2.5.5 Necessary Means

Next to it all, Samuel would never regret their decision. A long time from now he might even be thankful. But for now his fate seemed imminent. The walls were coming down all around him, and Doctor Samuel Gordon Chase couldn't care any less.

The undead were relentless, barely effective until time wore on, and the horde eroded the outside of the house with their rotten hands and broken limbs. The window and door barricades were giving in, as the rest of the house fell apart. Samuel was in the eye of an endless storm.

His favorite recliner throned him between his lost girls' grave, holding a fire ax and his gun in the dark. The last of the wood planks keeping the window together gave way and were quickly devoured by the hungry hands. Next the soulless heads poured through the window. As the first three walkers came at Samuel he heard the front door break behind him.

 He needed to weigh the odds and apply the rules of nature to their current predicament. One article remains above all else, survive by any and all necessary means. Through every one of Atticus' calculations the constant was always Samuel. His words echoed in Atticus' head. Find out which way the Fallout Winds blew and go the opposite. North, East, West, South, it did not matter. The winds could travel hundreds of miles over a day, track them down, get under their skin, and rot their flesh. Atticus only had one feeling left. So he said it with the up-most conviction…

“We’re going back....to the Lincoln Tunnel," he finally decided, “It’s our safest bet.”

He drove the car down the tight city streets, and there was central park. The woods seemed safe, still clean from all the destruction and bloodshed. Rebecca was pulled towards it when she saw someone walking through the trees. He had long hair and what looked like a camouflage jacket on. The important thing to realize was she saw a man. It wasn’t a zombie. 

“Over there!” Rebecca pointed.

With Atticus distracted a flaming car came barreling down his blindside of the street crashing right into their SUV. The fortune of chaos riding as a passenger of the flaming car was flung into their car. She was on fire, screaming passionately as she scraped at them. She was one of the undead. Still awake, still squirming with the flesh burning off her skin. Everyone in the SUV was stuck as it remained pinned on its side. Corey and Jackson were gone... flung from the back, out the window. There was no sign of them.

           

The cut on Ed’s arm reopened as he pulled Nora out of the flaming zombie girl’s way when he slipped and twisted his ankle. He crawled and slid her out of the car along with Atticus getting Rebecca safely out as well. Frank helped himself out. “What about Wheeler?”

           

“Dumbass never wore his seatbelt…” Frank shook his head.

           

Atticus checked the car; Wheeler was stuck in the windowsill, the glass of the window imbedded through his torso, cutting him in half. Nora could not look at the mess, while Rebecca had no problem examining the corpse. 
"What are you looking for?"

"Signs of re-animation..." She admitted reluctantly.

"But he wasn't bit," Ed gave his two-cents. 

"I know." Rebecca then tried to catch everyone up in a single sentence, "If Wheeler rises from the dead that means its beyond airborne or even infection, it would be something undiagnosable."

Everyone stared at Wheeler waiting for him to turn, even Nora, who had been stirred from her naive fears after Rebecca's rousing words. When nothing happened the group  walked to the circle over by Samuel’s townhouse. Atticus made sure to check his door, or what remained of it. 

"No" Atticus heard Rebecca cry out as he already was pursuing the imminent remains of Samuel Gordon Chase's estate. The zombies were still knocking and scraping at it. They caught the whiff of the survivors and started to stumble down the stoop and onto the circle.

           

“GO! GO! GO!”

           

“Into the park! Go!” Atticus yelled for the rest of them, "but try not to fire your guns unless it is absolutely necessary! The sound of the gunshot would just attract more!" 

Nora helped Ed with his twisted ankle and Frank wielded Wheeler’s bat, which was now broken and sharp at the tip like a giant wooden stake. They ran into the woods, moving out of sight from the small pack of zombies.

