Chapter 5: City Chaos

“Let’s just stick to the plan,” I said.

“What plan?” Sally asked.

Chris looked towards the broken entrance window and replied, “Not the best time for questions.”

His gesture made me notice the faint screams and shouts from other homes.

“I wanna rest.” Josh said as he slumped on the sofa. “And eat.”

“Get up then. You know the plan.” I said, “We’re going to Costco.”

Sally crossed her arms and took a moment to consider what I had just said. I moved closer to where Angela was standing, and she leaned closer to me.

“Once we’re a little safer, then we can take some time to rest and talk,” I said.

Although everyone heard what I said and nodded, I was speaking more towards Angela. I wanted to give her some reassurance that things were going to get better. Everyone looked tired, but I was more sensitive to Angela’s condition.

Her hair was a mess. I noticed that she was wearing a little bit of makeup because the tears and sweat that rolled down her face and cheeks betrayed their existence. Still, she captured my eyes.

She nodded at me and asked, “So, how do we get there?”

I shrugged and replied, “Our cars?”

Victoria nodded and mumbled, “I think that’s a good idea…”

“Hold on, let me check the situation outside again,” said Josh. He jogged towards the entrance window while we followed behind.

Chris went the other way to my room and followed after us a few seconds later with my spare racket in his hand. Josh and Sally were still holding on their weapons.

We all took a peak outside. If someone were looking at our house from outside, they’d probably be greeted with an amusing sight, a group of heads popping out of the windowsill. If the zombies outside didn’t catch him off guard, we would.

When I saw the wreckage outside, it caught me by surprise. I didn’t get a clear chance to see before, but the houses across from my house all had broken windows and doors. Now that I was paying attention, the shouts of anger and screams of death became clearer. Even though it was right in front of me, it was still hard to believe. A woman holding a baby was running down the street while an angry mob of people chased her and beat her down. There were six of them.

None of us said anything. I’m sure the others were thinking we had to do something, but they were also probably thinking of how powerless we were to do anything except get ourselves killed.

Chris broke the silence and said, “This is our chance.”

Sally nodded and said, “Unlock your cars now if they’re not, and make sure to lock once everyone is inside.”

“Chris and I’ll drive,” I said.

Victoria shook her head, “No. Chris and Sally should drive. You should stay with Angela.”

I frowned. It was strange hearing Victoria deny me outright. She was balled up in the corner of my living room just a moment ago. But now, she had an air of conviction in her voice, like she was sure of what to do.

Angela agreed and said, “I’d like that as well. You need to rest,” while laying her left hand on my thigh.

I wanted to drive, but I took the hint. When Angela spoke, she looked at me, but she wasn’t looking at my eyes. She was looking at the cuts and bruises on my body. Right now I was feeling fine, but after the adrenaline in my body died down, I’d be in no condition to drive or move around.

“All right,” I said, “Angela, Victoria, and I will go with Sally to my car since it’s the closest. Chris can take his car with Josh.”

The guys looked at me, and I shrugged, “What?”

Victoria said, “I’m fine now, Alex. I’ll go with Chris and Josh. I can run.”

The guys looked at Victoria and then each other before shrugging at the same time.

“Sounds good to me,” said Josh.

“Then let’s go,” said Chris.

We all nodded and snuck out of the front door. I wanted to chuckle at the odd situation, but I turned it into a smile and a cough instead. Never thought I’d ever have to sneak out of my own front door…

My car was parked in my driveway, so it was easy to sneak too. Chris, Victoria, and Josh would have to take a much greater risk since Chris’s car was parked in front of my house on the street, about 6 feet from where the mother and her baby were being pounced on. They were probably dead since the body stopped crying and the mother stopped screaming.

The “zombies” didn’t look any different from a mob of people. It made me doubt that a disease of sorts was spreading, at least not the ones we had in mind. Yet, my neighbor had broken into my house and beat the crap out of me, and now, the whole neighborhood at least was in chaos. Mind you, Mr. Sean wasn’t the type who’d get angry so easily. One time someone egged his house. When I came out of my house to get some groceries, I noticed him cleaning his front door. So I offered to help, but he just smiled and told me, “No biggie.”

