A harsh beeping sound woke Hank about of his light slumber, and he shot up in a panic, eyes wide and blinking furiously. He was still alone in the small janitor"s closet, the door blocked and locked. It wasn"t as noisy out there anymore, and he wasn"t sure how long he"d drifted off for.
The noise came from his phone, whose battery was on the steady decline. s.h.i.tty new phones... can"t hold a charge for more than a day. Grumbling, he rooted through the dirty desk shared by all three janitors and found a spare charger. It looked like someone had gnawed at the plastic tubing around the wires, but once he had it plugged in to a socket on the wall, he was pleased the thing still did its job.
It was almost two. When he"d last checked, it was close to midnight, and yet there was still no word from Susie. Frowning, he punched around for her cell profile, then pressed the call option. She picked up on the second ring.
"Hank," she whispered, and the sound made his blood run cold. "Hank, it"s chaos... The city... It"s... We"re stuck in traffic."
"Still?" He rubbed his eyes, sighing. "Are you okay though?"
In the background, Hank could hear Craig and Cecelia talking noisily to one another, so much so that it was a little difficult to make out Susie"s hushed words. "So far. Where"ve you been? Haven"t heard from you in a while."
He looked around, wondering if he ought to tell her the truth. Screw it. "Fell asleep in the janitor"s office-slash-closet. They had me on the run, and I don"t remember falling asleep... but here we are."
"Honey, I"m sure you"re exhausted."
"Yeah." He shouldn"t have slept. His wife was out there, in a car with f.u.c.king Craig and surrounded by a nightmare downtown. "How"s Rudy doing?"
"I think he knows something"s up," she told him, and he could almost see her rubbing the dog"s head. "He"ll be excited to see you."
"Feeling"s mutual."
"Hank, the power keeps cutting out everywhere."
He settled on the floor, careful to keep the phone plugged in, and then ran his hand through his hair. They"d need a beacon to get to the school if there were no streetlights: it"d be hours until sunrise.
His eyes wandered over to the power cords hanging from the closest wall, and an idea struck.
"I"m going to get a flood light set up on the roof," he said, working through the plan with her. "It"ll highlight all those... people for you, and Craig"ll be able to find the school easier."
"But it might draw them to you," she argued. "They seem interested in bright things."
"I"ll be on the roof," he insisted. "They don"t seem that smart... Once you guys get here, I"ll point the light in the opposite direction, climb down, and then we can make a run for it. Sound good?"
"I don"t know, Hank, it seems a little-"
And then the line went dead. It wasn"t a problem with his phone: the thing was still charging, though the percentage charged hadn"t gone above ten yet. Must have been a problem on her end-the thought made his chest constrict, his stomach turning over on itself as his throat tightened. The thought of not being able to contact her... He couldn"t...
Shaking his head, he tried calling her a few times, but it went to the answering machine on each attempt.
"d.a.m.n it," he muttered, setting the phone down after a few more failed attempts to reach her. There was no point in wallowing in the closet if her battery had died-it wouldn"t do either of them any good. So, he forced himself up and started gathering the necessary supplies.
The floodlight was on the roof already, though he"d want to hook it up to the back-up generators rather than the normal power source. He wasn"t about to play some bulls.h.i.t game of Morse code if the spotlight kept flickering on and off with the shoddy electrical connection. If it had hit the whole city, it wouldn"t surprise him if the school stayed dark. However, for now, the lights were working around him, and he tried to move as fast as possible.
Power cords wrapped around his neck and shoulders, and on his utility belt he attached a few tools that would help him in a pinch. h.e.l.l, a hammer could probably knock one of those guys unconscious if they were hit hard enough.
But how was he supposed to get to the roof? Even if the halls were quieter, he could still hear something shuffling around out there when he pressed his ear to the wood. There was no telling if the intruders increased or decreased in numbers while he"d napped, but he wasn"t about to risk getting himself up a creek without a paddle when Susie was on her way to find him.
They"d been so quick to tune into him before. Dead eyes darted his way. Nostrils flared. Mouths hung open, b.l.o.o.d.y saliva dripping from them...
He paused, the mental image of the moment when the people first spotted him burned into his mind. Nostrils flared. Like animals. Like predators hunting.
Hank was a hunter. He went into the countryside with his dad all the time, picking off deer and rabbits and turkeys... To avoid detection, they usually coated themselves in whatever scent seemed most neutral to the prey in mind. Sometimes he"d spend whole weekends smelling like dung, but it was worth it if it meant bagging a prize.
Well, now he was the prize to be bagged, and the tables had officially turned. Scent was a big player during the hunt, and, maybe, if he could disguise himself...
