10 MINUTES FROM HOME Episode Three BY BILL HOWARD In the relative safety of a mall, Denny, Thom and Isabel take advantage of the situation and stock up on supplies. They meet John, a security guard, who tells them that there may be an even greater danger from the local uninfected visitors. - BOOKS of the DEAD - Smashwords Edition “Bill Howard’s 10 Minutes from Home might start out like a standard apocalyptic zombie novel, with scenes that could be taken straight out of a Romero script, but it slowly unfolds into a well narrated love story about one of the most harrowing experiences a couple might have to face. Bonus for those of you located in Ontario: there are plenty of references to genre hot spots, such as the town of Pontypool and Toronto’s Bloor Cinema.” Jessa Sobczuk – Rue Morgue Magazine “Heartbreaking and soulful, 10 Minutes from Home is one gut-wrenching read I will not forget. This is one meta-cool book!” - John Palisano, author of NERVES “A purely cinematic, heart-pounding and thrilling story.” – Susan Curran, Director of Marketing, Anchor Bay Canada “Folks, you need to read this book! Bill is an amazing writer and what he has forged here is a zombie lovers must have. George A. Romero himself could not have penned a better zombie tale! Check it out! Great job Bill!” – Brad Mavin – Proo(f) Paranormal “So many things I never saw coming, a definite adrenaline rush while reading! I felt myself reading faster as the pace picked up. This is a book I would read over and over again.” – Paul Silliphant – Proo(f) Paranormal This book is a work of fiction. All characters, events, dialog and situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. 10 MINUTES FROM HOME Episode Three (Chapters 13 – 18) Copyright 2012 by Bill Howard For more information visit: BOOKS of the DEAD * * * This series is for: Joanne & Evangeline CHAPTER 13: THE GREEN MILES We spent nearly two days walking through the countryside. We saw nothing but fields upon fields for days, stopping in assorted farmhouses for supplies, food, and shelter. Every night around sunset, we would settle into some barn or house, somewhere we could rest safely. Strangely, we never saw a single vehicle on the road or on any properties. We found one more gun, a shotgun, in the basement of a farmhouse, but we could only find five shells for it. I took over the handgun and Thom took the heavier-duty shotgun, since he had some hunting experience. We found a hunting knife for Isabel, but neither Thom nor I ever planned on anything getting close enough to her that she would need to use it. On the third night, we stopped in a home that seemed to be close to a city centre. We could see from the front of the house that it was situated high on a hill about a mile from town. It was already dark, so we decided to stay the night, get some rest, and head into the city in the morning. We could only assume it was either Scarborough or Pickering. We kept our fingers crossed that it was Pickering, one step closer to home, but the way things had been so far, it was difficult to gauge how far we had come. Once dawn cracked above the horizon, we went to the second story windows to get a good look out at the city in front of us. It appeared to be Scarborough. We could see a business area to the left, and a large mall to the right. Isabel took out a pair of binoculars we had acquired the night before, and looked out over the city. As she scanned the area, there was one thing of note that lay in the lenses. There seemed to be a large military presence moving its way into Scarborough. Some streets had checkpoints going into the city, and sandbagged checkpoints with gun mounts were being set up all over the place. To the south, where the mall was, the military presence didn't seem to be as heavy--not yet anyway. They seemed to have concentrated their efforts north of the 401 highway. We had a pow wow over a container of homemade cookies we had found in the same house as the binoculars, and decided the best course of action was to make our way in through the mall and out the far end, which would give us access to the myriad of apartment buildings on the other side. It would at least give us a good amount of cover to gain some ground, and we could gather some extra supplies. We made our way down the hill to the south, and crept along some fields in surrounding farmland so we could get close enough to the mall to get up to a loading dock. Once at the dock, we stuck to the walls and made our way around the building until we found an entrance on the lowest level by the bus terminal. We took a chance and smashed the lower glass panel of a door to get in. Once in, we walked down a darkened hallway until we reached the sun-drenched interior of the mall. Once out of the service hallway, we all stopped and took in the scene before us. It wasn't too often you got to see a mall completely empty. With all the bright colors from the vast array of merchandise, light coming through every window and skylight, refracting off all the glass displays everywhere and the silence of the place, it almost took on the appearance of a vast commercial cathedral. Which kind of made sense, most of us did like to kneel and pray before the almighty clearance signs, the altar of the discount rack. Take our daily bread from the creepy red clown or the fried chicken deity dressed all in white. Romero wasn't that far off when he thought we would all come here after we died. We just got here a little early. An abandoned mall was a very strange sight indeed. What was the point of all this consumerism with no consumers? Isabel turned to me with a smirk and a tilted head. "What?" I asked. "It just occurred to me," Isabel dryly replied. "Our world is overrun by zombie-like creatures, and we went to a mall? Just a little predictable isn't it?" We had a bit of a laugh over that, but it did make sense. If we were going to find anything we needed, it would be at the mall. We walked around for a while, taking stock of what we might need for the rest of the journey home. We got some flashlights, some prepared foods, knives, and a few cell phones, even though the ones we tried didn't seem to have any service whatsoever at this point. After our spree, we sat down in the food court and laid out our plan of action. Isabel had initially come with us to get to Kingston and to her mother, but obviously that was not a possibility anymore. I think she just wanted to be with someone, doing something. Our plan was to stop by Thom's house to get a couple of personal items, then to make it to Diane and Jordan in Oshawa. Maybe the military would be an option to help us at that point, but I wasn't about to sacrifice getting to Diane and Jordan just to be quarantined by the military. God knows when/if I would make it back home if I were detained by them. So this was our plan. I thanked them both repeatedly for wanting to come with me, especially since they probably would have been safer holed up somewhere. They dismissed my gratitude and said they wouldn’t have it any other way. We decided to try to find some sort of security office, thinking that if they had surveillance cameras, we could double check the area outside the mall before making our next move. Isabel seemed to be fairly familiar with the layout of the mall, so she led us in the general direction of where she thought it would be, and within a few minutes, we had found it. The glass windows of the office had been smashed out, and the door appeared to have been ripped off its hinges; it lay broken and twisted on the floor halfway through the doorframe. We