"Turn right at the next street," I warned Dean.
The car slowed and he followed my direction. The sun was starting to creep toward the horizon as the building my wife worked at came into view. It was a three-story box with dark tinted windows, a small balcony being created by the walls indenting at the corners of the building.
"She's in the third floor on the right side," I explained, examining my phone for any updated information. I still had no connection here.
We drove through the parking lot. Our tires made the occasional popping noise as we rode over bits of debris. From what it looked like, they had very little zombie impact. Most of the were cars parked in neat, tidy rows and it almost looked like a normal day. We drove around to her side of the building and I could faintly make out the words, Alive inside. What looked like printer paper made the letters of each word, but it was hard to tell through the heavily tinted windows.
The parking lot and surrounding area looked totally clear, not a zombie in view. I felt relieved but disturbed at the same time. Melissa's messages spoke of her being in danger. When we last spoke, days ago, it sounded bad and the last text said to hurry. One might think she was overreacting, but Mel wasn't prone to that. If anything, she typically understated events. This was strange.
"This is odd," my friend stated as if reading my mind. "Her messages made it sound really bad."
We slowly circled in front of the building. The setting sun was mirrored in the black tinted glass. It almost looked tranquil. We came to a gentle stop in front of her side. It looked like there were no lights on. The power outage was probably widespread.
Exiting the vehicle, we were careful to look around for unwanted visitors. After confirming that the surrounding area was clear, I called out softly, "Hello?"
"Melissa!" Dean cried much louder, the word echoing off the building.
Three heads popped up above the roofline.
"Hank?" came a tentative reply. Then, much more clearly, "Hank!"
I began running for the front door.
"Hank! Stop! The building is full of them!"
I stopped in my tracks, looking at the building suspiciously, the dark tinted windows hiding any sign of what was happening inside.
"What can we do?" I asked, looking back up while using one hand to shield my eyes from the bright contrast of the glare.
"We need a way down. Maybe a rope or something."
Dean and I looked around and saw nothing that could help in the immediate area. We looked at each other, hoping for some spark of an idea. Nothing.
"Any ideas?" I called upward, thinking one of them might have a plan.
"There's a hardware store in town. We think there might be something there."
I couldn't imagine what we could use there. "Maybe we could get some rope?"
"We'll have to see. I don't know how we could get it up to them."
I turned back to the building and once again blocked the reflected sunlight. "Stay there, I have something for you."
As I returned to the car, I could see Dean fishing around in the bag he had brought from his house. He produced three small bottles of water and some cans of food. Getting a little closer to the building, he began tossing them up. They barely made it over the edge of the roofline. The three occupants of the rooftop with much cheering quickly retrieved the supplies.
I pulled out one of the inhalers and tried to duplicate his feat. The cardboard created too much wind resistance, making throwing it that high nearly impossible. Unpacking the inhaler, I had better results. The small, pressurized container arced over the edge of the roof on the first try.
After a few seconds, I heard my wife exclaim, "My puffer!" She appeared at the edge of the roof, holding her prize high in the air. "I love you, Coop!"
"I love you more, Mel!" I replied, grinning. "We'll be back as soon as we figure something out."
When I looked at Dean, his eyes were sad. I felt a pang of sympathy. His live-in girlfriend had succumbed to the zombie infection while I got to keep my wife. It must have felt so unfair. I tried to contain any outward look of joy as we opened the car doors. With a last look over my shoulder, I saw the rooftop dwellers waving in appreciation. I gave a quick wave back and took my seat, closing the door behind me.
"Any idea where this store is?" he asked, starting the car again.
"Not far," I assured. "The other side of town. We bought a ceiling fan there a couple of years ago. It's one of those mom and pop stores."
"Maybe we can get a ladder?"
"A three-story ladder?" I asked, sarcasm dripping from my words.
"Can you think of anything else?" he asked, urging me to do better.
"I liked the rope idea. Maybe we can find a grappling hook," I responded, as I mimicked a twirling motion.
"You'd probably just put your eye out," he joked.
As we approached the main part of town, things were much worse. Since we left our neighborhood, we had mostly been in sparsely populated urban areas. The homes were more spread out, and in some cases separated by long expanses of woods. Now we were entering a town, albeit a very small one. It was more densely populated with the undead, a fact we were becoming all too aware of by the number of zombies roaming the streets. They were everywhere, and as they saw our car, the walking dead began closing in on us.
"We have to get outta here!" I suggested rather urgently.
"Tell me about it!" Dean agreed, trying to make a U-turn in the middle of the road.
He nudged two animated corpses out of our way, but as we started in the opposite direction it was quite clear that our way out was closing fast.
"I'm going to ram our way out of here!"
