Zombie Exodus Novel, chapter 2, Uncle Lou

Lou pulled his sedan off the expressway and made a right to avoid a military transport offloading marines to a blockade. He cut through a back lot behind Juniper Hall, and underclassmen dorms, and idled the small car toward the science building. He feared the sound of the motor would draw unwanted attention. Past the fenced-in area, behind a row of well-maintained spruce trees stood the alley where Uncle Lou had parked his food truck for the past seventeen years. Originally Lou’s Big Truck, the American-and-Italian-food truck became Uncle Lou’s Big Truck after students gave him the affectionate nickname. In that alley now sat an unmanned National Guard command tent.

He cut the engine and scanned the area outside his car. A trio of National Guard soldiers stood across Juniper Avenue, automatic rifles held in hand as they watched over the campus intersection. Only litter moved on the road. In the distance, gunfire crackled. Uncle Lou turned to the backseat, struggling to push his large belly past the steering wheel. He tilted the seat back a few degrees and swiveled around. On the backseat sat a coffee urn and pastry boxes. On the floor rested a Marlin 336C lever-action rifle. Uncle Lou opened the pastry box and sprinkled powdered sugar from a shaker over half the box of cannolis, the cream-filled Italian pastry he made early that morning. Next he poured a dozen cups of coffee into carry cups and arranged them in a Styrofoam tray. He swung open the care door and stepped outside. Only brief gusts of wind could be heard and intermittent, brief shouts too far away to discern. He remembered only days ago when students filled the area, travelling from class to class, some standing in line outside his truck for a snack between classes. He remembered it like the memories were from years ago; the city had changed more in two days than ten years.

Uncle Lou leaned against the car and drew a folded slip of paper from his pocket. “Leave the city, old friend. Take your family and leave. Do not look back. God bless. – HL.” He zipped his windbreaker and opened the back door. He threw a Snoopy blanket over the rifle and lifted the cannoli box and the coffee tray. He followed the alley to the curb and walked across a narrow, manicured lawn to the front of the Frederickson Science Building. The wind picked up, catching paper napkins from the tray and dragging them above Uncle Lou’s head. More gunfire rang out, closer now. An odor crossed his nose—rotten eggs. He turned a corner to the entrance where stood two soldiers in full gear. Both held M16s, though Uncle Lou had only seen such weapons in movies and gun mags. One soldier, a female with an extra stripe on her shoulder, wore earbuds which dangled wires to a device reminding Uncle Lou of a Walkman like he owned back in the ‘80s. The other soldier kept two hands on his weapon and had his visor down on his helmet. As Uncle Lou approached, the two soldiers turned to him and raised their automatic rifles.

“Authorized personnel only, sir,” the female solder said in a straightforward, commanding tone.

“They ordered pastries and coffee for upstairs. Look.” Uncle Lou balanced the tray of hot coffee as he leaned over and bit the corner of the pastry box held in the other hand. The lid opened, revealing two columns of cannolis.

From the side street past the building entrance came the sudden burst of running footsteps which faded to silence in seconds. The soldiers pointed their weapons toward the alley. Moments passed.

“I have orders to let no one in for any reason.” The woman, whose nametag read Clemens, turned back to Uncle Lou and raised a hand as if directing traffic.

The other soldier’s head tilted toward the pastry box, and though Uncle Lou couldn’t see the man’s eyes behind the visor, he pictured them widening at the sight of the fried cannoli.

Uncle Lou held the box out toward him. “The left side have powdered sugar. The right side are plain. How do you take your coffee?”

“Extra cream and sugar,” he said and lifted a cup from the tray.

Clemens pursed her lips. “I can’t let you by. You’ll need to turn around and go back…”

“What’s in this one?” the other soldier interrupted and pointed in the box.

“That’s ricotta cheese with chocolate chips,” Uncle Lou said. “My favorite.” He stepped to the side of the soldiers, closer to the entrance.

The soldier lifted the cannoli and bit the end. Cream squeezed from the sides of the pastry shell. “Delicious.”

“We’re not supposed to eat on duty,” Clemens said in a shrill voice.

“Lighten up,” he said. His tongue flicked out and wiped powdered sugar from the corner of his mouth.

Heavy grunting drew them all to look at the alley on the far side of the building. Two men darted from the back of a dumpster and started toward Uncle Lou and the two soldiers. Both figures hobbled forward with great speed, their legs stiff, arms waving through the air, mouths locked in snarls. Their skin looked leathery, or molted like snakes shedding skin and a deep yellow the color of egg yolks. All humanity had gone from their eyes. Uncle Lou had never seen the infected this close. What a horrible disease to strip these men of their sanity and turn them into monsters.

Clemens turned her gun around and flipped off the safety. Bullets popped from the barrel and tore holes in the chest and shoulder of one of the infected. Blood spouted, though it fell like thick paint. The impact corkscrewed him, but he kept running. The other solder strafed alongside Clemens and fired a single round in the second figure’s head. His head flopped backward but he smacked the pavement face-fist.

“Shots fired,” Clemens yelled into a microphone by the collar of her jacket. From behind the dumpster more infected poured out. Uncle Lou counted six more as he moved closer to the entrance. Clemens’s gun showered bullets at the oncoming pack of infected, while her partner peppered them with single headshots.

The front door swung wide, and two more soldiers ran out, M16s raised and ready. Uncle Lou quickstepped through the open entrance; no one stopped him. Outside, assault rifles screamed in unison.