stepped over it and into the office; there were papers and files everywhere, and furniture was haphazardly strewn all over the room. I walked behind the desk to the access door leading into the back office. That door was intact, but open. With my handgun drawn in front of me, I entered the back room, where it seemed the supervisor’s offices were, along with a few holding cells. I walked past the first cell, which was really nothing more than a reinforced closet with a steel door. I peered inside the thick meshed glass window into the cell. Darkness and nothing more. I stepped up to the second one, pressed my nose to the glass, and was greeted by a face thrown in front of mine, slamming into the glass and leaving a thick mucousy splat on it. I jumped back and the thing inside freaked out spasmodically, banging against the door like a rabid dog at a pound. Thom and Isabel had come into the room by now, and seemed a little amused by the fact that I had been startled. I paid them no mind and walked to the third cell more cautiously, looking inside. A man was slumped on the floor, seemingly not moving. As my face in the window cast a shadow over him, his head spun around, and he looked right at me. I momentarily jumped again, but this one did not leap at me, it stood up and looked out, staring into my eyes. I could hear a voice from the other side of the door. "Good God, thank you. My name is John, please, I locked myself in here, the keys are over there on the floor, please let me out…" He looked and sounded sane, there was nothing raving about him. I turned where he had indicated and sure enough, a large round key ring was on the floor with a dozen or so keys on it. I picked it up and held it to the window. He motioned for me to open the door. I felt it would be okay, he wasn't acting anything like any of the things we had encountered. Thom and Isabel agreed so I opened the cell door. John practically fell out of the room, taking a deep breath of non-holding-cell air. After drinking a bottle of water we had given him, he proceeded to explain to us that they were overrun with hoards of the infected, mostly stemming from a flu clinic that was located in the mall. When the proverbial “shit” hit the fan, he locked himself in the cell, even though he knew he could not get out unless someone got him out. I supposed he was right, it is preferable to being torn apart or eaten alive. We updated John on all we knew, about the military setting up across the highway, and our plan as to where we were headed and why. John said he had a brother in Lindsey, and he would be grateful if he could accompany us as far as we were going, safety in numbers and all. We agreed. John led us to the back of the security office, to a small room that hosted a bank of surveillance monitors. The room seemed completely intact, but John said no one was in it at the time of the outbreak, so I guess there was no reason for one of those things to go in if there was nothing to eat. We looked over all the screens, surveying the entire mall from the strange oscillating eye of the various cameras situated all over the property. No one in sporting goods; no one in the movie theatre. Not your typical busy day at the mall. One camera was on the bare storefront that housed the clinic, which had all of its windows papered over, as it was an abandoned unit and waiting to be leased. It seems that after a mob of infected started running amok, some mall security officers locked up the clinic doors, trapping the remaining dozen or so infected inside the store. In another camera view inside the clinic we saw dozens of infected still there, lying around barely moving. We could see small movements, but most of them were just sitting still; some were rocking back and forth. One small boy sat in the middle of the room, stoic as a statue, staring at the lens of the camera, at us. It sent a cold shiver down each of our spines. CHAPTER 14: JOHN VINCENT HICKLE John Vincent Hickle was born in Ross-on-Wye, a small market town with a population of 10,089 in southeastern Herefordshire, England, located on the River Wye, and on the northern edge of the Forest of Dean. He was born on November 23, 1967, to Beatrice and William Hickle, and was an only, but very happy child. He was imaginative and smart, and always had a distinct love of music, even in his younger years. When he was 15, he started a band called Crunch with a few friends, John on drums and vocals. John's band never saw the level of professional success needed to make a living, and so he worked various menial jobs to make ends meet. When John was 21, he decided to try and make a life for himself elsewhere. Seeing England as a dead end for his musical endeavors, he moved to Canada with Willie, a friend and band mate, and they came to Toronto in hopes of finding fame within Toronto's indie music scene. Unfortunately, Canada's opportunities for bands were about as ripe for the picking as England's were, and John ended up working the same types of blue-collar jobs here that he had worked in England. This pattern of playing small gigs and balancing day jobs was the norm for years in John's life, until he decided the music was just not going to happen and he was going to have to get a good job to secure his life in Toronto. John went through all the procedures to become a police officer, like his father, whom he had always respected for his job. He did very well in his training, and was eventually on the beat with the Durham Regional Police. Six years into his career in law enforcement, at the age of 32 and the rank of sergeant, John and his partner, a large Italian man named Vince Moretti, answered a call of domestic abuse. They arrived at the modest bungalow on a quiet court around 8:30pm on a warm Saturday night in July. John approached the front door as Vince checked around the side of the house. John knocked on the door and announced them as police. There didn't seem to be any movement in the house, nor any noise. Vince rejoined him on the front step, and John knocked again. The sound of locks turning was accompanied by the door cracking open to reveal the petite face of a woman, pushed into the open space between door and frame. She asked what was wrong and John relayed the reason for their call. The woman insisted she didn’t know what it was all about, and that she was home alone. John asked if they could take a look inside, but the woman claimed she didn’t feel comfortable allowing that. John reassured her that they were there just to make sure she was safe, but the woman declined the offer. As she backed into the house, John caught a quick glimpse of a forearm coming out of the back of her hair, as if a hand were grasping a handful of it on the back of her head. John glanced quickly at Vince, who confirmed what John had seen, and Vince's hand shot out to prevent the door from completely closing. The woman turned her head to look back out, a tear forming, then trickling down her left cheek. John figured from the direction of the mystery forearm that the man must be directly behind the door, so he took a chance and rammed his foot into the door. The chain snapped and the door exploded inwards, clipping the woman's arm, sending her spinning into the front hallway. As she fell, now free of the forearm of her captor, she landed on the floor hard, her head hitting the bottom of the stairs in the hall. The force of the door flying open also had some effect on the man to whom the forearm belonged, as it hit him square in the face, instantly bloodying his nose, and sending him to the