Part 6: No Mercy
By Jordan Martin
It never seemed to get darker than when the sun was finally swallowed by the horizon. The light continued to fade, but everything around me was alight with movement and life. The sun in the sky was the only way I knew what direction I was going for sure, and the last of the light I had, and I’d only covered about half of the distance between Harry’s farm and the jeep.
I stopped and sat every hundred yards or so. Sleep hung on me heavier than the stupid sack I carried along with me, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Even my eyelids protested. I spent one night and one day on Harry’s fucking farm and all I had to show for it was a slow and painful death by the plague of the 20th century
Why I was thinking of names for this is beyond me. No one would be reading my thoughts anytime soon.
My vision wasn’t the only thing failing me. I was sure I heard moaning. Grunting. I kept telling myself it was a stray dog, but I couldn’t see anything past the steep ditches next to me and the miles of flat field.
Resolution: Keep my pace and make it to the farm. If I’m bit, then I shall sprint. I don’t think they’ll receive me terribly well in either case.
Still, Chloe could be anywhere. She could be nearby with that Murdock guy—funny how that plays out. He was the President’s little brother a few weeks back.
Now he was a walking snack pack like anyone else.
I started thinking about the last time Chloe and I had been out here… it had been before my parents died, of course, and she seemed so excited to meet them and see where I grew up. I didn’t see the big deal about it—I mean, she’d seen dirt before. What difference did it make if it was here or outside Chicago?
No, she insisted. I want to see where you played. Where you went to school. What made you who you are today.
I laughed. She was really pissed when I told her she was treating me like one of the people she interviews.
I was (and am) so horrible at arguing with her. Even in my protests, I was buying plane tickets and arranging rental cars. Always blue, too—she’s never had a car that wasn’t blue. Even in my resistance, I continued to indulge her. Even in the throes of my tantrums, I adored her, and was ready to do anything for her.
I’d even walk back up to a bunch of men armed to the teeth, in the dead of night, during the apocalypse, and after I’d stolen their jeep... all on the off chance I’d gone the wrong direction with that jeep. That my GPS message got through, and that she was sitting alone and scared with Matt, the Dunbars, Rhodes, and Harry.
The earth slammed into me, knocking the wind out of me and making me stars that weren’t locked in the pitch black sky. My feet were tangled, trapped, and torn against something binding and strong. I kicked hard, but didn’t connect with anything. The harder I kicked, the harder it squeezed back.
Screams rose in my stomach, pouring from my mouth and into the stiff air around me. The rushing air in my throat rattled my head, but I heard nothing of it as I continued to kick.
You’re too close, I told myself. She’s waiting for you, I told myself. You’re dehydrated and delusional, I thought.
I rolled onto my back and lifted my knees to my chest to face my attacker. Adjusting to the dust and dim conditions around me, my eyes finally made sense of the knotted mess at my feet. It was the fencing wire Harry was using.
Behind it was Harry’s farm. I’d made it.
The front door was locked, and the horrible stench from the front yard hung thick around me, though it carried something entirely different tonight. The house sat still, not even issuing a creak or a whine in spite of the wind. The side of the house opposite the driveway was where Harry kept his gas truck, and it was still in place. Matt and his men must have given up after I left—all the crates and totes sat in the same neat pile I’d left them in.
I came around to the back door. It was latched tight, but not locked. Pulling tight to keep it from swinging open and alerting anyone inside, I twisted the knob slowly. Each degree the doorknob moved, I grew a thousand goose bumps on my neck and back.
This was it. Life or death. There were at least three men inside capable and intent on killing me, and Harry. Given my state and behavior, he had every right. The latch gave, and the door slid open. The hinges cried a bit, and I slunk my head deeper into my collar, but no noises came as an immediate response.
The pitch black kitchen lay before me. Arms extended, I reached out to whatever was around me and found the table. I let go of the breath I’d been holding, having a much better idea where I was. The next room over was the living room, where I’m sure they were comfortably resting.
“Guys?” I said. My breath stopped in my chest again.
“Guys?” I piped a little louder. Nothing.
The drawers banged open louder than I’d liked, but nothing stirred in the house. I wasn’t sure what had me more scared—that someone might be there, or that no one was there. Fuck. Keep yourself focused, I was shouting in my head.
Finally, I came across what I sought: a lighter. It was a long, awkward grill lighter, but it was better than darkness. It clicked to life after figuring out the frustrating child lock, and illuminated a few feet in front of me.
A pair of combat boots sat plainly fixed to a pair of feet on the couch in the living room. The younger Dunbar, I hoped. Stepping forward, I held the lighter in one hand and gripped a chair with the other. My shoes slid across the vinyl flooring suddenly, and I braced myself against the chair. It nearly toppled, but I managed to stay standing. My shoulders footed the bill for it though.
My balance restored, I bent down carefully. The floor was thick with a red fluid that I couldn’t mistake for anything else. Blood, full of my foot prints, and one lone handprint near the door.
