Hamsikker 3 (19 page)

They walked back into the foyer, leaving the swimming pool behind. It was quieter away from the zombies, and Lukas was right. The parking lot was clear, and it looked as if the plan had worked. The rain had eased up slightly, but was still coming down in a constant drizzle. The storm had passed over them, and the sky was beginning to get lighter.

Lukas rattled the glass doors, but they were locked tight. “Well, we have no guns anymore, so I guess shooting our way out is out of the question,” he said. He could see a few zombies back at the pool begin to find their way around the edge and toward the foyer. “Any bright ideas?”

Dakota looked around and saw two plants by the reception desk. The leaves were still a lush green, and yellow flowers adorned the uppermost branches. She yanked one of the artificial plants from its pot, and lifted it up. The pot was four feet high, and appeared to be ceramic. “This should do,” she said, and then she threw it at the glass doors.

At first only a slight crack appeared, and she picked up the pot for another go. Lukas grabbed the second, discarding the artificial plant, and both he and Dakota began battering at the glass. Within a minute they managed to get one of the panes out, enough to squeeze through. One by one they filed back outside into the rain. After the stench of the swimming pool, it was refreshing, and no longer the same annoying cold rain that had drenched them earlier.

“What now?” asked Lukas. “Back the way we came? We don’t know where that horde went.”

“Yeah. We go back to the main street and down the hill. We need to get over the bridge,” said Jonas. He looked at Lukas’s face and could read what he was thinking. “I know, sounds too easy, right?”

They retraced their steps back to the crash site unhindered by the dead. Jonas didn’t care where they had gone, he was just glad they had. Images of them still floated around his mind, and it was as if he could taste them, as if they were a part of him. He had bad memories of the sports center and was pleased to be out of there. He knew if Lukas hadn’t been there, he would most likely be dead. Dakota too. Jonas’s head was swimming. There was so much to do, so much to think about, to prepare for; Janey was waiting, his nephews were relying on him, and Dakota needed him. Yet the images of the zombies reaching for him and pulling him underwater kept resurfacing, kept confusing him, and it felt like his lungs were bursting again, full of deadly dark water.

As Jonas’s knees buckled, Dakota held him upright. “Lukas, help me.”

Lukas immediately helped her lower Jonas to the ground. “Hamsikker, you okay buddy, you still with us?”

Dakota watched as Jonas blinked his eyes, looking at her as if she was nothing but a stranger. His head seemed to sway slightly, as if he were drunk. “There’s no way he can do this on foot. We could probably carry him between us.”

“Hey, Hamsikker, come on, this is no time to go sitting down.” Lukas patted Jonas’s back. He kept his tone light, but was concerned. Jonas was weak, and would undoubtedly slow them down if they carried on as they were.

“I’ll be okay. Sorry. I just need a minute.” Jonas felt dizzy, and despite the lightness of Lukas’s questioning, it was clear they were worried about him.

“We need wheels,” said Lukas.

“We’ll never get the truck past the crash site,” replied Dakota. “I don’t see as we have many options. The chances of finding a working vehicle with the keys left conveniently inside are slim to nil. Not to mention, we don’t have the time to go looking for one.”

“We don’t need to. All we need is something to get us down to that bridge. Like Hamsikker said, once we’re over the bridge we’re in the clear. You can see the park from here.  The trees are just beyond, and I’m guessing Jonas’s sister lives close by.”

Dakota watched as Lukas wandered over to a jeep and opened the driver’s door. He fumbled inside for a moment, and then closed the door. “No good.”

Lukas went to another vehicle, a red pick-up, and opened the door. As he did so, Dakota heard a scraping noise, as if something were dragging itself along the ground. There was movement coming from the crash site; something crawling out from underneath the helicopter. Dakota stared as a man pulled himself along the ground using only his hands. The lower half of his body was missing, and his legs ended in bloody stumps that left a wet slick trail of blood as he crawled across the road to her. His eyes appeared to be jet black, utterly devoid of life, of compassion, of feeling anything. The zombie sickened her. Was this what man had come to? Was this what they had been reduced to?

