Part 9 (1/2)
”Now we can't get out of here without having to fight some of them off.”
”If only we had a distraction,” he said.
Scooter stirred. His tags jingled on his collar as he licked Shaun's hand. As he went to pet the dog, Shaun's eyes locked with Dejah's. Neither had to say anything aloud to know what each was thinking. ”No,” Shaun said.
Dejah just looked at him, sensing his internal battle, knowing he had to fight this out on his own.
”No,” he said again, and now the tears were coming. ”He's the only family I've got left. Really. Both my parents were only children. My grandparents are all dead. My parents and sisters were it. That's all I had. Now they're all gone, and that's it, and Scooter's all I've got left.”
He couldn't help what happened next. He broke down utterly and completely, and cried like he was six-years-old, and his. .h.i.tched sobs pulled forth a pain lodged so deep within him that it changed him the moment that reservoir of hurt was tapped and started to flow. It aged him, it hardened him; it buried an anguish and hate and bitterness in him that no sixteen-year-old had any right to have to live with. But it was true. Everything was gone. His whole d.a.m.n life. And he'd been raised Christian all his life, so he knew that while G.o.d probably didn't make this happen, he sure as h.e.l.l allowed it to happen, like some kind of modern day Job, and maybe that was worse.
Dejah pulled him close. He let her hold him, closed his eyes and tried to pretend she was his mother. It didn't work.
Scooter licked his cheeks. Shaun blinked hard and brusquely wiped away tears, his cheeks burning. Dejah let him go, and he looked away from her.
”It's okay,” she said. ”I understand. Scooter has to go with us.” She smiled, and it was a pretty smile. Somehow. In the midst of all this there was still beauty.
Shaun nodded. Scooter whimpered. Rage fueled his resolve, and Shaun was suddenly wound tight as an energy coil, ready to move. ”Let's just make a run for it.”
Dejah looked at him, glanced at the monitors. She seemed to evaluate the situation in a split second. She pulled out the gun and put an extra bullet in the spent chamber. She latched the cylinder back into place and started to pick up the duffle bag.
”Let me carry that,” Shaun said.
”Are you sure?”
”Yes, you're hurt. You shouldn't-whoa. What the h.e.l.l?” He stared at her arms, where she had deep lacerations only a couple hours ago. The wounds were almost completely healed. Just red welts where deep cuts had been, the slightest traces of scabs in lieu of gaping wounds. Same with the wounds he could see on her torso, which she'd said she got from the barbed wire and the infected dumpster lady.
”I know, I ... can't explain it,” she said. ”I wish there was some kind of explanation. Maybe I've got good epithelial cells or something.”
”Epi-what?”
”Epithelial cells. They make up the tissue that forms skin.”
”Ohh-kay.”
”I used to be a teacher,” she said.
”Or you're from the planet Krypton.”
She laughed. ”You know, I've run through it a hundred times walking through the forest on the way here. Even as a kid, I can't remember getting badly hurt. I mean, beyond bruises and sc.r.a.pes kids get; well, and childbirth, and I guess I healed really fast from that, too, but...” She shook her head, paused, studying her own wounds. She traded a look with Shaun and searched for something in his eyes. ”Anyway, then all this crazy s.h.i.+t happened, and I ... I had the same thing happen just yesterday. I was bad-off, should've been dead. Actually, I'm pretty sure I was dead. They got me.” She nodded at the windows of the booth. ”They ate my guts. One of my legs was stripped down to the bone. But, then I woke up. Alive. And it doesn't make any d.a.m.n sense.” She held out her hands. Her eyes shone with a need for understanding, but a greater need to reach her goal. It was as if she'd pa.s.sed her need empathically to Shaun, and he dug into it, used it to fuel his own resolve to help get them out of this.
”Lucky break for you,” he said, giving a light hearted laugh to ease the moment. ”Right now, we have to think about getting out of here in one piece. I'm pretty sure I don't have Wolverine regeneration powers or anything like you.”
Dejah smiled and laughed. ”Wolverine, huh? If only! I'd bust out with my adamantium claws and slice these meatheads to ribbons.”
Shaun blinked at her. ”Okay,” he said. ”It's official - you're cool.”
”I have my moments.”
The quips were welcome respite. They helped break the tension. Eased the fear and desperation. But ultimately, they had to move.
She gripped the gun. ”Okay. Are you ready?”
Shaun nodded.
”Let's do this.”
