Jaime, Don't Leave. (Patreon)

At the sound of the sputtering and crackling of a motorcycle’s engine, Jaime awoke in a cold sweat. The Harley’s thunderous retort matched his own heartbeat. Sweat covered him in a second skin and drenched the bed sheets. Little light came through the screened window. It was morning, and Jaime would be gone soon—gone from this nightmare into a new one. The dead were rising like a tidal wave over Nightfall. To survive, Jaime would leave Dillan’s group, pick up his friend, and escape the city. That was the plan, which like nightmares became twisted and derailed after the start.

Rosie stirred in the cot on the other side of the room. She held a stuffed rattlesnake, Toothy, in one hand, and a box cutter in the other. Jaime sat up and almost bumped his head on the bunk above him. He could now see Edgar under the cot. He always slept in confined places. Dr. McNamara called it a security method. Jaime had hoped to work with the man more and make him feel secure. How would he do that if he abandoned him?

Edgar rolled to his side and slipped from under the bed. The hair on his chest looked bristly and thick like long-grown weeds. Edgar scratched along a long scar on his stomach, nodded to Jaime, and put on a muscle shirt.

“Are you cooking today, Jaime?” Edgar rubbed an eye and smiled, hopefully.

Jaime cracked a half-smile. “I’ll try. Adrian said he wanted to cook today.”

Edgar’s lips pruned like he bit a fresh lemon. “He s-slept in. Him and Dillan were up late, drinking and playing Nintendo. If you get up now and hurry—”

“How’s a girl sleep with you two hens crowing,” Rosie moaned through a bundle of sheets over her mouth.

Edgar shot her a confused glance. “Hens cluck. Crows caw.”

“And turkeys gobble.” Rosie sat up and made the sound, rubbing her throat to add a warble. Edgar laughed until he snorted.

Jaime climbed out of bed and changed shirts. He ran fingers through his hair to comb it, and took a swig of water and swirled it in his mouth. Glancing down at the bulging backpack barely fitting under the bottom bunk, he pushed it with his foot.

“Are ya packing to go?” Rosie asked in a timid voice and sat up in bed. Her red hair was tangled and flattened on one side, bushy on the other, like a toddler’s drawing of a witch.

Jaime walked the few steps to the bed and sat at the foot. “Rosie, I told you I’d never lie to you.”

She popped up on her knees, flinging off the sheets. “Why ya gonna go? Dillan and Adrian said they got everything covered.”

“R-Rosie, don’t yell or…” Edgar stammered.

“It’s not that simple. I’m not like them,” Jaime said.

Rosie shoved him, knocking herself backward. “But ya can be. Dillan said we got to be brave to survive now.”

“He’s not being brave. He’s doing bad things.” Jaime pulled her into a hug. She thumped her fists against his chest, but he held her tightly. She soon relaxed and rested her head.

“You stink like a public shower,” she said, pressing her nose to block any odor.

“You should smell my underarm,” Jaime answered. He glanced at Edgar who was sitting on the floor and rocking. His hands were squeezing and twisting the metal leg on the cot, making squealing sounds like it was being crushed in a trash compactor.

“I’d rather not smell your underarms, ya freak,” Rosie said. Her voice dropped lower with a sing-song quality. “Don’t leave, Jaime. Don’t leave.”

---

Thirty minutes later…

Jaime turned the banana-yellow Cadillac Escalade SUV onto the highway. After he set out scrambled eggs with Fruit Loops for Rosie and scrambled eggs with spam for Edgar, he made himself a double cheeseburger, grabbed a set of keys from the office to the first random vehicle in the lot, found the Escalade, mulled over using it, packed it, and left for Chipper Ridge.

It was an inevitable separation, like oil and water. He could not be around Dillan and Adrian. They thought of the post-outbreak world as one of anarchy, of freedom from morality. Like end-of-days preachers, they delivered a sermon of strife and greed and death. Their commandments were similar to those given to the Old Testament Moses but made new for the apocalypse. Thou shall lie. Thou shall covet. Thou shall kill. They ministered these words to their small flock of the easily convinced. Their faith was in their own foul desires, and their gods were whiskey and meth.

