Debbie (© Rich Restucci)
Page 2 "They’re behind us, behind us!" A man runs past
clutching a small boy. "Garret! Garret we have to go now!" Undoubtedly the
voice of the camera man. The camera shuts off, and the anchor is back on the
screen in a second. "That was Garret Rhodes, reporting from St Mary’s Hospital.
Let’s all say a prayer for the folks trapped there." He shuffles papers
nervously, and looks off screen, "We can only hope that the current…" Debbie gets up and walks to her window, pulling the drapes
back to let in the sun. Smoke plumes and helicopters can be seen in the
distance. Eyes wide, she runs to the phone and tries to call her sister Lea,
when there’s a screeching sound outside. She runs to the window again. Lea
and her boyfriend jump out of a beat up black Volvo and run up the steps.
Debbie’s door buzzer sounds and she pushes the button to let them in. They
must have taken the stairs quickly, because her sister is banging on the door
in four seconds. "Debbie! Debbie it’s me, let us in!" Debbie throws open the
door to let them inside. They look panicked. "What’s happening!" Debbie demands. "There’s some crazy fuckers out there!" shouts Tim, Lea’s
boyfriend. He has a bandage made of gauze and duct tape on his right forearm,
the blood seeping through. "They’re eating people!" "We’re leaving Debbie," Lea tells her, "we’re getting out of
the city, get your stuff and pack light." That was all she needed to hear. They are out the door and
in the car in ten minutes. There are other people packing vehicles and moving
frantically as well. They make it three hundred meters before Debbie sees her
first infected. The girl looks like a kindergartener. Just a baby. She is
trudging down the road, dragging a badly mauled leg. Tim slows the Volvo to
see if it’s just a hurt kid, but as soon as they see the blood-red eyes, and
horribly mutilated extremities, they know the child is infected. The girl
makes a lunge for the car, and Tim stomps the accelerator. The car lurches
forward and smashes into a utility pole. No one is wearing their seatbelts,
but the impact isn’t horrible. Just enough to crush the radiator. Evacuation is necessary. The little infected girl is
coming, and there are other forms further away. A school bus is parked close
by, and the screams of the children inside are like nails in Debbie’s soul. They
extricate themselves and Debbie rushes to the bus. She goes through the open
door and is immediately assaulted by the coppery stench of blood. A large man
is hunched over a small form, holding it close and munching on it. The back of
the bus is filled with terrified, screaming children, who have moved as far
from the carnage as possible. Tim pushes his way on the bus. Tim reaches down
and grabs a gun from the infected policeman’s holster. The infected doesn’t
notice, Debbie never even realized he was a cop. Tim fires into the infected
man’s back at point blank range, the roar of the gun is deafening in the
enclosed space. Tim walks past the infected man to the kids. "It’s gonna be
ok," he tells them, "I’ve got you now, he can’t hurt you." The kids quiet a
little. Tim reaches the back of the bus and Debbie notices the infected man
getting up. She shrieks a warning just as eleven little arms point back the
way Tim had come and the screaming starts again. Tim whips around to see the
dead cop advancing. The dead man is carrying his victim, what’s left of a
small boy. Tim fires a round through the cop’s chest, blood and bits of the cop
come spewing out his back, and Debbie hears something that sounds like a bee
zip past her right ear. The front window of the bus shatters with an audible crack!
Safety glass rains down in small pebbles. Debbie ducks behind a seat. Tim fires again and again, but the cop won’t go down. The
gun clicks empty and the cop is still advancing. With an inhuman roar, Tim
charges the cop and bowls him over. Tim lands on the cop and straddles him,
holding the cop’s head on the floor of the bus. The infected is scratching
deep furrows in Tim’s arm and face. The young man raises the pistol over his
head and brings it down on the nose of the infected. He smashes the weapon in
the man’s face over and over until the man stops moving. Tim looks up and sees
Lea on her back at the front of the bus. She has been shot once in the chest,
just left of her right breast. Tim screams something and runs to her, cradling
her. She is alive but weak, blood bubbling at her lips. Debbie gets up from
her hiding place and notices her sister’s predicament. Debbie starts to cry.
She looks out the window and sees numerous staggering forms heading their way.
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