“I’ll get it,” said Jonas as he stumbled to his feet. “I’ll just…”

“No, I’ve got this.” Dakota needed Jonas to save his energy. They weren’t safe until they were all stood in Janey’s house in front of a roaring fire, and Jonas was going to need all his energy for what lay ahead.

Dakota found a brick and picked it up. She strode over to the man crawling on his hands and swung the brick at his head, raking it across his face, and taking off large swathes off skin. The zombie kept coming, and Dakota ignored its feeble attempts to grab her ankles. She swung again. The brick smashed into the dead man’s face, his nose disintegrating with a satisfying crunching noise. Dakota hit it again, pulverizing its head until it finally stopped moving.

“Okay?” asked Jonas, as Dakota returned to him.

“Yeah, I’m just ready to go. I’ve over it. I’ve had enough of the killing. I just want to lie down and sleep for a long, long time,” she replied.

“I know the feeling,” said Jonas. He kissed Dakota as the rain fell on them, and he felt a little better. They weren’t done yet. “I love you, Mrs. Hamsikker.”

“All right, Jonas, no time to get mushy now. Save it for later,” said Dakota as she kissed him back.

“When you two are ready, I’ve got one,” shouted Lukas.

The red truck had been dinged up pretty badly, and the windows had been smashed, but the main thing was it wasn’t locked up. Lukas was beckoning them over from the driver’s seat, ready to go.

“Does it work?” asked Jonas.

“Not a chance.” Lukas grinned. “But it doesn’t need too. It’s pointed in the right direction, see? Downhill, you said. All I need is a little push, and gravity will take care of the rest. We’ll be down and over that bridge in one minute.”

Dakota smiled, impressed at Lukas’s ingenuity. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Jonas and Dakota went to the back of the truck and began to push. It moved slowly, reluctantly, but then began to pick up speed.

“Jump in!” shouted Lukas, and Jonas and Dakota ran to get into the truck.

Jonas checked his mirror and noticed the gathering crowd. They were back. He saw them just behind the crash, their putrid bodies shuffling around, arms flailing wildly, teeth gnashing together, and pale eyes searching for their next meal.

The dead.

Even if they noticed the moving truck, would it be enough to draw them out? He doubted it. There was no noise as the engine was off, and they would be out of sight within seconds. He said a quiet prayer, and glued his eyes to the road ahead. It was time to put some distance between them and the zombies.

The truck moved slowly at first, but soon picked up speed. Lukas felt the truck pulling to the left, and as they gained more speed, he felt the drag even more. Lukas cursed quietly.

“What is it?” asked Dakota.

“I think we have a flat.”

“Well, we can’t stop to change it, we don’t have time. We’ve got to get over the river, Lukas. Can we make it?”

“We’ll let physics help us out,” said Jonas. “The truck should be fine until we get down the hill, at least. When we reach the bottom, we’ll bale and go through the trees on foot. It’s no more than a couple minutes’ walk through to the lake, and that’s where we’ll find Janey. This will give us some breathing space to get ahead of any zombies who try to follow. We’ll lose them in the park.”

The natural gradient of the hill made the truck speed up without Lukas having to do anything, and he pulled on the wheel to keep them as straight on the road as he could. The road was flanked by quiet, dark buildings, and the dead. Not the walking kind, but the dead kind, the ones who didn’t get up. Pieces of bodies, hunks of meat that had been left to rot and be picked at by rats and crows lay scattered in the gutters. There were police cars and ambulances, an illusion of safety that had meant Thunder Bay had turned from a safe haven into a slaughterhouse almost overnight.

“Those poor people,” said Dakota as she counted the bodies littering the road. “They stood no chance. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like.”

“Then don’t. Let’s focus on what we need to do,” said Jonas. He kept checking his mirror. The crowd of zombies had reached the top of the hill, and some were beginning to follow them down. He couldn’t afford to bring them to Janey. It was a mile to the river, but it was a long straight road, and there was no hiding. They had to make it over or they would be torn apart like Julie. “Don’t think about it. What happened has happened, and feeling bad for them isn’t going to change anything.”

