The Apocalypse

Chapter 37

Ram

Amarillo, Texas



Hundreds of zombies, 27 rounds left, and a girl who had his heart in a tight grip, bleeding with a virus fighting to get into her system. Ram had zero choices. Running wasn't an option and fighting would have to wait. In his pocket was Julia's only hope, and he didn't so much as hand her his rifle, as he threw it into her arms and dug out the first bottle of vodka that he had hoped would ease them back into a more intimate relationship.

Instead she screamed as he poured it into the jagged wound the broken glass had slashed into her flesh. “Shoot, damn it!” he yelled and then grabbed her leg and squeezes so that the blood and alcohol blended and came out pink. Another bottle joined the first and then the M16 started ripping the air with its thin thunder. He then spread the gash as far as it would go and poured a third bottle into the wound.

It would have to do for now.

“Come on,” he said and then not waiting even for a second for her to figure out what he meant by that, he yanked the gun from her grip and threw her over his shoulder. Whether she could run or not he didn't know or care. Some primal part of him had taken over and now he was Tarzan and she was Jane, and this was no longer a PC world—there were zombies to worry over, many, many hundreds of them.

She had laid out those who had gotten close, some with head shots and some with hits that were just good enough. It gave him a lane and he pelted through it across the street where another low brick building sat ignored by the empty world. Thankfully glass doors were in vogue for front entrances.

Dumping her on her butt and dropping his gun in her lap, he said simply, “Cover me.”

Julia might have been a psychologist by training with a woman's soft heart, but just then she was a Spartan in her soul and with the horde closing, she shot with nerves as cold as ice. She aimed low, at knee height and a miss of a stiff in front still meant that the one behind stumbled and fell, making it an obstacle course for the dead.

While she was buying time with the few remaining bullets, Ram was looking around in a growing panic; this time there wasn't a handy stone for him to use to break the glass and he feared to waste even a single bullet. With no other good choice, he threw himself against the glass door and all that happened was a shock went through him from shoulder to shoulder. He didn't try a second time, knowing it would do little beside bruise him. Instead he lashed out with a grunting front kick that set the power of his two-hundred and twenty pounds in a three-inch area across the ball of his right foot straight into the glass—it shattered and so did something within him. A searing pain raced up the tibia in his lower leg and right through to his knee, making his teeth clench.

With him operating in fight or flight mode, the pain was nothing. However when he went to kick out the extra glass in the door, so that he and Julia could get through, his knee buckled and he went down. He knew that he injured himself badly, yet just then it didn't matter a hill of beans to him. His mind had set itself a goal and the punishment his body took in gaining the goal was secondary and of trivial importance. With his elbow he cleared the glass and then he reached for Julia who was already kicking backwards with her good leg, firing all the while. By the shirt, he took her and dragged her through the low opening, pushing her head down to keep her scalp from being sliced open.


“I'm empty,” she said, showing him the open port on the side of the M16, and not at all upset with her rough treatment. With the danger, she didn't even seem to notice how he had manhandled her and in truth neither did he.

Ram stared at the gun for a second and with his mind still in its Fire bad / Girl Pretty mode, he could not quite make the connection between her words and the actual fact that they were out of ammo. All he knew was: “We shouldn't stay here,” he said.

The gun went across his shoulder while she slung an arm over him for support. Together they hobbled on through an unknown building where one set of cubicles looked like another and their only saving grace was that the zombies, in their zeal to get at their victims, had plugged the hole behind them with three of their wriggling bodies. Ram didn't know this and he pressed on as fast as he could, heading down a central corridor with no particular destination in mind.

“Where are they,” Julia asked, glancing over her shoulder with every other step. He was about to say he didn't know, but there came a bang and a shattering of glass. Instead of answering he opened the first door on his left—the one on the opposite side of the building from which they had entered. He touched a finger to his lips to suggest she be quiet and he gave him a look that said: No duh.

The two spread out, each hobbling; Julia went to the back wall, while Ram looked up at the noise dampening ceiling panels, wondering if he could get Julia up there and if they would hold even her slight weight. It didn't seem likely except where the walls ran together and so he limped to what looked like a break room; as he did there came a thumping and a rush of feet from the hall. The stiffs were hunting them.

Julia glanced at him, more pale than he had ever seen her and then went back to searching the desks and rooms, looking for something, anything that would save them. Ram was beginning to think that being saved wasn't possible. He felt that putting off death for another minute, or another hour, or a single day was the best they could hope for. So he looked again to the ceiling, seeing in it a moment's refuge.

He just had to get up there. With a near silent grunt he gently placed a chair up on the desk nearest to the break room and was just wondering how he was going to get his gimpy bulk up on it when he heard a short, urgent whistle from Julia. She had one hand pointing out the window, while the other waived him over with frantic motions. There was no hurrying Ram, impaired as he was by his bad leg and limited by the fact that any noise would alert the beasts that had descended upon the hall just beyond the doors. Still she tried.

“Come on!” Julia hissed. “She's leaving.”

