This Would Be Paradise (Book 1) (16 page)

We were brought through the main doors and into the police station. It looked like any small town station would – a couple of desks in the main space and some offices for the higher-ups lining the area. The guards led us to the back portion labelled
Holding Area
. The first thing that came into my view was the large, iron bars that kept the prisoners inside.

The guard holding John pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked the first of the two holding cells, both of which were facing one another. Pushing his self through the now crowded walkway, their leader whispered something into the guard’s ear. He nodded at whatever the large man had said. He shoved John in first then Taylor and Ethan, locking the door back up behind him.

Now I was starting to sweat.

“What about her?” John ran up to the bars.

“We can’t have male and female
guests
in the same cell. That would just be unprofessional,” the leader shrugged. “Keys.”

The guard handed the ring off and the muscled man unlocked the opposite cell.

“After you,” he smiled at me, and I resisted the urge to shiver. He gave off major stranger danger vibes.

Not seeing any way to escape, I did as I was told and with the help of the guard still hooked onto my upper arm, I walked into the cell. The lock clicked behind me, and I rubbed at my arm where there was undoubtedly a bruise starting to form from that guy’s grip.

“How rude of me, my name’s Riley,” the leader announced. “Now you.”

John spoke for us again, “I’m John, and this is Taylor and Ethan.” He pointed to them both, then to me. “And that’s Bailey.”

“Nice to meet you all. Lovely name.” He looked at me for the last part, and how I wish I could have replied with my usual retort, but I just nodded stiffly.

All of the others filed out of the room at Riley’s request, leaving just him and the guard named Conner.

“Now what exactly do you all have in those vehicles of yours?” Conner asked.

“Just food and general supplies,” John answered.

I don’t know why he was humouring these lunatics, but he was.

“Just you four?” Riley eyed us up.

“Yes, had a bigger group before, but we’re all that’s left,” John lied.

“Where’s your main base?”

“Well, you see we’re in the market for one.”

“Well you see, I know you’re lying to me, and I don’t take well to that.” Riley stalked to the front if their cage.

To John’s credit, he didn’t back up or even bat an eye.

Riley grinned at him. “You’re military aren’t you?”

“Maybe, but I know enough to see that your crew isn’t.”

Riley turned to Conner. “Bring their supplies in.”

Conner nodded and took off. If they got a hold of all of our stuff, then our trip will have been for nothing. My legs finally gave out and I plunked down on the nasty cot in the cell.
They wouldn’t keep us prisoners here? Or worse, kill us would they?
I looked at Riley’s face and something there said he’s done worse.

His hawk-like eyes kept returning to me and not in a flattering way. I had been leered at by drunken college boys before – I was in the South for Mardi Gras, after all – but this look made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. This guy was dangerous, possibly unhinged and he was rather too focused on me for my liking.

The others must have noticed this, too, and were shooting me concerned glances. Not that I wasn’t already worked up as it was. I hadn’t seen another woman here, just the male guards. All sorts of horrible thoughts started to run through my head, and my breathing neared panic attack proportions. I needed to calm down; I wouldn’t be able to help myself if I got worked up. I tried to focus on my breathing while John answered more of Riley’s probing questions. John refused to tell him about the others and the cabin, but Riley insisted that he was lying.

Conner interrupted the interrogation when he came back in and fetched Riley.

“Now, don’t go anywhere.” Riley laughed at his joke and left us to stew in the cells.

“Bailey, you okay?” John asked me through the bars.

“Y-” I had to clear my throat. “Yes.”

“If they try anythin’, just kick them in the balls and run,” Ethan said, now grasping onto the cell bars.

“You’re not helping,” I muttered, more to myself since the volume in my voice was not working.

“How are we going to get out of this, John?” Ethan whirled around on him, clearly blaming him for our predicament.

“Give me a minute, son,” John growled, his calm demeanor fading.

“I got an idea,” Taylor said, and we all turned to him expectantly. Taylor dug into his pocket and produced a set of keys, “The spare to your truck and the only key fob. You left them ‘em the glove compartment.” I hadn’t known he was a Klepto.

Ethan didn’t even look mad as realization lit up his face, “The panic button.”

“Exactly. We need a distraction, and this will bring in the infected for miles.”