Turning away from the door, he rooted through all the spray bottles of chemical compounds at his disposal. A lot of the stuff would leave you wish rashes and burns if applied directly to the skin, so he rolled his sleeves down and b.u.t.toned up his shirt to the top-most loop.
Then doused himself in cleaning chemicals. Bleach. Gla.s.s cleaner. Toilet scrub. As long as it avoided his skin, he figured he was good-and he definitely didn"t smell appealing. The bleach alone was enough to make him cough, the lack of ventilation in the small room making his head spin.
Maybe the bleach was a bad idea, but there was no going back now. Almost every inch of fabric was soaked in some chemical or another, and he was pretty d.a.m.n surprised he hadn"t pa.s.sed out yet. He couldn"t undo it either; there was no way he was going to run around the school naked-Craig would have an absolute field day when his obnoxious vehicle rolled up to the school, and Susie would never let him live it down.
Though maybe he could be excused, given the circ.u.mstances.
Even though his phone was barely at a 12 percent charge, he yanked it out of the plug and tucked it in his pocket. If he left it alone, he"d probably have enough battery for Craig to call once they made it to the school.
Taking a deep breath (and immediately regretting it), Hank tentatively moved the boxes of cleaning product away from the door, then slowly undid the lock mechanisms. The lights flickered when he opened the door, the bright white lighting again an a.s.sault on his eyes. He left the janitor"s closet open in case he needed to make another hasty retreat, and then stepped out into the hall. He braced for impact, shoulders hunching downward, his eyes fixed on the few b.l.o.o.d.y figures limping around nearby.
But there was nothing. No swarm of crazed crazies, no thunderous footsteps down the hall in his general direction. Nothing. Hank kept his steps light, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention, but with each bloodied invader he pa.s.sed, his confidence grew.
If they couldn"t smell him, they couldn"t be bothered with him. Sure, a few glanced his way, turning their heads slowly and groaning, but none-zero-made a move for him. Hank almost laughed; it was either laugh or cry at this point, but the relief was overwhelming. Turning back on his heel, he hurried to the janitor"s closet, this time stocking up on cleaning materials. Six bottles were tucked under each arm, the load to carry immense, but he wanted to have enough to get him and Susie through whatever the h.e.l.l this was.
Maybe Craig could get some too. He could have the bleach.
If anyone saw him in that moment, they"d probably think he was the crazy one. Wrapped up in cords, tools hanging from his hips, and chemical cleaners clutched to him, his smile was probably the craziest thing about him. As Hank moved through the corridors, taking an easy stroll to the staircase that led directly to the roof, his eyes glistened. Even if this nightmare lasted a few days, depending on how long it took for the emergency relief workers to sort it out, at least he and Susie would make it through totally undetected.
He"d make d.a.m.n sure of that.
Connecting the floodlight on the roof to the back-up generators proved to be a little more difficult than Hank had antic.i.p.ated. Even though he was used to fixing just about everything the school needed him to do, he wasn"t a certified electrician. It wasn"t as easy as taking a cord and plugging it in somewhere else-this required actual thinking, and he did most of it under a dark sky, the blackness littered with hundreds of bright stars. Most of the city was in a sweeping blackout, the usual skysc.r.a.pers no longer lit with late-night workers and downtown insomniacs.
Instead, he saw what he usually did when he was hunting with his dad: a starry sky, though unlike his hunting trips, that morning"s sky was marred with plumes of smoke from across the city. Tainting the skyline, big clouds of grey and white spiraled upward into the darkness. In a way, it was almost... beautiful, but Hank knew that the people experiencing the fires couldn"t see much of the beauty.
When he finally got everything hooked up, he shone the light into the sky first, hoping that any air support might notice the thick beam coming from a residential zone. He"d heard helicopters whipping through the air repeatedly since he"d situated himself on the roof, but thus far he"d yet to actually see one. That didn"t matter. At least he knew they were hard at work.
He shifted the heavy metal light toward the street next, and the sight before him made his heart sink. There were dozens of b.l.o.o.d.y men and women wandering around, and the beam of light caught all their attentions. They wandered across the school"s lawn, reaching out to touch something they never could, and Hank kept the beam moving. Searching cars and illuminating stop signs, he"d hoped to see Craig"s beast of a vehicle waiting somewhere down the street.
But he didn"t. He saw nothing expect for them. Everywhere. Crawling, lumbering, limping. Some were missing limbs, others carried discarded ones with them.
"Holy h.e.l.l," he muttered, leaning heavily on the floodlight. When would he really wake up? When would he come to and realize he"d fallen asleep in the teacher"s lounge after his phone call with Susie?
He had so many questions, and yet Hank knew, deep down, that this was a waking nightmare, one he couldn"t click his heels and be free from.