Finally Ram came up to the window and saw the Bronco, slowly drifting down the street. Their salvation was right there and what was more, there wasn't a stiff in sight.

Reaching for a tall, four-legged stool, Ram warned, “It's going to be loud. We may not make it.”

“I don't want to die here,” she said, nodding and pointing at the window. “Do it. Break the glass.”

It was easier said than done. His bad leg kept him from putting his full power into the swing and so the first attempt saw the chair rebounding off the window and nearly coming out of his grip. It made a noise like a stunted gong, though in its effect it might as well have been the dinner bell. The zombies went into an instantaneous frenzy. The door shook as they attacked it, but worse, in a visceral way, was that the walls began to vibrate as the beasts tore at the paneling and the thin sheetrock beneath in order to get at them.

“Again!” Julia cried, slapping a desk with the flat of her palm repeatedly. A second time he swung and this time the glass flashed into a spider's web of cracks. Behind them was a splintering cracking noise—the zombies were breaking through the door!

Ram didn't need Julia's urging; he began the hammer at the glass faster and faster as a small hole widened slowly. When it was just big enough he grabbed Julia by the arm and pushed her to it.

“It's not big enough for you,” she said pulling back. The first zombie began to slither through the hole in the door, unmindful of the sharp angles of wood. “We both go!”

Ram had fully intended on going, he had only wanted her to get to safety first. With a growl at even this tiny delay he went berserk on the glass, making the hole large enough with three tremendous swings of the mangled chair.

“Go,” he said, breathing great gusts of air. He couldn't wait to help her through as he had planned instead he had the dead to deal with. Like horrible snakes the stiffs slithered through the opening they had made and already there were four of them in the room. In the first second he knocked one sprawling with the chair and in the next he over turned the desk at his feet and pushed it in the path of another.

“Ram! I'm through,” Julia called. She then went limping out into the street calling Cassie back, as well as calling every zombie in the vicinity to her. There weren't any on the street, however there were plenty still trying to get into the building and these came charging around the far end. “Shit, shit, shit. Ram! Come on,” she cried.

In the art of zombie warfare subtlety was wasted and Ram had learned well his lessons. There was only attack, attack, attack until the beasts were all dead. Unless...one was winded and weakened through injury; and unless there was a way to escape. Ram smashed the third zombie with the awkward weapon, but it took three tries to bring it down and then the fourth was on him, arms and taloned hands reaching. Defense was normally useless since a single scratch could doom a person, but now Ram brought up the stool to chest height and when the zombie reached through the metal it had effectively handcuffed itself. With its arms extended and trapped, Ram simply pivoted the creature back the way it came and shoved it at the next beast coming at him.

He didn't wait to see how much this was going to slow any of them down, instead he launched himself in an ugly one-legged dive through the window.

Julia was screaming for Cassie to stop, but the Bronco's brake lights didn't go on until Ram joined her on the street, waving his arms and screaming. Only then did Cassie put the car in reverse and back toward them as fast as her limited ability would allow. Few people practiced driving in reverse at top speed, and by the way Cassie fishtailed the Bronco all over the road, it was clear she wasn't one of those few. Ram had to pull Julia back to keep her from being hit.

“I thought you were dead,” Cassie said as soon as they climbed in—she didn't need to be told to floor it when the doors were slammed shut and locked—stiffs were all over the place scraping at the glass and the paint.

The sudden acceleration pinned them to the leather seats—Julia grabbing the Oh Shit bar above the door to hang on, however Ram was left to sway back and forth in a growing nausea as he pulled out the final two bottles of vodka.

“Let me see that leg,” he said to Julia. To Cassie he barked, “Slow down! Nothing's chasing you.” Julia scooted close, her face pulled by fear at what the possibilities were with the wound. The cut was on her inner thigh and in order to get a better look, Ram took her blood soaked jeans where they were torn, and with a quick violent motion, ripped them wide, exposing her soft pale skin from knee to pelvis and then some.

On impulse from such a move she tried to close her splayed legs, but Ram, in a motion that bespoke his masculinity and strength laid her thighs wide open with his large hands. For him it was an act that was non-sexual in nature and he was too absorbed, to mixed in his emotions to notice how dominant his mannerisms and position was, nor how pink in the cheeks Julia had become, nor how she put her shaking hands out to him as if to ward him off. Or even how big Cassie's eyes had grown in her dark face as she looked back.


He didn't notice any of this because he was sick, not only with fear for Julia, but also sick with Cassie's driving. She weaved left and right as she kept her chin half turned from the road. He was also nervous for himself. There was a cut on his left forearm that he hadn't noticed before, and it, coupled with his stomach's strong reaction had him wondering if he were infected as well.

“Face the road, damn it,” he seethed.

“I just trying to see what the hell you doin back there,” Cassie replied, pointing her chin at Julia's spread legs and prone position. Only then did Ram see what the women saw and he grabbed a shirt from one of the packs and covered her.

“She bit?” Cassie asked in the same tone of voice as if she were asking if Julia had only stubbed her toe. “Cuz if so she needs to get the f*ck out.”