floor on the other side of the hallway. John entered the house first, gun drawn, and Vince followed behind. John turned his attention to the woman as Vince swung over to the man. The man shook off his fall, and Vince noticed the hand that hadn’t been holding the clump of hair in it had a sawed off double barrel shotgun. Vince yelled for him to drop it, but his sentence was cut short by the bellowing boom of the shotgun, which caught Vince in the upper chest. Vince flew back hard, falling right back out the open front door. John's head spun around, eyes following Vince as he disappeared from the hallway. As he turned his gaze quickly back to the man on the floor, he was aware of him screaming. "BITCH!" the man yelled. He was holding the shotgun out towards the woman unconscious on the floor, and already squeezing the trigger. John squeezed the trigger of his Glock twice, sending the small but lethal projectiles into the mans chest dead center as his shotgun roared once more, the short barrels of his gun sending buckshot in a wide spray towards his wife. John's bullets had found their mark and pushed the man back into the floor, the sharp crack of bullets sinking into wood floors behind him as the shotgun slid out of his grip and across the floor. The man's buckshot had also found their marks, hitting the woman in the side of the head, making an incomprehensible mess up the stairwell wall. John screamed a loud NO as it all happened, then stood in complete silence as three bodies lie around him in all directions. He turned and kneeled beside Vince, sliding his hand behind Vince's head. "Vince. Vince, can you hear me?" Vince's face was sprayed with blood, and the bottom of his neck was torn up like meat through a grinder. The majority of the buck had hit his vest, but it hit him high and the spray was wide, catching his shoulders and neck as well. Vince tried to gurgle out something, but he couldn’t make it out. John grabbed his radio and called in the incident, and within minutes the paramedics were there working on Vince, trying to stop the geyser of blood that was draining him from the hole in his neck. The next day, sitting in a very uncomfortable plastic chair in the hospital, John was given the news that his partner and friend was going to survive, but that he would never speak again, and worse yet, would never move below the neck again, the shot had shattered the spine in the back of his neck. Less than 24 hours later, John resigned his position with the police force, and spent a very long time dealing with his guilt over that tragic day. A year or so after the incident, John took on a position with a company called Security First. He found the world of security much easier to deal with than police work, and he continued to do it for the next 10 years or so. His current position was as supervisor at the Scarborough Town Centre, where he usually just did office work and training, but this particular day he had been filling in a regular shift for a guard that was off sick. John wondered what the fate of that guard ended up being. Who knows if anyone John ever knew was still alive. Or how much longer John would be for that matter. CHAPTER 15: SCARBERIA OR SCARLEM? Scarborough had a reputation as being a tough city. A city of gangs and crime. Of course, it wasn't much worse than any other city or town, but once reputations are formed, they are not easily forgotten. In the 50s and 60s, Scarborough was your typical, primarily white suburban city, which was jokingly referred to as Scarberia because it supposedly symbolized drab conformity. In the years that followed, Scarborough became one of the most diversified cities in Ontario, with over 50% of its inhabitants being of ethnic origins, and the minority being whites. After some history with gang violence, the nickname became Scarlem, although it was not a term openly used due to the demeaning nature of it. Despite the reputation, Scarborough was a lush, green vibrant city with beautiful landscapes such as the Scarborough bluffs and the Rouge Valley. John, the security guard, had his share of experience and history with Scarborough, having lived within its borders for most of his adult life and then being a member of the police force there. As John sat looking over the monitors with Thom, Isabel, and me, trying to figure out the best way to get out of the mall and over to the relative safety of the apartment complexes, he noticed a group of 5 young men on the northern part of the property, smashing a door and making their way into the mall at the entrance by the movie theatres. Usually this wouldn’t bother John, as he would just call for back-up and get the situation taken care of, but these particular young men troubled him, and it wasn't because he didn’t have any back-up. It was because he suspected from the look of them that they were members of the 401 Boyz, a notoriously violent gang that operated in Scarborough. As if mad infected citizens weren't enough to worry about. John filled us in on the gang, and suggested we find a way out fast, as gang presence tends to grow rapidly and exponentially. After a few more minutes of strategizing, we all agreed that we would follow a short series of back hallways, usually used by couriers and delivery men, that lead to a docking bay exit at the east end of the mall, leaving just a short jaunt across a highway on-ramp over to the apartment complexes. We gathered up our stuff, and left the security office, half-jogging, half-crawling across the food court as if we were sneaking around in some Die Hard movie. We only had to cross one open area of the mall to get to the access hallway: an intersection of escalators and stairways, with a big elevator in the centre. The access door was on the opposite side, so we stayed close to the storefronts and worked our way around the centre court. As we got about a quarter of the way across, we heard voices from across the way, shouting and taunting each other. The gang members were nearing. We all picked up the pace, convinced that we could make it to the door before the gang made it to the court where we were. We broke into a full run now, more concerned about reaching our destination than being noticed. Once we reached the door, John opened it and held it open as the rest of us ran through. Isabel went through last and John took one quick look back just in time to see three of the guys arrive in the court and look straight across at him. They locked eyes with each other for one brief second. "HEY!" yelled one of the hoods. John's eyes widened and he let go of the door, turned back the way he came, and sped away in a full-on run. The three hoods took off after him, one with a knife and one with an automatic handgun. I heard the yell, ran back to the door, and looked out just in time to see the punks chasing John back down the mall. I told Thom and Isabel to go ahead and I would catch up to them, but they resisted, saying they wouldn't go ahead without me. And I insisted that we couldn't go on without John; we couldn't suddenly adopt the attitude that it was okay to leave someone behind. They both agreed. We couldn’t leave John behind, especially after he took off to make sure the gang members didn't discover us, and so we headed off to help him. We followed the shouts of the youths, who didn't seem to care if anyone heard them. We finally caught up with them as we rounded a corner to an exit where John was backed up against locked glass doors and the punks were narrowing in on him. Thom and I raised our guns simultaneously, concentrating our aim