The Demented: Confliction (2 page)

The three of them spent the entire day trying to find any
information they could on the internet, while wishing they could ignore the
screams that trickled in from outside.
They found bits and pieces of information, much of it conflicting.
  There were a few consistent parts and it
could be summed in one short sentence.
Something in the flu shot was causing people to go crazy with rage,
their hatred so consuming that they could do nothing but attack.
  Everyone was calling them either the infected
or the demented, neither of which fully described the crazy, rage filled
monsters. By the time dark hit they were
no longer finding any new information and no sites were posting updates.

The night was filled with the sounds of sporadic gunfire,
screams, growls, and occasional explosions.
They were the sounds of the city being torn apart.
  They all wondered what they would wake up to,
and the sounds at the bathroom door were not on any of their lists.

They all stood in the narrow hallway that led to the back
bathroom, squeezing together several feet back from the door.
  The slow, methodical
bang
continued from behind the thin door.
  With each pound at the door Jake flinched
instinctively.

“He was dead right?”
Nate whispered.

“I checked his pulse.”
Abby replied.

“His skull was bashed in.”
Jake said. “What do we do?”

“Leave him. Ain’t no
way I’m opening that door.” Nate said.

The pounding suddenly stopped and was replaced by a strange
grunting noise. It was loud, almost like
a dog’s bark.

“What the hell is that?”
Nate whispered.

Abby opened her mouth to respond, but before she could get a
word out something slammed into the front door, causing all of them to
jump. It began banging at the door.
  Rapid, relentless pounding.

Jake began to panic.
“What is that? Now what are we
going to do? I don’t want…”

Abby cut him off.
“The couch will hold. We have
time to figure this out.”

She left the narrow hallway and moved back into the living
room. One glance at the door told her
that they didn’t have much time. The
thin paneling was bulging inward with each thunderous
boom
. She rushed over to the
window and peered down at the street below.
Water no longer gushed from the hydrant.
Either someone had shut down the system or the huge tanks had run
dry. Several more bodies littered the
street and sidewalks. What was left of
an SUV laid on its side near the far end of the block, its charred hulk still
smoking. She didn’t see any movement,
just the aftermath of the night.

From behind her Nate said, “They’re about to break through
the door.”

“We have to go out the window.”
  Abby shouted loud enough to be heard over the
pounding at both doors.

“That’s twenty-five feet.”
Jake said.

“Those bushes will slow our fall and if we hang by the ledge
it’s…”

The door splintered inwards, a huge chunk of wood breaking
loose. Through the gap they could see a
blue shirt, stained with blood and grime.
An arm reached in through the opening, and then a head.
  It was a middle aged bearded man.
  His face was split open from ear to chin,
dark red blood oozed out of the vicious wound.
The gap was too narrow for Scarface’s other shoulder and arm to fit
through so he remained wedged partway through the door, his one arm reaching
out for the three of them. Hate filled
his red rimmed eyes. He must have had a
buddy because the door continued to get pounded on from the outside, continuing
to increase the size of the hole.

“Either we stand and fight or we go out the window.”
  Abby said.
She had been doing rigorous workouts at the local crossfit gym for
several years now, as well as training to give the Ninja Warrior competitions a
try. With this and her light frame, she
knew she could make the drop. It was the
other two she was worried about. “We
make the streets, we can run for it and maybe get some
weapons.”

Jake was terrified of heights, but didn’t want to show
it. “I say we fight.”

Knife held up in front of him, Nate said, “Are you serious…I
can’t fight with one of these. Let’s go
get some guns.”

Scarface was getting enough room to begin inching his way
through the gap in the door. Abby knew
what her decision was and this just got her moving.
  She pulled the latch on the window and slid
it out of the way. She kicked out the
flimsy screen. One leg at a time she
crawled out of the window and lowered herself until she was hanging fully
extended. She took a quick peek below
and was a bit shocked to see how far down it looked.
  Already committed she let go.

