Medora: A Zombie Novel (27 page)

“Okay, that means her street is just one block that way
,” she said, pointing to the right. “Take the next right that you can and I’m pretty sure we’ll be on her street.” She turned around, looked behind the car, and saw several large fires in the distance.

“I got a better idea,
so bring your head in,” Keith said. He turned the wheel towards a house on the right, brought the car up over the front lawn and burst through the fence leading to the backyard. The car thumped briefly into the air as it ran over the collapsed fence. He continued the car forward into the other side of the backyard and slammed through the opposing fence, scattering shards of wood across the front of the car.

They came through the backyard of the adjacent ho
use. Keith stuck his head out and saw a thick metal-barred fence that led to the street. He slammed on the brakes and stopped the car in the yard.

“I don’t think this little car is going to make it through that fence.” He turned to the back seat and looked around. “Are you sure that this is the street?”

“Yes, I know this is it.”

“Alright, I think we should just go on foot. I don’t see many of them around here. I think we can make it to the house.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” She opened the glove box and found a flashlight.

“Looks like these people came prepared
,” Keith said, producing a large crowbar from the back seat. “Man, this thing is heavy.” He lifted it to the front seat and opened the door. “Okay, let’s go.”

The dark yard was surprisingly clear of any people. Keith stepped over a bundle of fence wood next to the car and headed over to the steel gate leading to the other street. Opening the latch, they exited together with slow footsteps, surveying the new street ahead of them. Ellen stopped and placed her hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“Maryanne,” she said.

“Who?”

“The little girl who was stuck in the other fridge with me. We should’ve brought her with us, Keith.”

“Oh, that’s right. I completely forgot about her.” He paused and looked down. “Maybe she was able to get away with some of those other teachers. It was so hard, Ellen
. We barely even knew what we were doing… it was such a mess. I already feel like such a bastard for so many things that I’ve done today.”

She looked out over the dark street
. “It looks like the power has gone out on this street. Come on; let’s go shine the light on the street sign right over there to make sure we’re in the right place.”

They moved quietly down to the street. “The explosions closer to the school must be drawing all of the infected people over that way.”

“Here it is,” said Ellen. She shined the flashlight on the street sign above them. “Oh, thank God, it’s the right one, Brady Street.”

“What was the number on her house?”

“215.”

“Well, what’s the number on this house here?”

“I don’t know,” she said in an annoyed tone. “Let’s go look, Keith.”

Cautiously,
she walked out to the curb where a postal van lay on its side. The street was covered in letters and packages that blew from the opened back doors. Ellen started kicking the letters away from the curb, searching for the numbered address and finally found it with her flashlight: 219.

“Keith! This is 219. That means…” she looked over at the house at the right. “That’s the one
right there. That’s Miss Stutson’s house. I can’t believe it’s just right here.”

“Is that way west?”

“Yes, come on.”

They walked through the dark yards between the two homes looking out over the street for any movement. Keith held the heavy crowbar
with both arms in front of him as they approached the house. Ellen kept the flashlight off.

“Keith,” she said to him
. “I’m so tired.”

“I
know, me too.”

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know, but we need to get into that…” he paused as an explosion sounded in the distance. “I think the bombings are getting more frequent, don’t you?”

“I don’t know
. I can barely think right now.”

They
went up to the front steps and stopped. Keith took the light from Ellen’s hand and shinned it up on the front awning. It said 215.

“She’s in there
,” he said and swiftly walked up the steps. Ellen stayed behind and sat on a step.

“I’m so
weak, Keith. I need water. I…”

Coming back down the
step, he put his arm around her. “Okay, honey, let’s just get you inside. It looks pretty clear from out here.”

“I was electrocuted.”

“What? How?” He stroked the side of her head.

“A power line fell on me.”

“Oh my gosh, we need to get you a lot of fluids right now. Come on.” He picked her up in his arms, wincing at the thought of his wife being electrocuted, and walked to the front door. Looking into the side windowpane, he only saw darkness. Placing Ellen down at the side of the door, he shinned the flashlight in and saw only the red wooden surface of some sort of furniture that had been placed to block the door. He turned to the door and tried the knob but it was locked, so he tried knocking but received no response.

