Tracking Blood: Episode 23
An apocalyptic serial
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Will and Stanley reached D.C.
What should have been a six or seven-hour drive had taken them days. They’d had more run-ins than they could count. The fire in Moshannon Forest. The ambush outside of Woodland. Van troubles on Laurel Run. Running out of food in Claysburg. Getting lost in St. Clairsville, and again by the factory near Dunning Creek. The argument in Bedford. The fight in Pennknoll. More fires in Breezewood. Blowing a tire between Crystal Spring and Amaranth. Miles and miles of bridges and churches and gas stations, and all the things that had tried to kill them in between.
The van was limping. Their water supply had run out. They were exhausted- but they were home.
The problem now was D.C. looked even worse than they’d expected. The city had been burnt and blasted halfway to hell, every bridge sunk and its streets crawling with infected. As they approached from the north, where there was less action on the roads, they saw military planes flying low over the city.
“I wonder what they’re up to,” Stan said.
“Hopefully not dropping chemical agents.”
“So you admit the government might do that? And on their own soil, no less?”
“Under … extreme circumstances.”
Stan scoffed. “I guess that’s a start.”
Will weaved through the city toward his house. His nerves were on edge, but he did his best to contain his emotions. As they got within ten blocks of his neighborhood, though, he couldn’t help but curse under his breath.
The entire street was devastated. Fire had ripped through the neighborhood, turning houses into black skeletons and cars into ash trays.
Will parked the van at the curb and stared at the black void where he and his wife had once built a life. Their house was gone, nothing now but a pile of burnt wood, like a collection of black bones.
“Will, I’m so sorry,” Stanley said softly.
Will leaned forward and put the van into drive. “We’re not done yet,” he replied.
Ryan and his mom had spent the last week living in the Botanic Garden’s Conservatory, hiding in the indoor jungle of tall trees and exotic plants. They had survived on a combination of edible plants and heavily rationed food. Because of that, they’d both lost so much weight they would sometimes get dizzy when they stood up too fast. Spending most of their time at the center of the Conservatory, out of sight, there wasn’t much to do but save their energy. They tried not to exert themselves when they moved, but it didn’t take much.
A buzzing sound had been building over the last minute. When it became too much to ignore, Ryan climbed the stairs to the canopy walk to get a better look.
There were planes over the city. They were flying lower than normal, and Ryan didn’t like the look of it.
He went back down to the ground level to find his mom was sitting on a bench. She looked terrible, so much thinner than he’d ever seen her. No doubt he looked the same, but he’d stopped looking at reflections days ago. “Mom,” he said, “more planes.”
“We’ll be safe here,” she said weakly. He was quiet a moment, choosing his words carefully.
“How long before the missiles become nuclear bombs?”
She turned to look at him. “What are you saying?”
“I think we need to leave,” he said.
“No.” She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“There’s no more food here.”
“You’re forgetting that out there, we’re the food.”
“Yeah, but …” He trailed off, not wanting to start a fight.
“What is it?”
“The odds of dad being alive, out there …”
Her face grew red. “Do you want to know why the Army didn’t want him? Do you want to know, Ryan?”
“Mom-”
“It’s because he failed the psych evaluation,” she blurted. “They realized he had so much anger locked up inside him, he was too dangerous to be given a weapon.” She paused, tears in her eyes. “Did you hear what I just said? The United States Army, who is in the business of war, decided your father was too hostile to be a soldier. Now let me ask you something- has he ever raised a hand to you?”
Ryan shook his head.
“Has he?” she repeated louder.
“No.”
“Have you ever seen him lose his temper with me, or raise a hand?”
“Never.”
“That’s because he loves us. He has control of his anger, something those shrinks failed to realize. So let me tell you something- if anyone, human or otherwise, gets in your father’s way, then I truly feel sorry for them.” She took a breath, her legs shaky. “We’ve lost everything else, we’re not losing this. Do you understand me? We’re not losing this.” Her eyes welled up. Ryan put his arms around her and felt her sink into him.
“Okay, mom,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“God damn it,” Will whispered.
Stanley had gone with his brother to a bail bond shop. As usual, Will didn’t give him all the details and Stanley had to fill in the blanks. Will being a bounty hunter, he presumably worked for the man they were going to see, who was probably the same man who had sent Will after Stanley.
He planned to thank the guy for that.
They arrived to a wide open glass door that led to an abandoned store. At the back of the store, they stepped over a broken wooden door then walked up the small stairway beyond. At the top, they discovered another broken door and an apartment with broken windows, allowing cool air to fill the place.
In the bedroom, they found a body. The dead man was handcuffed to the bed, his brains blown out all over the sheets. Judging by Will’s reaction, it was the man they were looking for.
“His name was Donegan,” Will said weakly.
Back in the living room, they had a look around. Someone had folded a pillow in half and left it on the couch, and it had an imprint of whoever’s head had laid in it last. When Will saw it he covered his mouth, nearly in tears.
“What is it?” Stanley asked.
Will picked up the pillow. “Ryan was sleeping here.”
“Is that his?”