What surprised her most was how long it seemed to take to
fall. It felt like she had several
minutes to contemplate if this was the right choice or not, and then another
minute or so to wish she had stayed up in the apartment.
 
At
least if I break my legs Nate and Jake will know not to jump
.

Even with the large
bush slowing her fall, the impact was brutal.
She let her legs give way, buckling at the knees, and trying to roll
with the momentum, but the branches caught her up.
  They tore at her flesh, ripping away the
first few layers of skin. The cuts
stung, but were superficial. She was
much more concerned with her legs and mobility.
She pulled herself out of the tangled branches, and was glad to find
that her ankles and knees functioned without issue.

Before she had time to look back up at the window she heard
a loud
whumpf-thud
of someone else
crashing through the bush and hitting the ground.
  This was not followed by a scream of agony,
which she felt was a good sign. Nate’s
grimacing face popped out between the branches.
He was bloody and scratched, but otherwise in good shape.

He shook his head.
“Stupid bush.”

It was Jake’s turn.
They both looked up expectantly.
He was at the window, but hadn’t yet started to climb out.
  Instead he just stood there looking down at them.

Abby gave him a quick wave with her hand, a “come-on”
motion.

They could hear the sound of splintering wood, followed by a
loud growl. Jake turned away from the
window and screamed. Neither of them
could see what he saw. A dark form
slammed into him, sending both of them backwards into open air.
  His scream continued all the way to the
ground. Their momentum had taken both of
them beyond the forgiving branches of the shrub.
  Instead Jake landed hard on the cement
sidewalk. The impact made a dull
whump
along with a sharp
crack
that was surely the breaking of
bones. Scarface’s body landed on top of
Jake, but his head slammed into the concrete, crushing in his forehead.
  Both of them laid still.

Another man appeared in the window above.
  He let out a loud
bark
. The sound echoed off
nearby buildings. As if in response, the
morning erupted with shrieks and howls from all directions.
  The man quit barking and then leapt out the
window toward them. Nate jumped back to
avoid getting tackled. The crazed man
landed hard on the sidewalk, his legs snapping under the impact.
  Oblivious to the pain he tried to rise and go
after the two of them, but his legs would not cooperate.

“We have to get out of here.”
  Abby said.

There was no argument from Nate.
  The two of them sprinted down the street,
running past the burnt out SUV. They
were horrified to see one of the grotesque bodies that had been nearly ripped
to pieces was still moving. The lifeless
eyes watched them as they ran past and one of its hands clawed desperately at
the pavement.

Abby thought about her dad.
He lived in a small town on the Washington coast.
  If this is hitting everywhere, she had to
think that towns and rural areas were the place to be.
  It was difficult for her to picture crazies
tearing apart the quaint tourist getaway.
Her mom lying helpless in a hospital bed flashed through her mind.
  Unable to control her mind it shifted to
swarms of infected descending upon her mom with nobody around to help.
  Unheard screams.

“Almost there.” Nate
said between labored breaths, pulling her out of her thoughts.

Abby was barely winded by the two block sprint, but she did
far more than this on a daily basis - for fun.
The streets were mostly empty. A
few cars were left parked on the street, probably from days prior.
  Blood stained the sidewalk and pavement but
there were no bodies to mark their source.
Had it not been for the surrounding sounds of chaos and thick plumes of
smoke ahead of them, the city would have seemed deserted.

It was when they reached the final intersection that they
saw where most of the missing people were.
Partway down the side street was a huge horde of bodies surrounding
several cars. It was impossible to tell
if people remained in the vehicles, but Abby knew.
  Her heart went out to those that were
trapped, but she knew there was nothing to be done for them.
  Nate must have felt the same, his stride
never slowing as they both raced through the intersection.

Abby could see a small diner directly in front of them was
fully engulfed in flames. Orange
tendrils licked the brick wall and smoke poured out of the windows into the
street. Several demented were sprinting
out of the swirling smoke directly toward them.
They looked like ghostly apparitions materializing out of a thick fog.