Maybe something triggered him. He could have been releasing all the stress he built up until then, but I don’t know. He seemed like a nice guy, but with these other guys on the streets, I wasn’t going to hesitate. Whether they were nice people in the past or not didn’t matter to me. They were vicious murderers, and I wasn’t going to be fooled.

I unlocked my car and Sally jumped into the driver’s seat. Angela and I crawled into the back seats from the left side of the car. I got in first and scooted over for Angela. Sally locked the doors as soon as Angela closed the back door and looked at me. She was holding her hand out.

“Oh,” I muttered and gave her my car keys.

She smiled and then looked at the others who were hiding behind our car. Josh was peeking out to see if the mob outside was still distracted. They weren’t. They were all looking up at the sky and yelling. Then they all turned to us and dashed at us.

“Shit, unlock the door, Angela,” I said.

She stumbled to unlock it but got it open by the time the mob of people were on my lawn. Chris, Josh, and Victoria were stunned at the unexpected development.

Chris noticed Angela opening the door and shouted, “One car,” and jumped into the car while I rolled into the passenger seat. Victoria looked confused still and was holding her forehead. Josh grabbed her arm and pushed her into the back seat.

I heard the car engine turn on and looked at Sally who released the e-brake and put the car in reverse. The mob was only a couple of feet from us. Josh threw his bat at the closest attacker and jumped into the back and on top of Chris and Victoria while bending his knees to get his feet inside the car.

The moment Josh jumped in, Sally reversed into the mob, running over two people and hitting a third to the side. The other three pounded on the right side of the car and tried to latch on as we reversed into the street.

Sally swerved the car to the left while we were reversing and didn’t stop like I expected her to. She kept going back until we had about a few meters of space between the chasing mob and our car. When she stopped, she stopped suddenly, so the momentum of the car shut the back door with Josh still on top of Chris and Victoria with his legs bent behind him.

Sally put the car on D and drove forward, hitting the three people in front of us. They all rolled over the car and part of the windshield cracked.

“Don’t look back,” she said and kept driving.

I looked at the side-view mirror and saw a mob of eight other people chasing from behind us. More were joining them as they dashed out of the other houses, probably done with raiding the houses they were in. Some were coming in from the front, but Sally kept flooring the car down the street so they had no chance to catch up.

We passed by dead bodies on the street or near cars. Some people had tried to escape, but they weren’t as successful as we were, though we weren’t exactly out of harm’s way yet. Tire tracks on the street suggested that people had hauled out of the residential district. We were close to a freeway, but I didn’t think going in that direction was a good idea.

The freeway would probably be jammed with all the people trying to escape the city.

“Shit,” said Sally, “There’s a roadblock up ahead.”

Three cars had smashed into each other head on. It was a weird sight because we weren’t at an intersection. There was no way that could have happened unless the third driver wanted to smash into the other two cars.

Chris said, “Take a left here.”

“Into the park?” Sally asked a little confused, but a few seconds later, she realized what Chris meant, “Oh, right.”

Josh joked, “You must have gotten a 100% on your driving test, right?”

Sally ignored him and cut around the roadblock by going through the park.

Victoria muttered something under her breath. She was talking to herself. Something she did when she was under stress and trying to solve a problem she couldn’t understand during a test. A teacher once thought she was trying to cheat and made her sit in the corner of the room away from the others. We tried to tell the teacher that she wasn’t trying to cheat, but he didn’t listen. I think he only realized later when she kept mumbling to herself even though she was taking the test alone in the corner of the room. He apologized to her but reminded her that talking during a test was prohibited.

Since then, she had taken strides to fix her habit, but I guess old habits die hard.

After Josh’s attempt at lightening up the mood, nobody said anything. Everyone was looking outside. Even Sally, she would see something and even do a double take while driving. I wanted to be in the back where she and I could lean against each other and reassure one another, but she was sitting behind me.