“It's her damned car,” Ram snarled. Uncapping the fourth bottle he began working the alcohol into the wound, which begun to bleed afresh.

Julia grimaced as he did so, grabbing the bar tighter. “I got scratched is all…on glass,” she said in a high voice. “This is just a precaution. Ram, you're bleeding as well. Do you know that? You need to save some for yourself.”

“I have one more,” he said, handing it to her. “Could you do it? I don't know if I can reach well enough.” She sat up, arranging herself better and then with soft hands explored his wound, cleaned it thoroughly as Cassie watched and drove all at once.

“Will that work?” she asked. “Cuz if it don't you know what I gots to do.”

“It might,” Julia said. “Especially for me. I wasn't bit, but what about you, Ram? Did you get bit?”

“I don't know...or I know I wasn't bit, but I don't know if I was scratched by one of them. I can't tell from this angle. Does that look like glass made it?”

“I don't know,” Julia answered with fearful eyes and shaking hands. “What we should do is flush that wound properly. With something better than vodka.”

“And maybe you should put up them guns in case you two turn,” Cassie mentioned.

Instead Ram dug for more ammo. “What the hell happened back there?” he asked, glaring, watching her eyes flick away quickly.

“I don't know, alright. There must've been another door open somewhere in the back cuz I was just sittin there and then they were right there in the hall behind me. I would have warned you but I was too scared because they were right close up on me.”

“They came in from the back?” he asked, trying to picture the layout of the building they had just escaped from. “I saw them out front.”

Julia pointed for Cassie to take a right, toward a main street. After the turn she explained, “They was out front too. After I saw the ones in back I went to the front and made a run for the car. It was my only chance.”

“But they were coming in. Why didn’t they go after...”

Julia interrupted him. “Stop. Look, there's a dentist's office. They should have everything we need to clean these wounds properly.”

At the idea of getting his wound cleaned, Ram was pulled away from his train of thought—why had the dead come into the building instead of following Cassie in the Bronco as they normally would have?

“What's a dentist have that we could possibly want?” he asked with a touch of hope. He had an unspoken dread of contracting the virus. This fear had been with him since day one and it had never been closer to going from fear to reality than just then.

It turned out plenty. Dental offices were generally better equipped with medical supplies than most people knew, which was likely why this one hadn't been looted. They rushed in with barely a thought to security—though this time Ram kept the keys to the truck with him. He didn't trust Cassie's story. She was either lying about something big, or had run at the first sign of a zombie. That she hadn't run far suggested cowardice, however her eyes suggested much more.

Now in the offices of William Hargrove DDS, deceased, they found rubbing alcohol as well as gobs of medical supplies: novocain, zylocain , #4 suture kit. “Should I try to stitch you up?” Julia asked.

“Would it help?”

She bobbed her head a little. “Only with infection and scarring, but not with the virus.”

“Infection? Shouldn't we be taking some antibiotics against the virus? Something strong?” he asked.

She was busy going through the cabinets, squinting at the tiny writing on the tiny bottles. “No,” she said somewhat absently. “Antibiotics won't work.”

“You don't know that,” Cassie put in, her breath smelling of mint. At the receptionists desk had been a bowl of candy—the girl was partial to Peppermint Patties. “Maybe it ain't been tried yet, not early like this. Shit, if you don't want to try you should at least let Ram.”

Julia gave her a smile and patted her hand. “You don't understand. Antibiotics can't treat a virus. They only work on bacteria. Only a vaccine or the human body can combat a virus. It's a common mistake.”

Cassie made a noise of dismissal as she picked through the candy bowl. “Ain't nothing on me. I ain't the one bit.”

This set the mood for the rest of the evening—a mood of anxious waiting. Ram had seen the fever take anywhere from as little as five hours to kick in, to as long as fourteen, but once the fever hit, that was all she wrote.

As the clock ticked over past midnight, he checked his temperature and then touched his throat. So far he was normal. Cassie was normal as well, she lay in the outer room snoring loudly as usual, sleeping easily and without care despite that her two companions could turn at any moment.

The thought stirred anger within Ram—not that Cassie was so relaxed about the events, but that this could be his last evening alive and he was spending it alone on a cold leather couch. He glanced over and saw that Julia was laying there with her eyes pinned to the ceiling and with her lips pulled back in fear.

He went to her and she saw what he wanted. “No,” she whispered. “Cassie's right there. We promised ourselves we wouldn't.”

Ram went to the door to the office and closed it gently. “No,” Julia repeated louder.

“Listen, one or both of us might be dead in a few hours. Do you want your last moments on earth to be in lived in fear or in love?”

“We can't,” she insisted. Ram didn't listen. To keep pressure off of her wound she wore a light skirt and this he hiked upwards with an easy motion and just as he had earlier, he spread her legs and though she shook her head No, her legs opened so easily a breeze could have parted them.

And then he was on top of her and right before he entered her she said again, “No.” However her body and her wet lips and half-closed eyes said, Yes!

And then a second later she moaned the word as well, “Yes...”