Looting became a part of everyday life. There was an unspoken agreement between the survivors: take only what you need. Chambers Khan seemed to find a niche in the nuances of necessity, collecting the most obscure items like a morning star that he pulled off a Comic Con-nerd too fat to escape the horde.
Rebecca watched
him carefully; not only as a doctor would with a post-op patient, but as a guilt-ridden woman looking for the right moment to apologize for possibly infecting him. Through all of Chambers' findings he never looked satisfied, as
if he had still not found what he was looking for. Dr. Pratt was reminded of
his condition when she operated on him, replacing his eye back in the city. He
had all the textbook signs. Now exacerbated through time and withdrawal, it was
quite clear to her. The strung out hair, the withered face beyond his years;
Chambers Khan had all the trademarks of a junkie.
The Garden State
Parkway was packed full of cars on both bounds. People were confused,
evacuating in every direction. Once the government fell it was every man for
himself. Just like in the city, Atticus was the only one able to maneuver
around the snaking parking lot of abandoned cars. That was until they reached
the bridge into Cape May County, or what remained of it. Pillars with blackened
tips stuck out of the river with concrete and littered vehicles drowned all
around them.
Under the bridge
was a smaller crossing still held together by cast iron train tracks. Samuel
told them to take only what they could carry. They would have to leave the cars
and cross over on foot. Fortunately there were no undead in sight.
Unfortunately the sky above was clouded and thunder could be heard slowly
approaching from the coast. Only Samuel and Atticus knew what that meant,
exchanging nervous glances, unwilling to share what they already knew with the
rest of the group.
One of the
biggest churches any of them had ever seen was on the other side. Samuel
brought them all in to hold up while Atticus and Corey, along with Jackson,
scoped out the perimeter and searched for new rides.
"Wait!"
Chambers stopped Corey, "Take this, bro" He handed Corey the morning
star, a giant metal mace from medieval times, lined with sharp spikes all
around its head. A death machine.
The inside of
the church reeked of death. Dead bodies lined the benches before the altar.
Samuel, Marcus, Chambers, and Tyrell put down the rising dead with ease. Once
the church was clear they split up and foraged for new supplies.
Rebecca kept a
close eye on Chambers. Marcus and Quinn wandered into a side room out of sight.
Samuel stood by the window above the front doors and watched the rainfall sweep
over the church and highway. Tyrell came up behind him. Samuel knew he had to
tell them. He would start with Tyrell.
Rebecca found a
new pair of glasses that had her prescription. She hadn't seen clearly since
she lost her glasses when they crashed the War Bird. Upon finding and putting on
the glasses, Rebecca had lost track of Chambers. A soft tangle of smoke rose
from behind the altar. There she found Chambers sitting down, basking in the
light of the stain glass windows. He was huddled over a burnt piece of tinfoil.
He had found his fix.
Rebecca sat down
next to him. Chambers quickly put it away and held in the smoke.
"It's
okay..." Rebecca gave way, "I just wanted to...apologize..."
Chambers exhaled, "Apologize
for what, Doc?"
"Putting
that eye back in your head." Tears welled up, "I didn't think- there
was so much going on at the time, I-"
"Don't
worry about it, Doc" Chambers smiled with his dilated pupils, "Water
under the bridge."
Chambers offered
her the grounded up oxy on the tinfoil as an olive branch. After a brief
hesitation Rebecca thought to herself why the hell not? Rebecca got
through school on scholarships and dean's lists. She never partied. She never
experimented. She was the perfect student turned perfect doctor. Her whole life
she lived by society's rules, never pushing any bounds. Rebecca always played
it safe. She reached across, took the straw piece from his dirty fingers, and
inhaled while Chambers heated the tinfoil.
Jill walked up
on them while Rebecca was partaking, causing her to startle a coughing fit.
Chambers laughed while Jill appallingly read Rebecca the riot act, "You're
a doctor! You know that shit'll kill you!"
Rebecca looked
up at Jill as the blue from the pain glass glazed over her, "Better this
than them..."
"Here
here!" Chambers raised an open can of beer.
"Where did
you find that?" Jill shook her head.
Rebecca leaned
into his shoulder and swiped it from him. Chambers' laugh masked the screams
coming from the side room. Samuel rushed down from the balcony with Tyrell and
Jill to meet Marcus and Quinn dragging a man in with his wife and baby trailing
behind them.
