by Urban, Tony
“Goodbye,” he said to himself because he had no one else to talk to. He hoped his days of being alone were nearing an end.
Road of the Damned
Life of the Dead Book 2
"Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people"
― Dante Alighieri, The Inferno
Chapter 1
Between the zombies and the wrecked cars, Wim had no way around the roadblock. He examined the map he'd earlier grabbed from a gas station, and which now laid unfolded on the seat beside him. He knew there were other means of going south, but near as he could tell from the labyrinth of lines, retreating from his current location, then taking a new route, would take well over an hour.
Wim wasn't worried about the time. He was in no great hurry, but he preferred to stick to the main roads. Because, even though he was less than a hundred miles from his farm, he was already further away from home than he'd ever been, or ever intended to be. He liked it that way, in the time before the plague. Before the zombies. Now, however, his isolation had become a terrible hindrance.
He recalled a farm he passed two miles back. Farms tended to catch his eye, and this one in particular made him more than a little sick inside. More specifically, he was jealous of the John Deere S690 Combine that stood in front of the freshly painted crimson barn.
He didn't have any combines at his farm; there had never been money for one. The Deere would have cost over four hundred thousand dollars new for the base model, and now it would do nothing but sit there, exposed to the elements and rust away. Maybe he could get a little more use out of it, if luck was on his side. The way Wim figured, he was due.
He did a u-turn in the middle of the road and retreated to the sprawling farm where the combine waited. He shut off the Bronco and exited it. Wim's pulse quickened as he approached the combine and he imagined non-farming men would react similarly at a chance to drive a Lamborghini or Porsche. He hoped the keys would still be in the compartment and, when he climbed into the cab, that little prayer was answered.
The combine fired up right away. It operated along the same lines as regular tractors, but with a sixteen-row corn head attached, maneuvering it around proved more of a challenge than he'd expected. When he steered it onto the road, he gritted his teeth every time it crept over five miles an hour. Wim breathed a little easier when the clearing on each side of the road grew wider. Once he got rolling, he had a clear path back to the horde.
Any thoughts that might have flitted through his mind about the zombies possibly dispersing vanished when he reached the roadblock. They remained in the general vicinity of where he'd left them, with only a variance of a few feet in any given direction. The combine was anything but discreet and the sound drew their attention well before the machine came close enough to do any damage.
Wim expected them to scatter out of the way, but instead, they came toward the sound of the tractor. Toward death, he thought, then reminded himself that they were already dead. Still, he assumed they'd move to avoid the coming fate. He thought that right up until the pointed green fangs of the corn head hit the first wave of zombies.
The machine pushed a few aside, where they stumbled and dropped off the roadway. Others became ensnared in the teeth of the combine like gristle from a steak. Wim opened up the throttle as far as it would go and the teeth yanked the zombies further inward with violent force. There, the cutter bar began chopping away at them.
The day's peaceful, golden glow turned pink as a fine mist of blood filled the air. It splattered against the windshield of the combine and Wim hit the wipers, which swished back and forth, back and forth in a crimson haze. He motored forward and felt bodies break, then explode under the twenty ton weight of the combine. Wim's meager breakfast rose up his throat, but he fought it back down.
They're nothing but husks, he told himself. No different from cutting down the dead crops at the end of the season. Think of this as an extermination.
But he saw their faces as they fell before him. They might be zombies. They might be monsters. But they were people once. When the next wave of blood turned his windshield red, he left it that way. It was easier.
Within a few minutes, he realized the big machine marched forward with ease. He'd finally mowed down the last of the zombies in the road. He hit the wipers again to verify that and saw nothing ahead of him but open road. He checked the rear mirrors and saw the river of crimson gore that flowed down the two lane road behind him. Blood and chunks of mangled body parts blew out the unloader pipe like gory rain.
"Grain tank must be full," he muttered. He made a wide, arcing pivot in order to return to his truck.
When back at the farm from which he'd borrowed the combine, Wim hopped down from the cab. He noticed that the John Deere green paint had become camouflaged in red and he regretted returning it in such unsatisfactory condition, even though the rightful owners were almost certainly dead. Heck, they might have even been amongst the group of zombies he'd run down.
When he returned to his Bronco and drove back toward town, the truck slipped and slid as he hit the gore. He slowed the vehicle down to a crawl and the tires gained traction. Wim didn't know if it was possible to hydroplane on minced up human beings, but he decided not to take any chances.
Chapter 2
It was obvious Peduto was sick. Her throat clearing had progressed to a persistent cough and sweat dripped from her forehead. When they crossed into Delaware, Bolivar headed toward Dover, but Peduto asked if he would take her to the beach instead. He pushed aside his concerns over going AWOL, which were minor considering that Uncle Sam tried to turn them into crispy critters back in Philadelphia, and did as she wished.
They bypassed the bay where a handful of tourists and fishermen were apparently somehow unaware or unconcerned with what was happening to the north. They eventually came upon Cape Henlopen, which was deserted aside from a lone van in the lot. Instead of parking, Bolivar drove the car onto the sand, an act which drew a raised eyebrow from Peduto.
