cont'd from the Episode 1 Prompt here
Tim had a brief instant to be torn between the urge to help the bleeding taxi driver or rescue the woman. But only an instant. As he watched, another figure joined the first man in attacking the screaming woman, and a man stumbled from another of the wrecked vehicles only to be set upon by another. He looked around wildly as it sunk in that people were going crazy and just attacking other people. More crash victims were emerging from cars, and more than one had turned toward the taxi. As if they’re attracted to the blood… Tim thought absently.
The thought spurred Tim into sudden action. The taxi had become a trap, and the bleeding driver a lure. Unarmed, he would soon be just one more victim. He needed to get out of this car, to get into the trunk, and he needed to get to Lakewood. Tim slithered his front half over the seat back and dove across the lap of the unconscious driver, searching wildly for a trunk release somewhere between the steering column and the driver’s side door. He popped the lever and squirmed back with a desperate look around.
Two figures were almost upon the driver’s broken window, the afternoon sun behind them, obscuring their features. As they fell upon the unconscious man, Tim caught a good look at the nearest. Her temple had been caved in, and one of her blind eyes bulged out of the socket from the pressure. She bit into the driver’s neck with mindless savagery. Tim scrambled backward and hit the opposite rear door release, almost tumbling out of the vehicle in his haste to get out of the car.
Across the highway, the woman’s screams came to an abrupt halt.
Tim crept low around the back of the car and eased open the trunk, keeping a sharp eye around him and on the nightmare duo distracted with the driver. He slid his rucksack from the compartment and slung it over a shoulder, and, after a quick glance, grabbed a tire iron as well. As a weapon, it wasn’t ideal, but the heavy length of steel felt comforting in his hand.
Even if that hand shook with a tremor he couldn’t quite control.
His hometown had become a war zone, suddenly turned enemy territory. His mouth went dry, thinking of Jacob and Alison. This wasn’t just happening right here, the radio announcement had made that clear. God, he had to reach them, get them somewhere safe.
The highway was blocked with wrecked vehicles, and people were abandoning their trapped cars. As he watched, one group converged upon an unwary man who didn’t move fast enough, and the man went down screaming. From the other direction several figures shambled along the shoulder, headed his way. They moved with that same slow, uncoordinated shuffle that seemed to mark those affected by this madness.
Frantic movement in one of the nearer vehicles caught his attention. A man was struggling to open his door. His wife and kid pounded on the windows, their faces masks of fright.
Tim ran low toward the people trapped in their car, but couldn’t avoid being seen by the three approaching afflicted. The trio changed their angle to intercept him. Fifty feet. Tim smashed the driver’s side windows with the tire iron, working quickly to help the people climb out. Twenty feet.
He pushed the family toward the embankment, the woman being half carried by her husband. “Go, get them out of here!” he ordered the man.
Her injury slowed them down, the nearest of the afflicted almost upon them.
Tim turned to face the threat, buying them time.
He faced a walking corpse, one arm missing at the shoulder. It reached toward him with the remaining arm, gnashing its teeth in a shattered jaw. He stumbled backward in revulsion, heart hammering. Zombies? It kept coming, and soon would be joined by two more. Backed against the bank of cars, Tim swung the tire iron full armed. The blow crunched into the dead thing’s cheekbone, caving in the side of its face. The injury had no effect. He scrambled back onto a car hood. Tim swung the tire iron at the creature’s head like a batter going for a home run. The force of the blow almost took the top of its head off, and the body crumpled in a heap.
The other two had almost reached his position. Tim leaped past them and ran.
He clambered up the side of a shallow embankment, toward the backside of a warehouse. Freight trailers painted with the words ‘True Value’ clustered about the building as if it were budding. More screams floated on the air behind him. Sirens could be heard from multiple directions.
Drawn by the sounds, a group of workers stood together on the other side of a chain-link fence. Not wasting any time, Tim stuffed the tire iron into his backpack, tossed the bag over the fence and started climbing. The men began peppering him with questions about what was happening below.
He swung a leg over the top rail of the fence. “There’re people attacking other people down there,” he told them breathlessly. “I wouldn’t stick around,” he added as he landed in front of the men, shouldering his pack. They turned to watch him as he trotted away.
As Tim reached the street fronting the warehouse and turned right to follow it, he worked on a plan to get across Denver proper to Lakewood. It would take him far too long to make his way there on foot. Urgency ate at the edge of his ability to think, like a raving lunatic over his shoulder. He needed a car, but the roads would quickly become impassable as panic spread through the city. He needed something four-wheel drive, maybe an SUV.
A 7-Eleven stood at the left corner of E. 40th and Havana. The scattered cars he glimpsed on the road drove as if unaware of what was happening. On the heels of this observation, a Lincoln town car tore down Havana, speeding away from the freeway.
Tim angled across the parking lot and into the convenience store. The clerk behind the counter glanced up from his magazine with sleepy disinterest. Not wanting to alarm the cashier, Tim forced himself to relax. He gathered up some items of packaged food and a few water bottles and carried them to the counter, watching as the clerk rang up the purchase with an air of boredom.
His gaze moved to a black television screen behind the man. “You should turn on the news,” he suggested as he slid some crumpled bills across the counter. “There’s something bad going on out there.” The man looked at him with a frown and then reached to turn on the TV. A helicopter view of the Colorado Convention Center resolved on the screen, looking like a battlefield. “What the fuck…” the clerk murmured in disbelief to the TV as Tim left the store.
In the parking lot, Tim stopped as his eye fell on an old Honda motorcycle, parked discreetly behind the corner of the convenience store. A grim smile pulled his mouth.