“I know. I still feel bad though.”

“I don’t,” said Lukas. “I don’t think about things like that. I’m just thinking about what I’m going to do when we meet Janey. You think she’s got plenty of food? I’m still hungry.”

Jonas wondered how Janey was doing. Did she have enough food? Were the kids okay? He had so many questions. No doubt, she did too. This was it. No going back now. The road veered to the east, but they were going into the park and through to Janey’s house. He could hardly wait to see her little red house. The dark clouds were retreating, and more sunlight began to filter through the thin rain. It was clearing up. The storm had passed. They had made it through Thunder Bay. The three of them were going to make it.

“I’m sure she can rustle up something for you, Lukas,” said Dakota. She looked at Jonas and saw something in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in a long time. Hope. There were lots of variables as to what could happen, but at least he had found something to believe in. She knew he desperately wanted to see his sister again. She just hoped Jonas’s faith in her wasn’t misguided.

Suddenly the buildings at her side seemed to be rushing past way too fast, and the bridge was coming up quickly. She pulled the belt around her, and clipped it in. “Just in case,” she said as Lukas looked at her. To the side of the bridge grew long grass and thick, tall weeds. From there, the grass petered out into the river, and then led to the cold water of Lake Superior.

“Dakota, don’t worry, the bridge is right ahead of us. We’re fine.”

Just as they were about to cross onto the bridge, the front left tire blew out completely. Along with the flat at the rear, the truck was wrenched from Lukas’s control. It slewed across the road, and the steering column was pulled from Lukas’s grasp. The truck hit a drain cover and bounced wildly. Lukas fought to keep them under control, but the flat tires were useless on the wet road, and they were being pulled violently to the side. If they didn’t slam into the side of the bridge, they might just make it, and they could slide to a halt on the other side. As the truck bounced up and down, its wheels clinging to the edge of the road, Lukas could feel it trying to mount the verge. If they did that they were history. The entrance to the bridge was so close, yet the truck was rapidly veering away from them, and Lukas found himself looking not at the road ahead, but a very hard, very solid, low wall. They were going to crash.

Lukas steered them into the slide, taking them away from the bridge, and heading away from the wall. Now it looked like he had avoided crashing, but the wheels of the truck were sliding over dirt and grass, spinning wildly out of control. Lukas looked through the rain spattered windshield and braced himself. He could hear Jonas and Dakota shouting and screaming, but there was nothing he could do. He stared at the cold river that was suddenly coming up to meet them. The bridge was gone. The road was gone. Instead of watching events unfold slowly, it actually all happened fast, as if time had sped up.

One side of the truck scraped the bridge wall, leaving huge scratches in the side, and gouging out a deep furrow in the driver’s door. The scraping sound made Lukas’s skin crawl, but there was no time to react. They were on the sloping riverbank, and the truck’s tires lost all traction. The front left wheel, reduced to metal rims and pieces of flapping tire spun around uselessly in the grass, and the truck began to tilt alarmingly.

A split-second later, and Lukas saw the Kaministiquia River before him. At such high speed there was nothing he could do but to let fate take its course. The truck spun around a full 360 degrees, and then they were facing the river again. He was aware of Dakota next to him screaming, but it was more of an aside. His head was full of thunder, amazed that they were still alive, and it was the crunching sound of the zombie they hit that really brought him to his senses.

A zombie lying in the grass, unable to walk on its legs that had been eaten away by rats, reared its head up in surprise at the approaching noise. The truck hit the zombie as it took off, taking its head clean off it shoulders as the truck began to fly through the air. Hidden in the tall grass behind the zombie was a police motorcycle, and the front of the truck rammed into it, sending them into a tailspin. The ground dropped away beneath the truck, and then it was turning over and over as it flew up into the air. Flashes of water, of a pale blue sky, and of the disappearing bridge all flitted before Lukas’s eyes, and then the river suddenly filled his vision entirely. He’d thought he could control it, but he should’ve known it wouldn’t be that simple. The wet road was too slippery, and the truck took on a life of its own.