"What's the worst that could happen? They arrest us?"
She laughed. It was the first real laughter he'd heard in days and the sound was so sweet he thought he might start crying all over again. He only stopped the car when the front tires were in the ocean. Gentle waves licked at the rubber.
They both exited the Saab and Bolivar watched her as he breathed in the damp, salty air. It was the longest she'd gone without coughing in some time. Peduto took off her cap and tossed it onto the wet sand. She then pulled out the bobby pins which held her bun in place and let her hair fall free. It surprised Bolivar to see a fair amount of gray intermixed with the black. Her loose curls hung halfway down her back and danced lazily in the ocean breeze.
"Will you sit with me, Bolivar?"
He nodded. "On one condition."
"What's that?"
"You call me Jorge."
She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her red, feverish eyes. "I'll try."
"Then we'll sit."
And they did. The silence was broken only by gentle crashing of the waves and neither of them minded.
As the sun fell below the horizon, a cold breeze coming off the ocean replaced the warmth of the sun's golden rays. Bolivar saw Peduto shivering, and even though he suspected it was more her fever than the actual temperature, he gathered together small bits of driftwood and random debris and used a road flare to start a small bonfire.
As it crackled and popped to life, he watched Peduto as she endured another horrible coughing fit. It ended with her spitting two mouthfuls of mucous into the sand.
"Sorry. I've never been much of a lady."
Bolivar pretended not to notice as she used the back of her hand to wipe some bloody drool from the corner of her mouth. "No need to apologize."
"I wish we had some marshmallows," she said as she stared into the fire.
And he so wished he could do that for her. "That, I can't help you wit
h. Sorry."
She shrugged her shoulders in an 'it's not important' gesture. "My parents used to take us to the beach every fall after tourist season died down. That was Myrtle Beach, though. And when my sister and I were still young, we'd all camp out on the sand most of the nights and make s'mores and tell ghost stories like the legend of Blackbeard and the ghost ships like the Mary Celeste. We did that every year until I was in high school and got the idea that spending time with my family was lame. Stupidity of youth, and all that."
"I actually never even saw the ocean in person until I joined the Army."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I grew up in Illinois. We went to Lake Michigan once, but it rained the whole time. I don't think we even left the hotel."
"I haven't even seen my sister in four years. My mom in almost two. We keep meaning to get together but, you know."
Bolivar nodded. He knew all too well the havoc military life played on family dynamics.
Peduto looked away. "Can I ask you a question? Are you religious?"
Bolivar thought about it, then nodded. "I was raised Catholic. I kept up with it pretty regularly until I was stationed in Iraq. But I still believe." Do I? he thought, remembering all the horror he'd seen the last few days.
"I've never read the bible. I mean, I know about most of the main events, the cliff notes, I guess you could say, but I don't know how it all works with the dying and how it's determined whether you're going north or south."
She hesitated and almost didn't go on, but eventually did. "What I'm wondering now is, are you judged by the worst thing you've ever done? Like, even if you've led a mostly moral life - not perfect, that's for sure - but you were a decent person most of the time, but if you did something really, really awful, does it cancel out all the good?"
"I wouldn't think it does. The New Testament and Christ preached forgiveness. They say anything can be forgiven if you repent. And personally, I can't imagine that good people would be denied Heaven because of one bad act. Or even a handful of bad acts. That's not what I want to believe, anyway."
Peduto stared into the fire for a long while, so long that Bolivar thought the subject was closed. When she did speak again, she kept her eyes cast toward the flames.
"I was sent to Afghanistan after the Towers came down. Just south of Kandahar. We all went in there thinking we were going to find bin Laden and stop the terrorists and all that happy horse shit. But when we got there, it didn't take long to realize that was so far removed from reality that it wasn't funny.
"The Taliban was just a bunch of pissed off dirt farmers. They weren't bombing cities or plotting attacks in America. They couldn't even read a map. There were small groups here and there that actually wanted to fight or plant IEDs, but most of them just wanted to be left alone. Our job was basically to train the Afghan security forces about how to be soldiers, but it was babysitting more than anything else. Most of the days we just sat around and played Xbox.
"What was really weird to me was that there were always boys around. Street kids, probably ten to fifteen or sixteen years old. And they were constantly hanging around the older Afghan men who had money. At first, I thought they were just beggars, but they never hit us up for anything, so I started to pay more attention.
“One guy in particular, we all called him 'Sultan' because he acted like he was so much better than everyone else, always had a kid with him and the boy was usually wearing make-up. I asked one of the brass about it and he said they were 'bacha bazi' and that it was tradition. Told me to forget about it, but I'm a woman, and you know it's next to impossible for us to forget anything.
"So, one night, I saw the two of them walking down the street and I followed. They went into some sort of club or lounge, and I snooped around the outside until I found a window that was open wide enough to spy in. I saw the boy dancing for a group of men, dancing like a woman dances, and they were all throwing money at him. And then after that..."