I saw no alternative. He floored the accelerator and we shot forward. Dean tried to avoid striking any of the dead directly, but there were so many that he couldn't avoid all of them. The already dented hood repeatedly took more and more blows until the engine sounded like the fan was banging off something. Steam or smoke rose from the front of the car and we could smell coolant.
We broke from the throng of undead and Dean turned down a side street.
"What are you doing?" I cried as he turned again, this time, down an alley.
"We gotta ditch the car!" he explained hastily, probably due to anxiety. "If we stayed on the main road, they would have followed us. We would've been overwhelmed."
"What are we going to do?"
He whipped us down another road, smoke getting thicker, almost totally obscuring our vision. The car began to make a metallic tapping sound and we slowed considerably.
"Grab anything you want to take. When I yell go, get out and run!"
I dumped my flashlight into my bag and holstered the pistol. I grabbed the shotgun and waited for my friend to give the word. I didn't have long to wait.
The car began to buck violently. Dean stopped the vehicle and put it into park.
"Run!" he yelled. Both doors flew open as one. We exited the car and tore off further down the street as fast as we could go. Zombies lurched into view, drawn by the noise of the car, as we cut between two houses, escaping in relative silence. We sprinted down alleys and across lawns until we were thoroughly lost but also free of any undead associated with the car.
Behind a shrub, I stated between ragged breaths, "This feels familiar."
"Yeah, real déjà vu," he agreed, breathing heavily with his hands on his knees.
"Any ideas? We could go door to door again."
"I see a fire station at the end of the next block. That might make a good place to hide out."
We broke from our cover and made for the station. Huge garage doors sat to the right of a big metal door that marked the entrance to the main building. To either side of the station were small storefronts.
Two zombies tried to cut us off. Dean ducked the one's outstretched arms and I struck the other with the stock of my shotg
un. Neither of the undead would be denied, though mine had to pick itself up off the pavement before it could resume the chase.
We made it to the brightly painted red door and I gave a yank. Nothing. I pushed and pulled in desperation, trying the latch for all I was worth but still nothing. It held fast. The reanimated creatures were getting closer and we were running out of time when we heard a strange sound.
"Psssttt." I looked back at Dean and we heard it again. "Pssssstt," this time a little louder and more urgent. We looked toward the noise and there, in the thin alley between the buildings, was Batman.
He was hard to make out in the dark alley. From what we could see, the Caped Crusader was pumping an arm, signaling us to follow him. I looked at my friend and he shrugged and started toward the costumed vigilante. I followed as Batman spun and disappeared through a door. As I crossed the threshold, I saw a Spiderman poster taped to the back of the door.
The door closed with a solid, wooden thunk, followed by the two deadbolts and a chain. I nearly dropped to the floor, joining my already discarded belongings. Leaning with both hands on my knees, my chest heaved in ragged gasps. My friend was doing the same.
I craned my neck to take in our surroundings. The room we entered was poorly illuminated, just enough light not to bump into things but not so much as to see too well. Batman pushed the fabric cowl back off of his head. It was then that I noticed how out of shape the Dark Knight was. The black cape and our desperation had concealed his chubby cheeks and large gut. A belly, which protruded awkwardly and possibly painfully over his utility belt, that peeked out from beneath the bulk. Long greasy hair pointed in all directions.
Our savior pulled a thick arm across his face, sopping perspiration from his brow, as he drew in a labored breath. "You guys ok?" he asked voice still shaking in fear.
"Yeah, thank you... Batman?" I offered, not knowing what to say in this bizarre situation.
"Drew," the man in costume corrected as two other costumed heroes entered the room. "We were just goofing around in these suits, seeing how we looked."
"What are you doing!" demanded the first, high-pitched voice squeaking as he turned up the lights. "They might have been bitten!"
Drew turned to us and asked, "Have either one of you been bitten?"
"No," Dean assured
"The zombies were a good twenty yards away. How would they have been bitten?" our hero added sarcastically.
The other two staying back a distance, unsure of how safe it was to approach. It didn't look like they had just tried on the costumes but rather had lived in them. The outfits were stained with sweat and what looked like food. There were also deep wrinkles at their joints. These creases added to the impression that these young men had worn these outfits for at least a few days.
"How do we know they haven't been bitten?" the thin man in a red spandex costume with a lightning bolt challenged again.
Drew looked back at us inquiringly. The man in the Flash outfit puffed out his scrawny chest. Arms on emaciated hips, he struck a rather comical heroic pose. I would have laughed if I weren't the one being accused here.
The other one spoke up, "Make them prove it!" all eyes were drawn his way. He was dressed as that Star Wars guy who rode around in the spaceship with Bigfoot, what I assumed was a toy ray gun holstered at his hip. "One of 'em might be hidin' a bite. We gotta be sure!"