on the two that had weapons. My finger twitched on the trigger, I was just waiting to see if they were going to make a move towards John. That was the thought running through my head when I felt cold steel press into the back of my head. "Drop the fucking guns." The deep, aggressive voice came from behind us. We slowly lowered our guns and turned our heads to see five more of the gang members. One of them yelled out to the original three, who turned around to witness the triumphant capture. Diane and Jordan's faces flashed through my mind as the youths all laughed and hollered. One of them grabbed Isabel forcefully behind the neck and pulled her close, whispering something in her ear that made her physically retract, a look of absolute terror and disgust on her face. They grabbed John, and took us all back through the mall. Along the way, other wandering members of the gang joined them, some randomly smashing windows and looting stores, taking iPods, Blu-ray players, and random pieces of clothing. As we passed by the court near the escalators, I glanced at our escape door and looked around for something that could help us, but I didn’t know what. I just wished there was something we could do to get out of this situation. As I walked, I tilted my head back with my eyes closed, hoping this was all a dream. As I opened my eyes, head still tilted, I noticed movement through the skylight, but I didn't catch what it was. Something dark had been in the window, and then ducked out of sight. Then a thought occurred to me. The clinic. I spoke up. "What do you guys want from us? We work here. We can get you anything you want." The one who seemed to be the head honcho stopped the whole group, and we all stood still, silent in the middle of the mall. "What could we possibly want from you that we can't just take ourselves?" I thought for a second. "There's stuff in this mall that’s more valuable than what's in the stores. When the outbreak started, we stored away all the cash, and a huge amount of drugs from the pharmacy. It would be worth a fortune. We can show you where it is." The leader thought for second, and I could practically see the gears turning in his head. He stood there for a moment, and then turned his attention back to me. "Where?" "The food court, there was an empty store, so we figured we would stow everything away there. We figured looters would never break into a seemingly empty store.” He seemed to buy this. He turned and slapped one of his buddies on the back, and cracked a twisted smile. He turned back to me, grabbed the back of my neck and put the tip of his knife right up to my face, millimetres from my eye. "There better be motherfucker, or I cut me some steaks." CHAPTER 16: DIANE STEPHENIE BURTON Diane Stephenie Burton was born on July 1, 1970, in Savannah, Georgia. Her mother, Suzanne, was a house cleaner, and her father, Nate, was a jazz musician and songwriter. Nate wrote jingles in the 50s and 60s for television commercials, but that died off not long after Diane was born. Jazz just wasn’t a catchy way to sell products anymore; rock and roll and contemporary became the way to go. Nate still provided a decent income by playing jazz guitar with an ensemble, doing shows all over the southern USA. Although Diane's family didn’t have much money, Diane wasn’t aware of it. She was a happy child. She enjoyed her life in Savannah, and she always knew her parents loved her. She had lots of friends at school and in her neighborhood near Washington Square. A kid's life in Savannah was different from the average kid's life, mostly due to Savannah's culture and history. Diane and her friends would often play hide-and-seek in the Bonaventure Cemetery, the famous resting place of Savannah’s favourite son, Johnny Mercer. Because of this famous association, Savannah was also infused with the spirit of jazz; it was the lifeblood of the city and therefore a part of all of its inhabitant’s lives. One bright, hot Savannah day in August 1980, Diane and her friend Arlene were playing in Washington Square, running around the huge trees, trying to catch one another. Diane came around one of the large trees and bumped right into a young boy from her school, Tyler Jackson, and knocked him right on his rear end. Tyler already had a history with Diane, and it wasn’t a good one. He was the bully from the grade ahead of Diane and for some reason took a particular disliking to her. Tyler stood up and dusted the dirt off of his pants. He grabbed Diane by the arms and threw her to the ground, calling her names. Diane stood right back up and got in Tyler's face. She called him a jackass and belted him right in the nose, blood instantly streaming onto his lip. By now, a large group of kids had gathered, and were cheering on Diane. Tyler didn't much like being laughed at and humiliated by a 10-year-old girl, so he moved to grab her and Diane started running. Tyler caught up pretty fast and, being bigger than Diane, threw his weight into a double-handed push on Diane's back. Diane flew forward, falling out of the Square and onto the road ahead, rolling in the dry dirt blowing around on the pavement. As her last roll came to a stop, the last thing Diane saw was her own reflection in a shiny bumper as a city bus screeched to a stop, skidding right past her head and stopping beside her. Diane let out a long sigh of relief and started to sit up. As she tried to lean forward, she found she wasn’t able to get up. She turned her head to the right and saw that her right arm was stretched out from her body, but she could only see it just past her shoulder, as the rest of her arm was under the tire of the bus. Her vision went hazy as she realized what had happened, and she turned her head back to the left. In the blurry view from the road, she could see people around her talking to her, trying to help. In the distance she saw Tyler running with all his might in the other direction. Diane survived the accident and, with the help of metal plates and pins, her arm was mostly reconstructed. Although it was scarred just above the elbow, she regained more than 90% of her arm’s functionality despite the doctor's diagnosis that she might never be able to use it at all. She wore her scar like a badge of honour as it represented to her that no one could push her around or keep her down. That rule held true her whole life. Diane's father died of lung cancer, brought on by a long history of chain smoking, when Diane was 12. After his death, Diane’s mother decided that they needed a change of scenery and packed up their belongings to move in with her sister, who lived in Port Hope Ontario Canada. The Canadian winters took some getting used to for Diane, who was used to the sweltering temperatures and daily rains of Savannah, but, true to her personality, she was happy and made many new friends in her new home. As a teenager in Port Hope, Diane fell in with a bad crowd during her high school years. She took care to keep most of her undesirable activities secret from her mother, but she was involved in a life of civil disobedience and alcohol. When Diane was 17, she lost a close friend in a drinking and driving accident when some friends had left a party and gone out joyriding, fortunately not taking Diane with them (they didn’t know she was passed out in the basement and left without her). When Diane awoke the next day and discovered what had happened to her friends, she swore she would get her life in order, and vowed never to have to live through that kind of torment again. Diane went to university in Toronto, and