The highway was a graveyard of abandoned vehicles, and only the infected wandered the raised asphalt circuit. Jaime slowed his vehicle to serpentine through the maze of metal. He only picked up speed to outrun a mob of the dead.

The smell of the cooked burger in the paper bag on the dash brought back memories. He grew up poor, though his mom called them frugal. He didn’t know he was poor until other people called him that word. Moses explained it to him, which only made him angry at his cousin. Sometimes, on a Friday night, his Aunt Celia would take him and Moses to the McDonald’s drive-thru for dinner. He could get a double-quarter-pound cheeseburger or a regular-sized cheeseburger, small fries, and a small soda. Moses would always try to get him to go for the three-item meal, saying they could all share it, but Jaime always had to share everything in life. He just wanted his own damn burger.

He heard the rapid gunfire only a second before the burned-out taxi on his right ripped open with bullet holes. The burst of .50 caliber rounds was music he couldn’t forget. He urged the SUV forward and took the turn on the outside lane as more bullets tore up road only a feet away. Adjusting the rearview mirror, Dillan’s jeep swerved around a wrecked motorcycle and surged to cut the distance. Edgar was driving, while Dillan stood on the passenger side, pointing like a general on a battlefield. Rosie manned the machine gun, which fired again, spraying the side of a disabled news van.

Jaime looked ahead to a pile of cars blockading all lanes of the highway. The metal carcasses were stacked so deeply, he could see no weak point or way around it. Forced to slow the Escalade, Jaime pulled into the shoulder and drifted behind a column of 18-wheelers to block the path of the machine-gun fire. Dillan would never stop coming. His hold on Edgar and Rosie made them just as dangerous. How could he stay alive long enough to convince Edgar and Rosie to go with him, while ensuring Dillan and Adrian would leave on their own?

More bullet fire peppered the road near his SUV. If he stayed there much longer, they would draw close enough to give Rosie a clear shot. Jaime saw her face as he left the dining room. She glared with pure hatred. When Rosie believed in something, it was complete and true. She did not think Jaime had wronged her, she felt it. He would not have the chance to convince her otherwise. How could he stop her without harming her?

As the rumble of the machine gun died out, Jaime took a chance and backed up the Escalade past the 18-wheeler. Once the keep came in view, he saw Rosie changing the belt for the .50. Now was the time. Jaime launched the SUV forward and drove along the outer lane, swerving around debris. A few hundred feet ahead lay the dead-end wall of cars. As he heard the jeep pick up speed to chase him, Jaime hit the gas pedal. The Escalade responded, pushing him back in his seat as the vehicle sped forward.

A small coupe on his right rattled from a sudden salve of bullets. Jaime turned the SUV away from it, almost losing control. His vehicle skidded sideways and hit the concrete wall on the driver’s side. The door caved inward and Jaime cried out uncontrollably. The interior metal bent toward him, nearly far enough to touch his left side. He yanked the wheel and steadied the SUV. He was running out of room, and soon he would be trapped. 

Bullets flew past the left side of the Escalade, hitting the concrete wall ahead. It crumbled from the impact but stood standing with huge holes like concrete Swiss cheese. The SUV was out of cover. Rosie had him if she wanted him. One blast of fifty-caliber bullets would tear apart the Escalade and likely him as well.

Jaime peered into the review mirror. Dillan was pointing at him and yelling, while Rosie pulled on one of the mechanical parts of the ammunition feeder. Her hands fumbled and rotated the barrel to the far side of the highway. Slamming his foot on the gas, Jaime held on to the wheel, braced himself, and angled the SUV for the broken barrier. With a sudden surge of speed, the Escalade crossed the last clear strip of road. The front end hit the wall, breaking through it with a jolt. Chunks of concrete exploded, and a mist of dirt fanned out. The SUV took to the air. Jaime heard the buzz of the motor and the hum of the wheels as they left road. His body lifted from the driver’s seat, weightless. In that moment, he could only think of how strange the loss of gravity felt—how freeing, how euphoric.

