Tracking Blood: Episode 24 (Final)
An apocalyptic serial
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Of course, Tanya and Ryan hadn’t spent the entire week sitting on their asses. Using everything they could scavenge from the Conservatory, they had prepared for the inevitable. For instance, they had made weapons by sharpening fence posts and placed them around the building, ensuring they would never be caught unarmed. They grabbed two and ran as a window shattered, an infected tumbling in through the canopy of trees.
Then another window.
And another.
Tanya and Ryan ran toward the Garden Court exit, but one of the infected fell in front of them, blocking their way. It hit the ground hard, briefly dazed from the impact. Ryan surprised her by smashing it across the face with his weapon, snapping the post in half and knocking the creature out.
“Wow,” she said, impressed.
A second infected appeared behind them.
“The desert,” Ryan said. They jumped off the visitor’s path to cut across the dirt.
The infected followed them through the thicket. They cut around one of the larger tropical trees and ducked as they went around. The infected behind them was so blood-crazed, it didn’t see the rope they’d tied there until it was knocked on its back, but by then Tanya was already driving her spear into its face.
More infected were screaming and stumbling through the vegetation. The sound of planes overhead was much louder now, as if they were flying directly above the building. Tanya and Ryan couldn’t concern themselves with that at the moment. They could only pray it wasn’t carrying bombs.
The sliding glass doors to the World Desert room were open, as they’d left them. They ran up the stony path and through the maze of cacti and desert plants until they veered off to the side. Cactus needles pricked at them and tiny hairs stuck to their bare arms, but they reached the floor drainage near the wall, already propped open with a large planter.
“You first,” Tanya said. Ryan crawled down into the dried-up drainage area. As soon as he was clear, she pulled the planter free and let the grate close before he could stop her.
“What are you doing?” he asked her through the grate.
“You do whatever you have to, alright? I don’t care what it is, you stay alive.” She was welling up with tears up again. Somewhere behind her, the infected were coming. She had to lead them away or they would never stop.
Ryan knew better than to argue, so he simply nodded. He looked so much like his father when he tried to be brave. “I love you,” she said, grabbing a new spear before running off. There were so many emotions running through her head, but she had to shut them all out and lead the infected away from the desert.
As she ran back into the jungle, a female infected jumped out from the vegetation at her. Tanya struck it in the face, then again, this time harder.
She stood over the infected she’d knocked down and finished it with three vicious stabs to the neck, nearly decapitating it. Even as it gurgled out its death rattle, the screams of more infected filtered through the jungle vegetation.
They would be on her in minutes, maybe seconds. She would kill as many as she could before they took her out; every infected she took out was one less Ryan would have to deal with. If she was going down, she was doing it fighting.
A growl came from behind her. The infected Ryan had knocked out had gotten back up despite a broken nose and teeth. It stood five feet from her, licking its own bloody lips, ready to charge. The fight had found her sooner than expected.
Except that it wouldn’t be much of a fight. Tanya had dropped her weapon, and it was too far away to reach. After all this, after coming so close, this was the end of her.
A gunshot rang out, echoing in the Conservatory’s high ceiling. Tanya winced as the infected before her froze, limbs stiff, then fell down into the dirt.
Tanya turned to see who it was that had saved her. Standing in front of her, gun in hand, was Will.
Stanley held the grate open as Will and Tanya pulled Ryan out of the ground. Ryan’s confused expression when Stanley had appeared above him a minute ago was almost too scared to be funny. Almost. But the look on Ryan’s face when Will stepped into view, when he saw his father alive and well and coming to rescue him, that was something else.
It was a look he wished he deserved.
As he stood back, watching the three of them hug each other, he never felt more alone. The family had fought tooth and claw to get back to each other. There they were, a unit, stronger together, and here Stanley was, by himself. Regardless of the blood in his veins, he just wasn’t a part of them.
He felt a little better about himself with the thought that Will was standing there because of him. On the way to the Botanic Garden, after Will had stabbed the infected in the street, he’d been too busy looking for his fallen gun to notice the other infected coming up behind him.
Stanley had picked up the gun, aimed past his brother, and fired. He hit his target right in the chest, dead center of the heart, and the creature fell to the street at Will’s feet.
It was the first time Stanley had ever fired a gun, and he’d hit his target dead-on. At this point he had a one hundred percent accuracy rate. He could retire with a perfect score.
By the look on Will’s face, Stanley knew what his brother had thought when he’d picked up the gun. But once Will realized the truth of what had just happened, when he saw the infected with a bullet hole where its heart should be, he cleaned the blood off the hunting knife and handed it to Stanley. It was a sign of trust, the first Will had shown him in years.