“Okay.” Keith lifted the crowbar to the doorknob and thrust it forward into the wood around the lock. After several
blows, the lock came free from the wood and Keith kicked in the door, making whatever piece of furniture there was slam down on the hardwood floor of the foyer. He pushed the door forward and looked around with the light, finding no movement.

Bending over, he lifted Ellen in his arms and
carried her into the house laying her on a couch in the living room. The home appeared undisturbed.

“Hello?” Keith said loudly at the house, holding his crowbar tightly. He was only answered by silence.

He turned the corner from the room, walked into the dark kitchen and flipped on the flashlight. The light bounced around the room, reflecting off thousands of shards of broken glass. There were back patio double doors that had been busted inward with the glass panes shattered. A kitchen table was pushed to the side of the kitchen on its side. Keith set the flashlight on the kitchen counter, held his crowbar in front of him and crept forward slowly. The floor in front of the double doors came into view. It was covered in blood. A body lay in the middle of the blood and glass. Keith approached it silently and nudged the shoulder with his shoe. There was no movement. He crouched down with flashlight and got a better look. The body appeared to be an older man with a gunshot entry at his right temple.

Unwilling to investigate further, he went to the refrigerator, found several bottles of water and took them to Ellen in the other room.

“Hey, hey, wake up, wake up,” he said to her. Her eyes were lazily moving around the room, attempting to focus on Keith. “I’ve got a lot of water, you should drink as much as you can.”

“Jayne?” Ellen asked.

“I don’t know, I haven’t even looked. There’s a body in the kitchen but it’s not Miss Stutsen. You just stay here. I’m going to search the house, okay?”

She said
nothing, took the bottle from Keith’s hand, and began to drink slowly. “Go, look,” she said and continued drinking.

A sudden and frightful urgency ran through Keith’s body. He quickly left the room with the flashlight and began searching every room on the main floor. The kitchen was
empty, except for a dead body. There was an untouched and dusty living room with no movement. He found a laundry room with the washer and dryer stacked on top of each other blocking the door to the outside patio. The garage was surprisingly clean without large tool cabinets or any other sign that a man lived in the home. There was a single suburban SUV from what Keith guess was the late eighties. He quickly shined the flashlight in the windows of the vehicle and saw nothing.

Returning to the main
floor, he ran up the stairs, skipping steps until he was at the top. He faced a short hallway from which several rooms led. The master bedroom had a neatly made bed, a closet with what Keith thought was an enormous amount of shoes, and a small bathtub with no small child hiding in it. After looking under the bed, he returned to the hallway and quietly spoke Jayne’s name with no response.

“Jayne!” He finally yelled. He quietly waited with no response and then went on to the next room.

Downstairs, Ellen finished her third bottle of water and slowly got to her feet, testing to see if she would faint. She managed to stabilize herself on the side of the couch while looking out the window onto the dark street. She was surprised by the silence in the house. Her head pounded and her shoulder ached from where she was bitten. Turning towards the staircase, Keith came stomping down.

“There’s no one here.” He walked across the foyer
. “I’ve looked in every room.”

Ellen stood in the hallway and looked at Keith’s face, darkened by shadows. Her head began to spin and she quickly sat down on the hard wood floor. Her thoughts became a tangential cascade of feverish worry and grief. She couldn’t hold onto any single thought, only a stream of the events of the day and paranoia of their situation. She tried
speaking, but only slurred words came out.

Keith picked her up and took her to the garage, her head and legs swaying with his footsteps. Opening the back door
of the suburban, he rested his sick wife in the back seat and closed the door.

Returning inside of the home, Keith found that his body was acting with little regard
to what his mind was thinking. He was at the refrigerator, collecting all usable food possible. He ransacked the cabinets and the pantry of canned goods and water bottles, putting them in the back of the suburban. Up in the bedrooms, he found sleeping bags, blankets and pillows. He went to the bathroom and threw shampoo, soaps and shaving supplies into a plastic laundry basket, and took it to the suburban.

