by Urban, Tony
I’d waited too long to flee. Maybe it wasn’t winter by the calendar, but it was winter as far as the weather was concerned. Between blizzards and whiteouts and snowdrifts so deep I couldn’t tell whether I was even on a road anymore, it took me a week to escape Maine. And the situation was slow to improve even as I headed south.
My beloved Jeep was betraying me. When I secured the vehicle, I’d given little thought to the downside of having no roof, and later, no doors. Now, with snow and ice and wind hammering away at me through the openings, I thought death might be imminent.
Somewhere in Massachusetts I found a clothing outlet store. Everything on the racks were summer styles, but the backroom yielded an insulated parka. It was two sizes too big, but that was fine. I looked a bit like the marshmallow man and my movement was severely limited, but it was a worthwhile tradeoff because I could drive the Jeep without feeling like my nipples were going to slice through my denim shirt.
It was almost December before I reached Pennsylvania. It was like winter there too and snow covered the ground and roads, but at least the constant Nor’easter I’d been driving through was over. These were driving conditions I was used to and, even though the going was slow, I could make steady progress.
I was driving through the Wilds, a remote north central part of the state which was little more than trees and elk, so I was pretty damn flabbergasted when I saw a few dozen zombies in the road. It was more zombies clumped together in one place than I’d seen in months. Since LaRon’s fiery demise. But I tried not to think about that.
The creatures crowded the roadway, filling it from one side to the other. They were moving away from me and I considered plowing through the middle of them, but the snow was a foot and a half deep and I worried that I’d wreck.
I hadn’t used the Wrangler’s wings in months and half expected them to be frozen and unmovable, but I decided to try anyway. It took about all the strength I possessed, but I first opened the wing on my side, then the passenger. I idled there for a minute, steeling myself for the coming carnage.
Since that day at the shopping center, I hadn’t killed a single zombie and I didn’t miss it in the slightest, but seeing the monsters shambling along the snow-covered road stirred something inside me. They reminded me of my purpose. I might not be good at keeping other people alive, but I was good at killing zombies. Damn good.
I eased down the gas pedal, not wanting to floor it and spin out. My speed built gradually. Ten miles per hour. Twenty. Thirty. I didn’t risk going any faster in the snow.
I was half a mile from the creatures and closing fast. I wondered why they were all there. This section of Pennsylvania wasn’t as remote as Maine, but it was damn close. What’s your deal, I wondered.
Their deal didn’t matter though, because they were about to die. Or die again. When I was ten yards away, the zombies at the back of the pack turned to me. Their skin had gone almost white in the cold, which made their gray eyes stand out even more.
The first in line was a woman in a knock off Pittsburgh Pirates jersey, the kind with the plastic iron on letters and numbers. She snarled as my vehicle rushed toward her.
“Time to die.”
The wing on the passenger side ripped through her torso, splitting the jersey’s numbers in half. After that, it all happened so fast that I didn’t bother trying to differentiate them. One after another they were either chopped or diced by the wings or I rammed into with the bumper and drove over them.
The Jeep bounced and shuddered like I was driving down a rock path, the kind they always showed in Wrangler commercials about having the freedom to drive anywhere. I thought they should make a commercial showing what else the Jeeps were capable of doing.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a trail of gore staining the otherwise pristine, white snow. It looked like a red river. And it made me smile. I hadn’t done much smiling in a while and it felt off, but good.
I realized the steady thudding impact of the Jeep and the wings hits zombies had ceased and I returned my gaze to the road ahead of me. At first, I thought the path was clear, but then I spotted what looked like a brownish gray wig. That didn’t make sense though. I assumed it must be an animal of some sort. Maybe an oversized groundhog or wolverine.
I hit the brakes, slowing as fast as possible without risking going into a skid. I wondered if the zombies had been chasing this thing. Following it in hopes of a warn meal.
I was only yards away and I realized this wasn’t an animal pelt. It was a mop of hair. Human hair. And underneath it was a body sprawled out in the snow-covered road.
After months of the living through the plague and apocalypse, my first thought was that this was another zombie. I had ceased expecting to find a living human being and the reasonable part of my mind told me to run over it and get out of there. This was all just a little too weird.
But, the curious part of my mind wanted - needed - to see what the hell was going on. And besides, if this was a zombie, it wouldn’t be a challenge to destroy. I grabbed one of the metal conduit spears from the back seat and slipped out of the Wrangler.
I had to walk around the wing, which meant I had to step off the road and shimmy down a small ditch. I felt ice water seep into my boots and said a few swear words because I knew it was going to be a long time before they dried out and my feet warmed up.
Once around the wing, I clambered out of the ditch and back onto the road, stomping my feet as if that would do any good. Numbness was already setting in.
I was close enough to the thing in the road to reach it with the spear and I extended it, trying to be as careful as possible. I slipped the spear under the thing’s hair and lifted. That did no good because the zombie or man or whatever had decided to take a siesta in the middle of the road was face down.
“Damn it.”