Abby began to slow and shouted, “We can’t fight them.”

“Hurry, we just need to make the alley.”

Halfway between them and the demented was a narrow alley
that led to the back side of Nate’s apartment building.
  A wrought iron fire escape would get them to
the second story and into his place.
That is, if they made the alley.

The demented growled loudly.
One of them slowed and let out a loud
huff-bark
noise, animal like and savage.
  From behind them came dozens of angry growls
of response. It was primitive, but an
effective notification to the others.
Meat.

Nate and Abby raced for the alley.
  Abby drew on every bit of energy she had,
knowing that it was going to be very close.
Even with their awkward movements the demented were incredibly fast.
  They were nearing the alley’s entrance at the
same pace as the demented. The sounds of
pounding feet and angry growls behind them were indications that if they got
caught out in the open they were dead.

Abby hopped the sidewalk curb, running up beside Nate.
  He was breathing hard, pumping his arms,
running at full steam. The two of them
raced past the broken out windows of a small bakery, their feet crunching
through the shards of glass. They hit
the corner at full sprint, their bodies just out of reach of the grasping
demented. They were so close Abby she
could smell their fetid breath. The
demented were not prepared for the turn, both of them overshooting and crashing
into the bakery wall, buying Nate and Abby a bit of time.

The narrow alley had a large dumpster sitting up against the
brick wall of the bakery, garbage bags piled around it.
  The cracked pavement was littered with torn
newspaper pages and the last remnants of fast food stops.
  Beyond the dumpster, on the opposite side of
the alley, was the fire escape mounted to the exterior of the four story
building. The metal ladder looked
impossibly high. Neither of them had
thought about the implications of using the escape in the opposite direction
than it was designed for.

Angry growls caused Abby to glance over her shoulder.
  Not only were the two demented back up and
running for them, but right behind them were several more that had rallied to
the battle cry. She turned back to see
demented streaming around the corner ahead of them.
  They were pinned in.

As they neared the ladder, she could see that it was about
nine feet off the ground, locked in place by a latch above.
  Nate was only a shade over five feet tall,
but used his incredible vertical leap to launch himself in to the air, arms
outstretched. His hands caught the
bottom rung. His feet swung wildly,
carried by his momentum. It was
enough. He held on and began pulling
himself upwards, one rung at a time.
Abby stood below, staring directly up at him, knowing
the lowest rung was out of reach, even with her best jump.

Nate got one foot up on the bottom rung, while dangling his
other leg as far down as possible. “Grab
my leg.”

Relief flooded over her when she found out that he was not
going to just leave her to fend for herself.
Abby had no reason to believe Nate would callously leave her, but she
had only known him for a little over a year.
On top of that, people did strange things when fearing for their
lives. She reached over her head and
used both hands to get a good grasp on Nate’s ankle.
  His powerful frame began pulling her upwards.

Screaming demented raced her way.

“Hurry, hurry.”
  She shouted up at Nate.

Even with his incredible might it felt like she was rising
unbearably slow. She glanced down and
saw the demented were nearly to her legs.
As soon as she neared the bottom rung of the ladder, she reached out
with one arm, grasping it and using her own strength the take some burden off
of Nate. With the weight off of his leg,
he quickly began scrambling further up the ladder.
  Abby’s toned arms began rapidly grabbing rung
after rung, flying up the ladder. She
felt something brush against her shoe, just before it was pulled up out of
reach.

Nate helped her the rest of the way
up onto the metal platform. They were
both breathing hard. They looked each
other in the eyes. Nothing was said,
just a shared look of “holy crap.” Abby
broke away and looked down below. There
were nearly a dozen demented directly under the fire escape and more continued
to stream into the alley from the streets.
There were all types of people – young, old, male, and female.
  Some were drenched in blood, while others looked
as if they had just gotten ready for a day at work.
  She sat mesmerized by the sea of crazed faces.