Pallor

Chapter 4 - Fire Flight (first draft - outline)

4

                   
         Holland and his parents sat on the couch watching the television.
Hell had broken out all over the world, and no one knew what was really going on. People were eating other people, turning into animals. The cheesy anchor man, plastic hair and too white teeth, tried to keep the fear from his voice.
Footage of mindless people walking down the street, animal sounds coming from their throats and then a little boy in a cage, trying desperately to get out, snapping his teeth viciously at the camera and screaming like a tortured animal all flickered across the screen.
They sat in silence on the white and pink floral couch holding cold cans of coke.
So far out breaks were small, people should stay inside.
That they could do.
The phone rang.
…. And Rang.
Holland’s mum went and answered, a few seconds later she was back in the room,

“Bruce, it’s for you” she says to Holland’s father, “It’s Jim,” she adds.
Bruce leaves the room. Holland can hear his deep voice in a loud whisper.
“Mum, what is going on? Do you think we should leave?” Holland asks, breaking the silence,
“No, no. We should stay put. Wait and see what your father says, he’ll know when it’s time to leave.” she answers, sitting with her hands folded in her lap. She is in shock, without having had seen anything.
God only knew what would happen to her if she saw one of those things in real life. Holland shudders at the memory of the librarian that crosses his mind.
         “That was Jim, he and the family are ok, wanted to see how we are going. Said the centre of town is like something from a movie. Told me his neighbour is one of those things, he got attacked by a damn rat or something, got sick and then turned into one of those nutters. Said he can hear him walking around in his house breaking stuff. I think we should barricade the windows and the glass in the doors shut, just in case they manage to break a window open.” Bruce says, coming back into the room. His dad is a big tough guy, built and Holland always feels safe around him, he smiles because his dad is in charge and even though he’s an adult, everything will always be alright as long as dad is in charge.
         
In the basement his dad kept all sorts of supplies, including ply wood and other hardware items. They nailed up the windows on both floors, the front and back doors as well as the roll up garage. Already the windows and doors were covered in security screens, but this would, at the least, provide them some precious minutes to allow them to escape. They had enough food for six months at least. Holland and his mother used to tease his father about the hidden food stash, now they were grateful. 
         So they sat as a family watching the TV as the world around them fell apart. Within hours infections were being reported from various places in each state and the military was coming in to take care of the problem. Holland and Bruce decided to find anything in the house that could be used as a weapon – bats, an axe, various flammable liquids and long handled gardening tools. They had never believed in guns.
         By nine o’clock that night things were far worse than they actually thought they would be. Not every part of the country had been affected, but those that had were in a bad condition.
It was harder to kill them off than people thought, and capture was near impossible now. The infected people had begun .to travel in groups, or packs as I like to call them.
They helped each other to feed.
Rescue points were being set up by the military, people were urged, if they had no choice but to travel on foot, to carry white sheets with them and make noise when approaching the points, so they wouldn’t accidentally be shot, this was the medias idea anyway.
Bruce checked all the windows and doors again.
The time had come to make the decision again.
Stay or try to get to a safety point.
Julie, Holland’s mother, left the decision up to the men of the family.
         At midnight Holland and his father went trough the attic and on to the roof, Julie locking her self in the basement in case something happened, in case something got in.

The view from the roof is surreal. From their home in the outer urban areas they can see the small orange glow of fires in the distance, a residential area in trouble. Bellow they see a few of the infected humans milling around on the road.
They don’t seem to care about the smoke.
Holland is looking at one of them through binoculars when suddenly it spins around. It’s head points towards the sky and he sees it’s nostrils flare. A tongue stabs at the air Suddenly it growls and rushes towards the house, then others follow making the same noise.
“They can smell us dad, they can smell us! They are trying to get in, look!” Holland says to his dad in a whisper, panic flooding his voice,
“They won’t get in, have you seen enough?” Bruce asks,
“Yeah” Holland replies.
They crawl back into the attic and close the window behind them.  They reach the bathroom and knock on the door.
Bellow them the sounds of a shoulder being forced into the front door can be heard, a metallic thumping.
Julie opens the door and peers out, terrified.
The two men enter the bath room and lock the door behind them, they turn on the radio on low.
“Listen, it looks like half the town is on fire right now. None look to close, but it will only be a matter of time. Some how I don’t think the fire fighters are going to be able to put all of them out, “ Bruce says, taking his wife’s hands, “I think it is too dangerous to go anywhere right now, it’s too dark. In the morning we’ll pack up the car and go to the nearest safety position ok?”
Julie looks at them both, wide eyed, and nods.

