know why or how, but things have changed.” I had told the others of our experiences underground, about the zombie king, what it said, what we thought it might mean. “I guess we just got lucky.” Zach came then and stood with us, silent but listening. I glanced at him and smiled. Then turned back to D.

DeAndre dropped his face, shaking his head. “You didn’t get lucky. You were nearly killed. You should have been killed. Risa almost was.” He looked up at me again. “From everything we know, Risa should have been killed.” He was silent for a moment. Then: “think about that for a moment, Luke. I mean, I love you like you were my own son, but you made a huge mistake, one that almost got you and Risa killed. One that
should
have gotten you both killed.”

I swallowed hard, looking at the ground. “I know I messed up. I should never have gone out alone, without cover.”

“No, you shouldn’t’ve. It was a damned stupid mistake.” He looked at me again. “Luke? Do you know
why
Risa went toward you and not to safety? Do you know why she went with you, when, according to everything we know about this threat, it should’ve meant certain death for her?”

I thought about that situation on the road, so short a time ago, and yet it seemed like it was a lifetime ago. I felt a lump at the back of my throat as I stood there next to my uncle, looking out at the horizon. I swallowed again. “Because she…” I swallowed again and a tear ran down my face. “Because …” I couldn’t continue.

“Because Risa loves him and wanted to save him?” Zach said, putting his arm around my shoulders.

“No…” I said.

“No, Zach. That is not why Risa jumped into what she thought was certain death,” DeAndre turned to face both of us, his back turned to the hills. “Risa jumped into a zombie mob of hundreds, maybe thousands of monsters, not because she loves Luke, although he certainly knows she does. Not because of Alyssa, although we all are desperate to save her.” DeAndre’s eyes were piercing, and moved from Zach to look into my eyes. “Luke, Risa jumped into that mob of monsters to save you because, if your blood makes that serum to save Alyssa, like we think it will, it won’t only save Alyssa, it will very likely save the whole world. A serum like that would stop this plague in its tracks. It would be a cure.” He put one hand up to grasp my shoulder and give it a little squeeze. “Do you understand what that means, son? That is bigger than me or you or Alyssa or any one person. Risa understood that, that’s why she did what she did. It was a desperate attempt to save the hope of the world, Luke. You.”

I swallowed hard again and felt myself go cold and hot at the same time. I couldn’t speak.

“I know it must be overwhelming. I know it’s hard to wrap your head around. But Luke: you must think. There are over 4 billion people left on this planet that haven’t been infected by this plague. The serum can inoculate them against it. You, Luke. You can save this world from this plague.” He stopped talking and looked at the horizon again. I heard Zach sniffling beside me, and I reached behind me without looking and grabbed his hand and squeezed.

DeAndre dropped his hand from my shoulder and scuffed his boot on the ground in front of us, then looked at me again. “Luke, you have got to be smarter. Don’t ever put yourself in a position like that again. The world has no other hope that I’m aware of. You have to stay safe.” He looked into my eyes without blinking. “Don’t take stupid chances like that again.” Dead serious, he held my eyes for a long moment and then turned back toward the SUV. Once again, putting his hand on my shoulder, he steered me to the door. “Come on, let’s get going again. I’m already sick of this mission. I want it to be over as soon as possible.”

I was silent as I climbed into my seat, stowing my knife and shotgun and settling myself in. Dad passed back sandwiches and water bottles to everyone, and, safe in our secure SUV we all sat eating and talking.

“You’re rather quiet, Luke,” my dad said, chewing and looking at me thoughtfully. I glanced at DeAndre and turned back to my dad.

“I guess I have a lot on my mind,” I said. Zach beside me squeezed my hand in support. Thoughts swirled in my head, and I felt a new sense of great responsibility
.

Thirteen

I wish I could tell you the rest of our trip went smoothly. I would like nothing more than to say that the next 18 hours went as easy as could be, no troubles, no worries, no hiccoughs. Maybe that would bring Risa back, or my mom, or, heck, any of the people who’ve been affected
by this damnable plague.

The highway that traversed the countryside across Ontario and Québec was once mostly plains and farmland. After the zombie infestation that wiped out a lot of the largest cities began moving north from the United States, people began to panic. As the virus began to infect smaller and smaller towns, residents holed up, stopped traveling and became more isolated. They had no other choice.

Before this whole thing started, the plains across Ontario had been peppered with small and mid-sized towns, with people traveling back and forth between them on a regular basis. But now, the farms that had once dotted the landscape had mostly been abandoned, sometimes with the machinery still in the fields. Looking out from the highway, you could see the rusted tractors, harvesters and balers just sitting in the field. Large rolls of hay lay where they’d been baled, looking black because they’d been sitting out for years in the sun and rain and had begun to decompose. People had abandoned outdoor activities by the hundreds; they were just too dangerous to pursue. A lot of farm families had nearly starved, before completely abandoning their land to come east to what they thought was safety. Some had even made it.

