Tracking Blood: Episode 14

An apocalyptic serial

Table of Contents

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Stanley glanced at the backseat of Will’s truck. The hunter’s rifle was there along with Stanley’s backpack. He was glad his brother had kept the gun. He had a feeling they would need it.

Meanwhile, Will concentrated silently on the unplowed road. He hadn’t said a word since the cabin, other than a few choice words when the phone calls he attempted didn’t go through. “Are you still embarrassed you threw up?” Stanley asked him.

“I’m not embarrassed.”

“It’s okay if you are. I won’t tell anyone.”

Will threw him a pissed-off look. “The day I’m comfortable killing a man is one I don’t want to see. Believe me when I tell you, I’m not embarrassed.”

“He wasn’t a man, if it makes you feel better. I mean, you saw how he moved.”

“He was sick.”

Stanley scoffed. “Come on, Will. Whatever made him do that, it wasn’t just a virus.”

Will fell quiet again. Stanley could tell it bothered him, too. His brother just wanted to put this entire chapter behind him and get back to his nice, simple life. Stanley only wished it was that simple. Whatever was happening out there, he knew the cabin was just the start of it.

The world was about to get a whole lot uglier.

“Listen,” he said. “I don’t think we should go back to town. If some hunter out in the woods was infected, I have to think the town is, too. I mean, it stands to reason.”

“We’re not hiding out in your little Unabomber cabin. We hand that gun over to the police, file a report, and then I’m bringing you back to D.C. so you can serve your time.”

Stanley nodded. “Be careful, Will, that Unabomber bit was almost a joke. It wasn’t funny or anything, but it’s nice to see you try.”

“You’re the joke,” Will said as he finally turned off the private road and onto the main road that led to town.

“Wow. Thank you.”

“I’m serious. When are you going to grow up? You’ve been doing this computer crap for how many years? Put it to good use. Become a programmer. Build something, instead of tearing things down. It doesn’t matter what it is, just get a damn job like the rest of us.”

They were getting close to town now, the final turn just a minute away. “I’m not having this conversation with you,” Stanley said.

“Why not?”

He turned in his seat, his face hot with anger. “Because if you think designing mobile games or some other bullshit is a better use of my skills than trying to prevent the end of the world, I have nothing to say to you.”

“The end of the world,” Will scoffed. “You conspiracy freaks. Every six months it’s the end of the world. I’m curious if you really believe that, or if it’s just another way to avoid responsibility.”

“You know what? Pull over. Let me show you what I found.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why, you’re afraid I’m right?”

“Because first, I’m in charge here, not you, so you don’t get to tell me to pull over. And second, I don’t care what you think you found, it’s not the end … of … the …”

Will’s voice trailed off as his foot lifted off the gas pedal. Stanley turned to see what he was looking at.

The town. It was tearing itself apart.

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Ryan had watched so many videos of explosions, from demolition crews to gas station accidents to drone footage in third world countries. It wasn’t the death he liked, it was the destruction. He liked fireballs and shockwaves. They were the best special effects, the practical kind made with real physics and fire.

This was nothing like that.

The bombings had lasted for more than an hour, though it felt like much longer. Each blast vibrated his fillings and made his eyes feel loose in his skull. The basement walls shook each time a new explosion came. Dust shook loose from the pipes over their heads and fell down on them, making them cough and choke.

In real life, where they could kill you, explosions were actually pretty terrifying.

“What if they hit the house?” Ryan asked.

His mom rubbed his arm. “They won’t.”

“But some of them seem really close.”

“I think they’re concentrating on the middle of the city,” she said. His mom wasn’t the kind to hide things from him, to shield him from reality the way some parents did. She was always honest with him, even when he wished she wasn’t. When their cat died, she didn’t tell him he’d gone to a farm like parents do to most five-year-olds. She told him the truth, that it was a part of life. She was brutally honest, even when it hurt.

So the fact that she was lying to him now, about this, scared him even more.

A dull roar rose up, like ocean waves rolling toward shore. It was coming from outside. After hearing it gain strength for a while, his mom left his side to pull the blanket aside and look out the small window.

“What is it?” Ryan asked, already wishing she would move away from the window.

She looked back at him, a glow lighting the side of her face, and simply said, “Fire.”

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The town was in chaos.