“What about when they come back looking for who set off the alarm?” I asked, my voice deciding to return. 

“They will need to open the cell to get the key fob, so when they do, we rush ‘em and steal their weapons.”

“I dunno son, this could go bad real fast,” John hesitated, unsure for the first time since I had known him.

Without further warning, Taylor hit the panic button for the truck and the shrill alarm echoed all the way into the building. We froze at the sound trying to listen for footsteps. I heard yelling outside and a gunshot. What they shot at, I had no idea. I got up from the cot, my legs popping at the sudden use. Standing on my toes, I tried to peer out the tiny window. All I could see was the side of the chain link fence. 

“These guys aren’t military, just a bunch of thugs. So they won’t know how to handle us rushin’ ‘em,” John quickly explained. “Waste no time when they open the cell door. Go for the head and try to knock ‘em out as fast as you can. Don’t give ‘em time to reach for their weapons.”

A few minutes later I heard the front doors crash in and angry footsteps carried to the back. Two guards, one of them Conner, burst into the holding area.

“All right, which one of you has the keys?” Conner barked, in no mood for joking.

The alarm was still sounding in the background, like a glorious beacon. Soon infected would be swarming this place, and maybe we would be able to escape. Or, maybe we had just made it a whole lot worse. When no one said anything, Conner ripped the cell keys from his pocket and opened the guys’ barred door.

But they were waiting. When Conner yanked the cell door open, all three of them rushed him and John swerved around to grab the other guard. John punched him square in the face as the guard reached for the weapon on his belt. He crashed against my cell, the back of his head connecting with the thick iron bars.

John didn’t leave him time to recover, as he punched him in the gut with a forceful uppercut. He keeled over, and John shoved him to the ground, grabbing a bunch of hair and smashing his head to the cold cement floor with astounding power. Some blood seeped out from underneath the guard’s skull as he lay limp on the ground. John got off of him just as Conner fell unconscious to the floor. Taylor and Ethan had made quick work of knocking him out.

I gripped the bars tight. Conner had dropped the keys in all the confusion, so John swooped to pick them up. Bringing the key ring to my cell, John had to try five different keys before the one that matched my cell lock was found. I rushed out of the cell, glad to be free. I hadn’t realized just how lucky we were to have found each other and the cabin. It could have gone a lot worse, in a lot of ways. I had the uncharacteristic urge to hug John, grateful that he got me out of here. “Thank you.”

John didn’t need to say anything, instead he gave me a one armed, brief hug, and I returned it with a squeeze.

“We don’t have much more time before the others come, too,” John said as he pulled the handgun from the guard he knocked out.

Ethan grabbed the one from Conner and passed the knife to Taylor. John also handed me the guard’s knife, although I had no idea what for. No matter how creepy they were, I don’t think I was up for stabbing a human.

“I’ve got a plan,” Taylor announced.

Apparently he thought very well under pressure, but didn’t feel the need to share as he took off toward the back of the holding cell. There was an old, metal rung ladder that led to the roof. I had never noticed before, but did most places have a fire escape to the roof? They were proving very useful for us thus far. As he climbed the ladder, he voiced his plan.

“I’m gonna jump from the roof, over the fence. There couldn’t have been more than two feet of clearance on the sides. You keep ‘em occupied.”

He pushed up the roof latch as John ran over to him, “And do what, son? Go for help? There ain’t no help.”

“I’ll think of somethin’.” Taylor disappeared into the afternoon light streaming through the square opening at the exact moment more guards entered. This time, Riley was in the lead, and he looked pissed.

“Now which one of you has the keys?” His eyes flashed to the downed guards, ripping the gun from his belt holster.

John instantly responded by lifting his stolen gun, and Ethan followed while I stood here uselessly with my little pig-sticker. Behind Riley the other two guards looked at each other, and then raised their own weapons. I had never been in a standoff before, and I can’t say I enjoyed it. Riley stood there menacingly, with a fake smile plastered on his face.

“We can do this the easy way or the way that ends with you dead,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I’ll take neither,” was all John replied with.

None of the guards had their guns trained on me; obviously they didn’t consider me a threat. In a flash, my arm rose of its own accord and I whipped the knife at Riley. He spun, my movement catching him off guard, and the blade sunk into his upper chest. He howled in pain, shooting off one bullet before dropping his gun in the process. I ducked instinctively, praying for the first time that I would be safe from bullets. Luckily, the bullet was way off course and landed somewhere in the cell.

