Patrick D'Orazio - Coming the Dark

He raised his hands and yelled, “Whoa, it’s me! It’s okay, Megan, it’s me!” For an instant, he thought she was going to pull the trigger, but something like recognition passed over her face and she dropped her hand. She was clearly still freaked out.

A fist slammed into one of the windows, and Megan whipped around toward the noise. Jeff looked as well and saw blood caking the rear window where the fist had connected.

He could also hear the moans. The van was surrounded. The infected had crept out of their various hiding places: abandoned cars, dark shadows, and the other buildings where they had hidden from the blazing sun. That the dead had come for them did not surprise Jeff. What did surprise him was that Megan had not already started shooting.

Through the dirty window glass, he could see several figures moving slowly toward the minivan. Only a handful had reached the vehicle so far, but they were a gruesome lot. One that had found its way to the driver’s-side window made Jeff squirm. Its face had nearly been obliterated by the chunks of glass wedged into its flesh. One eye was split in half, the largest shard of glass jammed deep within the orb. Its other eye stared at Megan balefully as it hissed with all its shattered teeth and blackened gums on display.

“We need to leave now, Jeff!” was all Megan could say as she kept turning in her chair with the gun in front of her, as if not quite sure which grisly monster to shoot at first. The van was starting to rock back and forth.

Jeff turned back toward the shopping cart and scooped up an armful of items. “Help me with this shit and we’ll get the hell out of here.”

“Jeff…please!” He could hear the desperation in her voice and knew Megan wasn’t about to move out of the driver’s seat. She repeated the word “please” over and over, her voice rising. Jeff’s arms were a blur as he dug into the cart and tossed more of its contents into the minivan. The thuds of fists were becoming more insistent, like the sound of a hailstorm. He didn’t look up as he kept his hands moving from the cart to the van in rapid succession.

“JEFF. WE HAVE TO LEAVE RIGHT NOW!” Megan spit out the words as she attempted to turn the key in the ignition with shaking hands.

“Just one more second! I almost have everything!” Jeff grunted as he tried to grab hold of more than his hands could manage. Cans and bags of chips spilled onto the ground as he shoveled what he could into the van. A buzzing sound filled the air, and the van jolted as the engine turned over. Jeff recognized the noise and saw the automatic door beginning to close. He also saw Megan fumbling with the gearshift.

Dropping what was left in his hands, he dove through the closing door and heard the sound of metal on metal and squealing tires as the van shot away from the entrance of the drugstore. He grabbed an armrest and held on tight as Megan whipped the Odyssey around the parking lot. There were several loud thumps as the infected were pushed out of the way. The minivan bounced erratically and then corrected, stable again on four wheels. At least one of the bodies had fallen in front of the vehicle, and Megan did not stop as they rolled over it. The side door finally clicked shut, and the buzzing noise disappeared.

Swinging the steering wheel frantically from side to side, Megan avoided the larger clusters of bodies attempting to grab for them. Several more stiffs were knocked to the side as the van swerved out of the parking lot, hitting the small ditch surrounding it and popping up onto the street. Everything Jeff had just tossed on the seats scattered to the floor and went rolling around the cargo area. He joined the supplies and landed ass-up on the floor. From his vantage point, he could see nothing and had a hard time crawling back to a sitting position.

“Calm down, Megan! We’re going to crash!” he tried to yell over the still-squealing tires and revving engine. Jeff could not hear his own voice as he grabbed hold of a seat to pull himself up. The van finally straightened out, and the disheveled man was able to slide into the front passenger seat. He was barely settled when Megan slammed on the brakes, nearly sending him through the windshield.

“Enough!” Jeff yelled, this time loud enough for her to hear as she gunned the engine and wrenched the steering wheel around to weave in and out of the stationary traffic. Megan jumped at the sound of his voice, but her eyes did not move off the road. She slowed slightly but retained her death grip on the steering wheel as the van darted around stalled cars and lunging bodies. As they moved farther away from the intersection, the cars remained an issue, but there were fewer ghouls to dodge.

“Ease up just a little bit,” Jeff tried again, placing a hand on Megan’s shoulder. She viciously shrugged it off, and he acted as if she had slapped him, backing away slowly. “Okay, okay. Sorry.” He leaned down and picked up the.357, which had fallen to the floorboards. “If NASCAR ever gets rolling again, I’ll be sure to sign you up.”

It did not elicit the smile Jeff had hoped for, but the intensity in Megan’s eyes seemed to drop a notch. Holding the wheel steady she reached over, and pulled her seatbelt on, which made him relax a bit more. Her driving was steadier as they weaved in out of the clog of vehicles and headed down the road. A random path of destruction continued from structure to structure, but the vehicles were starting to thin out as the survivors moved on.

The duo was silent as Megan continued to dodge the occasional persistent plague victim. She clipped a couple at first, but the few figures on the road were getting easier to avoid.

The sloping hood of the van had several sizeable dents in it that were splattered with something that looked far too thick and runny to be blood. Jeff was staring at the new paint job when the minivan swerved again, and he heard a muffled thud as another body went spinning off into a ditch, pirouetting as it was knocked away by the hit. He watched, fascinated by the creature’s single moment of grace before it fell and disappeared from view.

“Sorry,” Megan whispered. Jeff cocked his head to the side, unsure of what he had heard. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, glancing at her passenger for a moment.

“Screw that. You did great,” he smiled, relieved that the tension between them was broken. “I meant what I said: you drove this puppy like a pro. I would have probably smashed into one of those wrecks back there.”

Megan didn’t share the smile, but her chest puffed up slightly. They sat in silence for the next few minutes, content to look out the windows. As the van crept along, they saw fewer corpses, less of the infected, and a stretch of road with no more wrecks or abandoned vehicles.

“So?” Megan said after a while. She waited for Jeff to look at her before continuing. “Gallatin then?”

He nodded. Gallatin was due east and out toward the country. The town was a mirror image of Milfield, except it was smaller and still held onto its rural roots. There were plenty of trailer parks, farms, and big undeveloped plots of land out that way.

Jeff stared out at the surrounding landscape, which looked deceptively normal. The woods were a bit thicker along the stretch of road they were driving, the houses more spread out. As long as he didn’t look too closely, it was easy to pretend things had gone back to the way they were before the virus paid the world a visit.

They went over a rise in the road, and the daydream was shattered. The trees fell away and they were moving past another neighborhood no different from any of the others the two refugees had seen before. It was a mishmash of damaged properties and those left untouched. Several of the infected were milling about and turned to look as the vehicle rolled by. The sad wretches tried to follow but never got close, and Jeff watched them disappeared in the rearview mirror.