What he wanted to do was find a sledgehammer and bring down the entire house to find his
daughter, but his body was rejecting his plans. The same surviving instinct that had made him leave a man to die in the subway earlier that day was driving him to abandon hope for his daughter and flee the city. Once again, he didn’t argue, he simply went from room to room gathering anything that they would need for their escape from the living hell that had become his life. He knew his daughter was gone and there was no way to look for her. The entire city was lost along with his daughter and he wanted to move on as quickly as possible.

After a while, he had the suburban packed full of supplies while his wife still slept in the back. He thought of how much braver she was and how she would be fighting for her daughter right now. She would be going from house to house, kicking in the
doors and yelling out her name all around the neighborhood.

Keith opened the garage door by hand and saw a few of the sick walking around the streets. He just stood and stared at them as they noticed his movements. For a
moment, he thought that they would stop and look at him, to give even one human thought about what they would do next. They didn’t stop or wait, but began walking toward him, some falling to their knees.

He sighed and slowly walked to the driver side of the car and looked back again, wanting them to be normal people for just a moment. Getting in, he started the engine with the radio coming to life. It was a small looped recording:

“This is not a test. Any New York area survivors are urged to report to Richmond, Virginia for medical treatment. If you have been bitten but have not shown signs of infection, please contact local authorities immediately or report to Richmond, Virginia.”

A small hope for the sick people in his rearview mirror began to grow in his mind. After all, he thought, I have a bitten wife who seems to be doing just fine. Stepping on the gas, he drove down the street and through a yard, searching for the river parkway.

“It’s because I don’t have to answer to you or anyone else in this unit. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I understand that and at this
point, I really don’t give a shit.”

“Anderson, as soon as we are back in Washington, you are no longer in this unit.”

“That’s not your call.”

“As soon as we get to Washington, the request will be made.”

Anderson was looking directly at Ortega inside the tiny cabin in the front of the Humvee. The rest of the vehicle had become silent as soon as the argument had erupted out of nowhere.

“That’s good then,” Anderson said
. “We’ll all have a little chat about what happened in Strykersville then. How does that sound? I wonder what they’ll think about pointlessly air striking a U.S. town.”

“I don’t have to explain my actions to you.”

“And don’t think I’m going to corroborate whatever bullshit story you come up with either.”

The two men then stopped talking and stared forward through the windshield as the Humvee sped down a long hill of the dark highway. The headlights provided small cones of light on the
quickly moving pavement.

Dave was beginning to understand Anderson’s blatant insubordination of Ortega. Ortega seemed to be improvising ever since they had been in
Strykersville. He had the team contain the infected in the town but then ordered an airstrike. A few hours earlier, he had them driving in the opposite direction and had them stop the Humvee and turn back towards D.C. without even a conversation with his little people in his mouthpiece. He was also constantly aggravated and kept yelling at the crew for not being quick enough to respond to his commands.

Ortega looked in his rearview mirror at the rest of the men. “We will be approaching Baltimore in forty five minutes. I’m getting reports that the edge of the D.C. outbreak is starting to encroach into Baltimore itself but the city hasn’t been totally compromised yet.”

Anderson interjected, “Are we ever going to get rid of this civilian? I mean, what the hell are we doing here?”

Dave looked over at Ortega.

Ortega was silent, as he looked out over the dashboard. “No, they need him in Virginia for research. There aren’t a lot of uninfected survivors from ground zero at the moment. I’ve been given direct orders to bring him with us.”

The Humvee continued forward as the men drove in silence. Signs of a large city began approaching along the
road; rest areas, gas stations and small shopping centers. There began to grow a constant stream of traffic in the opposite lanes of the freeway until a still standing traffic jam had formed of the city’s population making what Dave assumed was a mass exodus from Baltimore. It came as no surprise to him that the freeway leading into the city was completely empty. The Humvee drove along at over a hundred miles per hour.

Over another long hill, Dave could finally see the outline of the downtown
buildings, but it looked peculiar to him for a moment before he realized it was because most of the city lights were out. He had never seen an entire downtown of a city with all its lights out. The buildings appeared as large, looming mountains with a silence that he didn’t think was ever possible in a city. There were occasional spurts of shooting lights and the swift movement of large spotlights throughout the skyline.