The guards behind him fumbled in confusion, readying to shoot. John reacted quickly and shot them both dead. Two shots and two lives later, the guards landed on the ground behind the kneeling, cursing Riley. John went to pull the knife out of him, but Ethan burst out from beside us and delivered a swift kick to Riley’s head, rendering him unconscious. We all stood still for a few seconds, needing to process what the hell just happened.

John had just killed two men – two men who were ready to end us. I had just stabbed Riley, something I still couldn’t believe I did. It felt so surreal, like I was watching a really high-definition version of an action movie.

John was the first to come to his senses. “We need to move, now!”

I nodded, keeping an eye on Riley as we stepped over their bodies to get back to the main part of the station. Ethan yanked out my knife from Riley’s torso as we passed by and handed it back to me. No one else was in the station; the rest of the minions must have been outside. The alarm was getting louder the closer we got to outside. I heard a gunshot go off on the roof and John ran to the front door like a man possessed. Taylor was up there. He flung open the door just in time for us to witness a body fall from the sky. The sound of bones crunching and an unnerving splat sound reached my ears.
Dear God, don’t be Taylor.

Upon closer inspection, we realized it was the sniper on the roof, not Taylor. It was hard to tell since the body made such a mess, but the clothes were the same Army surplus type as the rest of the individuals. We closed the door, not wanting the other guards to know we had escaped and ran to the large front window. The gate was wide open, since they had been in the process of relieving us of our supplies.

A couple of men were hurrying to shut the gate, locking out anyone who was on the other side. More gun shots went off from outside, and that’s when I noticed the infected in the distance. A whole bunch of them were ambling toward the noise of the siren. Some of them were already at the chain link fence, rattling it while trying to get in. We were surrounded and I wondered yet again, if we hadn’t just made things worse.

“Taylor must’ve pushed that sniper off the roof,” John stated, as he craned his head to look out the wide window. “That’s one less gun to worry about.”

“How many more do you think are out there?” I asked.

“Dunno, we got their leader and four guards lying in the back room. I only saw those, but judgin’ from the noise of the gun shots, there are at least three more out there with weapons.”

“So what are we goin’ to do? Wait until Taylor does whatever he comes up with?” Ethan blurted.

I noticed he was not able to sit still, unlike my frozen reaction to everything. Ethan was moving restlessly from foot to foot and running his hand through his hair over and over again. John was wiggling his fingers, as his mind moved to come up with a plan. I remained still like a statue. Ironically, I looked like the calm one but inside I was beyond panic. My mind had started to block the freaking out part, probably due to some inherent survival instinct. The thoughts in my head finally melded into one. We needed to get out of here, and fast.

“I don’t think we will have to wait too long.” I pointed to the truck that was now reversing.

Shots were fired toward the retreating truck from the others that appeared out front. I watched an infected that had managed to get inside the gated area tackle one goon that was too focused on shooting at the truck to see it in time. They fell to the ground, the infected practically covering the henchman. The man screamed in agony as the infected tore at the side of his head with its bare teeth. Blood squirted
from the wound like a punctured orange, as a mixture of skin and veins were torn brutally from the guys’ skull. His screams turned to wheezing and then stopped abruptly, as he sank to the ground. The infected continued to tear into the corpse, chewing and ripping at his flesh.

“Move back! He’s going to ram it!” a voice bellowed from the front, and the remaining men tried to run to the police station doors.

Seeing they were heading this way, we ran over to the doors to hold them closed. John flipped the deadbolt right as they crashed into the entrance with such a force that the doors shook from the impact, the hinges groaning. 

“What the hell,” someone shouted from the other side, “Is that mess Jensen?” They must have finally spotted the sniper lying dead on the ground.

“Who cares man, shoot the lock!”

In less time than it took to breathe, John grabbed my shoulder and dove to the side with me in tow. I hit the ground hard as bullets whizzed past us. The breath was ripped from my lungs, but I managed to crawl over further from the barrage of shots. Ethan was on the other side of the doors clutching his arm, blood leaking down his shirt.