I took a few more steps toward it, circling, trying to get a better look. I realized that this figure wasn’t totally naked, but damn close. I could see tufts of wiry hair sprouting from its back, then a pair of briefs that blended in perfectly with the snow, then two thick, muscular and hairy legs ending in bare feet.
“Jesus Christ.”
The feet looked like beef run through a meat grinder. The soles were ragged, so much so that even at a distance of eight feet, I could see where the flesh was ripped and torn away. I supposed they should have been bleeding, but they were most likely frozen.
I poked the torso with the end of the spear. Nothing happened. I poked again, harder. Hard enough to draw blood.
It took a moment, in the cold, but blood did escape the small puncture wound. Red blood. Human blood.
I dropped the spear and ran to the man’s side, dropping to my knees in the snow. I grabbed him by the shoulder and rolled him. He flipped over with a grunt.
His face was as hairy as the back of his head. A patchy, multicolored beard obscured most of his features, but I could see his eyes. They were closed.
“Hey buddy. Wake up for me.” I gave him a shake. “Wake up and I’ll get you out of here.”
His eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. I saw his beard was caked in frozen snot and drool and chunks of what looked like blood.
“What the fuck happened to you, man?”
He didn’t answer. I grabbed him under his arms and tried to lift him into a sitting position, but he was a big dude, probably a foot taller than me and half again my weight, and I only succeeded in dragging his head and shoulders onto my lap.
I gave him a light slap on the cheek because they always did that in the movies. If I’d had a glass of water, I’d have thrown that on him too. He groaned again but still refused to come all the way back to the land of the living.
I was already getting cold, so I couldn’t imagine what condition this poor schmuck was in. There wasn’t time to screw around anymore, so I reached toward his face, took my fingers and forcibly opened his eyes.
“Wake up!”
His pupils constricted as the blinding light of
the all-white winter day hit them and his entire body flinched. His head snapped to the side and he ended up with his face inches from my crotch.
Well, this is awkward.
“You in there? You coming around for me?”
The big man sighed, coughed, then swiveled his head so he could stare up at my face.
“Am I dead?”
“Not yet.” But if you hang around me long enough you probably will be. “Can you get up?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Not sure.”
I felt him stretch, his muscles flexing as he tried to get his limbs working again. I really wanted him out of my crotch and tried to speed up the process by pushing him away. With my help, he sat up.
“You’ve got to stand up, pal. Freeze your pecker off out here in your underwear like this.”
“Ah. Don’t get much use for it.”
“Your underwear?”
“My pecker.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a joke because he didn’t smile or laugh so neither did I. He rolled onto his knees and pushed up, climbing onto his feet.
As he stood there, his flesh almost blue, I realized he wasn’t just half frozen, he was missing his left hand entirely.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
“That would be a long story.”
“How about you try the short version.”
“I’ll get around to that. But first I need you to help me find my dog.”
Dog? The very sound of the word increased my heart rate by twenty beats per minute. Did this odd fellow actually have a dog or was he nuttier than a fruitcake? I told myself it was probably the latter. That, or he’d frozen part of his brain and was having some sort of delusion.
“You’ve got a dog?”
“Not dog. Prince.”
Yep, the dude had lost it. And I really wanted to see a dog too. Damn it.
“Well, get in the Jeep and we’ll drive around and look.”
He shook his head, his beard whipping from the defiant gesture. His eyes were locked on the woods around us. “Not going anywhere without him. I hurt him. Got to tell him-” He coughed, recovered. “I’m sorry.”
I’d just driven a thousand miles and found an insane, almost naked man who was more concerned with a canine apology than freezing to death. My eyes scanned the forest, but all I saw were trees and snow. Certainly, no dog.
“Prince!” The man called out. “Prince! Come back boy. I’m sorry. Christ almighty, I’m so sorry. I only did it to protect you.”
He sounded panicked. He was more upset over the dog and whatever he’d done to it, than his own pathetic condition. I watched him, his entire body shivering - more than shivering, quaking - like a full body seizure and didn’t know if it was the cold or anxiety or a combination of both.
It occurred to me again that this man might have gone insane. God knows the current state of the world could do that do that to a person. Should I really put my own life in jeopardy for him? Bad decisions in this world got you killed. Trusting people got you killed. Just ask LaRon.
Fuck it. That was enough. I wasn’t a bad guy no matter how many times I told myself otherwise. LaRon had made the decision to light them on fire. I’d given him other options, but he ignored me. It wasn’t my fault. Shit happens.
I wasn’t going to drive away this time. Even if it meant standing in the snow beside a guy in his tighty-whiteys hollering for a dog that probably didn’t exist.
“Here boy!” I called out. “Come here boy. I’ve got beef jerky and canned sausages in the Jeep.”
The man cupped his lone hand to his mouth and yelled louder. “Prince! Come back and we’ll go for a ride with—” He looked at me. “What’s your name anyway?”
“Mead.”
“Good to meet you, Mead. I’m Aben.”
The dog didn’t come. After twenty minutes of calling for it, Aben was shaking so violently I thought he might pass out and, if that happened, he was dead meat.