           
Meanwhile Atticus put his army knife through another unsuspecting zombie, breaking a hole in the townhouse breach. The living room looked like a battle ground. Atticus could barely make out where the remains of Samuel's family were in the mounds. He climbed through and prayed nothing reached for his arms or bite his ankles. Once through he called out for Samuel. 

Aaaaaaaaaagh! 

 From the kitchen dark Samuel attacked Atticus with his ax. Atticus blocked the strike and pushed him away, into the light. Samuel was not dead, he was covered in blood, and delirious, but not dead. Atticus approached him passively and quickly, but more importantly calmly, disarmed him. 

"It's okay, Doctor, we're here, we're back..." Atticus holstered both their weapons and carried the ax with his arm holding Samuel up by his shoulders. 

“WE'RE HERE!” Atticus yelled, not far behind the group. 

"...." Samuel rubbed the back of his neck, now on his feet and walking by himself.

Rebecca could not be more relieved, "You're alive!"

She tried hugging him again before hearing Samuel say, "You should have left me."

 Rebecca stopped in her tracks. "What?"

"It doesn't matter anymore..." Atticus looked around.

But Rebecca had to talk some sense into him, "Samuel...if you would have stayed there, you would have died, it's overrun, your son will never go back inside. Your best chance to find him might not be looking for him, but it damn well is staying alive!"

Rebecca had finally gotten Samuel's attention, along with his eye-contact, "Now c'mon, we need you like before..."

Samuel looked around as he waited for Atticus to report back from his sweep, "It's clear for now..."

"Where are Corey and Jackson?"

"We lost them when a car crashed into us."

"We also totaled your SUV," Atticus laughed uncontrollably at the audacity of this wretched world.

Samuel wanted to laugh but knew it would be of disrespect to his lost neighbor. A man who did everything he could for Samuel's family, and was there when Samuel wasn't to do what had to be done. So he caught his breath along with everyone else while he tried accessing the same part of his brain that was keeping them alive before, "....We can go to The Central Park Zoo, it isn't far from here...There will be houses and cages" he suggested to Atticus.

"That'll do for now, let's move."

 Samuel felt better, he didn't want to, but it was true. Everything from now on would be bitter and wrong at the expense of his family. Samuel's heart aged in purity, conjuring up a cynical side never shown before. Atticus and Samuel led everyone through the treeline to a small clearing.

"We should hide in here!”  The first thing they all noticed were the animals' cages.

           

“Why are they all open?”

           

“Open and empty…”

           

Muaaahhhhh!

The zombies came through the woods in force, now twice as many as there were on the stoop. The horde must have picked up more in the park. Atticus brought them through to the other side of the Zoo but there were zombies covering that entrance too. They were surrounded. He looked back. 

“THE CAGES! GO!”

           

Samuel jumped up and over into one, Ed lifted Rebecca up and over so Samuel would catch her. Next was Nora. She got over safely as Frank locked himself alone in a separate cage. It was surrounded by zombies but he was safe and it gave Ed and Atticus a couple more seconds. Atticus tried to give Ed a foot up but his ankle gave out and finally broke completely.

 Ed screamed and the zombies heard his colorful agony, turning their sights on him and Atticus. Atticus jumped up himself and climbed up the metal cage. Ed looked back as he tried not to fall over, the pain was searing. Nora was screaming for him. The zombies were only paces away.

           

Samuel and Atticus leaned over the top of the cage and grabbed Ed by the shoulders, lifting him swiftly up to safety. The zombies surrounded them but could not climb the cage. So Samuel and Atticus stayed sitting on top guarding the opened door. Frank’s cage on the other hand was clear of zombies but he had closed the door, locking without a key. He could not escape unless someone let him out. Hopefully, someone would know how…

2.5.4 The Home of Dr. Samuel Gordon Chase

They rose from deep under the corner of the park, inside the railway graveyard. The fallout city cross-section now stood more crowded than ever between Atticus and Samuel's door. He took out his gun and utility knife and tried to finish the objective. The first contact was a clear shot in the head with the knife. The tango dropped stone-dead, back to being a corpse. 