“You okay?” I yelled once I had air in my lungs again.

“Just grazed me.”

“It’s not working!” the shooters from the other side yelled when they tried to kick in the door again.

I imagine the front doors to a police station were purposely made to withstand a certain amount of damage, but they wouldn’t hold for much longer.

“The ladder out back!” a muffled voice responded, and I could hear the footsteps go around the building.

John braved a look out the window, “Ho-ly shit! He’s really goin’ to ram it. Get down!”

I heard the roar of the engine and then the loud
clang
of Taylor running into the chain link fence. Something hit the building with substantial impact and the window shattered. Glass rained down all around us, and I covered my head, diving underneath the nearest desk. I had once broken a vanity mirror years ago, but it was nothing compared to the size of this.

Once the shards lay still, I moved out from under the desk. The glass crunched under my shoes, as I walked over to John. He was crouched right under the window, shaking the glass off of himself. Ethan didn’t appear to have been touched by the shards, as he flipped the deadbolt on the front doors with his left hand, his right arm still out of commission. The gate lay in a crumpled heap just outside the set of doors and the truck was half in and half out of the fence. Taylor was behind the wheel signaling for us to get in.

We climbed over the massive gate and ran to the truck. Infected were rattling the fence with renewed vigor, and it was beginning to collapse inwards, starting from the edges where Taylor had punctured a hole in it. John shot at the few that had managed to sneak in by the truck. Ethan passed me his gun, knowing he couldn’t shoot while injured.

I gulped. Spending a bit more time on aiming than I should have, I started to shoot at the things that were invading the police station, like ants to a picnic. One down, two down, three down. I had taken out three in as many bullets but more were lining up to take their place. We had a small window before the make-shift opening would be overrun.

“We have to go now!” I yelled.

I started toward the truck, shooting at the ones coming up behind it. One tried to squeeze in the opening by the passenger side, so I switched to the knife Ethan had handed back to me in the police station and stuck it into the things left eye socket. It slumped forward, taking the knife with it. I pulled open the passenger door and jumped in, shuffling to the back seat. Ethan followed me in and maneuvered to the back while John came in last, slamming the door behind him. 

“Go!”

Taylor hit reverse and floored it. We were catapulted against the front seats, and Ethan groaned in pain as his injured right arm was smashed against the seat. The map flew from the dashboard against the windshield impeding our view, but John quickly tore it down.

Shots were fired from the roof, and we ducked to avoid any bullets. The windshield cracked and fissured where the bullets had hit, but Taylor turned the wheel and hit drive, leaving the bullets behind us. We roared off to the side, running down mass amounts of infected. I didn’t know how much more the truck could take; the grill was becoming a lumpy mess.

Bodies were flying everywhere, and one lifted over the grill and smashed into the windshield, shattering the glass. Taylor veered to the left and the body rolled off of the hood.

The back seat was still crammed with supplies. It looked like they hadn’t got a chance to strip the truck clean. The bag of clothes I had tossed in last night were lying at my feet, reminding me that my backpack was sitting in the van. There went my other gun. I looked down at the piece we had swiped; it was a generic handgun, nowhere near as nice as my Berettas. But our lost supplies were the least of our concern. We had to get back to the cabin alive.

Once we were clear of the thickest part of the crowd, Taylor slowed down his reckless driving and become a little more defensive. We reached the main street, which previously was empty, now as busy as it would have been before the virus. Infected were stumbling across the street, drawn in by the truck alarm. At least, I assumed that’s what brought them out. We passed by the cremated remains in the empty lot and then back out to the interstate.

As soon as we hit the main drag Taylor applied the brakes. The truck stood still in the middle of the three lanes, the engine still running.

“Why’d you stop?” John asked.

Instead of answering, Taylor opened the driver side door and got out. Ethan and I exchanged confused glances. John opened his own door to see what had gotten into Taylor. Not wanting to be left out, I vacated the truck with Ethan in tow. For some reason he followed me out my side instead of opening his own door.

“What is it, son?” John asked, concern lacing his voice.

We all stared in horror as Taylor rolled up his left sleeve to reveal a bloody set of teeth marks and some skin missing. John stood frozen in place, the shock too much for him. I heard Ethan swallow loudly beside me.