Shaun strapped the duffel bag over his shoulder. They sat up slowly, peering over the edge of the windows to see as far across the Mountain Creek Lake bridge as they could to spot a likely vehicle.
”That Jeep might be best,” she whispered. Shaun could smell the beef jerky on her breath. It made him strangely self-conscious about his own breath, which probably smelled like cat s.h.i.+t at best. He figured the overwhelming scent of p.i.s.s from the corner did a good job detracting from whatever unG.o.dly fumes drifted from his mouth.
”Maybe. Is that the one you want to try for?”
Dejah nodded. ”Let's go.”
Shaun said a silent prayer then reached for the doork.n.o.b. He did his best to quietly unlock it and get ready to dart out. He looked at Scooter. The dog's snout was in the small opening he made as he cracked open the door. The hound sniffed the air hungrily. Shaun had just turned back to Dejah to say Are you ready?, when the door was pulled open, jerked from his hand.
”No!” he screamed, hoa.r.s.e, as he realized what happened. The door hadn't been pulled open. It had been pushed.
Scooter shot out into the middle of Pioneer Parkway and headed in the direction opposite the way they planned to go. ”Scooter!” he shouted after his dog, but Dejah clamped a firm but soft hand over his mouth to quiet his cries.
The zombies reacted immediately to the emergence of Scooter, who seemed heroically to make as much noise as possible running the opposite way, barking and snarling. The infected milling around the booth turned as one and went after the canine.
”Now. We've got to make a break for it.”
Shaun growled, an anguished, tear-choked sound as he swallowed the hard truth of the situation. There was no sense allowing Scooter's self-sacrifice to be made in vain.
”Come on!” Dejah hissed.
They ran from the booth. Dejah vaulted over the toll gate. Shaun went underneath with the duffel bag. Off the lake, the brisk winds came cold and crisp with the scent of fish. The water gleamed with a pre-dawn light as they edged around the back of a Chevy Impala, climbed over two cars, hopped over a motorcycle, and ran across twenty corpse-laden yards to the Jeep they'd marked for use.
Dejah pulled open the driver door and screamed. A heavy woman in sweats with a dark mottled complexion and feral eyes fell out the door. Worst of all, on the back seat of the Jeep a baby was strapped into a car seat, growling like a caged animal, thras.h.i.+ng against its straps, clawing the air. The woman grabbed Dejah's ankle and mewled. Dejah had to force herself not to fire the gun into her head. Shaun helped kick her away.
”There!” He pointed at a long, old white Cadillac with chrome rims, and dark-tinted windows. It looked like a tank, the kind of a car they made in the 1970s, like from an old TV show.
Dejah took the cue and ran for the driver's side door. Shaun went to the pa.s.senger's side. Dejah paused and looked over the roof of the car at him. The zombie mom in sweats was shambling toward them. A few others were awakened now by the scent of their flesh and the sounds of commotion.
”My side's locked.” Shaun said in a panic.
Dejah swallowed hard and pulled open the car door. She stepped back and aimed the revolver into the driver seat. It was empty. Keys dangled in the ignition. She jumped in and reached across the great expanse of the front seat, unlocking Shaun's door. He got in. When they shut the doors they paused to take in the car's interior: fuzzy dice hung from the rearview mirror, rick-rack with pom-poms hung from the velvet ceiling. The steering wheel was furrier than a Yeti. A bobble-head Madonna was adhered to the front dash in a big glob of hardened glue, and hanging from a string of rosary beads, Christ dangled in all his plastic glory, crucified on a glow-in-the-dark cross.
Dejah twisted the keys in the ignition. The car fired up right away. Two zombies were coming at them from the front of the car. She floored the gas pedal and plowed into them. One of them seemed to break in half on the front left fender of the car. The second bounded up onto the hood, denting metal as its head came down with a thud. Its body twisted and crumpled, smearing blood over the winds.h.i.+eld as it flew up and over the cab, landing finally on the asphalt behind them in a pile of writhing, infected flesh.
Dejah turned on the headlights. The winds.h.i.+eld wipers came on, smearing the brackish blood across their view until she activated the juice to wash it away.
Shaun turned around and looked behind them, over the back seat, and through the rear window. Adrenalin surged in the aftermath of their escape. Sadness at Scooter's loss hung heavily with him, the mournful ghost of a good friend.
”I'm sorry, Shaun,” Dejah said, reading the expression on his face like she could read his mind. She was steering the car around a Toyota Prius, maneuvering their way along the bridge to the other side.