Men and women with blood-streaked faces dotted the main strip. They ran terrifyingly fast, jumping on the terrified citizens of the small town before tearing them open with their teeth. One man was trying to put out a small fire with an extinguisher. Just as he did, a pale woman jumped on him and opened up his neck.

Will stared at the monsters that had overrun the streets. When he’d rolled into town less than twelve hours ago, looking for his brother, he’d found a peaceful place blanketed in pure snow. A town that liked to drink and gossip. Smalltown, USA. He marveled at how quickly it had become a dirty, bloody, screaming place crawling with people just as crazed and wild-eyed as the man who had attacked him in the woods. They were savage things. Hungry.

Infected.

“I usually like being right,” Stan said softly.

A brown delivery truck surged into the street from between two stores, driving in reverse. The driver hit the gas and its tires squealed, sliding on the snowy road. They could see why- an infected man was clinging to the drivers-side door, trying to claw his way inside.

Worse, the truck was heading right for them.

“Uh, Will,” Stan said.

“I know.” Will popped the truck into drive as the back of the much larger vehicle bore down on them.

“Will.”

He gave it gas, but the tires spun in place from the sheet of ice that covered the road.

“Will!”

The delivery truck smashed into their side. Will and Stanley became rag dolls inside the truck’s cabin. The impact was powerful enough to flip the vehicle onto its side and push it along the slick road, metal scraping in their ears until a telephone pole finally stopped their noisy slide.

They found themselves pinned sideways, both men in a pile against the driver’s side door, which was now against the ground. As Will tried to pick himself up in the cramped space, he found his left hand was bleeding badly. A shard of glass had wedged into the center of his palm. The pain didn’t hit until he pulled the glass out and tossed it aside.

“You alright?” He called out to Stan. His younger brother was lying on the floor of the truck, jammed shoulder-first against the pedals and not moving.

“Stan?” A moment of panic hit him. Turning his brother over to the police was one thing. Losing him was something entirely different. He thought of how he would have to break this to his family, especially Ryan.

“Shit, that hurt.”

Stan rolled over painfully, revealing a scraped-up forehead. “I think I broke my finger,” he moaned.

“Next time, wear your seatbelt,” Will replied. He stood up and kicked at a crack in the windshield once, twice, three times until it gave out and the whole thing spilled onto the street. He helped his brother through, then crawled out himself.

They’d been lucky the truck hadn’t caught fire, but there was still a chance it could go. All it took was the tiniest spark. Will scanned for a safe place as he pulled his brother away from the truck.

“My pack,” Stan cried, pointing inside the truck’s cab. The hunter’s rifle was in there, too.

“Leave it,” Will whispered.

“You don’t understand, the-”

“Leave it,” Will cut him off. “And keep your voice down.” He nodded to the delivery truck. The front end was still jammed up against Will’s truck, wedging it against the telephone pole. It had taken a lot less damage than Will’s truck except for one glaring difference.

The driver was being eaten.

The infected man who’d been clinging to the door was devouring the man behind the wheel. Streaks of blood ran down the windshield. Stan stopped complaining about his backpack and they took off before the infected man noticed them.

The town’s main strip was alive with fighting and shouting. A teenage kid was being dragged inside the bar Will had visited the night before. A pony-tailed guy in a flannel coat fired a shotgun wildly into a crowd, even though from a distance not all of them looked infected. It was hard to tell friends from enemies.

All that gunfire was attracting a lot of attention. Half a dozen infected converged on the man with the shotgun, their red eyes wide with hunger. Will and Stan used the distraction to sneak across the street, down the sidewalk, and into an open store.

Stan quietly locked the door behind them, though neither of them knew if it would help. The store was half-lit. It was a typical small town hardware store, four aisles of tools and supplies; cords, wire, switches, gaskets, faucets, aerators, planting pots, hoses, soil, seeds. A paint section took up the far left wall. Fishing rods on the right.

More importantly, there was someone in the store. Whoever it was, they couldn’t be seen, but the convulsing and choking sounds coming from behind the old wooden counter revealed their presence.

Will lifted the most solid hammer he could find off the shelf and snuck toward the counter, crouched out of sight while Stan stayed back. As he came around the counter, the smell hit him first, a sour combination of bile, blood and piss, followed by the sight of the old man bent over in his own pool of sick.