“No, but he used it.”
Stanley checked the window. He noticed the broken glass on the floor was all on the inside, which, if he could trust every shitty cop show he had ever watched, meant someone had broken into the apartment, not the other way around. Will was at the kitchen counter, facing away, and he was quiet. Then his shoulders started to rise and fall, and Stanley realized he was sobbing.
“I’m sure they made it out,” Stanley offered. “Tanya’s one of the smartest people I’ve met, and Ryan, he takes after you.”
Will turned around. For the first time in days, he had a smile on his face. That’s when Stanley realized he wasn’t sobbing- he was laughing.
“I know where they are,” Will said, smiling.
There was a notepad in his hand. He turned it to show Stanley a sketch of a building he recognized instantly.
The United States Botanic Garden.
It took a little while, but Tanya eventually calmed down. She concentrated on her breathing while Ryan ate the last of the aloe plants.
Talking about Will had taken something out of her. She’d promised Will she wouldn’t tell Ryan about failing the psych evaluation, not because he wanted to keep secrets from his son, but because it was a topic he wanted to address himself, when the time was right. Mental illness ran in the Sharpe family, and Will wanted Ryan to learn the risks when he was old enough to understand them. There was still so much stigma attached to mental illness, it was important to Will that they separate the facts from the fiction.
But truthfully, that’s not what had upset her. It was that Ryan was losing hope. She wanted- no, needed him to believe that things would get better, because if they wouldn’t, what was the point of all this? Why starve and scrape to see another day if no good would come of it?
Will was coming. He was coming because he had to.
As she adjusted herself on the bench, a shadow crossed her face, disorienting her vision for a moment. She looked up to see what had blocked the sunlight coming through the glass.
An infected.
It was climbing the dome.
Five blocks from the National Mall, the road was blocked by what had apparently started as a traffic jam and turned into a bloodbath. Rotting bodies mingled with twisted metal. Drivers and passengers had been pulled out of their cars and eaten. Even after all Will and Stan had been through, it was a gruesome sight.
Will tried to drive around the blockage in a few different directions, but he found each way blocked by either cars or the aftermath from the bombings. The Botanic Garden was right up the street. Tanya and Ryan were so close. There was no way he was stopping now.
He made sure the Glock was loaded and secured the hunting knife on his belt. “Let’s go,” he told Stan. Stan grumbled as he got out, but he got out.
The street was empty. A series of dragging noises nearby served as a warning: safety was temporary at best. “I didn’t know you were married at the Botanic Garden,” Stan said, keeping his voice down.
“You would have known if you’d been there.”
“Yes, you’ve made it very clear that I missed things. I had to sacrifice a lot to do what I needed to do.”
“We all have to do that, but somehow we manage to not alienate everyone we know.”
Stan glared at him. “You know what? I don’t need to explain myself to you anymore. In a few minutes, regardless of what we find at this place, we’re going our separate ways.”
Will stopped and looked at his brother. “Regardless of what we find?”
Stan swallowed, putting on a stern face, but he didn’t respond. Will wanted to punch his brother’s teeth down his gullet and make him choke on his own cavities.
“You’d better pray we find my wife and son alive,” he said. “You don’t want to be anywhere near me if we don’t.”
A scream. Two infected had spotted them. As the creatures scurried toward them, Will readied the gun.
The infected bounced off an overturned car and continued to rush at them. Will lined up his shot and fired, hitting the front one in the cheek. The side of its face tore off, but it regained itself and kept running. Will fired again, this time hitting it above the eyes and blowing out the back of its skull. It crumpled, its body sliding to a stop on the street.
The second infected ran over the first without compassion or anger. Will tried to fire off a third round, but it was too late.
The second infected tackled Will to the street. I’m not going down like this, Will thought as he fell. Not so close to the end.
Will used the creature’s weight against it and got on top. He tried to hold its flailing arms down as he reached for the hunting knife, but it was too strong to restrain. It gnashed and bit at him as he barely held on. Teeth tore his sleeve open, but they didn’t hit skin.
Will felt the old anger explode inside him. That this monster would try to stop him so close to his family was like an atomic bomb at the back of his brain. He pulled the knife from his belt and plunged it into the creature’s throat. Then he pulled the blade from the gurgling blood and buried it in its heart.
The creature screeched in agony. Will pulled the blade out and stabbed it again and again, going nearly blind with rage. The blade punctured flesh and muscle repeatedly, the creature screaming and thrashing under him. Will pulled the knife out once more and the infected sat up, trying one last time to fight back.
“Just fucking try it,” Will growled in its face.
The creature kicked and shook, blood oozing from its disgusting mouth, then went limp.
Will’s heart was racing, his lungs sucking down giant gulps of air. He slowed his breath down. Inhale. Exhale. As his heart rate came down, he stood up and looked around for his gun.
It wasn’t where he thought it would be. In fact, it didn’t seem to be anywhere on the ground.
He stiffened as a thought occurred to him.
Will turned to face Stan and found his brother bent down. As Will watched, Stan stood and raised the gun at him.
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