eventually became a grade school teacher. She wanted to have an impact on kid's lives. She eventually found a teaching job in the Durham Region (just east of Toronto) and moved to Whitby. It was there she met Patrick and eventually, me. On June 17, 2000, after the tumultuous development of our relationship, Diane and I got married in my sister's backyard, with a small gathering of family and friends to help usher in our new life together. Diane's journey had brought her to a place where she was most happy, and thankfully that place was making a home, with me. CHAPTER 17: THE GREAT ESCAPE There we were standing in front of the empty storefront. Thom, Isabel, John, myself, and about 15 guys from this gang. We knew what was behind the door and the thugs didn’t, so we may have had an advantage, but we still weren't sure how this was going to go down; we just knew it was better than no chance at all. The leader of the gang motioned for me to open the door, to which I told him I didn't have a key, but John should. John gave me a look, and then unhooked his keys from the clasp on his belt. As he nervously sorted through the keys, I tried to piece together how this was going to happen. I guess John was taking too long, as the main thug stepped up to him, grabbed him by the throat, and slammed him up against the glass door, holding him there as he put his face up to John’s. "Don't fuck around rent-a-cop. Open the god-damned door." After he slammed John into the glass, the paper tacked to the inside of the windows started to loosen; one corner, slowly flapping back into the room, the weight of the hanging corner slowly pulling the whole piece down. Now I was starting to panic. If that paper came all the way down, not only would this plan not work at all, but once the gang saw the infected and figured out this was a trap, we would all be dead. John finally found the key and held it up. The grip on John loosened and the gang leader backed up. Again, he motioned to John to open it the door. As John turned towards the door, he caught my eye gave me a look of panic. He slid the industrial key in with a loud click that seemed to echo throughout the mall. In fact, it seemed far too loud for a simple click of a key. I turned around to see that behind the gang members appeared a line of four men, all dressed in fatigues with helmets and goggles on, all brandishing some very intimidating weaponry. Soldiers. One of them motioned for us to drop down to the floor, and, slowly, we all did. The gang members looked at the four of us with puzzled looks on their faces. "Who the fuck told you to move?" Once we were all down, one of the soldiers bellowed out for them to drop their guns, but the gang members spun around and opened fire, screaming obscenities. A hail of gunfire opened up with a deafening thunder from both sides, the clinking of hot shells hitting the tile floor around us, bullets hitting the glass of the storefront. Bullets hitting glass can't be good. As the gang spread out, diving for cover behind rows of garbage units and over-tiled planters, I motioned to our group to start crawling in the other direction. The soldiers were distracted by the gang members who were trying to kill them so we started crawling very fast, the cold mall floor hard on the knees. I glanced back but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to us. More stray bullets kept striking the glass walls of the makeshift clinic and the crackling veins in the windows increasing. We made it to an offshoot of the food court that led back into the mall and got up quickly, instantly bursting into a run the second we were out of sight of the gun fight. Behind us, we could hear the glass of the clinic shattering and the guttural cries of the infected as they laid their eyes on food for the first time in days. More yelling followed, but we could not discern whether it was gang members or soldiers. We were thankful it was not us. We reached the escalators and ran to the door that was the gateway to our escape route. Isabel got there first and held the door open, screaming for us to hurry. The gunfire had ceased but the sounds of people being torn apart and eaten were clear as a bell. We could also hear feet as they hit the tile floor, many of them, and the sound was getting closer. Regardless of whose feet they were, we didn’t want to deal with anyone, infected or otherwise. We reached the end of the access hallway and a large garage style door leading to a loading dock for mall shipments. John grabbed the handle and heaved the door up, but it didn’t move. He looked down and saw the padlock on the bottom of the door. He told me to shoot it off, so I aimed my gun at the brass lock and pulled the trigger. The shot tore into the lock and sent sparks ricocheting off the garage door, the bang of the shot echoed through the room. I waved away the small bit of smoke and looked at the lock, the u-shaped steel bar still in the door, but the lock itself in pieces on the floor. I knocked out the steel bar, gripped the door handle and had started to lift it when a loud, abrupt noise came from behind me. Standing in the opening to the hallway was a man, who looked to be in his early 20s, with eyes as yellow as the sun and fresh blood dripping from his chin. We all just stood there for what seemed to be an eternity, until Thom raised his shotgun and fired into the center of its torso. The shot ripped through its chest, spraying thick red blood all over the room and opening a hole so wide we could see its innards. The thing stumbled but did not fall. It yelped briefly, then began a staggered lunge towards us. Thom fired again, but the thing had lowered itself for the lunge and the shot went over its head, embedding in the wall behind it. It reached us in milliseconds, grabbing Thom around the waist and sending them both, along with Isabel, to the floor. John was sent stumbling backwards but quickly regained his footing. The thing had its mouth open impossibly wide, hovering over Thom's face while Thom's hands clamped on its top and bottom jaws, holding the head at bay. I leaned forward, put my gun to the side of the thing’s head, and pulled the trigger, blowing its head to the side, shards of bone and head matter showering the floor, but especially Thom, whose face was now covered with bits of gore. The thing slumped off of Thom just as another infected came through the doorway, this one at full speed. It didn’t even pause, just ran right into our group, grabbing onto John who was the closest person to the doorway. Its force threw them both against the concrete outer wall, and it bellowed as John grabbed it by the throat, pinching his fingers around its larynx and pulling. The throat came out easily, looking like a turkey neck on Thanksgiving, blood gushing down the front of the thing’s shirt. The bellowing stopped but the thing did not. It continued to hold John against the wall, and another infected entered the room, running straight at me. As it came quickly up to me from the left, Isabel jabbed out her hand, plunging her knife into the its left ear, sinking it right to the hilt. The thing’s head spun fast, tearing the knife out of Isabel's hand, leaving it embedded in its skull. As its head turned, I raised my gun beneath its chin and squeezed off another shot, this one tearing through the bottom of the jaw, up through the roof of its mouth, and continuing all the way up until it left the skull and lodged in the ceiling above us. The thing dropped down in front of me, and Isabel leaned in to get her knife back, putting her foot on its