With the light working and the street lamps flickering on and off, he went for his phone again. This time, he tried Cecelia"s number, knowing Susie probably wouldn"t be able to answer. It rang for a long time, each new cycle grating his already frayed nerves. When someone finally picked up on the other end, there was no answer-nothing but screaming greeted his ears. He almost dropped the phone, the sounds leaving a piercing ring in his ear, but he held tight, bellowing all of their names into the phone.
There was no answer, and yet in that moment, it was like he didn"t need one. A part of him knew what might be happening over there, but it was a part he was unwilling to accept. He pressed down hard on the disconnect b.u.t.ton, then shoved the phone back in his pocket with trembling hands.
Rather than dwelling on it, Hank turned his attention to the street. The screams could have belonged to other people. Cecelia could have dropped her phone. Focus. Focus on the now. Throwing his shoulders back, he began to run the flood light up and down the street, a cool spring breeze tickling his sweat-soaked skin.
Any minute now, she"d come flying around the corner, with or without Craig-he was fine either way at this point. All that mattered was Susie. She"d be there. She"d come.
She had to.
In the distance, a teenage boy tumbled out of the suburbs, his clothes wrecked from backwoods riverine romping, his backpack filled with the treasured goods of others. All curses and anger and venom, he moved through the shadows as best he could. The night had beaten him. It had taken every part of him, chewed it up, then spat it back out, and he wasn"t the same anymore.
He"d prepared for this. He"d played the post-apocalyptic video games. He"d read the comics books. Yet here he was, broken, shaking, clinging to a gun he"d found on another dead kid before he hit the right part of town. There were only two bullets left, and he was too scared to fire them-but too terrified about what might happen if he let go of the gun. It was only a matter of time before the night swallowed him whole, and he needed the gun to live-but firing it would draw in every freak in the neighborhood.
"Keep it together, Collin," he muttered, his heart racing when something-maybe a cat-knocked over a few metal garbage bins. Yeah, maybe a f.u.c.king cat. Closing his eyes tight, he held in a whimper before pushing on. He"d gone from a middle-cla.s.s suburban lane to the hoity-toity upper-cla.s.s block of the city. It wasn"t a place he"d ever dream of robbing, and yet as he crawled by houses, he wondered if he"d be able to take refuge inside one of the sprawling manors.
In the end, he decided on a much easier target. Drawn in by the roving floodlight, he spotted a prep school with plenty of smashed windows. Sure, there was a healthy herd of freaks out front, but they seemed distracted with the big beam of light moving up and down the street.
Keeping low to the ground, he jogged across the distance and hopped in an open window, inhaling sharply when he tore his jeans open on a shard of gla.s.s.
A woman in a workout suit, a gym"s logo st.i.tched on her chest, was running. Faster and faster, her weary body unable to push itself for much longer-and they had endless energy. The infected could probably outlast any star athlete, which made her want to collapse on the street and weep.
Sunlight coated the broken city, a layer of smoke blocking out what could have been blue skies. She"d only been free from work for a half hour, and already it was obvious no one was coming to help her.
"Move, Sara," she barked at herself, willing her legs to pump harder. Soon enough, she had a bit of a distance on the trio chasing her, and even sooner she found her sanctuary: a school. Up the street from her gym, its windows were busted, but there weren"t any herds of sick and dying blocking the entryways. Her throat burned. Her legs were one step above jelly.
She needed to stop somewhere.
"I wouldn"t go in that way." A voice called out to her as she made a beeline for the front doors, and Sara came to a stumbling halt. Eyes wide, she looked around for the source of the sound, eventually finding a man in a greyish-blue uniform looking down at her from the roof.
"But-"
"They"re all in the halls," he yelled down, gesturing around the building. "Take the fire escape up here."
She hesitated, her chest heaving with every breath she drew. The guy could be a psycho, sure, but the infected on the ground wanted to take a bite out of her.
And she"d take psychotic over cannibalistic-apparently that was the world they were living in now, and as a helicopter whizzed overhead, flying low enough to make her cower, Sara could only hope things would get back to normal soon.
Because this new normal wasn"t something she planned to put up with for much longer.
n.o.body could.
Strangers Episode 4 "Did you hear that?"
Collin cast a wary look over his shoulder, looking in the direction of the door. Everyone waited, silently, and a part of him hoped there"d actually be a sound. After spending the morning with these two f.u.c.k-ups, he would have given anything to go bash some freak"s head in. But there was nothing. The woman, Sara, seemed to be shaking when he glanced her way again, and he wondered if she was going to cry-again.
She kept her s.h.i.t together as best she could this time, and he tried not to roll his eyes. Weren"t personal trainers supposed to be tough as nails and super athletic? She was hot, yeah, but he was surprised she"d been able to survive a f.u.c.king zombie invasion on her own. After all, she"d been a mess since they all met up, following the school janitor around like a lost puppy.