Atticus used the knife to trip the next one while two more walkers closed in on him. He knew if they were radiated he was dead, but it looked like these specific zombies avoided the nuclear blast in the subway stations. Atticus made a mental note of this experience, there are now two different kinds of zombies... nukes and walkers; and kept running, bashing in the door after Samuel. 

There were no signs of blood or struggle. Atticus gave the rest of them the okay to follow him in. Rebecca ran through the threshold of the doorway followed by Ed, Nora, Frank, and Wheeler, before Atticus closed it and locked it on the uprising subway station horde. Atticus checked the front windows; they were already barricaded by wooden planks, dinner tables, broken chairs and desks.

           

“Ed, Rebecca, go find Samuel. Frank and Nora make sure there are no other ways in that are open or unlocked.”

“What about me?” Wheeler asked.

“Stay here with me and lean on the door while I find something to push in front of it.” 

           

They all ran throughout the house and did the jobs Atticus provided for them. The kitchen was empty and practically untouched with the exception of the refrigerator pushed in front of the backdoor. Rebecca walked through the kitchen and into the living room as Ed searched upstairs. Atticus braced the front doors with everything he could find and move with Wheeler in front of the door. Frank and Nora came down the stairs and into the front hall, and they reported back to him that the rest of the house was clear. Atticus knew Samuel had to be in the living room or kitchen with Rebecca.

           

After running into the house Samuel chased the man straight through to the living room. A dog was barking and the room was torn to shreds from the inside out. Atticus joined everyone in the living room and could not find a way to convey his condolences for Samuel. Everything else in the house was clean. The living room was painted in blood and the dog just would not stop barking.

           

“Samuel…I’m sorry…” the dog-owner said.

           

Samuel dropped down to his knees beside the bodies. “What…no...." he cried, "...no....not them....Why...why wasn't I....aw god...I...What happened?”

Samuel appeared to know the man, and he was getting ready to tell Samuel everything, no matter how horrible it could be, “I tried, man. I really tried to get them to leave with me. I was packing my car when I heard the screams... When I ran outside people everywhere were getting evacuating…I knew what it was when I opened the doors. I had been watching the news. I was able to put it together, man...reports of cannibalism...hospital fires...homeless getting shot multiple times in the chest and still on their feet. I also knew you were away, Samuel. ….I had to…I should have forced myself to…I...I...”

“Corey!” Samuel shook his neighbor by the shoulders, “What happened?”

“I was too late. Your daughters…were…eating…” Corey could not bring himself to say the rest, but he knew he had to for Samuel’s sake, “…your wife-”

Samuel collapsed next to the bodies. All good will, hope, optimistic resolve that he had maintained during all of this burnt up inside him while he lie between the ashes of his family. Samuel wanted to join the lost, something that would never change. Now he was a member of those who everyone they knew were either infected or dead. That is when a thought sparked the genesis of Samuel's salvation. He looked around, searching for something as if...

Tossing and turning in the gross pile had Samuel covered in infected blood and dead flesh. Rebecca could not take it anymore. Quietly everyone watched Samuel in his grief. After the dog stopped barking it did not seem to matter. Now people mixed with random strangers witnessed Samuel in the most intimate and raw of human emotion; losing your mind after losing your family. She grabbed Samuel in his grief and forcibly pulled him away. "Wait!" he scrambled. 

"There's no evidence of Warren...and Corey didn't say anything about-"

“Christ..." Corey incredulously retreated, not ready to handle the burden, "you don’t know...”

“…Know what…” Samuel sighed with a slight cry. 

