Mark Clodi - Outbreak

“Um, it is good, right. Good?”

“Yeah Julie it is good. I feel immortal, I think with enough humans in me, us, we will be immortal. Are you girls hungry? I could use a bite, but would rather wait for a few hours if you can handle it.” Somehow Nancy knew they were mostly full and would not resent waiting either. This was something she needed to sit down and explore with them too. How secure was her hold over them and how, exactly did it work? Time would tell, right now they needed to get through the next few days, find a few more people to eat, maybe make a couple more girls to go along with them. Replace Jimbo? Hm worth thinking about he did have more mass and muscle then the rest of them. Oh and track down that lucky fucker Fred too. She would find him, it was inevitable.

Max thought 'Hey this ain't too bad.' for a gut shot man walking down the stairs of the apartment building he was doing okay. Then came the shooting, a bullet winged off the metal support pole near Max’s head and sent him ducking to his hands and knees before he quite knew what he was doing. The pain from that maneuver was terrible, he dropped the revolver and saw it clatter down two flights of stairs past Tom, who turned and said, “Did they hit you! Did they hit you?”

“No, no, keep going, just…painful.” Max replied. He pulled himself up to the rail level and slid his legs down the stairs first, it was slow, but the agony was more bearable if he kept his body in more or less a straight line, bending made everything so much worse. 'And that was bending forward.' thought Max, 'Stretching up would open the wound more and…' just thinking about it made him nauseous.

Tom had ducked down below the railing too, this left them both partially exposed on the stairs that faced the parking lot, but kept them almost hundred percent obscured at all other parts of the descent. Unfortunately a hundred percent obscured did not mean a hundred percent safe, the thin painted wood of the railing did nothing to stop the bullets from flying through, just made them more inaccurate.

“Speed Tom, you gotta go faster, I gotta go faster or they are gonna put someone at the base of the stairs where we want to drop off. Plus they see us every time we turn towards the parking lot.”

Tom just looked at Max and Max knew the slow pace was on account of his wound. Still Tom went faster and got a stairway ahead of Max. This separated the gun fire into two locations and while Max thought he was in the middle of a gunfight, the reality was that very few bullets were coming their way, just enough to make them keep their heads down and slow their progress. Max did remember to grab the revolver on his way past it, he tucked it into his pocket, figuring even if he could fire it, his hands were shaking so badly and that he probably would not hit anything anyway.

They arrived at near base of the stairs with no more than an extra hole in the front of Tom’s jeans where a bullet had narrowly missed his shin. They finally made it down as far as they could safely go, onto some concrete steps facing the back of the apartment complex. The one final flight of stairs led to the ground, however it was facing the parking lot where all of the bullets had been coming from. Between the flight of stairs they were on and the next there was a landing where Tom intended them to go over the railing and out the ‘back’ way, which bordered on a creek with one of Denver’s many bike paths running along it.

Tom pointed to the railing, “We gotta go over that railing, it is about a five foot drop, the kids hang and drop from it all the time, but the landing is going to be on a hill covered with gravel, probably not good footing. Stay to the right side, it will be harder for anyone to see you if you are there. Ready?”

Max nodded ‘yes’ and Tom pointed to indicate he should go first. As Max slowly went down the stairs feet first he heard Tom scrambling around behind him, and then heard the explosive sound of the shotgun going off. Knowing that was his cue, he moved as quickly as he could to get over the railing, opting for the ‘head first’ method, instead of the much slower ‘climb over, hang and drop’ method. His next thought was ‘Five feet? More like fifteen!’ He hit the ground and blacked out after rolling onto his back.

Tom meanwhile fired several shots into the parking lot at moving men, he did not think he hit anyone, but they kept their head’s down, which is all he wanted. He reloaded the shotgun, fired one more round and then slung the gun over his should by the strap and hopped over the fence, he did hang and drop and had to modify his trajectory when he saw Max laying on the ground below him, unmoving. He landed on the slope and rolled to one side, into the foundation of the building, then stopped on his butt, sliding to a stop on the loose gravel next to Max.

He nudged Max, who moaned and said, “C’mon Max we area almost there buddy, get moving!”

Max groaned again, “Five feet! That ain’t five feet Tom!”

Tom shrugged, “Well I didn’t expect you to go head first off the damn thing! Can you get up? Oh shit you’re bleeding again. Better get your band aid together first.” He leaned over Max and pulled the towel back around his stomach cinching it closed as Max had done before. The bleeding was not stopped, merely staunched for the moment. He was just helping Max to his feet when a voice above them shouted down, “Hold it right there boys or we will shoot!” Max and Tom stopped and slowly half turned around to look up at a man holding a rifle on them, the tentatively raised their hands and the man said, “That’s right, keep em where I can see em…”

His next words were cut off by the sound of a pistol from behind Max and Tom, the man yelled as he was shot in the arm or shoulder, spinning around and falling behind the barricade. Turning back towards the creek Max saw the patrol car on the bike path behind them. Tom wasted no time helping Max down the hill and climbing in after him into the back of the car. Steve, now driving the car, took off down the bike path while Stewart turned to Max and Tom.

“How’d it go?” she asked, as if nothing unusual had happened.

Tom spat out, “I got Max fucking shot! For clothing!” turning to Max he said, “I am sorry Max! I am so sorry!” While saying so he pulled up Max’s shirt to reveal the bloody towel wrapped around his stomach.

Max winced and said, “Yeah, Tom. I am sorry too man.” Then thinking about it he said, “You didn’t know, the same thing could happen when we get to Steve’s sisters or my place, you didn’t know man, you couldn’t have known.”

Stewart was looking at the towel then reached into the glove box and came up with a medical kit, she proceeded to pull out a pair of latex gloves (there was an entire box of them) and told Steve, “Steve, pull over and let me swap with Tom. Tom, you reload the gun and keep your eyes peeled for trouble.”

After a quick stop they were on their way again. Stewart said to Steve, “You know where the state clinic is on a hundred and thirty fourth? No? Well turn right here, then take the second left after this next light and then the first right after that, it is on the left. We’ll see if docs are in. Let me take a look Max.”

Max looked at Stewart and said, “I, I can’t, you do it.”

“Wuss. Move your hands. No, not there, move them out of the way.”

Stewart peeled back the towels, knowing from her training that this is generally the wrong thing to do, you are supposed to let the band aid work by allowing the blood to pool and seal the hole. However she had to know, if it was as bad as it looked she would not place good odds on Max surviving and from what she had heard his death would not be a pleasant one either. She pulled the last of the towel back, starting the blood flowing again and said, “Tom, hand me that bag there in front of your feet, it has gauze in it. Thanks.” She proceeded to clean up the blood so she could see the wound more clearly, there was a lot of blood. She sighed in relief at what she saw, just as they were driving slowly by the clinic.