Then they were in the cool darkness of the tunnels, theirboots and shoes scuffing the smooth concrete. Their flashlights clicked on, andthey ran, flying as fast as they dared in the darkness. Joan cringed as moredead faces appeared in the yellow light of her flashlight. They didn't evenfight them, content on knowing that by now they had spread out. They dodgedaround them, avoiding their grasping hands and gnashing teeth. They all made itpast, and for three minutes more, they ran full speed through the tunnel,stumbling and catching themselves in time before taking diggers into the looserocks that lined the tunnel.
When it seemed they had all gone far enough, they slowedto a fast walk without saying a word. Joan wondered at that. She wondered aboutthe programming of the human brain. What was it capable of in life or deathsituations. What was a group of brains capable of?
"Man, I can't wait to get out of this tunnel,"Mort said.
It felt good to hear Mort's voice. He hadn't said muchsince Blake had died, and this was the first sign that maybe he was moreresilient than she had given him credit for. "You and me both," shesaid.
Then there was silence as they moved through the tunnel.After they crested the hill, they could see a circle of light in the distanceas big as a dime. They shuffled downhill, their eyes scanning the circle oflight for shadows, signs of the dead milling about between them and theirescape.
Joan could smell fresh air as they neared the exit. Shewas looking forward to getting into the sunshine. In her ears, a sound grew asthey neared the light. It was the buzzing sound of a large group of people inone place.
They emerged into the sunlight, blinking their eyes andgrabbing their various weapons as their eyes adjusted. To their left and right,concrete walls rose twenty feet into the air, shaping the earth around it andpreventing it from collapsing onto the MAX tracks.
The concrete walls sloped downward in the distance untilthey were about waist-high. As they walked along the tracks, they all heard thesound, but they made no comment as the noise intensified. They put one foot infront of the other and trudged onward like a convicted murderer walking to anelectric chair, the inevitability robbing them of all fear. They knew it wasbad. They knew death was waiting for them, but what the hell were they supposedto do? Turn around and give up?
As the concrete walls around them sank, Joan strained herhead to see what was on the other side. She took a step forward, and the worldcame into view. The highway ran to their left. Between them was a waist-highconcrete divider topped by a flimsy chain-link fence. On the other side of thatfence, there was a sea of cars with broken windows and ajar doors. Windingthrough the traffic were the decaying bodies of the dead, shuffling nowhere inparticular. Before they could duck down, they were spotted. One of the dead, aman in a camouflage jacket with a bloom of red on his neck, groaned in theirgeneral direction and started across the pavement in a shambling gait. Histhighs bumped up against a car body, and instead of going around, like a normalperson would do the dead man fell on top of the hood and crawled his wayacross. Soon, hundreds of the dead were mimicking his approach, and by the timethey had gone a hundred feet, the entire other side of the fence was lined withthe dead, pressing their faces against the fence, their hands grasping thelinks fiercely.
The fence shook back and forth with their weight."You think that's going to hold up?" Joan asked.
"Man, I hope it does," Clara said. "I'mtired of running."
"Tired of running? Already?" Lou said, drawinga dirty look from Clara.
Katie, in an unusual moment of levity, said, "By theend of this thing, we're all going to be champion marathon runners."
"Great. You got any tape for my nipples?" Claraasked. Mort looked at her with a strange look on his face that made Clara feelawkward. "You know... because when you're jogging for long periods oftime, they chafe." Her explanation didn't seem to make things clearer forMort, and they continued to plod along the MAX tracks.
Behind them, they heard the jangling of a chain-linkfence as it toppled over and hit the MAX tracks. The dead rolled over thefence, struggling to find their footing on the malleable chain links. Theytumbled more than climbed over the thing, and within seconds, the survivors hadgrown another tail. But ahead of them was smooth sailing. The tracks continuedrunning next to the highway for some distance, and the dead, held back by thestill standing sections of chain-link fence could only smash their hands andfaces against the metal links in the hopes that the fence would give way.
They had gained ground on the dead behind them. Theunsure footing of the rocks and the tripping hazard of the tracks kept themfrom pursuing at maximum speed, which was fine with Joan.
To their right, a couple of tall office buildings loomedup in the bright day. There were many broken windows on the tall building tothe right. Joan recognized it as St. Vincent's Hospital. She knew the buildingwell. She had worked there for a few years, before getting a better paying jobat Emanuel Hospital in Portland. She imagined some of the doctors and nursesthat she had known were still wandering the hallways of St. Vincent's. Then shetried to wonder which ones would have been able to survive. The situation haddeteriorated so quickly in her own hospital, despite quarantine measures. Shedoubted any of the people she had known had survived.
How could she have