Dave knew he should feel uneasy about going back into the heart of an infected city but a subtle calmness had overtaken him ever since he saw the power of what a small air strike can do. In the flash of a
moment, he saw a small town engulfed in destruction all from the commanding fingertips of Ortega. He had discovered an unexpected comfort from riding with Medora One; his new gun also helped. He had no idea how the infrastructure of the military worked, but he was getting the idea that Ortega was probably fairly high up the career rungs.

Approaching the downtown area, Dave could finally see signs of the infected. A random grocery store with
hundreds of the infected huddled around the front doors or a hotel tower with a few dozen people trapped on the roof, waving their arms at their military-appearing vehicle. He had already lived it less than a day ago. He had done the same thing and he knew the hot liquid terrors that all of those same trapped people were feeling now.

A large football stadium was quickly approaching on the side of the freeway. Up ahead, Ortega could see a long line of red taillights indicating an approaching traffic jam of people leaving the opposite side of the city. Dave could hear Ortega begin to yell at his radio as soon as he saw the traffic.

After a quick burst of communications, Ortega spoke to the unit. “Okay, I’m getting that all freeways are jammed into and out of the city at this point unless we turn around to try to circumvent Baltimore altogether. We’re not going to do that. I’ve been given coordinates for extraction just about two dozen blocks off the freeway from our current location.” Ortega turned to Anderson who was driving, “Get off on this next exit.”

Anderson nodded and turned down the exit ramp, into the neighborhood surrounding the football stadium. The streets ahead were darkened by the power outage making it hard to tell if the streets were clear or if they were amassed with a
horde of the infected. Anderson slowed the Humvee as it sped through traffic lights, relying on only the headlights to guide them forward. From the back window, the sidewalks looked empty to Dave. There were no people walking around, either sick or healthy.

“Do you know if there’s a blockade on this street or not?” Layton asked Ortega.

“I’ve no idea,” he grumbled.

The question was answered when moments later they could see large vehicles and barricades up ahead of them on the street. Closer overhead was the gigantic circular structure of the stadium, watching them from darkness.

They continued toward the barricade, when all at once, everyone saw a flash of colors in the headlights that at first confused and then simultaneously angered every person in the Humvee. Anderson stepped on the brakes, bringing them to a full stop. The colors of the British flag were plastered all over military vehicles that had created the barricade. A small jeep was already approaching them with a bright light shinning from a roof lamp.

“What the hell?” Clarence uttered.

“When and how did these sons of bitches get here?” Anderson asked Ortega.

“I know absolutely nothing about this.” Ortega quickly took off his seat belt and popped his door open, stepping out with his gun drawn at his side. A man
had also gotten out of the jeep and briskly walked up to Ortega.

“What in the hell are you people doing on American soil?” Ortega barked at him.

“Sir, you need to back away from this area immediately. We are about to perform a naval strike on the sports stadium,” the disheveled man replied in a British accent.

“Sports stadium?” Ortega scoffed at him.

“Yes, in five minutes, the British navy is going to fire directly into the stadium.”

“And why in the hell is it going to do that?”

“Because we’ve managed to barricade an enormous population of the infected in the stadium. It appears a game was happening during the immediate outbreak, sir.”

“And where did you summon the authority to come into our country and do this?”

“There is absolutely no time to debate this. The boat is going to fire in about fifteen minutes. I’m getting back in my jeep. I suggest you return to your vehicle and drive in the opposite direction.” The man turned around and walked back to the jeep, leaving Ortega standing motionless. There were few moments in his life that he would describe as baffling and he had just experienced one of those moments. The jeep drove off while Ortega squeezed his side gun, wondering and waiting. His mind searched for his next possible action and he was delighted and afraid of where it was taking him.

Returning to the Humvee, Ortega leaned into the cabin from the open window and stared at his unit with a blank expression. Anderson spoke up to him. “When did those bastards get here? Why didn’t they tell us?”

Ortega grabbed his radio headset through the window and put it on, walking away from the Humvee without responding to Anderson. The men could hear him shouting into the mouthpiece from the short distance where Ortega leaned on a large mailbox. After a few more moments of shouting and then silence, he returned to them and got in the Humvee.