That night they slept in the basement, the thing outside was still trying to get through their security door the next morning when they woke up. It was five am when they rose, none of them had really slept. Outside all night were the sounds you would find in a zoo or wildlife park. Growling, grunting, inhuman screaming. At one point, Holland told me, he thought he could hear something sniffing outside, though it may have been a dream. At five they began to get ready, they turned on the TV, had breakfast and got some necessities together – clothing, food, water, weapons, money and first aid. The television played more of the same.
No cure.
No official word.
No government issued message.
No idea.
People were now claiming that these people were dead, not playing dead but were actually dead.
Dead and walking.
“Pish!” said Holland’s dad, “They are not dead, they are crazy, there is a big difference” he added.
Six AM rolled around and there was breaking news.

“People are advised not to leave their homes to find evacuation centres. These people are extremely dangerous and should not be approached. Again people are advised to avoid leaving the safety of their homes at all cost” the television blares into the room. The person outside is still banging against the metal screen, though now without as much vigour. The inhabitants of the house are used to it now and no longer jump at the sound. Holland, Bruce and Julie sit on the couch holding cups of coffee, starring wide eyed at the screen.
“What should we do then?” Holland asks his father,
“I still think we should leave, you can smell the smoke is getting thicker” Bruce answers.
         The two men decide to take a look from the roof again. This time things look much worse. They can see five streets away the block is on fire. The person trying to get into the house now has fractured arms, the bones poking through the skin like ugly piercings. Ten other infected humans are wandering around in the street, some holding chunks of bloody meat, others just wandering aimlessly. One man is tall and skinny, looks about nineteen. His lower jaw is missing, tongue hanging down to his chest. Bloody gore spreads out across his shirt around the tongue which twitches every now and then like a serpent.
“Jesus Christ” Bruce mutters under his breath.
         They go back inside again, this time with no added attention payed to their front door. The wind must have been blowing the other way.
“What do you think Holland?” Bruce asks, taking his son off guard. Bruce has never asked Holland for advice before.
“I say we leave, now,” he answers.   

At eight AM another news flash. Some rescue points had been lost, and an updated list was released. Their closest place, half an hour away, was one of the lost spots. The next one was a four hour drive away. They had the fuel, they had the food and they had weapons. They decided to leave anyway, they couldn’t stay there. It would only be a matter of time before the things got in. They started to un-barricade the garage door and settled in for one of the worst road trips of their lives.

         Julie packed the car full of food, water and the better weapon options – cricket and baseball bats, a crow bar and a claw hammer. Earlier Holland and his father had scouted out as much of the roads that they could from their roof. Most of the way looked clear, but there were a few spots where abandoned vehicles blocked off access. They debated on if Holland should try and get his car or not, he said yes, Bruce said no.
They decided on no.
The windows in the back seat had blankets pushed against them by supplies. His mother’s idea, he didn’t think she wanted to see if anything was coming. He said it was a bad idea, if they had a crash she couldn’t get out. She insisted.
Holland and Bruce got into the car.

Bruce sits behind the wheel, knuckles white from his grip. He slides the gears into neutral and pushes his foot down on the accelerator.
“Dad, what are you doing?” Holland asks, doing up his seat belt,
“We don’t want to wait for the door to slowly roll up do we, we’ll have to go through it. They’ll get in if we wait around,” Bruce answers.
He sits there for a moment, the sound of the car at full rev in the garage almost deafening them all.
“Hold on!” Bruce yells over the noise and the tires squeal as he slams the gears into drive.
Smoke fills the air from the tires and they seem to hover for an instant, then the car jumps forward, a loud crunching sound replacing the engine noise. Splinters hail down on the windscreen and the wipers jump to life as Bruce accidentally hits the lever sticking out from the column. He swerves erratically on the road as he fights to see through the debris. Feeling the car loosing control he swerves again, and finally straightens the vehicle in time to see a young boy standing in the middle of the road. Out of first instinct Bruce slams his foot down on the break and the car jolts to a stop, smoke once again coming from the tires.
         Around the car grunts and howls fill the air, followed by the sound of running footsteps,
“DRIVE, FUCKING DRIVE DAD, HE’S DEAD!!” Holland screams, shaking his father’s arm. Bruce looks at the boy, sees the gash across his face, the missing eye and blue lips.
The boy is dead
The TV was right.
Bruce snaps from his daze as the first zombie reached the back of the car. He slams his foot on the accelerator, the back of the car slips from the gnarled fingers of a middle aged woman and the car mows down the child in front of it.


The drive was very hard on Holland’s family, he told me. They had lived in the area all their lives, knew many of the people. They saw friends broken and dead, many which now tried to attack the car as they drove. The road was clear until they got four blocks away. There the fire had spread, engulfing over three quarters of the homes.
Cars also blocked out the only exit to their little Hamlet. The only option was to go back out through the parklands Holland has been in earlier.
He saw what was left of the woman’s corpse still laying where he had run over her.
He almost vomited at the thought.
Bruce, he told me, handled it fairly well. The car was not built for off road travel, but with Holland yelling out the directions they managed to make it through alright. Half an hour later they had made it back onto the road that led into town.