The lobby had been transformed into a command center. A folding table filled with closed-circuit monitors ran the length of a wall where hung framed photos of notable alumni members. Large light stands perched in each corner and illuminated the room. Uncle Lou remembered the statue of Marcus Frederickson, the building’s main donor, now blocked by an immense wired console. Uncle Lou had no idea of the purpose of the device. A single soldier leaned across a desk. He wore a headset and spoke into a microphone. He reminded Uncle Lou of a radio DJ, though he spoke gibberish of numbers and military lingo.

Uncle Lou placed the box and tray on the edge of the folding table. He took out a cannoli and a cup of coffee and placed them next to one of the monitors. The screens displayed various areas of the building. Floors two and three bustled with the activity of scientists and soldiers. Soldiers manned the elevators. He scanned the small TVs until he spotted a view of his destination—Larkin’s lab. Dozens of military personnel flooded the suite, but the left wing’s staircase appeared unguarded. Lifting the box and tray again, Uncle Lou took the side hall toward the left wing.

As he walked along the hallway, the overhead lights stuttered off, and a loud hum filled the air. Uncle Lou realized the building’s generators must have kicked in. By the time he reached the stairwell, the overhead lights cut off and flood lights along the baseboards caste an orange glow on the floor. He quickened his step and, hands still full, backed into the swinging double doors. He stared up at the narrow staircase and climbed the first two flights in a near gallop. I need to speak to Dr. Larkin. I need him to tell me face-to-face, man-to-man, that we’ll all survive this crazy mess.

Uncle Lou reached the third floor landing and leaned against the metal rail, gasping. When he was thirty years old, he jogged five miles a day. By the time he started his culinary career, running the length of the food truck was his only exercise. By forty, he had tacked on thirty pounds. Ten years and sixty pounds later, he found climbing a staircase the equivalent of a running a marathon. He climbed the next set of stairs and had to sit. He balanced the coffee tray on his lap and sucked in deep gulps of breath. He dabbed his sweaty forehead with paper napkins and fanned himself. The stale air did nothing to cool his skin. Steam drifted off the hot coffee beside him. He stood, balanced the box and tray, and started up the stairs again.

When he finally reached the fifth floor, he fell into the concrete wall wheezing for air. He rested his face on the cool concrete surface and struggled to hold up the pastries and coffee. He wondered why escalators were not installed in all buildings. He wondered if his pounding heart would eventually calm down or he would be found hours later dead in the hallway. And he wondered if he would ever see his sweet Marie again or his children, Theresa Marie and Lou Junior.

Shouting reverberated through the walls followed by the sounds of people running. A siren blared in the stairwell coupled by blinking red lights like ambulance flashers. Something’s happening. He pushed off the wall and threw open the exit door. A woman in a white lab coat ran by carrying a rack of fuming test tubes. Out of a vault-like door ran two men in plastic suits with hoods. They look like astronauts, Uncle Lou thought. Three men in FBI field jackets rushed past him and into a room marked Viral Incubator. A soldier sat on the floor outside an office door, head on his knees, arms over his head, and Uncle Lou heard his soft sobs even through the sirens, the electrical hum, and the clamor of activity.

He dropped the box of pastries and coffee tray on an odd-shaped device which had spinning test tubes and shaking flasks. He stepped down the hallway. On his right, a team of scientists sat around a conference table, and the man at the helm pointed to a blackboard marked with numbers and symbols that could have been hieroglyphics for all Uncle Lou cared. He stared at one woman—a dark-haired scientist with olive skin and thick eyebrows that reminded him of Marie in high school. The woman held a hand over her mouth as the lead scientist spoke, and she shook her head from side-to-side. She had the same look as he had when the doctor told Uncle Lou nothing could be done to save his father’s life.

At the end of the row of rooms, Uncle Lou turned stopped to stare through thick glass at a laboratory where an infected woman lie strapped to a surgical table. She thrashed against the binding, arms and legs stretched and showing every blood vessel and tendon bulging through sheer skin. A block was taped between her teeth—maybe wood or hard plastic, Uncle Lou thought. An IV line ran from her foot to a laptop, and a female scientist mixed chemicals in a huge flask warming over a flame.

Uncle Lou felt something touch his shoulder, and he tumbled backward, pulled by a firm hand. He fell into darkness, spinning, losing his balance. His foot hit something solid which he moved, and he heard the clang of metal on tile. A door slammed.  A light turned on, and he saw Professor Larkin standing next to him. They stood in a maintenance closet. Uncle Lou lifted his foot from a metal wash pail.

“Louis, what the hell are you doing here?” Larkin’s eyes were swollen and red, and his skin had a waxy quality. Never had Uncle Lou seen the man without a colorful bow tie, nor an unbuttoned shirt, nor hair ruffled and dirty.

“I came to see you.” Uncle Lou fumbled in his pocket and brought out the folded note he was given a day ago. “You scared me with this. I had to know what’s going on.”

Larkin pulled at tufts of his hair and gritted his teeth. “I told you leave. Why didn’t you listen?”

“I did listen. Marie took the kids. I’m meeting them outside the city, but I had to know just how serious this outbreak is. When can we come back? When will it be over?”

Larkin’s hands fell. He shook his head and squinted. “No. It’s never going to be over. We’ve lost, Louis. We’ve lost. Go. Leave here and meet your wife. Save your family if you can. Leave this city and never come back.”

Uncle Lou stared back at the professor. He had never seen the man like this before. He had never seen him speak with such emotion. The hairs stood on the back of Uncle Lou’s neck, and the flesh on his arms shivered.

“Marie,” he said aloud. “I have to reach Marie.”