The road below came fast, and all four wheels of the SUV touched it at once, gentle like kisses. Jaime bounced, bumping his head on the ceiling. The front fender fell off, rolling under the frame. With a slight twist, the Escalade rode sideways and then straightened along a new road. He looked over his shoulder and spotted the jeep on the highway above, maybe half-a-story high, its front end poking through the hole the SUV had made.

The machine gun fired, striking the ground behind Jaime’s car. He pressed the gas and felt the pounding of several bullets cutting into the rear of the SUV. He maneuvered into a field of tall grass and zig-zagged to evade the gun fire. More shots came, and Jaime tensed, expecting to feel the white hot pain of pierced flesh. Or would the SUV explode into a plume of fire? Maybe a single bullet would tear through his brain. All outcomes flashed like a flip book of photos.

When the gunfire stopped, Jaime eased up on the steering wheel, which was bent under his hands, the leather torn. He looked back again—the jeep was gone. He knew better than to think they were gone for good. Dillan promised him one thing—leave and be damned. He considered disloyalty an act only punishable by death. For one with so low moral code, those few values he possessed were absolute.

The engine of the Escalade sputtered, and the gear slipped. The heavy vehicle coasted, though its speed stayed steady. Up ahead loomed a colossal building surrounded by a brick wall as tall as Jaime. An open gate greeted him, and a sign read Chipper Ridge High School. He steered the vehicle, which drifted like a sailboat riding on one final gust of wind.  The SUV made little sound, except for the reverberation of the few moving parts and the grinding of wheels on asphalt. On the far right of a wide parking lot, the silhouettes of people came to view. Maybe thirty or forty figures wandered before a low grass field, and as Jaime coasted into a parking spot, he could seem them more clearly. He gasped at the sight—the short stature, the youthful clothing, the backpacks—these were students.

Jaime sat back in the driver’s seat and wiped his eyes. His bottom lip trembled, and he took deep, uneven breaths. His lungs wheezed, and his nostrils flared. Those were teenagers, children. They were all infected, now reanimated corpses. These were not the first zombies he saw, but this was different. This was abominable. This was the stuff of nightmares.

When he looked away finally, he forced himself to calm down. There were enough horrors in the city to paralyze any sane person. If he stayed stuck, he would die. Dillan was near, so Jaime had to get unstuck.

He pulled the door handle, but the door barely budged. The bent metal frame grinded and moved half an inch. From a short distance came the hum of an engine. Jaime grabbed the paper bag with the double cheeseburger and kicked the driver’s door. It flipped open with a croak. He climbed out of the SUV and ran along the parking lot, crouching as low as his giant body allowed. When he reached the last car, he sprinted toward the main building, heading for a line of trees near private staff parking spaces. As he made it to cover, he saw a single doorway tucked behind a tree. It was unmarked and locked, but Jaime put a shoulder to it, easily forcing it open. Once inside, he made out a maintenance closet with landscaping tools and coiled lengths of garden hoses.

He heard the sound of the jeep drawing near. Turning, he spotted his pursuers parking near his Escalade. Dillan stepped off the back of the jeep with some kind of oddly shaped gun hanging from a strap on his shoulder. Rosie leaped out, holding a submachine gun. She tied her long red hair into a ponytail and peered around the school grounds. As her eyes fell across the side of the building where Jaime stood, she paused. She smiled.

“I’ll check this way,” Dillan said, loud enough for Jaime to hear. “Driver, pull around to the front. Rosie, you—“

“I’ll go this way,” she said and started toward Jaime.

He closed the door and slid a large crate in front of it. He would talk to her, reason with her. If he could break through the propaganda, he could regain her trust. It was his will against Dillan’s, and he would win.

For now, Jaime was trapped and alone with little supplies and weaponless. If he couldn’t get through to Rosie…if Dillan’s brainwashing worked too well…

He needed help, and he knew just who to call.

To be continued…