Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (3 page)

The air was cool, as expected for a winter morning, but steam and exhaust from street vents remained inharmoniously absent. The buildings stood like temples, serenely quiet and forbidding. The street lights hung like dark, forlorn, hollow discs, useless now to a world that no longer needed this kind of direction. Square, plastic signs advertising the word “Open” hung in glass doors, beckoning customers who would not be coming to places like Marty’s Cleaners and Wright’s Pharmacy. Chicago had become one giant graveyard, so we tried our best to keep our eyes on Harrison and he kept his aimed straight ahead. Using his superb senses, the ones that the T1L2 virus enhanced in the Infected, he guided us through, tipping his nose back when needed to discern a smell, tilting an ear up when he needed confirmation. He was stunning to watch.

We deviated from the sidewalk only once. Milton’s Coffee Shop had an Open sign and a glass window stretching along its entire storefront, giving us a good view of what was inside. The tables were empty, some overturned, but nothing moved. We took this as a good sign and entered. None of us had eaten in twenty-four hours and petite, little Mei, whose tiny stomach made a surprisingly loud shout out, reminded us of it. Milton had apparently been trying to compete equally with Starbucks and 7-11, offering freshly ground coffee in an environmentally-friendly atmosphere without excluding the crowds who still loved their processed, prepackaged pastries. The food was stacked on metal displays at the register and because they were vacuum-sealed and filled with preservatives, mold hadn’t yet grown inside their protected, little worlds. Harrison signaled for me and Beverly to keep watch at the door as he headed to cover the kitchen door, which allowed Doc and Mei to pounce on the cinnamon breakfast cakes like hyenas finding prey on the grasslands. In the middle of their chewing, they shoved the remaining packages in their pockets, blissful and oblivious to their surroundings. If Mei hadn’t dropped a package of krimpets we might have lost her right there. The crunching sound of weighted down plastic hitting the floor drew our attention, and we weren’t the only ones. As she bent to pick it up, the kitchen’s swinging door came into view along with the realization that it was opening from the other side. Through it, I first saw a back door opened to an alley, but something quickly blocked that view. A heavyset Milton, still wearing his stained apron, sprinted out, his belly swinging from side to side as he went directly for Harrison. With Mei out of sight, Harrison seemed to be the closest target.

I swung the rifle to my shoulder and took aim, but I was too late.

Milton had reached him.

The man’s weight and momentum caused Harrison to brace his back leg but he held his position, taking the full force like he was a wall of concrete. His hands at the man’s throat kept the snapping jaws aside, but they were close, too close. The growls and strikes of bone against bone as Milton edged closer to Harrison brought out a whole new level of panic.

Mei scurried backwards on her hands so fast she became a blur. Doc angled around Milton to scoop her up and haul her to safety behind me, wide-eyed and frantic. Beverly screamed, forgetting in that moment the importance of staying quiet in a city full of Infected. From that point, it was only a matter of time before Milton’s friends arrived.

Harrison used his own body weight to pivot Milton to the side, making him an easier target. Still, it wasn’t good enough. One quick motion and Milton could swing Harrison into the shot.

I kept my aim, waiting.

“Shoot!” Doc yelled. “Shoot, damn it!”

“He’s too close to Harrison!”

But Beverly had seen enough, the height of the moment was too much for her, and she released a scream that filled the coffee shop and resounded in my ears. “SHOOOOOOOOOOT!”

Nevertheless, it was Harrison who convinced me. “I…,” he grunted, “trust…you…”

Please, God, please
…I prayed as I exhaled, found Milton’s head, and squeezed the trigger.

I never heard the muzzle blast. What registered with me were the few seconds that followed it. They were silent, like the stillness so present in the streets now.

Milton tipped to the side in slow motion, falling like a sycamore tree having been cut at the base. His growls were silenced; his jaws were no longer snapping but hanging loosely as they trailed the rest of his body to the floor.