jaw for leverage as she pulled the long blade out of the skull with the horrible screech of metal on bone. I turned my attention back to John and leveled my pistol at the head of the thing that was in front of him. John's hands were bloodied from holding its snapping mouth back. I fired off one shot into the side of its head, sending it careening to its left and into a wall. As it slid to the floor it left a long, bloody smear on the wall to mark its path. Now that it was back to the four of us, I reached for the handle again and pulled up the garage door. The bright sunlight from the lowering sun blinded our eyes. We could see the apartment buildings from where we stood; they cut into the sunset like monoliths on the horizon. We did a very quick check to make sure that everyone was okay and jumped out through the door, breaking into a run across the end of the parking lot and across the highway on-ramp. Behind us, we could see glimmering shadows of soldiers on the roof, brief illuminations of their muzzled flashes going off as they fired through skylights into the mall, presumably at gang members and the infected. By now, maybe one and the same. We reached the first apartment building, which looked to be about 15 stories high. We went through the open passage into the underground parking area, and found a door that accessed the building itself. We would take refuge somewhere in the building until daylight, then move on. We just had to hope there was somewhere safe in this building, and that the military didn’t make their way here before we could leave the next morning. However, I had a suspicion that even the military halted their activities at night at this point. The infected are bad enough when you can see them coming, you don’t need to be dealing with them in the dark. We made our way into the building through the garage access door, securing it closed again using some 2x4s that were stacked in the garage. We switched on the flashlights we had procured from the mall, and started our way up the stairwell. We tried a couple of light switches, but there didn't seem to be any power. We decided that we should check a few floors up for shelter, that way we would have a good vantage point over the surrounding area, but we wouldn’t be so high up that we would have issues getting out. When we reached the fourth floor and opened the door to the hallway, it felt for a second like we were in an episode of COPS, with the flashlight beams stretching out along the hallway. We went door-to-door listening for any activity but heard nothing. About halfway down the corridor we heard what sounded like people talking. We skipped past that door and made our way to the one beside it, figuring we could listen in from next door, and determine if the people we heard were uninfected. At the next apartment, 404, Thom tried the doorknob while John and I covered him, Isabel looking out down the hallway. The door was locked, as we thought it would be. John handed Thom his shotgun and pulled out a small leather wallet. Inside was an assortment of small, metal tools, all laid out in individual pockets. I looked at John inquisitively. "What? I was a cop; I know sometimes there are doors that need opening when you don't have a key." John proceeded to pick the lock, and did so quite quickly. He reached for the doorknob and turned it, the door popping open with an airtight sucking sound. He opened it slowly. Once we were in, he crouched and motioned for us to enter. Thom and I swept in, our eyes scanning the room for anything that might need shooting. The room was clear. It was an old-fashioned living room, like a senior might have. There were various sleeping bags and blankets strewn about, but in a tidy manner. There was a frilly, white couch, a deep shag carpet, and a finely crafted dining table with some abandoned food laid out on it. We searched the kitchen and the bathroom. Everything seemed clear, but it looked like someone had recently been here. I separated from the others and checked the bedroom. The doorknob turned but the door didn't open; it seemed blocked. I called John over and he helped me brace the door while I turned the knob and we pushed. The door opened a few inches, and the sound of heavy furniture scraped the floor on the other side. Thom came over with the gun to cover us, as it seemed someone had barricaded themselves in here. John and I took a step back, and then shouldered the door again. This time it gave way. We stepped in cautiously and looked into the once-small bedroom. It wasn’t small anymore. The wall of the room was knocked completely out, exposing the apartment next door to it. In the corner of the room, a group of adults and children were huddled into the corner, unsure of what was coming through that door to greet them; their eyes wide with fear. We lowered our weapons and looked at the people in front of us. Our 'no one gets left behind' rule just got a lot more complicated. CHAPTER 18: APARTMENT COMPLEXITIES After about an hour of trying to calm everyone's nerves, including our own, we discovered that the huddled group we found in the apartment hideaway was actually two separate families who had decided that trying to pool their resources and survive together was smarter than going it alone. They were right. They had been in here three days now, and were set as far as food, clothing, and supplies went. Luckily, nothing else had tried to get in to their apartment yet. The fact that the infected seemed to be pretty impatient in terms of how fast they wanted food, it made sense that they wouldn't waste their time going through an entire building. There were lots of people who were easier to access right out on the streets. The mouse in the maze won't hit the bar for cheese if there is cheese strewn all throughout the maze. It’s when the cheese becomes scarce that’s worrisome. The family who lived in this apartment was the Callaghan’s. Frank was the patriarch of the family; a tall, solid, brick wall of a man with close-cropped brown hair and a kind face. His wife, Emily, was also tall and athletic; she could have been a model at some point. They had three daughters, Karina, 13, Sarah, 8, and Emma, 2. With the other family with a total of four more kids, ranging from a one-year-old to a seventeen-year-old. Lastly, there was a single, older man, probably in his 60s, named Clive. He was apparently a close friend of the Callaghan family, but he knew everyone. They all welcomed us into their bunker and we traded stories of what had happened to our world. The only new information we got from them is that the infection seemed to be much more widespread than we had known, with cases being reported in the US and Europe. We also found out that the military operations weren't exactly going smoothly. Most of the troops who were assigned to lock down the cities were reserves, as most of the regular troops were overseas, and the reserves were just as nervous as the people they had to round up. There were many reports of uninfected people being accidentally shot by twitchy trigger fingers, soldiers participating in looting, and other things that made the outside world even more dangerous. It made us thankful that we decided not to ask them for help. Who knows where we would be right now if we had. We also found out that the phones had been dead for days, and that cell phones didn't seem to be working anymore either. The modern world had gone dead. We traded some things with the families, giving them supplies they needed, a few weapons and flashlights for some better food than we had