If he had to put money on who"d be the first to go of the three of them, Sara would be his horse in that race. Then Hank. The guy had to be late thirties-minimum-and smelled like a public bathroom. It was the chemicals, he"d told the others once they were all settled in the teacher"s lounge, that kept him hidden from the freaks. Collin was surprised he was even conscious, given how disgusting the guy smelled-all that bleach could fry a person"s brain.
Or so he thought. Collin took shallow breaths, trying not to inhale too deeply. Even if the janitor was seated on the far end of the couch, Collin on the coffee table, he didn"t want to risk inhaling the fumes. After all, he"d had a few buddies who thought bleach would be a good way to get high.
It wasn"t. Their trip to the hospital and the bills that followed were proof enough. Besides, Collin"s vice was alcohol, not drugs. Only idiots got their rocks off on cocaine or heroin or f.u.c.king bleach.
"It wouldn"t surprise me if a few of them are still walking around," Hank mused after they"d been quiet for a suitable length of time. "Might be the building too... Air conditioning kicking in for a bit."
Sara nodded, her knees pulled to her chest, and Collin resumed picking at the loose skin around his fingernails. His backpack sat nestled on his lap, his gun hidden for safekeeping. After struggling to find shelter in the halls of the school last night, freaks everywhere, he"d reluctantly joined up with the only two normal not dead people he"d seen in almost twenty-four hours. It wouldn"t have been his first choice, but they"d managed to clear the hallway of freaks, luring them outside with a lot of effort before bolting the door. They weren"t armed, the janitor and the personal trainer, but Collin didn"t want to be mistaken for a freak if he surprised them.
So he showed his face, hands up, gun tucked away, and tried to look as unsuspicious and innocent as he could. They"d practically fallen onto him, welcoming him into their weird duo without hesitation. Which was f.u.c.ked. Hadn"t they watched apocalypse movies? Collin could have been some psychopath getting his rocks off in all the chaos.
But then again, so could either one of them. His eyes darted between the pair, his mouth pressed closed in a tight line. Sara could probably take him: she looked a little better fed, definitely more in shape than Collin. Hank might be an even draw: the guy was tall and lean with a dusting of sandy blond hair, balding from the back.
Collin had a real weapon, however. Sara had nothing but the clothes on her back, and Hank had his stink and power cords and tools.
His hands dropped to his bag slowly, tightening around the fabric until he felt the outline of his pistol.
"Is there anything to eat here?" Sara asked after another few moments of silence. Was everyone appraising one another like Collin was? Sizing up the compet.i.tion? Wondering who would win in a fight? Or was he the only one having f.u.c.ked up thoughts in a f.u.c.ked up situation?
Hank shook his head, and then gestured toward the fridge. "I had to clean out all the leftovers last night... It"s all in garbage bags, if you want to dig through."
Her nose wrinkled, and Collin tried not to laugh. Princess. Princess Personal Trainer-probably hadn"t ever rooted through the garbage in her life.
Not that Collin had ever needed to either. He wasn"t that much of a white trash kid that he dug through people cans on garbage day, or went dumpster diving with his friends. If he saw something in good condition sitting on the top of a trash heap, he wouldn"t turn his nose up at it. His stomach gurgled, and he wondered just how far down in the garbage bags the food might be.
He was basically running on empty at this point: he"d eaten all the snacks he"d taken from the suburban nightmare, and it wasnt like he was some hippie who could forage for wild mushrooms or some s.h.i.t in the forest. Besides, he"d been a little too busy trying to survive the night to care about food. Food could wait. His body might have been a little slower, a little weaker, but he was doing okay so far.
Probably not for much longer, however.
"So there"s nothing to eat anywhere in this building?"
"Cafeteria is in a separate block," Hank informed the personal trainer, throwing a thumb over his shoulder. Out the window, Collin could see a huge building looming on the other side of a field-a field littered with freaks. No thanks.
"We could try the surrounding houses?" the woman suggested, and Collin rolled his eyes.
"We aren"t a we," he snapped, shaking his head and scoffing. "We don"t have to do anything."
Hank spoke up before Sara could, his voice even and calm. "Being in a group is better than being alone."
"Well I don"t know s.h.i.t about either of you, so I"m not about to label us a we."
He was being petty and he knew it. However, the hunger made his temper short-shorter than usual-and Sara"s shaking was driving him bats.h.i.t crazy. Everyone was scared. No need to waste energy on shivering and whimpering and throwing pitiful looks in all directions. Everyone needed to toughen up these days, and if she wasn"t going to pull her weight, she could f.u.c.k right off.
... If there was any weight to pull. Because. They weren"t a group. They were just three normal people sitting in a room together.
Surrounded by roving packs of zombie freaks.
Yeah.