Samuel knew, somewhere deep down Samuel knew his boy was just like him, and would stop at nothing to get him back to save the family…

“You’re boy went looking for you weeks ago…somewhere called the Cheyenne Mountain Complex…”

Samuel stood up and wiped the tears away. He looked around at everyone. Strangers standing in the red remains of his former life, his girls dead at his feet, his boy out lost in the wastelands; and all Samuel could think was…’what a mirror world this had become.’ This could not be real. He could never be comfortable accepting that. He thought of the three devices that he had created and wanted them to be more than just movie-quality props, he wanted them to be the key to saving humanity and his family from this abysmal end.

He wanted to go back in time and save his family.

Samuel remembered when he first started taking time travel seriously. He wrote down one rule that he repeatedly acknowledged as unbreakable during his research and development. That rule was you can never meddle with your life in the past. This was a well-known ancient time-traveling proverb common in science fiction. This was the first time Samuel was ever tempted to break that rule. He had to go back. He had to make all of this right, but how? 

That was impossible right now. Samuel could only do one thing. One more function before his life resembled the rest of this wasted world. He must find his son. If he did not have that, along with the rest of the group, he would be just as dead as the city around him.

           

Everyone was in the kitchen except for Corey and Rebecca who were putting blankets over the bodies. Rebecca got up and walked over to Samuel; she waited for a second, not sure what to do and then she hugged him.

“I’m so sorry, Samuel…”

           

Corey stood up and took his baseball cap off as Samuel walked by him and into the kitchen. There Atticus had a map of the city out on the counter as everyone was helping themselves to the leftover food and drinks. “God bless Gatorade,” Frank gasped as he took another gulp.

           

“We can look for the boy here in New York…Hopefully he didn’t make it far enough before he turned back.”

Samuel listened in as he approached.
“How do you know he turned back?”

“If his boy was worried enough to go out there and get you, then I’m bettin’ once he finds out the bomb has dropped on New York he’ll be back for his mother and his sisters.”

“There’s no alternative. If they proceed with the rest of Project Clean Sweep that means the Ohio Valley is next…Either he's close or...” Ed trailed off, avoiding Samuel's stare.

“He only left a couple of days ago…” Corey said now in the kitchen along with Rebecca.

“He has to still be in New York!” Nora exclaimed.

“New York or New Jersey,” Ed corrected her.

“Sam,” Frank asked, “you got a picture of him for us to see?”

“Listen…I appreciate what you’re all doing…but-”

“Sam-”

Something had changed inside of Samuel, and for him the grief of the living room scene was still all too new to just pretend nothing had happened. So he called them off...

“I don’t need anybody risking their lives for the possibility that my son is still alive. If I do ever find him…it won’t be because we were looking for him. You all need to worry about surviving and getting out of the city alive before the winds turn.”

"What are you saying, Samuel?"

"I'm staying."

"You can't stay here." Atticus told him off, "Those barricades won't hold with the hornet's nest we stirred up out there."

"I can't leave and risk not being here if Warren comes back."

"You just said-" Atticus was cut off before arguing any further. 

"We can't talk him out of it, Atticus" ...we have to go on without him."

Samuel wanted to thank Rebecca for being so understanding but she walked away from him, broken-hearted that he was basically giving up.

“What are we going to do?” Nora begged the group.

“North, West, or South for starters…”

“We also need to know how we’re leaving the city…bridge or tunnel…”

“There’s no way I’m going in a tunnel.”

“I agree with, Nora.” Wheeler admitted.

“I say we just concentrate on gathering supplies and getting to Jersey, we can decide North, West, or South along the way…”

“Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“And as for the way out, we’re just about the same distance away from the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln Tunnel; I say we take the George Washington Bridge…” Ed suggested.

“Okay.”

“…If it’s still in one piece.”

“Atticus is right,” Rebecca mediated, “The tunnel has a better chance of surviving the nuclear blast.”

“Not necessarily,” Corey spoke up from the corner of the room, officially inserting himself into the group, “The Bridge was farther from the blast than the tunnel, like us. I hid in the basement for four days in a concrete closet and survived. I’m sure you all have a similar story.”