I convinced him to get into the Jeep. I turned the heater on full blast and watched as some of the color ebbed back into his skin. But the heat didn’t linger, and I noticed Aben looking for the missing doors, the nonexistent roof.
“I th-th-think you could use a better ride for the season.”
“Sorry about that. I got this back in June. Didn’t really consider winter.”
He nodded, too busy sucking down bottle after bottle of water to answer. I’d given him one of my denim shirts, but it was too small and gapped open at his chest. He was too large for any of my jeans or boots, but I’d brought an old quilt with me when I left the lodge and I draped that over his lap and legs.
He still hadn’t told me what happened to get him into this predicament and I held off on asking. He wasn’t as loquacious as LaRon, at least so far. He had noticed the Gatling Gun still mounted to the roof and knew what it was. He seemed disappointed when I told him there was no ammo.
“Shame,” he said. “There’s someone I’d liked to have tried it out on.” He didn’t expound on that and I didn’t follow up.
Dusk was fast approaching, and I knew we should move on, but the desperation in Aben’s eyes made me wait. I’d begun to believe that there was a dog and, damn it, now I wanted to find it too. My mind raced as I tried to figure out how to make that happen. And then it dawned on it.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea.”
Aben peeled his eyes from the tree-line and looked at me. “What’s that?”
“This dog of yours, is it protective?”
Aben seemed to consider it. “Saved me from some zombies more than once.”
“Good. Then let’s try something out.”
A few minutes later we were standing in the snowy road and I was eager to see if my plan would work.
“Ready?”
Aben nodded.
I raised my fist. “You son of a bitch! I’m gonna kill you!”
I swung, missing by several inches, but Aben slapped his open palm against his exposed belly to create a ringing smack. Then he cried out in faux pain.
“Don’t do it! Don’t kill me, please!”
I imagine there was far superior acting in high school class plays, but I heard leaves rustle in the woods. Aben heard it too and his head snapped in that direction.
“Not yet,” I whispered. “Keep going.”
He reluctantly turns back to me. I feigned another punch and he dropped to his knees. “I’m sorry! Just don’t kill me!”
“It’s too late for sorry’s asshole!”
I grabbed him by the throat and pretended to squeeze. He made some of the fakest-sounding choking noises I’d ever heard, but less than five second into it, the dog hit me in the back.
I tumbled forward, crashing into Aben, bouncing off him, and falling into the snow. And then the dog was on top of me. I felt the heat coming off it as it snarled and growled, baring every one of the bright, white teeth in its jaws.
I crossed my arms in front of my face and the dog latched onto my forearm with a shocking amount of pressure. It whipped its head back and forth, shaking my upper body. If I hadn’t been suited up, that tan mongrel would have been having a Mead-burger.
Any time now, I thought. Call off your damn dog, Aben.
As if he read my mind, Aben appeared beside the dog and put his hand on its back. At his touch, the dog released me. It flinched, cowering away from the man. Its body was tensed, ready to run.
“Prince. It’s okay, boy. It’s okay. I’ll never hurt you again.”
He eased his palm down the dog’s back scratching its hind quarters, massaging it gently. I thought some of the fear left the animal and risked uncovering my face.
“You’re such a good boy, Prince.”
I realized he was crying, I felt like crying too and I didn’t even know what the hell was going on. But Aben had his dog back and I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d found new friends. And at the moment, that was all that mattered.
15
December 3
; “It still boggles my mind that you came along when you did. If we told anyone that story, they’d be apt to disbelieve it and I wouldn’t blame them.”
We’d been driving south as quick as the roads allowed. By the time we got to Maryland the snow was a thing of the past and the temperatures were gradually rising and the more he warmed up, the more talkative Aben grew.
“It’s like you were sent there by God.”
I cast him a sideways glance. “I don’t know about that. I doubt God has much use for people like me.”
Aben looked at me. His eyes so intense I couldn’t hold his gaze longer than a moment. “I wasn’t even sure there was a God. But now, after that, how could I deny it?”
“Well, for whatever it’s worth, I’m glad I found you.”
Aben eventually told me his tale, starting with getting arrested not far at all from my former home in Johnstown to losing his hand, to the various survivors he encountered along the way. There were soldiers and sacrifices, secret government bunkers and island villages.
The culmination, of course, was how he ended up almost bare ass on the roadway, while being stalked by zombies. It was quite a tale and from a different man I might have suspected much of it was made up, but Aben seemed honest almost to the point of embarrassment, and I didn’t get any sense he was lying, or even exaggerating, his tale. I shared my story as well, but might have massaged the facts a bit. Some things didn’t need repeated.
We were on the same page that heading west was the best option, but three days into our journey we had our first spot of trouble. We’d stopped at a grocery store to restock when I noticed Aben had forgone filling his cart with food and instead had a mixture of medical supplies. Gauze, antiseptic, bandages, and pain killers. I was still getting to know this man, but thought it wasn’t outside the realm of collegiality to inquire.