“Alright, boys, those assholes right over there just waltzed into our country. They made no communication with Washington. They just brought their shitty little boats over here and decided that they were going to blow up M&T Stadium.”

“What?” Clarence interjected.

“Yeah, well the whole thing is full of infected people. Command just told me that an enormous outbreak happened during a game late last evening and the
National Guard managed to keep them in there and I think our British friends even managed to corral a significant number of sick people into there from the city.”

“Holy shit
,” Dave blurted out.

“Yeah, well anyway, we’re not going to let them do it
,” Ortega said with a casual defiant tone. “We’re going to sit for ten minutes, wait for backup and then we’re going to go have another little chat with those tarts.” He cleared his throat, produced a pack of cigarettes from his front pocket and put a cigarette in his mouth.

Dave could see the stark profile of Ortega’s face as he stared forward. His lips were pursed
tightly with a wisp of black facial hair sticking out from all angles around his mouth. His eyes were open and motionless while he meticulously brought the cigarette to his lips for a short puff. It was impossible for Dave to tell if the man was intently pondering his next actions or if his eyes had simply glazed over from stalling for time.

After several minutes of complete silence, Ortega spoke up
, “Clarence, get the anti-tank from the back.”

“Yes, sir.”
Clarence opened the side door, went to the back of the Humvee, and pulled out what Dave, as a civilian, could only recognize as a bazooka.

“Everybody out, let’s go!”

Dave stumbled out from the back of the Humvee and followed the unit to the nearest street corner where they huddled behind a group of parked cars lining the street curb.

“Boomtown, I want you down this alley down that way.” Ortega waved his hand behind the group to a small alley that led behind what appeared to be a bar. “Get back down that alley as far as possible and get into the building if you can
. Otherwise, go hide in a dumpster or something. Have your gun out and don’t be afraid to fire it.”

“Sir…” Anderson interjected, “where is our backup?”

“I don’t know. They said it could be delayed. We have to act now. They’re going to fire at the stadium any minute.”

“
Well, what the hell is attacking some ground crew going to do from stopping a naval ship from raining down over here?” Anderson stood up and approached Ortega.

Ortega leaned back from Anderson, brought back his elbow and punched him squarely on the side of his
face, making Anderson stumble backwards, tripping over Layton.

“You shut your mouth. I am in command and I will shoot your ass right now if you don’t shut the fuck up and do what I say. We would be dead right
now, if it weren’t for me. I got us out of Medora and Manhattan and I’m going to get us out of Baltimore too.”

“What are you talking about?” Anderson got back to his feet, rubbing his face. “We should’ve left New York long before you gave the command.
Instead, you had us searching some random hotel. What were you looking for or who are you looking for, Ortega? Who is so important that you’ve been putting all our lives at risk? Was it that guy on the plane? Let’s see that wallet that you have stashed away.”

Dave could now feel the strange tension growing in the unit as he watched the breakdown of the hierarchy. Ortega’s face had changed. It was no longer the stone cut countenance of
confidence, but had turned to the blank face of a man trying to orchestrate his next words very carefully. The meaning of Ortega hitting Anderson became clear to Dave. The unit wasn’t going to stay together much longer. Without further hesitation, Dave turned and ran down the alleyway and quickly realized that he did not have a flashlight. He began to walk slowly with his gun drawn, unsure if he could hear any sounds or not coming from the far end of the street. From behind him, he could hear the distant voices deliberating which sounded like most of the unit was now arguing.

Running past a few dumpsters, he could see the outline of an open door and quickly ducked into it. The entire room was completely dark except for a few small lights that where flickering in the back of the hallway, leading further into the building. He slinked
forward, slowly listening for any movements, while approaching what he saw were four little flames heating a stovetop. He was in the kitchen of a bar or restaurant.

Moving very quietly, he felt around the kitchen for something he could light with the flames and found a paper towel roll near a sink. He brought the whole roll down to the flames, which immediately caught and started lighting the kitchen up around him. He instantaneously realized his mistake when he saw movement from the corner of his eye and turned to see four figures walking towards him from the entrance of the alleyway.