and lodging for the night. We filled them in on our whole plan, and they understood fully why we were doing what we were doing, but still offered to let us shelter with them if we so desired to stay. I walked over to the balcony, where they had hung thick black fabric over the patio doors to hide any light coming from the apartment. I ducked under the makeshift drapes and went onto the balcony, looking out over the city. It was about 10 p.m. now and darkness had fallen over Scarborough. There were no streetlights or business signs lit up, only small dots of light scattered randomly over the horizon, some brighter where the military had set up camp across the highway and in the mall. I looked to the east, knowing that was the direction of my home, and wondered what Diane and Jordan were doing right now. My heart ached thinking about them sitting there alone in the dark and I wished with everything in me that I could be there with them. I went back into the apartment and joined my comrades. We settled into a corner on our own for the night with some blankets that Frank had loaned us, and started talking about what we were going to do in the morning. As we talked, I could sense some hesitation from John and Isabel, and thought that maybe they wanted to stay at the Bramford. "You know, you have no obligation to me. If you feel you will be safer here, have a better chance, then stay. After all you have both done for me, I would never hold it against you." Thom spoke up. "I don't know that we’re safer here than anywhere else Denny. I want to stick with you, and make sure Diane and Jordan are okay. You’re my family." Isabel agreed, but hesitantly. We decided to give it the night to sleep on it, and discuss it again in the morning. The families of the Bramford Towers apartments had a system of rotating which adults slept, so they always had two people awake keeping watch at all times, one in the apartment, and one on the balcony. Thom and I decided we would take one of the shifts to let the families have a bit of a break. Thom sat out on the balcony and I sat up in the front hallway by the door to the apartment, listening for any sounds in the corridor. I found a copy of Tony Burgess' novel Pontypool on a bookshelf and was giving it a read during my shift, but it started to freak me out with its similarities to our current situation, so I put it back. I decided instead to use the time to recall some fond memories of my regular life, almost drifting so far into the daydreams that I felt I was there. In the backyard pushing Jordan on her swings, barbecuing with Thom back in July at Diane's birthday party. Reading books to Jordan before she went to bed at night. I could smell her baby shampoo as if she were right beside me. I could hear her breathing; feel her little heartbeat under my hand as it lay on her chest. I missed her so much I could barely stand it. At about 3 a.m., I was nearing the end of my shift on guard, and my eyelids were getting very heavy. Through the narrow slits of my eyes, I saw movement in the room at the end of the hall. Someone getting up to relieve me, I hoped. I rubbed my eyes and took another look. There was a kid, a teenager, probably about 16, wearing a dark hoodie, tiptoeing around the sleeping bodies. I thought at first that it was the Cornell's 17-year-old son, but upon watching him a little longer, it realized it was not. I didn't recognize this boy from the kids I had just met. I stayed still, watching him skulk around the room. When he got to the corner of the living room where Frank was sleeping, he braced one hand against the wall, and leaned over Frank. I realized he was reaching for the shotgun that Frank had laid against the wall above his head. I jumped up from my position, outstretched my hand, and yelled stop at the top of my lungs. Everyone in the room bolted up, and the boy reached out and snatched the shotgun, the butt of the gun hitting Frank on the head as he sat up. Most of the people in the room yelled from being awaken so abruptly, and Frank’s hands went out in front of him, telling the boy to take it easy. Frank looked confused and the boy just stood there holding the gun awkwardly, and then turned his head in my direction. His eyes were yellow and reflected the light from the one floor lamp that was on in the room. He didn’t look infected, but his eyes were like those of an animal in headlights, bright and wide. He looked back at Frank, swung the gun across the room, making everyone duck their heads in cover, then flipped the rifle in his hands and pressed the barrel against his chin, squeezing the trigger. His head came clean off his neck, shattering like a cheap piñata all over the room. His body jerked and dropped to the carpeted floor with surprisingly little mess, as most of the head was on the ceiling and walls. Frank grabbed the gun back from the boy’s dead hands and got up off the floor, quickly throwing a blanket over the body. Most of the adults already had their hands over their kids’ eyes, and many adults went pale and looked like they were about to pass out. A few people got up and started checking everyone else, especially the children. Then it occurred to me that Thom wasn’t here. I ran to the balcony doors and flung them open, throwing the black curtain aside. Thom laid on the concrete floor of the outlook, motionless, a stream of blood trailing down his forehead. I slid to my knees at his side and checked his pulse, talking to him quietly as I did. His eyelids fluttered and then opened, and he looked at me. “What the fuck was that?” he mumbled. I let out a small uncomfortable laugh of relief. “Some kid must have jumped balconies and got the best of you. He looked like he might have been infected or something. He grabbed Frank’s rifle and blew his head off.” “Frank’s dead?” said Thom, his voice slightly cracking. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant; I mean the boy blew his own head off.” Thom’s posture relaxed and he sunk back into my arms, his hand rising to feel his own forehead. I helped him inside and Emily tended to his head wound. The children were rounded up and put into another room, while Frank and three or four others started cleaning up the mess that was once a boy with no hope and a few minutes of wisdom. We decided to barricade the balcony, and just keep watch on the city safely from inside the apartment, posting the second watch at the window with the best view. Tonight’s event put a new spin on the infection, telling us that there seemed to be a short time span before the infected went totally berserk. The fact that the kid even showed up was not good for our outlook though, as we could assume if he was in the building and infected, there were probably more. Still, Frank had this place secured pretty well, it was just a matter of what happened once more time passed and supplies got low. There would have to be outings throughout the building for food and supplies, but I couldn’t worry myself with that right now, I had to concentrate on my own future. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, and although most of the people were still sleeping, exhausted from the drama of the night before, I was up and getting ready to leave. Thom, Isabel, and John were still asleep, but Frank was up, having never gone back to sleep after the suicide. We spoke a little about Frank’s plans, and about my plan to get home. I promised Frank that if there was a way for me to get help to him once I got home, I would. He promised the same to me should he encounter help. By about 6 a.m., I woke up the others to tell them I was heading out. I had considered leaving without them, thinking they would be safer here, but I decided against it. It was their choice to do what they wanted. Once everyone was up, our discussion of the previous night picked up where it left off. There was quite a bit of back and forth about the whole thing, as Thom felt that Isabel should stay in the apartment for her own safety, and Isabel wanted to leave. John seemed to be on Thom’s side, and I tried to stay out of it. In my eyes, it was Isabel’s choice to do whatever she wanted; she was an adult. Thom had obviously formed a parental bond with her, and it was kicked into high gear right now. They bickered like a father and daughter having an argument about an undesirable boyfriend. They finally came to the conclusion that both of them would continue with me on my journey, and John had decided that he would be able to help if he stayed with Frank and the families of the Bramford. With his police and security background, I wholeheartedly agreed. We gathered up our share of supplies and said our goodbyes to our new acquaintances. Isabel gave each of the kids a hug, and exchanged some words with each of the adults. Thom stood by and watched, with what seemed like a newfound sense of pride towards Isabel. Perhaps her unwillingness to stay and her sense of loyalty impressed Thom. Frank unbarricaded the main door, and bid us farewell one last time. We shook hands and started our way to the stairwell. As we passed door after door in the hallway, there was nothing coming from any of them. I wondered what was behind each one. More families? More infected? An apartment building could be a huge refuge or it could be a powder keg depending on its inhabitants. We reached the door and entered the grey concrete stairwell, the dim rectangular tube stretching above our heads and four levels down. We started to head down when we heard what sounded like a door slamming above us. We froze in our tracks and listened. Not a sound followed. My hand gripped the handrail and my knuckles started to turn white. Sudden sounds really made me jumpy now. Thom turned to me. “I don’t think its anything Denny. Let’s go.” I waiting a second longer, but Thom was right; there was no more noise from above. I took a step down, then stopped as I felt a very light pat on the back of my hand on the rail. I glanced down at a small puddle of translucent liquid. I stuck the finger from my right hand into it and swirled it about. It was thick, syrupy. I leaned over the railing and looked up the shaft to the levels above. I thought I saw someone looking over a railing above me, but it was too far and too dark to tell. I stood waiting for some sign of movement. The head popped out again, and this time more followed. Whoever it was had climbed onto the railing and was sitting in a crouch on it. A loud squeal belted out, echoing through the stairwell as I realized it was one of the infected. We all clapped our hands over our ears, and as I watched it howl, it leapt off the railing and came hurdling down the center of the stairwell headfirst. I ducked back into the stairs, and spread my arms out wide, pushing everyone back against the wall. The thing flew past us, screaming, with arms swinging wildly. One hand grabbed the rail in front of us and the things body slammed into the side of the stairs with a thud. It hung there for a second, but the force of the fall took over and its fingers let go, allowing it to fall to the bottom. I looked over the railing and saw it lying on the floor, a burst of blood haloing its head. Its hand twitched slightly, then its head flung around and looked up at us with another piercing cry. It jumped up and started running up the stairs, its eyes locked on us the whole time. It continued to bellow as it ran, and we readied our weapons for its arrival. Before it reached us, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I turned quickly back to the stairwell opening as another thing whizzed by us, this one going right to the floor. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I tilted over and looked up the stairs again. There must have been a dozen of them at varying heights, all climbing up the railings and throwing themselves off in an effort to get to us. The approaching one had reached our set of steps and lunged up at us, but Thom stopped it dead in its tracks with a shotgun blast to the head. Its cranium burst open like a water balloon and its body fell limp, sliding down the stairs. There were about five or six of them at the bottom of the stairwell now, so we had to find another way out and quick. We were on the third floor, so we opened the door to that level and went in, running down the hall towards the stairwell on the other side of the building, figuring if they followed us, we might be able to make it down those stairs and out before they caught up to us. Two things clumsily tossed the door open where we came in and gave chase. We got to the end of the corridor and flung open the entrance to the second stairwell. We ran in and it seemed to be clear. For a split second we considered going back up to warn Frank and the others, but we figured all we would end up achieving is leading the things to them. John had things secure there, and they would all be safe for the time being. We started down the stairs, hearing the things following about a floor and a half behind us. We reached the ground floor and entered the lobby of the building, a calm, serene, and very 1970s-style lobby with a koi pond. We ran across it and out the front door, and Thom looped his belt around the door handles, keeping what was in from following us out at least for a little while. We tore across the lawn and into another grouping of apartment buildings, trying to get as much distance as we could between us and the infected. I glanced to my right as we ran and saw Thom running with me, and looked to the left for Isabel but saw nothing. I stopped suddenly, as did Thom, and we both turned around to see if she was lagging behind. Isabel stood about 30 yards behind us, looking back at the building. We couldn’t see the building from our position through the large maple trees around us, so we jogged back to Isabel to see what was wrong. As we approached her from beneath the old maple, the Bramford loomed before us and we wondered why Isabel was staring at it. We squinted and looked closer. The Bramford Towers apartments looked like a beehive; what seemed like hundreds of bodies were crawling around on the balconies, jumping from one to another, climbing up and down them like rungs on a ladder, some falling off, some clawing over other ones to get to where they needed to go. As we stood and watched the bizarre sight before us, I realized something. We had to go back. Titles from: BOOKS of the DEAD BEST NEW ZOMBIE TALES (Vol. 1) BEST NEW ZOMBIE TALES (Vol. 2) BEST NEW ZOMBIE TALES (Vol. 3) BEST NEW ZOMBIE TALES TRILOGY BEST NEW WEREWOLF TALES (VOL. 1) BEST NEW VAMPIRE TALES (Vol. 1) CLASSIC VAMPIRE TALES GARY BRANDNER - THE HOWLING GARY BRANDNER - THE HOWLING II GARY BRANDNER - THE HOWLING III GARY BRANDNER - THE HOWLING TRILOGY JAMES ROY DALEY - INTO HELL JAMES ROY DALEY - TERROR TOWN JAMES ROY DALEY - 13 DROPS OF BLOOD JAMES ROY DALEY - THE DEAD PARADE JAMES ROY DALEY - ZOMBIE KONG JOHN F.D. TAFF - LITTLE DEATHS JOHN L. FRENCH – PARADISE DENIED MATT HULTS - ANYTHING CAN BE DANGEROUS TONIA BROWN - BADASS ZOMBIE ROAD TRIP MATT HULTS - HUSK TIM LEBBON - BERSERK PAUL KANE - PAIN CAGES ZOMBIE KONG ANTHOLOGY * * * Thank you for reading!