We drove on the Trans Canada highway, which turned into Route 117 as it curved its way across Canada. First east, then southeast, we drove on, and I sat looking out the window at the mostly abandoned fields and farms. At midday, we stopped in a small town to fuel up and ask questions at a small minimart. That was where they caught us. I think they’d been following us the entire time we drove. How they could have moved so fast was a mystery to us, but somehow the zombie horde led by the zombie king ambushed us. Again.

“What?” DeAndre exclaimed in a higher than normal voice as he looked out the back window. “You have got to be kidding me!” he scrambled to open the door to the SUV and yelled for us all to get our rears back into the vehicle, that danger was coming.

Danger. You could call it that. Personally, I felt hunted. This damned horde of zombies had followed me across hundreds of miles of Canada and was trying again?

I jumped into the SUV with Zach, my energy drink and bag of chips still in one hand as I reached out with the other and slammed the door shut. Jonathan and Dad had hustled in as well, and we all reflexively brought our hand down on the door locks all around us. 

“I don’t believe it,” Dad said, looking out the side window as he started our vehicle. It was a very well put together machine, and had been retrofitted with all kinds of protections. Still. I wasn’t the only one who’d feel better putting as much distance between us and the zombies as possible.

The mass of moving zombie flesh was still a quarter of a mile away, but they were moving fast, down a hill and straight toward us. 

Other patrons of the gas mart saw what was coming and, amid a series of sudden exclamations and wordless shouts, hustled to their vehicles, or in one case, a motorcycle, and we all went screeching out of that parking lot.

A block from the store, most of the vehicles had peeled off onto side streets. We continued down the main highway, Dad flooring it while the rest of us buckled up and then turned to watch the advancing horde. It seemed we were leaving it behind, which was a very, very good thing. I should have known not to let down my guard. We all should have known.

SCREECH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“OH HOLY HELL!”

We all felt the SUV fishtail as Dad tried to regain control of the vehicle, then...

BANG!

BANG!!!

BANGBANGBANG!!!!!!!

THUD!!!!!

As I turned back to sit forward, I felt the blood drain out of me in white-faced shock.

Looking forward out the front windshield, I could see hundreds of zombies pouring out of the side streets, from behind buildings, even up from manhole covers. They moved like lightning, and within seconds, we were surrounded.

To Dad’s credit, he kept us moving forward. We were going about fifty miles per hour, and before long, we were not only driving over zombie bodies, and through zombies we hit with our front bumper, they were also swarming on top of us. Dad had to swerve back and forth to get them off the windshield. But for each monster we hit and ran over, or swerved and flung off our roof and windshield, three replaced it.

It was a nightmare.

The SUV bounced from side to side, careening almost out of control with Dad’s effort to get us free out of this obviously planned and well thought out ambush. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckled fists, a determined look on his face. The rest of us watched, speechless, as the zombies swarmed over us like ants over a beetle. We knew if we slowed down at all, or, unthinkably, stopped all together, we were dead.

It was as simple as that. Keep moving or die.

For a while it looked as though we were going to make it. The SUV was built like a tank, with heavy truck tires on a wide wheel base and armor plating with bulletproof windows. Then...

“What’s that ahead?” DeAndre exclaimed from the front passenger seat.

Did you know that zombies could build roadblocks?

Neither did I.

A two foot high pile of tree trunks and boulders reached from one end of the street to the other, about fifty yards ahead of us. We were still in the little town, just on the outskirts, in fact, and those monsters had built a flippin’ road block.

There were more zombies coming out of the side streets, blocking us in, forcing our hand.

I felt myself grinding my teeth until they hurt, and gripping the seat back in front of me with a death grip.

It was an incredibly tense moment.

At the last minute, Dad cranked the wheel and shot down the right hand side street just before the roadblock. I felt the SUV start to tip onto two wheels as it struggled to maintain its grip on the road. Tires squealed, and we instinctively leaned to our right, into the turn.

After what seemed like forever, the tires touched down and found purchase, and the SUV jumped forward, zombies bouncing off the sides as it went. Dad floored it, and the vehicle shot down the street like it had been propelled by a slingshot.

It was like a roller coaster ride in the strongest vehicle we’d ever used, driven by the most bad-ass race car driver on the planet, going top speed through rough terrain and the world’s scariest obstacle course, all while being pursued by the hounds of hell themselves.

It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

Dad was becoming adept at driving through this nightmare, adapting to the changing waves of monster flesh as it came from this direction, then that direction.

At one point, after swerving around a huge bunch of zombies that reached two stories tall, and bouncing off a smaller bunch to propel us back on course, I heard myself let out a “Whoop!” of excitement at the thrill of the ride.