The white-haired man sniffed at the air, picking up the smell of fresh blood. Then he turned and blinked his new eyes at Will.

With no time for hesitation, Will rushed forward and attacked. The hammer came down on the top of his head. Thud. Once. Thud. Twice. Thud. Three times.

The man’s head opened up as he fell to the floor. Will stepped back from the growing puddle of blood and looked down at the hammer. It still had the price hanging from its handle.

Dead Blow Hammer, the tag read.

He expected to get sick again, but his stomach felt fine, his nerves only faintly buzzing. Will was half-relieved, half-saddened to realize he was already slightly more used to killing the second time around. He looked back at his brother, who was keeping his distance.

“Get away from the windows,” Will ordered. Stan stepped away from the front of the store without complaint.

The store was a treasure trove of weapons and tools that could very well save their lives, and both men knew it. They also knew that it painted a big, red target on their hiding place for anyone else who knew it.

After a quick search of the store, Stan found the door to a small office in the back. They decided it would be a good place to lie low in for a while, at least until things quieted down outside. They gathered some food and drinks from the store’s small food display by the counter, went into the back office, and closed the door behind them.

Will found the store’s electrical panel and switched off all the lights. There was a desk in one corner, with a dusty, old computer. Stanley peered out a crack in the blinds, then glanced back and met his brother’s gaze.

“You realize this is what I was trying to warn people about,” he said, motioning to the chaos outside.

“There’s no way you could know this would happen.”

Stan ducked down as a shadow passed by. “Not so soon. Not like this. But it’s been a long time coming. No one is safe so long as the government can operate in the dark with zero repercussions.”

“Just stop it. There is no secret military bioweapon,” Will argued. “This is that flu everyone’s been talking about.”

Stanley grit his teeth. “Don’t be so fucking naïve. Does look like the flu out there? Their eyes? The way they run? They’re fucking eating people, Will!”

“Viruses change. It happens all the time.”

“Sure, it’s called mutating, but this is a lot more than that. I’m not dreaming this up. I have proof.”

Will shook his head. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Tell me, what am I doing?”

“Whatever you think you found, it’s not real,” Will said. “The military didn’t release a weapon on its own soil. They wouldn’t do that.”

Stan simply stared back at him.

“What?” Will asked impatiently.

“September, 1950. The U.S. Army is deployed to San Francisco. For eight days, they release clouds of two different pathogens in thirty-minute intervals. They do this to study the viability of attacking a seaport city during war. A man named Edward Nevin contracts an infection and dies.”

“Sure, but-”

“Ten more patients are admitted with bacterial infections over the next six months. They all recover, and no one learns the truth about the testing for twenty-five more years, only then because of the efforts of a reporter named Drew Fetherston.”

“You’re talking about sixty-five years ago. People have changed since then.”

“Have we? Or are we the same scared monkeys we’ve always been? Technology moves fast, but evolution doesn’t.”

Will took a breath. “I’m not saying the government doesn’t make mistakes. Of course they do. But they still exist to protect us.”

Stan laughed. “Look outside, tell me how that’s working out.”

Will had no answer. Stanley leaned in, lowering his voice.

“They’re the worst kind of evil, Will, the kind that believes it’s good. Just do me a favor- don’t let yourself become one of them.”

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The fire was close. It had been spreading from house to house, carried by the wind and working its way up the block with frightening efficiency. After twenty minutes of hopefulness and denial, Tanya knew the painful truth- they had to abandon their home. If they acted now, they might be able to save a few things. Credit cards. Birth certificates. The wedding album. Ryan’s baby pictures. Each second they waited, they would lose another item.

“Alright, it’s time to go,” she told Ryan from the bottom of the basement stairs.

“But … those things are still out there.”

Tanya sighed. “I know, baby, but that fire’s coming our way. We can’t trap ourselves down here if the house-” She stopped herself. Ryan looked back at her with big, scared eyes that reminded her that, despite his smarts and his love of horror, he was still just a kid. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. We just need to make it to the car and we’ll be okay.”

After a moment, he nodded and joined her at the stairs. She ran her hand through his hair. Then they walked up together.

Tanya opened the door to the hallway. The house was quiet except for the roar of the fire, which sounded like it was just outside now. That meant the house next door was already likely burning. Tanya and Ryan had little time before the flames came knocking at the door.