Now Will was with his family again. He pulled himself away from them and cleared his throat. “There’s been too much noise. We need to get moving,” he said, clearly saddened to cut the moment short.
“You got it, boss,” Stan replied.
As they walked out of the desert and toward the exit, he nudged Ryan. “Did you see that last one’s face?” Ryan shook his head. “Man, you missed the blood. It was coming out of every hole.” He mimed blood gushing from his eyes, his nose, and Ryan snorted.
“Stan,” Will complained.
“Relax. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen.” He shrugged at Ryan.
“Stanley,” Tanya added more forcefully, drawing his attention.
An infected stood in front of them, its back to them, blocking the center of the path.
The infected hadn’t seen them yet. Luckily, it was distracted by another plane flying overhead, the low roar of its engine shaking the glass overhead. Will tried to go for the gun in his belt, slow and quiet, as to not alert it.
Too late. It turned, its red eyes spotting them immediately. Then it screamed and ran at them, sending everyone scattering.
Tanya went one way, Ryan the other. Will pulled the Glock, aimed at the center of the infected, and squeezed the trigger in less than a second, faster than he’d ever drawn a gun in his life.
It jammed.
The infected went after Ryan and caught up to him in seconds. It jumped on him and took him down, digging its dirty fingernails into Ryan’s back. Will watched in what seemed like slow motion as Ryan hit the ground. He heard Tanya scream. He heard himself scream, too.
Stan appeared on the creature’s right. With no hesitation he launched himself at it, knocking it free of Ryan and into the foliage. Both he and the infected disappeared under the cover of thick plants.
A flurry of movement shook the leaves as Ryan scrambled to safety. Screams both human and infected filled the earthy air. Then, they stopped.
After a few tense seconds, a face emerged. Two of them had tumbled into the man-made jungle, but only one walked back out.
“Shit, that hurt,” Stanley said. He had a bloody hunting knife in one hand. He used the other hand to cover the massive chunk missing from his neck. Will rushed over to help him stop the bleeding.
“The first aid kit’s in the van,” Will said, panic in his voice. “If we hurry we can get this closed up.”
“I think you’re putting too much faith in my first aid kit,” Stanley said with a bitter-sweet smile.
“What are you talking about? We have to try.” Will pressed his hand harder against the hole, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding. “We always try.”
Stan looked him in the eye. “I know, Will. But maybe, just this time, you don’t.”
Will looked at Tanya. She looked back at him with heavy eyes. The same with Ryan. And the blood, the blood wouldn’t stop flowing.
Two more infected appeared in the dome’s broken windows, come to see what had made so much noise.
“You should get going,” Stan said urgently. He held his neck closed, putting himself between the infected and his family. With the other hand, he wiped the blood from the hunting knife on his sleeve.
“Stanley,” Will said. Stan turned and met his look. His brother looked like he had so much to say that he simply couldn’t do it. Stanley’s gaze softened a moment, then it refocused, becoming stronger than Will had ever seen it.
“What are you waiting for, you idiot? Get them out of here.”
Huddled in the van together, Will, Tanya and Ryan took a minute to think back on all they’d been through to reach this moment. They thought of how lucky they’d been, what they’d lived through to get a second chance. It wasn’t to be taken lightly.
Stanley’s backpack caught Will’s attention. He pulled it off the back seat and handed it to Ryan. “What’s this?” Ryan asked as he took it. His eyes were still red from crying.
“He would have wanted you to have it,” Will said. Ryan nodded, hoisting the bag onto his lap. “You were right, by the way,” Will added.
“About what?”
“Stanley. He was a good guy.”
“Not always,” Ryan said, glancing at his mother. “But that’s okay.” She smiled back at him.
Will took a deep breath. “Only when it counted.” He looked over at Tanya and held her hand, his eyes full of all the things he wanted to say to her. She squeezed his hand and nodded.
Will sat up front in the driver’s seat. Spilled blood spread out before them, with dozens of carcasses littering the street. Puddles of red pooled and trailed to the sewer drains. More infected shouted and ran in the distance.
Tanya sat in the passenger seat. “So, what do we do now?” she asked.
“I think it’s time to get away from here.”
“But where do we go? It would have to be somewhere away from people. Somewhere isolated.”
Will snorted to himself. “There’s a place up north, a bunker, but I don’t think I have it in me to make that drive again.”
“What about south?” Ryan asked. “There are a lot of woods down that way. Some old buildings, too. Made to last, you know?”
Will and Tanya looked at each other. It didn’t sound like such a bad idea. “Mount Vernon is nice this time of year,” Tanya said.
Will thought about it, then nodded. “Alright, then. South it is.”
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