How did things go so wrong so quickly? If some sort of outbreak was happening, the rate the virus was spreading was unimaginable. Everything was fine at school when we left, and it couldn’t have been more than one hour when we arrived at my house and started preparing. Somehow, in a span of an hour, everyone in this city had been infected.

It was something that made them mad. They didn’t bite like zombies, and from looking at the mobs on the street, it didn’t seem like the infection spread through wounds or blood. Still, it worried me how close we were to them, the infected. Derek’s last text to me refused to die, “Don’t let them touch you.” What did he mean by that? I was almost beaten to death, but I don’t feel any different from before, mentally at least.

The only thing I hoped for was that we’d be able to find a safe place before the adrenaline in my body died out. The more time passed, the more I was aware of how much pain my body was suffering from, especially my back, ribs, and arms. My infected neighbor had done a number on me, but I was glad that I protected my neck and head well.

The city was in far worse condition than me, but there wasn’t as much congestion as I thought, though a few cars were crashed here and there. Fires would probably spread through the city tonight. Not something to look forward to.

Some people were looting stores while others were running amok, trying to get away from the groups of mobs forming. Soon, the mobs were also going to get out of hand. Some heroic police officer was shouting for peaceful surrender but was stampeded upon. Someone took his gun and ran off.

I’d like to think the ones breaking the law with a purpose, like trying to gather supplies for survival or weapons to defend themselves, I’d like to think they were the uninfected ones, the hope of humanity that could keep order in our society, but it was hard to tell the difference once everyone was thrown into the fray.

A few mobs and what seemed like infected people tried chasing after us once in a while, but we zoomed by them. They could have been shouting for us to help them while waving their arms about, but we weren’t going to stop and listen. Sally was good at ignoring people, and even more so now that she had opened her mind to the possibility of driving off road.

Victoria was right. If I had been the one driving, then would I have been able to run over people without hesitation or ignore wounded people pleading for help? I’d have probably gotten everyone killed before we even reached Costco.

But if we lose our humanity, how are we any different from them?

Without hesitation, Sally had run over a handful of people, and we had used the time a mother and her baby was being attacked to save ourselves. It didn’t make me feel good.

I glanced at Sally to see how she was faring, but she seemed unfazed. It was like when we were playing for keeps in Texas hold’em. Whether she won a hand or lost a hand, her expression never gave away her genuine feelings. It’s not like her face was expressionless. She laughed and showed concern at times, but there was something off about it. And that bugged me. The only time she seemed to express any of her true thoughts was when she was looking at you like you were stupid or a bug.

But even though her face didn’t betray her, her other behaviors did, the way she gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white and the way she bit her lip. That, at least, made sense to me.

“Can you stop looking at me?” Sally said.

I looked away and said, “Sorry, a lot on my mind.”

…

She glanced at me and looked back at the road.

“You think I killed those people? They weren’t human. It was us or them.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“I’m not sure… But it’s like they’ve lost their mind to something…”

Chris agreed, “I never felt so much anger from another person in my life. It was scary. I’m sure it was for all of us. But we did what we had to do.”

Angela put her arms around me from behind and asked, “Are you okay, Alex?”

I asked, “Is anyone okay?” more to myself than anyone else.

Josh said, “Forgot it, guys. We’re almost at Costco, right? Let’s just get some grub and find a safe place to rest.”

Victoria asked, “But there’s probably going to be people there, right? What are we going to do then?”

Josh turned to Victoria and said, “Oh? Done mumbling to yourself, Victoria?” which earned him a pinch in the thigh. “Okay, okay! Stop! Sorry! I’m tired and my legs are falling asleep from being in this weird position.”

“Dude, my legs are asleep from you being on top of me,” said Chris.

We all laughed. I think conversing a bit helped us distract ourselves from what was going on around us. We had a goal at least and we were going to see it through the end. For now, we had to get to Costco, fill ourselves with food, and see if there were others we could work with.