Omega Pathogen: Despair (23 page)

“Hold the ladder!” Jim yelled. The man reached over the windowsill, his armpits resting on it as his large arms reached down and held the top of the ladder and stopped its movement.

Jim was at the midway point when he heard Chris or Jeremy yell, “Runners!”

Then came the sound of multiple gunshots from below. Jim stopped his ascent and looked down at the roof of the MRAP. Both Chris and Jeremy each held the ladder with one hand and with the other shot infected that continued to throw themselves out the second and third story windows at his sons.

Although most were shot and then fell to the ground, some got too close as they jumped without fear towards Chris and Jeremy from the windows and landed on the edge of the MRAP’s roof. They were shot down and stopped moving or joined others that fell off or clung on to the edges of the roof of the vehicle and tried to crawl up.

As he looked down it didn’t take Jim long to know it was only a matter of time before one or both of his sons was dragged or fell from the roof of the vehicle to be eaten alive or infected.

“Chris. Jeremy. Let go of the ladder!” Jim yelled.

Neither looked up but they both yelled “No!” and kept firing.

“Please don’t let go,” Jim said as he looked up at the man holding the ladder.

Jim wrapped an arm around the ladder and held on tight. “Kathy, please drive out of here before Chris and Jeremy get killed,” Jim radioed.

Kathy didn’t reply, she immediately drove forward, scraping the ladder across the roof of the MRAP as she moved.

Jim then had a terrifying though,
what if they still hold on while she’s moving
?

They tried at first to keep their grip on the ladder but they had heard their father’s radio transmission. They let go and both looked up at their father. He could see the frustration on their face but also understanding. 

“You got to climb! I can’t hold you much longer!” The man yelled down at Jim. He hung out the window past his chest now, gripping the ladder.

Jim holstered his pistol and climbed. The ladder was jostled by the impact of infected as they lunged for it. Jim tried not to, but he looked down each time the ladder shook.

He felt the ladder shake again from an impact while he climbed, and Jim looked down and saw two infected climbing over each other and up the ladder behind him. Jim looked up and could see the added strain on the man’s face as he fought to hold on. His jugular veins and those in his large arms distended from the exertion as he held the weight of three moving people.

“Hurry, man! I’m going to flip over!” the man yelled out in pain and desperation.

Jim reached the top and the only way in the window was to climb over the man holding the ladder. Jim did his best not to step on the man as he climbed in the window and over his shoulder.

As soon as Jim was more than half way in the window the big man let out a loud groan as he dropped the ladder. It and the two infected fell to the ground below.

Jim got to his feet and looked to his right to thank the man, and noticed the man was in a wheelchair. The man had his head up and his mouth open as he gasped for air.

Through the gasps he said, “I’m Frank. You must be Jim,” and extended his right hand that shook from the extreme exertion.

Jim took the hand and shook it. At the same time he shook Frank’s hand, he made radio contact with Kathy and his sons to make sure they were okay.

“Yes, I am. Thank you Frank,” Jim said and then started to try and think of a new way out.

Jim looked around the room and saw what Frank had meant about the not being able to climb down the ladder. With his strength Jim didn’t doubt Frank would have been capable but there was an ongoing struggle for two men and a woman that held the room’s door closed. The woman sat on the floor and leaned against the door as the men stood and leaned against it. They shook in rhythm with the door as it was pounded from the other side. If they let go the door would instantly come down.

Jim noticed the stench of urine and feces. He gagged several times before he stuck his head out the open window seeking fresh air.

“Couldn’t waste water on flushing. You know?” Frank said.

Jim nodded as he gagged again and regained his composure.

Jim offered the survivors water from his CamelBak. Frank politely declined but the others thanked him as he moved close to each of them so they could drink from the tube connected to the pack. They still had a supply of food but no more water.

“Where are the others?” Jim asked.

“We’re all that’s left now,” Frank answered and quickly introduced the others.

The woman’s name was Erika and the other two men were Josh and Sean.

Josh and Sean were traveling to Florida from Michigan to visit their mother when the outbreak occurred and had forced them to hole up in the hotel.

Erika had been with her husband and daughter when they escaped the infected in Tampa, south of their current location. They had stopped at the gas station across the street from the hotel to scavenge for supplies when they were attacked by infected.

Erika’s daughter and husband were killed and she was chased inside the hotel. Frank had lived nearby and witnessed Erika and her family being attacked. He had left the relative safety of his home to try and help the family, and became trapped with her and the others.

Jim looked around the room and the adjoining one for possible ideas on a way out. He looked through the peephole in both doors. He couldn’t tell the exact number of infected that were packed in the hallway, but knew there were too many for the hall to be an option.

Jim looked out the windows and saw what he didn’t want, but had expected. The dark skies from the rainstorm had brought out more infected. The quick ones weren’t hidden in the darkness anymore.

Out the north-facing window, he noticed a lower roof over the main entryway to the hotel for shielding guests from the elements as they drove up and checked in or out. It was below and to the left of the room that they were in. 

“Ideas, Jim?” Frank asked and moved over to the battered door to help the others. He climbed out of his wheelchair and braced the door with one arm and the other arm against the wall.

“Is there another room next door?” Jim asked and pointed to the wall.

“Yeah. Why?” Erika asked.

“I think we can get out that way,” Jim answered.

“Did you guys go over there and scavenge stuff? Do you know if the hall door is closed?” Jim asked.

“It should be empty,” Sean answered.