“If you can survive in a closet, I’m sure a city tunnel will be okay.”

“And all the zombies trapped inside of it?” Atticus had the final word.

The matter was settled after that. They would go to the George Washington Bridge, “…and if we can’t cross it we’ll try the tunnel…” Atticus compromised and they all agreed. Samuel told them to take whatever they needed. Unfortunately, the water was off, but the fresh clothes and food were a nice accommodation. 

“If you guys need, there are some knives in the kitchen and bats in the closet for weapons.”

Samuel and Atticus still had their pistols. Atticus also had his tactical knife from his utility belt. Ed and Frank both grabbed eight inch chef knives, and Wheeler grabbed a butcher’s knife.

“What are you going to do with that, asshole?” Frank made fun of Wheeler, “It’s square, its got no tip.”

“Gonna chop some fuckin’ heads off, son!” 

Atticus took the knife out of Wheeler’s hand and gave him a baseball bat. Frank, Ed, and Nora all laughed at Wheeler making a fool out of himself. Once everyone was refreshed, resupplied, and properly armed, they decided to leave. Samuel took them to the garage where his Lincoln SUV was sitting there, as clean as the day Samuel bought it, with a full tank of gas. It must have been off during the nuke. They all piled in the car. Samuel stood in the garage while Atticus got in the drivers seat and Rebecca and Nora shared the passenger seat. Ed, Frank, and Wheeler all squeezed in the middle bench as Corey sat in the back with his American bulldog.

“Are you okay back there, Corey?” Samuel made sure before closing the hatch on him.

“I’m good!” Corey gave him a thumbs-up, "I just wish you would come with us, man.."

"You know I can't. Not after what I've already missed."

Atticus clicked the door-opener and Samuel closed the door and locked it from the inside. Atticus put it in reverse and backed out of the driveway. They were on their way to the George Washington Bridge. They had to soldier on without Samuel. 

They traveled north up the Henry Hudson Parkway. Out of all the streets in the city, the Henry Hudson was the least jam-packed full of cars. Everybody wondered why… Nothing could stop them now; nothing except one sight, one empty landscape out in the distance sweeping the state border with the Hudson River. The George Washington Bridge was gone. All that was left were two ruined high-beams stabbing the riverbed and poking out of the water bent and burnt. 

Atticus threw the car into reverse and turned around on the parkway. They were going ahead with Plan B, the Lincoln Tunnel. Atticus dodged the cars at a quicker pace, like he was trying to make up for the time they had lost. This was going to be they’re most dangerous task yet. “It’s too close to ground zero…”

“It’s a tunnel, we can make it…”

“We have no other choice.”

“We can always go north, or even back out the way we came…The Third Avenue bridge, back to the shelter even…” Ed yelled.

“We should go up through Yonkers and cross the Hudson higher up…”

Atticus didn’t know which way to go now.

 

“What are we going to do!?”  

As much as Atticus had always thought he would make the perfect leader, as much as he wanted to resent Samuel for everyone looking to him in times of need, now was the precise moment that he felt inept, and took back any harsh feelings ever dealt towards Samuel. Atticus did not want the responsibility of making people's decisions for them. In case he was ever wrong, he would not be able to handle the blame of losing people or failing to survive. He was comfortable being the leader's adviser. Atticus headed back the same way they came for a shot at the Lincoln Tunnel, but Atticus had ulterior motives in mind.

The sun was setting. The house was getting dark. Samuel sat in the living room, alone with only the company of haunted memories and the bitter dead. He could only blame himself for their fate. If they hadn't have waited for him and left with Corey, Samuel's girls would still be alive. There was no avoiding it.  Samuel killed his family. 

Now the only things that can bring them back are what caused his abandonment in the first place. 

And there was Warren...

The claws from the outside, slow-cooked bone prodding through rotten flesh against the splintering oak door. The barricades were breaking. Samuel was running out of time.