“I’m gonna turn aren’t I?” Taylor asked in a low voice.

It was one thing to be dying; it was another thing all together to be a dead man walking. The irony was not lost on me. I had only witnessed a handful of people turn once infected, but I knew he didn’t have long. The ones that turned fastest were the ones who had died while they were attacked, like in the school. The one’s that didn’t die during the attack turned a little while later, like Mike had.

A tear slipped down John’s cheek, and I found my own eyes starting to cloud up with salty tears. None of us knew what to do. We had just left the supermarket this morning only to be taken hostage and here we were with more bad luck thrown our way. Only this time death was so much closer.

I turned back to the vehicle in a blur and started rummaging through the pharmacy supplies that were buried underneath the other items in the back of the truck bed. I ran back to Taylor with disinfectant and gauze; my own personal savior.

“That won’t do any good,” Taylor deadpanned.

“Give me your arm,” I demanded, ignoring his words. “What happened?”

“Well first I shoved the sniper off the roof; he hadn’t seen me comin’ up behind him. Then I jumped off the roof, outside the fence and when I ran to the truck, there was already some of the infected around it. I pulled one off by the collar, but it twisted around and bit me before I could raise my knife.”

He stopped his tale and held out his injured arm for me, so I got to work. Taylor hissed at the stinging disinfectant spray as it bubbled on the wound’s surface. John was hovering, still eerily silent. The bite looked beyond painful. It was an angry shade of red and purple; it almost looked like it was pulsing. I wrapped the gauze firmly around his arm, but the blood was soaking through at an alarming rate. Maybe that’s why people died so fast when attacked, the wound didn’t clot.

“Leave me here.”

“Never,” John sounded angry.

“You might not turn, Taylor,” I admitted.

He gave a humorless laugh, “And what are you basin’ that off of?”

I handed my supplies to Ethan. They all looked at me warily as I began to lift my shirt. Taylor gave me an incredulous look, like he was worried I was about to strip. The nail marks on my skin had healed, but they left one hell of a scar, they looked like someone had dragged a hot poker across my skin. They were raised and red.

“That’s from an infected?” Taylor asked, life coming into his voice once again.

“Back when everything first broke out. I was at the hotel, and an infected woman chased me down and scratched me. Zoe and I had gone to the hospital after, but it was too crazy there to get any treatment,” I recounted what had happened, purposely leaving out the part about Mike.

“And you didn’t turn,” Taylor sounded hopeful.

“Obviously not.”

John smiled at his son and put his hand on Taylor’s shoulder.

“See, there’s no need for us to leave you sittin’ out here.”

Ethan finally spoke up, “Maybe you’re just immune.”

Way for him to wreck the point of my little story time. I shot Ethan a sideways glance, silently telling him to shut up.

“There’s no way of telling. So everybody get back in the truck and let’s head back to the cabin,” I used my rarely heard authoritative voice.

Taylor’s lips quirked and he walked off to the passenger’s side, John to the drivers. Ethan and I slipped back into the cab and I fixed up his arm once we were on the move again. It turns out the bullet had gone through his arm, which was lucky because I was pretty sure I didn’t have the stomach to fish a bullet out. I sprayed some of the antiseptic on it then wrapped his upper arm in the remaining gauze. I was getting pretty good at that.

“I think you might need stitches?” It came out more as a question, since I wasn’t actually trained to treat wounds.

“I can stitch you boys up once we get to the cabin,” John announced from the front seat.

He kept looking over at Taylor, who was staring out the window silently. I threw the unused medical supplies back into the bag and sat back in the seat. None of us wanted to talk; we needed the time to sort through everything that happened today. My gaze kept returning to Taylor, looking for any signs that he was going to turn. Mike had lasted at least two hours before he turned, but that was only a guess on my part. He came to Zoe and me after he was bit, so there was no telling how long he was infected before we met him.

I turned in my seat, paranoid that we were being followed. The last thing we needed, on top of everything else, was to be followed back to the cabin by those psychos. Much to my relief, the road behind us was as empty as the road in front of us. Just a few abandoned cars, the only infected being the dead bodies that occasionally lay by the roadside.

Taylor let out a wet sounding cough, and I started to chew at my lips, my emotions fried. Mike had started to make those rattling coughs before he turned.