Harrison didn’t bother to observe the fall.

“Are you all right?” I asked. I think Doc asked the same question in unison.

“Yes,” he said, swinging his head toward the street outside.

“He went right for you…,” Mei noted, in awe of it all.

He didn’t acknowledge her. In fact, he entirely ignored any reference to what just happened.

There wasn’t any time for it. Given Harrison’s alert expression, he knew what was coming long before any of us, and it wasn’t comforting to him. He had launched into contemplating a plan that would get us to safety.

“Oh no…” Beverly exhaled, having picked up on his behavior.

“We need to get out of the city,” he mumbled without wasting words explaining further. He allowed his actions to express his uneasiness, slipping out the door and running in the direction we’d been going until a breeze picked up. It carried a discarded plastic bag into the corner of a building. By the time the bag hit the bricks, Harrison was sprinting. As we fled, I kept my eyes on him. I never saw the Infected but I heard them, hundreds of them, running so close that my less than superior hearing could easily pick it up. The echo of their hurried footfall resonated off the buildings around us, rattling windows and vibrating the pavement. The sound of it taunted me, bouncing from one place to another, avoiding any primary direction that would tell me where they were. Harrison took sharp turns through parking structures, around buildings, dodging them in a sick game of cat and mouse. Intermittently, he looked over his shoulder to make sure we were still behind him, his focus always seeking me out first. A few very long minutes passed before the sounds of the Infected gradually lessened and I heard nothing but our own footsteps. Still, Harrison kept us at that solid pace for several blocks until Beverly couldn’t go any farther and she ended up recovering in a curled pose against the side of a building. There, she caught her breath as Harrison tapped his senses for signs of the Infected, taking time at each street corner for assessment.

By the time Beverly was upright, he strode back to us and whispered, “We’re in the clear.”

“But not for long,” Doc said, keeping his voice low and his eyes on the end of the street.

“Beverly, can you walk?” Harrison asked.

Not wanting to expend the air her lungs still needed, she nodded.

For Beverly’s sake, we slowed our pace but didn’t stop again for a couple of miles, not until we were out of The Loop, Chicago’s main business district. Harrison returned to using the hand signals. Only Beverly had trouble following. She hadn’t been paying close attention when I’d instructed them, so I wasn’t expecting much from her, but usually when the person in front stops you do too. It’s an innate instinct, but not with her. She just kept walking until her face planted right into the neck of the person before her. It got to the point that Mei eventually slipped around behind her so that I was left to deal with Beverly alone. It wasn’t until I glanced around to find her peering inside cars for keys that I understood. Beverly was slender, built by undeveloped muscles, and had the misfortunate of wearing heels the day of the outbreak. So, walking wasn’t ideal for her, and our sprint earlier didn’t help much either. Nonetheless, she hadn’t yet identified that she didn’t have an option but to walk and I was left wishing there were a hand signal that said “Stop that, you idiot”. Unfortunately, I had only been trained on basic instructions. Then we reached The Ike, the I-290 freeway, and her effort came to a halt.

Stretching into the horizon, the freeway could no longer be seen. It was as if someone had replaced it with a multi-colored ribbon laid across the landscape.

The five of us didn’t move, absorbing the spectacle for what it was…a traffic jam unlike any I’d ever seen.

“People…,” Doc muttered before catching himself.

Beverly figured she’d go ahead and finish the statement for him, which the rest of us could have lived without.

“Tried to flee.”

“They…,” Mei said, pausing to draw in a ragged breath before continuing. “They opened both sides for traffic.”

We let this sink in, grasping the full meaning of it. Someone, undoubtedly in the midst of sheer panic, had the forethought to give these people a broader opportunity to reach safety. I wonder whether he or she survived. They should pin a metal on that person.

