Chapter Seventeen
The neighborhood is deathly quiet. The only thing to interrupt the silence is my rifle, the gunshot noises echoing across the houses and trees every time I find an infected person. They are far more sparse than I had expected. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people lived in this part of the suburbia; I should be finding far more people than I am. Between the quick (slightly one-sided) fights with infected, I ponder the reason behind this absence of infected. I tell myself "Don't jinx yourself, you idiot. You'll make more show up!" at one point, but I can't help thinking about it. I can see corpses of uninfected people everywhere, so apparently a large portion of the population must've been immune as those four are, but that still doesn't account for the lacking numbers. I wonder what makes them immune. Something in the blood, perhaps? Lots of corpses of infected as well, that I didn't kill. I've examined a few… from a distance (they're gross, okay?). Almost all of them had fatal wounds, ones I didn't make obviously. A large-scale resistance, perhaps? Hmm. This neighborhood's resident's average age is particularly old, if I remember. Even if infected, people already frail wouldn't be able to do much to assail uninfected… I would think. Maybe the houses themselves are filled with infected wanting to tear me to shreds, but unable to stand up to do so. I laugh to myself. Ah, I shouldn't, though. That's terrible, making fun of people… even if it is funny. Are they still people?
I've come to the conclusion that I can lose an infected if they can't see or hear me, which surprised me at first. I was in quite a bit of a jam just now, having spent a whole round on a large group of infected that spotted me. After my last bullet, there were still two infected remaining. I made a frenzied run for it. I swear I didn't use to be this good of a runner. I used to be sluggish and slow. Some part of the second transformation perhaps? Into what Lorraine called a 'witch'? Anyway, I was making better speed that the two pursuing me. Once I had gotten some distance, I made an act of desperation and jumped into the thin space between a tall shrubbery and the side of a house. At that point, they simply weren't able to find me. I was afraid they might smell me down or something silly like that. Maybe that's only with the uninfected. Thank my lucky stars, there. Thinking back, I'm not quite sure what I would have done had they found me. I'm not stabbing another; that earlier was a totally fluke. It didn't happen.
After taking several minutes to reload my gun, I creep out from behind the shrubbery and scan the area. I can spy Westport Road at a distance. I'm near the Washburn Rd intersection, exactly where I need to be. The park the note said to meet at is past this intersection, further along Washburn, then if I recall correctly, just past the railroad tracks on the right. The intersection itself, however, is a total mess, a maze of car wrecks. And of course, it's filled with infected. Dozens of them swarm the area. They look rather restless, to boot. This… is going to be a problem.
I think the matter over, repeatedly glancing out to look at the situation again. I'm not going to get away as easily as I did at Herr Lane. That was pure dumb luck that I managed to cross that street as I did. What to do, what to do then? I look out onto the street again, planning a possible path to run through the jungle of cars. There are a couple overturned vehicles, one of which, a pick-up truck, must've been hauling pipes, as there are a number of them scattered all around. Must be sure not to slip on one.
Wait. Overturned? I look back out and survey the vehicles that have flipped over. The positioning of one gives me an even crazier, stupider, possibly-brilliant-but-probably-not idea than I had with the toolbox. A car, a Scion I believe, is overturned, the top of the car facing away from me, revealing to me all the mechanics of its underbelly. Its gas tank is right there…
I'm mad. I don't know how many times I've told myself that in the past month, but I have got to be insane by now. Have I given up on life? Is this why I'm willing to try something so unbelievably stupid? Perhaps. I can second-guess myself later.
I'm too far away right now, though. Need to get just a little closer. I scan for a closer hiding spot. Found it, behind a bush fence. With my head low, I make a break for it, staying near objects, not going out into the open. Luckily, when I reach the fence, no one's spotted me.
I glance back out to find my car. I can still see it. Yes, this is close enough. I have to make this count. My aim has to be perfect, more than it ever has been before. I peer over the bush and take aim at the gas tank of the overturned car. I take deep breaths, trying my best to calm my mind and steady my hands. My hands… they're right in front of me. Don't let their disfigure affect you. Don't pay attention to that. Just concentrate, take aim. You can do this.
I fire. A moment of thoughtlessness passes, before I realize I missed. The infected notice. Shit! I fire again. This one, oddly enough, makes its mark.
I've seen explosions all the time on television, or in a movie, but those really don't do justice to the real thing. Especially not the one I just made. Once the dust and noise finally settled down, I was able to come back to my senses (quite literally, my eardrums were blown). When my bullet pierced the gas tank of the Scion, a tremendous explosion followed that threw me to my feet. That was what I expected to happen, but that wasn't the end of it. I had failed to realize that all of those cars, trucks, and what-not jam-packed in with each other had gas in them as well, and were just a volatile. So basically, I created a chain reaction that pretty much destroyed this entire section of Westport Road, and undoubtedly any infected that were lingering around the vehicles. I wanted to laugh. It seemed the perfect thing to do, upon witnessing the destruction I just caused, to laugh like a supervillain who just blew up New York. However, I kept my impulses in check. Stepping out to examine the area, I realize these cars are going to take a while to burn out, so I'm going to be stuck on this side for a bit before I can cross. That's fine with me.
Nothing happens in the hour or so it takes for the street to become clear enough to pass. Walking through the vile-smelling ash and burnt remnants of vehicle and corpse alike, I wonder how many infected this mass explosion caused to lure. I also wonder if they even realized that the fire was a dangerous thing, or if they simply ran in like angry lemmings. Well, if they did, they're certainly scorched to a crisp now.
Back to hiding. I'm past the worst of it; now I just need to make this last stretch to the park. What then? I suppose I'll camp out for a day or two and wait for them. Perhaps, if I'm too late, Ann will have left another note telling me where they've gone. I really hope that doesn't end up being the case, though. This Rambo-business is tough alone. Being with four others would make things much easier.
A small number of infected find me on my way. Most of them at the apartment complex on the other side of the railroad tracks from the park. They don't cause much trouble for me. The rest of the infected I have little trouble in simply hiding from. They aren't as perceptive as I thought they'd be.
When I reach the park itself, I realize something I probably should have earlier: I wish she'd chosen somewhere else to meet. There are dead kids here. Dead kids. This is not amusing. This is, in fact, really fucking disturbing. There are just a couple, but that's enough to shake me up. I steer away from them. The corpses of who I assume were their parents are nearby as well. Well, at least they weren't susceptible to the disease. That would be pretty fucked up for a parent, maddened by the infection, to kill their kids. I'm sure it's probably happened somewhere out there, though. That's not a pleasant thought. Besides the corpses, there's no one else here. I look around and spy the playground. There we go. A place to sit and relax while waiting for the others; I suppose I've earned it.