She stopped again and Bolivar saw the flames reflected in her wet, teary eyes.
"After that, the other men left. The Sultan said something to the boy, and the boy got undressed. I couldn't watch once I realized what was going on, but I waited outside, and when they left, I followed them down an alley. There was no one else around, and I took out my service pistol and I shot that son of a bitch in the back. He was dead before he hit the ground."
She looked at Bolivar, sobbing. "But then the kid, the boy, he was probably twelve, he ran straight at me and jumped on me. He started punching me and hitting me and trying to grab my gun. He bit my hand."
Peduto extended her hand where a white, crescent-shaped scar dotted and dashed across the fatty flesh between her thumb and index finger like Morse code.
"And when he bit me, I jerked back and when I did, I must've squeezed the trigger again and the pistol went off. I shot him right in the neck and he fell backward and the blood was running out like someone had just turned on the faucet.
“The bullet must have hit that big artery in his throat, the one vampires always drink from in the movies, and it was over before I could even move. All I could see were his big dark eyes with that perverted mascara painted around them, staring up at me as he died."
"I ran back to the base and never told anyone. The police wrote it off as a mugging gone bad or something. But, my God, I can still see his face every time I close my eyes."
Her hitching sobs led to another violent coughing spell. She gasped for air and Bolivar rushed to her side and wrapped his arm around her. Peduto eventually stopped coughing, but when she did, she vomited up a mass of red tissue mixed with yellow phlegm. She spat several times to clear her mouth of it.
"I'm going to die. I know that and I'm okay with it, especially considering all the shit that's going down. But please tell me I'm not gonna go to Hell for that. I was only trying to do the right thing."
He pulled her close to him. "It was an accident, Gwen. A terrible one, I'll give you that, but how many lives did you save in Afghanistan? How many times did you risk your own life these last few days to save other people? To save me, even?" He wiped the tears from her face. "If anything I was taught in church was true, God has already forgiven you. All you need to do is forgive yourself and trust him to do the rest."
She composed herself as much as possible. "Why do you think this is happening?"
Jorge waited a long while, trying to come up with an answer to the same question he'd been asking himself for days. "I don't know. I'm not sure I want to."
Gwen squeezed his hand. "Don't let me turn into one of those monsters."
"I won't. I promise."
Sometime through the night they both fell asleep, and by the time the sun peeked above the horizon the fire had burned itself out. Bolivar could feel Peduto's body heat through her clothes and couldn't even hazard a guess at how high a fever she must be running. Her black and gray hair was soaking wet and slicked against her head. Her eyelids were swollen and inflamed. A trickle of blood ran out of the corner of her mouth and he wiped it away with his fingertips.
She woke an hour later, and it almost seemed like she was making a turn for the better. She sat up and noticed their Saab had sunken into the sand up to its bumper.
"I hope he had flood insurance," she said and laughed. But now her weak laugh completely lacked the joy he'd heard yesterday. Her end was close now. It was evident in her voice and eyes and even the way she held herself.
"I want to feel the ocean on my feet one more time. Can you grab me a water?"
Bolivar watched her step to the ocean where the white foamy waves washed over her feet, then her ankles, then her knees.
His own bare toes sunk into the damp brown sand as he moved to the open trunk and took out the last water bottle. Tucked in the mesh netting at the side of the trunk he spotted a construction paper art pad. He grabbed it and paged through the pastel colored pages where he saw a stick figure dogs, horses, and families. One drawing was labeled "Mommy, Daddy, Eli, Me." Undern
eath Me was a small girl with sun-yellow hair.
Bolivar wondered if the girl was still alive or if she and her family were victims of the plague or the zombies. If she was alive, how long would that last? How long was anything going to last now?
The beach was empty that morning and he knew somewhere inside that the bombings hadn't limited the chaos to Philadelphia. It couldn't be that easy. He was always skeptical about apocalyptic predictions, even the ones in the bible, but his thoughts on that were evolving. Bol thought the end was near, but he tried to push that aside as he closed the trunk and turned back to the ocean.
He saw that Peduto had collapsed into the water. He dropped the bottle and ran into the waves, his long strides kicking up liquid, but by the time he got there she was dead.
Bolivar stood in the gray, waist deep murkiness of the Atlantic and raised her face above the water. He reached into the holster of her waistband and took out her M1911 pistol. He wasn't even sure if it would fire after taking a swim in the ocean. He shook it out as best he could and saw there was already a round chambered and the safety was, of course, off.
Bol pressed the barrel tight to the skin between her eyebrows and pulled the trigger. The surrounding water turned crimson.
He let the tide take her.
Chapter 3
After almost ten hours of driving, Wim spotted Ramey on the road. At first, he wasn't sure. A good quarter of a mile stood between them, but the road was straight and his eyesight above average. Three vehicles had collided in the middle of the street and she stood there amidst them.
He stopped the Bronco less than ten feet from the scene. Her back was turned toward him and as her body flailed, her struggle became obvious. Someone, or something, in one of the crashed cars had ahold of her arm.