Beverly suddenly threw her hands up and slapped them down on her thighs in frustration, startling the rest of us. “Well, that’s just great. Look at this… Nice of them to leave the roads clogged for us…”

We turned in stunned silence to find her shaking her head, equally as bewildered as her, but for a dramatically different reason.

“Really?” Doc asked.

We’d witnessed her insensitivity on other occasions but Doc was correct. This time was staggeringly appalling.

“These people,” Doc began, stopping momentarily as he attempted to swallow back his anger. Unable to contain it any longer, he continued in an enraged whisper, “WERE RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES, BEVERLY!”

“Yeah,” she replied before stepping onto the highway, taking care not to dirty her heels in the strange brown substance tarnishing the concrete, “Well, they didn’t get far.”

“Again,” Doc growled over his shoulder at us, “I’m wondering why we didn’t leave her at school.”

“I heard that!” Beverly said, now two cars away.

“You were meant to,” Doc snapped back, and Mei placed a hand on his arm to settle him down. It seemed to do the trick. He closed his eyes for a second, took in a deep breath, and shrugged it off—although his upper lip remained curled as he began to make his way through the cars.

It was a solid plan, moving on. The sooner we got to the next town, the sooner we might find safety. That idea seemed laughable, given that we were exposed and traipsing through the Land of the Infected, but it was the only motivator we had so I shamelessly convinced myself of its certainty. So we walked, between cars, keeping our eyes open for any movement. When we saw it, when the solitary Infected or disorganized groups of them stumbled into our view, we motioned to the others to take cover. Apparently, the Interstate no longer appealed to them as a source for potential food because most we saw roamed the streets below us. As we walked, I peered inside cars for supplies, specifically weapons. The others did the same, except when we came across the vehicles with bodies. Those were left to Harrison.

Eventually, the number of vehicles tapered off, revealing gaps between them and even a clear path. At that point, Harrison tried the key of a rusting 1990s Ford Explorer. It turned over and the look on Beverly’s face was pricelessly sad, a blanket of weary relief.

We cut directly across the rest of the metro area, dodging two packs of Infected that heard the engine and came at us. Other than those ten people total, we didn’t see another soul, making me feel like we existed in a vacant, hollow bubble sheltered from the rest of the world. Even as we took the I-294 South, through the suburbs, and onto the I-80 East we remained disturbingly alone. Just past Portage, we ran out of gas. It was back to walking then, checking sporadically for another ride only to leave us with fading hope after each failed attempt.

There wasn’t much conversation, which I blamed on the exhaustion all of us were feeling, but we kept pace with each other. Doc and Mei remained very near each other’s side. Harrison did the same with me, remaining closely attentive to my pace and responding to every one of my glances with one of his own. He seemed to want to say something but hesitated each time, so we walked quietly, watching the horizon, until late afternoon. Then Harrison stepped closer to me for a more private conversation. “Thank you.”

“For?”

He swung his head to the right and scanned the edge of the trees in the distance. “Your aim back there.”

“Oh,” I chuckled. “You can thank my dad for that…”

He smiled at me. “Already have.”

A few cars later, he spoke again. “I knew you could do it, Kennedy.”

I chuckled, my tone steeped in sarcasm. “You know it’s you who should be carrying this weapon.”

“No, I don’t know that. You’re efficient; more than anyone else who I’ve ever seen hold one. You have skill and control-”

“To a far lesser extent than you. A group’s only weapon should be carried by the most able body, Harrison. Besides, I have my throwing stars,” I added with a pat to the hip pocket where they lay.

Harrison tilted his head to frown at me to convey my argument had holes.

He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and started again. “You’re in greater danger than I am, Kennedy.”

“How can you say that? You’re right here with us. If danger comes at us, it’s coming at you too.”

He sighed, in almost a painful way. “Trust me, Kennedy. You are in greater danger. Keep the rifle.”

“Cupcake anyone?” Doc offered from behind us, and I had the instinct it was in an effort to change the conversation.

“No,” I said and snapped my mouth shut.