"They have a point," Drew agreed, turning a skeptical eye on us both.
That's how we wound up with our pants around our ankles, spinning in tiny, shuffling circles, under the suspicious scrutiny of three guys in a comic book store. If I thought the world was surreal before, this just put it over the top. The room we were in looked like some twelve-year-old boy’s dream room. Comic book posters covered the walls and old mismatched furniture was arranged in a semicircle facing a large LCD television. Snack cake and candy bar wrappers, plus the occasional pizza box, covered the floor, nearly obscuring the dirty, green shag carpet underneath.
As I completed my circle, the young man dressed as The Flash pointed with his finger, "What about under the boxers?"
I raised an eyebrow in question. The others looked at my green plaid underwear and back at their friend. "I think he's clean!" added Drew. "Besides, if either of them were bit down there, they wouldn't have been able to run."
"There would also be blood." Han Solo agreed clearly not wanting any part of us dropping our drawers.
After passing their inspection, we dressed. I didn't know how dirty my clothes were until I had to put them back on. I almost asked for a costume to avoid the feel of the soiled apparel, but just thinking of myself walking around as Spiderman changed my mind, so I pulled on the same socks I had worn for the last several days and laced up my shoes.
The Flash and Han Solo brought in two folding chairs from the other room as Drew offered us some prepackaged snack foods, their colorful wrappers offering tempting images of the type of cream-filled treats concealed inside.
I was about to turn the offered food down, but an encouraging nod from Dean changed my mind. I selected a package of Ho Hos. We all sat around eating, Mylar and plastic making crinkling sounds as the packaging was torn away. The guys in the shop tore into the sugary treats with gusto, each consuming several. Dean even went back for seconds. We shared stories about our experiences with the undead and current news reports.
It seemed that this was Drew's store and that they were hanging out playing Dungeons and Dragons the night it happened. They had just ended a quest and some of the other players had left for home when they saw the first incident. Being comic fanboys, they immediately understood what was happening. They already had a stockpile of junk food for gaming nights but had also taken the initiative to raid the local convince store. With no clerk on duty, they had made off with as much food as they could carry.
Luckily, Drew had also been environmentally conscious and had installed solar panels on the roof. This gave them enough power to run some lights and the computer or television. They could only use one or the other but not both at the same time.
The internet was down. We could only assume that their ISP's backup power had finally given out. The television was very limited with the cable being out. We picked up the three major channels being broadcast over the airwaves. The news they were showing was horrifying. Zombies were everywhere. There was still no sign of what was causing the dead to reanimate. They were still telling people to stay indoors
After about an hour, we figured out that the news was old. It was being broadcast on a loop. We turned off the LCD TV to save power.
"What are we going to do now?" asked the young man dressed as the Flash. We had found out his name was Frank.
"I need some rope or something to get my wife down," I answered.
"When we get her down, I want to find a nice, quiet place to hole up and wait till this thing blows over," added Dean
Frank started to say something, but I cut him off before he could get underway. "It won't blow over," I said firmly, drawing all of their attention. "Whatever is causing this to happen needs to be dealt with. I have a hypothesis, but I need time to prove these initial thoughts. A lab and some specimens would help."
"I'm sure the government will get this under control soon." Frank offered, hope ringing in his words.
"When have they ever had anything under control?" I asked. "Crime, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, or even taxes? Did you know twenty-five million people don't file tax returns? That's out of a little over 300 million Americans. Where are these people? Some of these people are just dodging taxes. Where is the control there?"
"Yeah!" Ben, the young man dressed as Han Solo, agreed enthusiastically. "And what about Roswell?"
"But the CDC?" Dean asked.
"Although the CDC has counterparts in many other countries, we're relying on maybe fifteen odd age
ncies to come up with some type of answer to this problem. I don't like the odds. We need everyone in the field to work on this problem," I stated.
"The hospitals can help," Drew spoke up hopefully.
"They're overrun. They probably took in the first wave of bite victims and were among the first to go down," Dean said. He folded his arms across his chest and looked at me skeptically. "How can you help the CDC?"
I saw in his face that he was thinking about his girlfriend. I wasn't able to do anything for her, and here I was claiming the ability to help the CDC. "In its beginning, the CDC mostly employed entomologists like myself. They still employ many in my field, as well as an array of others. But first, I have to get my wife off of that roof. They can't last much longer. They could succumb to exposure."
"What if, instead of rope, you used a ladder?" Drew asked, scratching his shaggy mane.
"Too short," I responded quickly.
"You do realize what you were trying to break into next door, don't you?" he said, sarcasm once again dripping from his words.
It took me a moment. Then, Dean and I said together, "A fire truck!"
Chapter 21
Melissa