"We found a
garage and a bus along with these three," Marcus explained, "He
has the fever, but I can't find a bite anywhere. What does that mean,
Samuel?"
"Where's
Doctor Pratt?"
"She's occupied,"
quipped Jill.
"What
happened here?" Samuel asked the woman.
"It...it
was a refugee camp until...well, we were overrun from the inside, someone must
have gotten bit, I don't know, it all happened so fast..."
"Was it
raining?" Samuel asked. Everyone but Tyrell looked at him.
"What does
that have to do with it?" Quinn asked, almost insulted.
"...Oh no..."
Marcus realized incredulously.
"Remember
Ed's theory...atomizing the virus...The fallout particles in the rain clouds
could have infected them."
"But it's
raining right now..."
"Atticus
and Corey are still out there!"
"Everyone
calm down, don't worry, Atticus knows, he won't get caught in the rain."
"We have a
problem!" Atticus yelled, throwing his coat back outside of the front doors
while Corey and Jackson ran in ahead of him, still dry.
"The acid
rain, they know," Samuel informed him.
"No, not
just the rain," Corey rebutted.
They had stirred
up a hornet's nest outside. The horde was gathering on the parkway and making
its way towards them.
"Everyone
to the bus!" Marcus led them all to the garage.
"We can't
take him!" Jill protested.
"Where's
Rebecca?" Atticus inquired.
She heard her
name and needed Chambers' help getting to her feet. He was still laughing. She
was still high. Rebecca could barely make sense of what was happened. She could
barely put a sentence together. But Chambers took care of the first timer,
practically carrying her to the bus.
After one look
at Rebecca "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HER!?" Atticus' temper
took over.
"Nothing!
The lady did it to herself..." Chambers grinned.
"You
scumbag!" Atticus tackled Chambers in the bus aisle, exchanging kicks
and blows.
It took Samuel,
Marcus, and Tyrell to break them up.
"What the
hell is going on!?"
"He's a tweeker,
Sam!" Atticus reached out again to attack Chambers, "Look what he did
to her!"
"I didn't do
anythi-"
"We don't
have time for this!" Marcus yelled while he got in the drivers seat and
started the bus. In all the commotion the man with the fever had slipped away
with his family. When Corey opened the garage door they ran out into the rain
for their car. "WAIT!"
The woman and
her baby were covered. But the man was too fevered to be careful. The rain brought
him down before the horde could. Once inside the car the woman cried out for
her husband, "GEORGE!"
He must have had
the keys. Corey watched this all go down while the group battled within the
bus. He took the leash out from his pack, the leash that he never used, and
clipped it onto Jackson's collar. Corey brought the pup into the bus and handed
the leash to Marcus before stepping back out.
"What are
you doing?" Marcus questioned his obvious intentions.
"We can't
just leave them out there to die" Corey said, maintaining eye-contact with Jackson, accepting
the fact that this was the last time he would ever see his pet "Close the
door, Marcus, and... look after him for me..."
Marcus obeyed
regretfully. Corey ran out into the acid rain with Chambers' morning star and
plowed a path to the fallen husband. He rifled through his pockets and got the
keys, cringing as the rain burned through his bare flesh. The horde
surrounded him, but they could not get close as he swung the spiked mace.
Inside the car, the woman got into the driver's seat and cracked the window.
Corey threw the
keys to her, while her husband rose behind him.
"George..."
Corey felt the
teeth sink into the skin between his shoulder and neck. He already knew this
was his time. The fallout rain had sealed his fate, now the zombies came to
claim him. He managed to stumble back, attracting most of the horde away from
the garage.
Atticus tended
to Rebecca, who was uncontrollably sobbing after she realized what an unwitting
mess she had become. How her harmless attempt at recreational experimentation
had gone terribly awry, pitting the group against itself. Samuel walked up to
the front of the bus where Marcus was driving to witness Corey's sacrifice. He
rubbed Jackson's head while the pup pawed at the door with a broken whimper and helplessly watched his neighbor's
final selfless moments, wondering if his end would be so noble.
The bus and the
car drove off in separate directions leaving Corey behind, the center of a
feast in his honor. The dead picked away at him for so long that by the time
they were done the fallout rains had melted them all together into one grotesque
pile of waling death before the fallen church. In his fleeting consciousness
only one thought could escape through all the pain of dying...
Where was God?
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