______________

As we drove, the zombie horde started thinning out, until there were no more of the things in front of us. We sped down three more side streets and then hit the main road out of town. We’d gone about five miles on this route, without seeing any other zombies, when the road ended and Dad was forced to turned right down a seemingly deserted side street that curved down to the right and tilted downhill and then came to an abrupt dead end.  Abandoned construction materials lay just beyond a solid looking wooden and steel barrier, waiting for a crew that would likely never show up to finish the job.

“Oh, man,” Dad said under his breath, bringing the vehicle to a stop against the left curb. He quickly executed a three point turn, and we were soon facing back the way we had come. 

We idled there for ten seconds, facing the uphill curved street, and then started up it. As the SUV reached the top of the short hill, the view came into focus and we all saw what was there. 

Dad cursed under his breath and looked to his right and left for an alternative way out. 

Zach beside me ducked his head to get a better look out the front windshield. I was already hunched down to see better, and I couldn’t believe our bad luck.

Staring back at us was a crowd of about a hundred zombies, all just standing there staring at us, not growling, not yelling. Just standing there.

It was like a standoff.

We waited to see what they would do.

A gap of about forty yards stood between our front bumper and the zombies. They stood about ten or fifteen yards across, and at least three or four bodies deep.

“What on earth...?” Dad finally said under his breath, leaning and looking closer.

“What?” I asked, trying to see what he saw.

“Jake, what do you see?” DeAndre said quietly.

“I’m not sure...” Dad leaned closer, his face over the dashboard, staring out at the zombies gathered in front of us.

By this time, at least five minutes had passed, with not a movement from the crowd standing in front of us.

We all just sat there, watching the monsters, waiting for something to happen.

“What are they doing?” Jonathan whispered.

“No idea...” I answered.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” said DeAndre in a quiet voice. “After what we just plowed through, I just can’t quite believe my eyes.”

Dad had a worried look on his face, looking out on the intense threat these creatures represented. Blocking us in the way they had, with no way out, they had us trapped as sure as if we had our backs to the wall at the end of a dark alley. They had chased us, trying to stop our vehicle, even jumping on top of it to try and stop us. And now they had us trapped.

They knew we were trapped. There was no way they didn’t. They had evolved almost into animals, clever, crafty, intelligent animals that could herd prey in a certain direction, inducing panic, drive their quarry forward, and then, finally, back them into corner. Like rats in a cage.

We sat there. Watching each other. Five minutes stretched into ten. Then into fifteen. And then...

“What ...?” DeAndre sat forward with a start. Dad grabbed the steering wheel tighter, and we all held our breath.

One zombie had separated itself from the crowd and was shuffling forward. It had once been an old woman, perhaps nearly sixty years old before it had turned. It looked like it hadn’t been a zombie for long. There was some mangling on its arm and dried blood on the side of its head, enough so we could see it across the now space that still separated us.

The zombie was dragging a blanket behind it on the street, filthy and tattered, but recognizable as having once been blue and green checkerboard. Then, it stopped and turned to look back at its brethren. They looked back, and then some of them did something astonishing. They gestured for it to keep moving forward.

“Will you look at that,” Dad said softly.

The zombie woman seemed to come to a decision and, turning back to face us, began moving slowly forward again. It shuffled along, and as it got closer, we could see it was dragging its leg slightly behind it, as if it had an old injury there from when it had been killed and turned, an injury that kept it from walking faster.

It was now thirty yards from us. Ten yards from its companions.

“What the heck are these things up to?” DeAndre whispered, his hand at his mouth in a gesture of astonishment.

“Be careful,” Jonathan said. “These creatures are not to be trusted, they are deadly, they have killed Sanctuary soldiers, they are trying to trick us.” He sounded almost angry as he spoke. I looked back at him and he looked into my eyes with unshed tears. I looked down and saw his arm was laid across Risa.

“Is she...?” I asked, fear rising in my chest. I felt a lump in my throat and couldn’t speak. I just looked into his eyes.

He looked back at the front seat, at Dad and DeAndre still contemplating the zombies in front of us, then back at me.

“She’s still alive, but she’s slipped into a coma. I can’t wake her up.” Tears finally broke and ran down his face. “I am just so, so tired of all this, Luke.” He dropped his face and wiped his tears and fell silent.

Swallowing hard, I studied the face of my sister, so still and pale in the stretcher at the back of the SUV. Jonathan had her strapped in good and tight, so she’d been relatively safe during our long, bumpy flight; but the rough ride had worsened her condition and her face was white as a ghost’s.

I felt my chest constrict with fear at losing Risa. 

“Jake!” I heard DeAndre exclaim from the front of the SUV, and I whipped my head around to see my dad taking off his seatbelt and reaching for the door handle.

The zombie was now halfway between us and the zombie crowd.

“Dad! What are you doing?”