The flickering light made it difficult to see at first, but the handprint wasn’t alone. Several others followed it, leading to a trailing drag out of the back door. The goose bumps on my neck and back spread to my arms, and I could no longer hold my breath. Panting took over. My mouth was dry and my legs were stiff.
I’d left, and the infected came. They came and took Harry. Matt. Everyone. They’d have gotten me if I’d have stuck around.
Bile bit at my throat, but I swallowed hard and pressed forward into the living room. Crimson persisted into the carpet all around me, even running up the side of the couch and into the younger Dunbar. I couldn’t even remember his name.
Blood leaked from his mouth and chest, but nothing about it looked like the death everyone expected—the gut shot wasn’t alone anymore. His entire chest was torn open and raw. His blood soaked shirt made it difficult to distinguish where he ended and the shirt began.
His eyes stared to the ceiling, and his mouth hung open, never to draw breath again.
I retched hard, acid spraying out of my mouth and onto the floor. The lighter extinguished, but I couldn’t see right now. Tears flooded my eyes as I felt myself choking. Unable to stop my shaking, I turned and left the room before I fell into the mess below me.
The air outside was cooler, but the stink did nothing to keep my stomach from turning over once more. The same bloody trail in the kitchen followed into the grass and toward the driveway, but stopped suddenly near the well.
Harry’s water truck was gone, revealing a spout and a gas-run generator I hadn’t noticed before.
So that’s how he got the water out.
I shook my head. Harry’s truck was gone. That meant he had gotten away! Maybe the others had, too.
Then again, there weren’t any infected corpses.
I followed the tracks in the grass, all the way back to the barn I’d stood on just a few days earlier. Harry’s water truck was backed in next to the smaller shed just a few yards from the barn—it looked like the kind my dad kept cows in when I was younger. A cooler sat outside the door of the shed. It must be Harry’s slaughter house.
A moan crept through the walls and down my spine. I lo
cked up entirely, recognizing the dry, rasping sound I’d unfortunately encountered a few times before. There were infected in the shed, and I didn’t know if there were any living trapped inside or not.
Worse yet, I wanted to walk away more than I wanted to find out if I could help. I had no weapons. I’d made it this far on luck, and I wasn’t ready to press it.
Until I heard Chloe scream.
She cried out loud and long, and I’m certain she said my name.
The ground was sparse, but the grove had a few larger branches to offer. Quality didn’t matter, in so far that it was the heaviest one in sight. I rounded the corner of the shed, stopping in front of the door. Every last nerve in my body blazed with adrenaline. My eyes darted left to right; anything that stirred nearby alerted my ears.
Every hair I had stood on end as I readjusted my grip on the branch. I drew one more deep breath through my nostrils. Swiveling backward, I threw all 160 pounds of myself into a kick at the door’s latch.
Immediately after the door burst into splinters, I regretted my decision. Harry stood in the center of the bloodied shed, coated thick in viscera and fluids. He held his assault rifle at his hip, turning to me with it ready.
I was faster, lunging forward and slamming the branch into his face as hard as I could. He and I both collapsed in a heap on the ground, but my head struck the cement floor.
Swimming between conscious and dreams, the world around me sounded like it was submerged in a foam bath. The pain radiating throughout my spine and skull blurred my vision.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Chloe shrieked. “Jordan?!”
“Honey, I’m here,” I muttered. Chloe was sobbing harder than I’d ever heard. My heavy body lifted of its own volition, bringing me to a crawl.
She could have had a megaphone and still lost me in whatever she was screaming. She was here, right in front of me. We’d actually done it. We’d survived, and we’d found each other. I reached out to her, touching her soft skin. The dirt and oil didn’t register to my fingers like they did to my eyes—I only felt velvet.
“Oh, God, Chloe… I’m so sorry. I love you,” I started. My hand followed through her hair and down her neck until it hit something hard. Something metal.
I slumped backwards, sitting on my calves to get the full view. Chloe was in handcuffs and a metal neck restraint. Even in the pitch black around me, her face lit up bright red. I finally heard her screams.
“It’s him! Jordan, you have to kill him!”
“Baby, baby—what are you talking about?” I asked, still collecting myself. The same moan I’d heard earlier struck out again, drawing my attention to the back of the shed.
“He’s feeding her with us!” she cried.
She sat, decayed and chained in the same sort of chains that bound my wife, gnawing greedily at a bloody arm. Grunts escaped between bites, harmonizing with the sound of her teeth hitting bone now and again. Chloe gripped my leg, and I looked around me. The floor was covered in obliterated and tattered camouflage uniforms and body parts and soaked in blood.
The woman was eating Matt’s arm. The older Dunbar and Rhodes lay in pieces around her, chewed upon and discarded messily. Her wrinkled flesh glistened against the light sparkling from my lighter. All at once, it sunk in.
Harry had kept his late wife.