“Why?” Erika asked again.

“If we can get in that room we can break its window and get out. We can drop down to the lower roof and then onto the MRAP,” Jim replied.

Before Jim finished his plan he had already started swinging the Halligan tool at the wall. Soon he had a hole made through to the other room. He looked through and saw no infected, and saw that the room's door to the hall was closed.

The door the others were trying to hold gave way more, and probing fingers reached through. The infected seemed spurred on by the noise Jim had to make to try and get them out. He continued to bash through the wall more frantically.

He felt like it took forever before he had finally made a hole big enough for them to crawl through to the other room. He bent over with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. Sweat poured off his face and down and into his eyes. Still breathing heavily, Jim called Kathy and quickly told her the plan.

Jim crawled through the hole to the adjoining room. The window wasn’t a type meant to be opened, so with a swing and then a few jabs of the Halligan tool, he had broken out most of the glass. He hastily cleared away as much of the glass as he could to try and lessen the chances of anyone slicing open their flesh on the way out. He went back to the room where the others desperately braced the door.

Jim asked the others for ideas but they had exhausted any that they had long before he arrived. He looked for a way to jam the door closed with the Halligan tool but nowhere would hold it long enough.

“Drop one of those HE and a frags in my lap and you guys get going, Jim.” Frank said as he looked up at Jim.

Jim looked at Frank, his expression questioning his logic.

“Leave the pins in. I’ll take those out myself.” Frank said.

Jim shook his head and kept looking for options. “Not what I was thinking, Frank. Let me look for another way," Jim said.

“I’m bit, Jim. I already feel it. It happened not long before you climbed up here,” Frank said.

Jim looked Frank over head to toe and noticed the blood seeping through Frank’s jeans on his left shin. “

Well. Shit. Okay, Frank,” Jim said.

Kathy radioed that she was ready.

Jim braced the door and told Erika and the two other men to get to the next room and out the window to the MRAP while he and Frank held the door. 

“You better go too, Jim,” Frank said. The door was forced inward another foot. They tried but Jim and Frank only pushed it back only about four inches. More hands reached inside, probing for someone to grab.

Jim moved closer and leaned his shoulder against the door as he pulled out a high explosive and a fragmentation grenade and placed them in Frank’s lap. It was then that Jim noticed the Eagle, Globe and Anchor tattoo on Frank’s left forearm.

“Thank you, Frank,” Jim said and rushed for the hole in the wall.

Jim got to the window and saw Erika, Sean, and Josh still on the roof below.

“Go!” Jim yelled down at them as he climbed out and lowered himself before dropping another four or five feet to the next roof. Jim was rising from a squatted position when he heard Erika shriek and Josh and Sean yelling.

Jim turned around and saw Erika lying on her front on the wet angled roof with her head toward the infected below. Sean had her by an ankle and Josh held onto the peak of the roof with one hand and the other held Sean by his waistband.

Chris and Jeremy stood on the roof of the MRAP and continuously fired at infected. There was nothing else they could do.

Jim moved toward them as quickly as he could without sliding off the roof himself. As he got closer to Josh, he jumped the remaining few feet and reached for him as Josh started to slide. Jim grabbed air.

Josh’s grip on the roof had failed. He fell on top of Sean and Erika, on top of the infected on the pavement below. Their bodies were quickly obscured as the infected attacked. Hands and mouths tore at them as they screamed. Before Jim could get to his feet, the screaming had stopped.

Jim jumped down to the roof of the MRAP, where Chris and Jeremy waited to catch him. As he regained his balance from the landing he thanked his sons.

“We couldn’t do anything for them,” Chris said as he motioned his head to where the three had fallen.

“I know, son,” Jim said and he hurried them down into the MRAP.

The concussion from explosions a second apart shook the MRAP. Kathy had already been rolling forward as they climbed inside.

Jim sank into a seat in the back of the vehicle. “They’re all gone. Let’s go home,” Jim said. He slid off his cap and held his bowed head in his hands. 

Chapter 28

“You’re all wrong!” George shouted. He rocked back and forth on the small sofa in the RV. His hands shook as he twisted open the bottle of risperidone.

“You’re weak, that’s why you need the pills,” the voices repeated and then faded.

George tapped out some pills and gulped down four tablets before he replaced the cap.

He searched for the lorazepam in the box of medicines that lay at his feet. That one had helped him relax before.

“They all want to kill you! They are all sick with the infection! You stupid shit! You’re blind! You’re ignorant! You can save the whole word but what do you do? Nothing!” The voices yelled at him. Jumbled, overlapped and repetitive.

George squeezed his eyes closed and clasped his head in his hands. After awhile, he didn’t know how long, the voices faded. They became barely audible, mumbled screams in the back of his brain.

George still heard them, but they grew more indistinct.

He concentrated hard to keep them at bay. He told himself he needed the medication to help him.

The others told him he didn’t. They told him how it clouded his ability.

George finally succeeded in muzzling them, at least for a while. They were quieted.

He opened the second bottle and dumped two tablets in his hand and then into his mouth.
I can control them
, George thought. He stood and quickly paced the floor of the RV.

Arzu and Linda hovered over Marlene’s small desk in the Yates’ home. They waited anxiously for another update from their family. They had overheard the radio traffic on the Ham radio between Jim and those trapped in the hotel before he had gone in, but nothing since.

In an attempt to occupy their minds, Linda and Arzu, with the help of Royce, started preparations for dinner. They were busy doing something and still close by the radio.