She pulled Ryan behind her, running to the kitchen. Her bag was on the counter, and she hoped like hell her keys and wallet would be inside. As she pulled the bag open to rifle through, Ryan tugged on her arm to say the fire had reached the side of the house. Sure enough, the window at the other end of the house glowed orange though the curtains. There was no time to gather the valuables; it was time to leave

Except she didn’t have her keys.

“Motherfucker,” she hissed. “Hurry, look for the keys!”

The two tore through the house, looking for her keychain. Meanwhile, the fire had bled through the wall, filling the air with smoke. “Mom, we have to go,” Ryan shouted over the crackle of flames, but she ignored him. “Mom,” he repeated.

“We can’t, not without the-” She spotted the orange keychain on the dining room table, next to the pile of bills. “Got ‘em!” She held up the keys as if they were made of gold.

But when she turned, a man was looking at her through the front picture window. Her heart was hopeful that it was Will, that he’d come home to take them away. But her hopes were quickly dashed on the rocks when she saw the man’s face. It was Jerry Walker, from two blocks over.

He was barely recognizable. He’d been attacked, by the looks of him, but there was something more. The way he looked at her, it was almost lustful, like he wanted her.

He was hungry. And his eyes, the color …

Jerry rushed forward and leapt through the picture window in a blur of sound and motion. Tanya let out a shout as the glass flew. Jerry smashed into the dining room wall, knocking down framed pictures and crashing to the floor in a heap of broken glass.

He was momentarily stunned. Tanya took the chance to push Ryan back into the kitchen and away from their crazed neighbor. They had the keys, now they just had to make it to the garage. But the smoke was growing thicker by the second. It stung at their throats and made them cough violently, heads spinning from lack of air.

Jerry recovered way too quickly for them to make their escape. He chased after them, trampling around the corner on bloody feet. Fire blocked the end of the hallway, including the basement they’d been in just minutes earlier. Tanya and Ryan cut through the living room. It was the quickest way to the garage, and at the moment, their only hope.

He was gaining on them. Jerry grunted and snarled like a vicious dog on their heels. Tanya and Ryan ran around the living room couch, cutting around the coffee table. As Jerry stumbled and jumped over the couch, Tanya pulled Ryan down to the floor. Jerry crashed into the table that held the fish tank. Glass shattered and water poured down over his head and back, along with the pebbles and fish inside.

Tanya and Ryan pulled themselves up and ran for the garage door. They glanced back to see Jerry shaking off the dirty water. Amazingly, he picked up one of the bigger fish flopping on the floor and bit its head off in one bite.

Fire was overtaking the house. It had spread from the hallway into the living room. As Jerry looked in their direction with a mouthful of fish meat, surrounded by smoke and flames, they were already slamming the garage door behind them.

Ryan hit the button on the wall to open the garage door as he ran around the other side of the car. The keys were a shaking mess in Tanya’s hands, but she managed to isolate the alarm remote and unlock the car as they ripped the doors open and clawed their way inside. The garage door had barely risen out of the way when Tanya started the car and gave it the gas, shooting out of the garage like a bat out of hell.

Hell was right. Fire overtook the house at incredible speed, flames already erupting from the broken dining room window. Black smoke rose off the house in gigantic plumes, the same as every other house in view. Tanya slowed down to look at the home they’d spent years painting and remodeling and improving. All of it, all the furniture and the clothes and the carpeting, it was all just a match head waiting to be struck.

Bang. Something slammed against Tanya’s door. She yelped and locked the doors before she could see what it was. When she looked up, it was through red-streaked glass. The woman on the other side was missing an ear, bitten clean off like the fish’s head. “Help! Please help me!” the woman screamed, her bloody hands on the glass. She was pale and slick with sweat.

Tanya looked at her son, not knowing what to do. “Just go,” he whispered.

The woman pulled on the locked handle. “Please, let me in!”

Tanya swallowed hard and pressed on the gas pedal, lightly at first. She felt ashamed. The woman needed her help, but doing so would risk Tanya’s life and, more importantly, Ryan’s. The woman tried to hold on to the handle, shouting for her to stop, but Tanya gave it more gas.

As she left the bleeding woman behind, she glanced in the rearview. The woman stared back at the car with all the hope drained from her eyes. A moment later, an infected man engulfed in fire tackled her to the street.

It was Jerry. He’d been hungry after all.

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