Rounding the corner of the barn, he tried to keep out of sight, now that the barn was blocking their view of him. Every few seconds he would look back over his shoulder, hoping to put enough of a gap between them that they wouldn't spot him as they came around the side of the barn.
He checked again and there they were. Hulking shadows, apparently still able to see him. Just then, he found himself wondering how much of their former intelligence they possessed. Could they possibly be smart enough to follow his footprints in the snow? He didn't think so, but he would have to get further from them before he tested the theory.
As he ran, Brian began to see a large, dark shape in front of him. As he got closer, the shape became more defined. Trees! Taking a quick look over his shoulder again, he saw that the zombies had become dark specks against the white backdrop of snow on the ground. He wasn't entirely sure they were even still following him.
A couple of minutes later, he slowed to a walk as he entered the tiny forest. Most of the trees were completely leafless, but there seemed to be a spattering of pine trees amongst them. Taking a moment to catch his breath, which was a lot easier now, he grabbed at low hanging branches in the barren trees, hoping to find a dry one to snap off and use.
After several tries, he found one. He snapped the limb from the tree and began to swish it back and forth over the snow to cover his footprints. He slowly backed his way further into the trees, continuing to fluff the snow that he'd just stepped from. When he was perhaps fifty feet into the woods, he threw the stick down.
If they were able to follow his tracks, his footprints would only lead the zombies to the edge of the woods. He began to move at an angle through the trees, trying to maintain the same distance from the forest's edge, hoping to flank the herd if they were still coming. He could move a couple hundred feet down from where he entered and then go back to the edge so he could see.
He kind of hoped they were still on his trail, at least to the edge of the grove. He hadn't considered it when he bolted from the farmhouse, but he had no idea which direction he'd been running in. Parallel to the highway? Away from it? The best way he could make sure to get back on track would be for the zombies to follow his tracks to the woods. Then, while they were trying to figure out where he went, he could take off running back toward the farmhouse, using his own footprints to guide him.
It sounded like an ingenious plan, but everything hinged on the zombies following his trail. If they didn't, they could have turned back and found someplace to lay in wait for him, setting their own trap.
Crouching down at the base of a tree, Brian waited to see if the zombies would, in fact, appear. Ten minutes passed, and he began to wonder if he was wasting his time as there was still no sign of them. If they gave up the chase and decided to hang back and wait for me to return, what am I going to do? He would give them a few more minutes before making a decision, one way or another.
Just as he was about to give up and make his way back to the farm, he began to see a gigantic dark spot, slowly moving toward the woods. They must have been moving slower than he had thought, but the good news was that they did seem to be able to track his footprints. At least, he hoped that's what they were following and not his scent.
He shifted his body behind the tree, leaving only his head visible as it poked around it to watch their approach. So far, so good. They seemed to be following his tracks in the snow. They were almost to the edge of the grove now. He waited a few tense moments longer, eager to see what they would do when the trail ended. As he watched, he saw the group stop. There seemed to be many more of them than he'd originally thought, maybe as many as a thousand or more.
Deciding that he wasn't going to get a better opportunity, Brian broke cover and took off running. It was difficult to catch his breath at first—his heightened sense of evil trying to strangle him—but as he got further away from them again, the sensation began to abate. He looked back over his shoulder, but couldn't tell whether or not they had seen him and resumed their chase. He supposed that it didn't matter. They were obviously too slow to keep up with him when he ran, and he had no intentions of slowing down to be their meal.
Chapter 5
Interstate 59 had been clear sailing for Chris, but when he reached Interstate 24 in Chattanooga, Tennessee things had changed. His original plan had been to take a jog to the northwest on 24 when he reached Chattanooga, and eventually find his way into one of the northwestern states like Montana.
He sat in the Jeep, idling in the middle of the highway, as he retrieved the road atlas from the glove compartment. There was a massive pileup, involving perhaps one hundred cars or more, blocking the entire width of the road. Some of those cars were flipped over on top of others, making the thought of using the winch on the front of his Jeep obsolete. Even if the wreck wasn't this bad, it would take him days to winch his way through the mess to get to the other side.
Looking down at the map, he traced his finger along an alternate route. One that involved taking I-75 north. He followed the road with his finger, still half considering finding a way to cut across so he could go to Montana, then discovered another possibility. He could take 75 all the way up into Canada. Surely Canada would be just as cold as Montana, maybe even more so. It sounded good anyway, but who was to say that he wouldn't run into this problem further up the road and have to alter his course again? He supposed it didn't matter too much, as long as he kept heading basically north, eventually he would find a place that didn't reek like rotting flesh.
Chapter 6
At some point, before they reached the outskirts of Saginaw, Katie happened to find a road map, sitting on the passenger seat of an empty car along the side of the highway. She'd snatched it up, convincing Edward that they could use it to find different ways to get around the larger cities. This way, they could avoid run-ins with bigger groups of zombies, as had been the case outside of Bay City.
Katie's knowledge had proved useful. The group had managed to get around Saginaw with only minor difficulties. They would still run across small, renegade bands of zombies, but normally they didn't have to fight off more than a couple at a time.
They had stopped for the night near the small town of Clio, which according to the sign on I-75 was about ten miles from the next big city they would have to negotiate their way around, Flint.
Even though Jack carried Melissa all day, he hadn't shown signs of slowing down. Most of the previous day, she'd either slept or been unconscious while being carried. When Jack had lain her down in the house they took shelter in last night, he looked worried. This morning he looked even more grim as the group got ready to pack up and leave.
Melissa's complexion had grown waxy and pale during the night. Jack and Edward looked on as Katie attended to her makeshift bandages, worried that her wounds were grave and that she may only have days, or even hours, left before she would yield to death. The wounds hadn't looked this bad initially, but the telltale signs of infection were growing worse.
Around the wounds, her skin had turned bright red. Dark, streaking lines spread outward from the gashes like spider-webs. The wound that worried everyone the most was the one on her right arm. The infection seemed to be spreading faster from this wound, the dark streaks seemingly heading straight for Melissa's heart.
Katie looked up at Edward as she tightened the last of the new bandages. "I really think we should find a pharmacy before we go much further," she told him, her brows drawn down with worry.
"Pharmacy? What is that?" he asked, hating the ignorance he was feeling.
"A place where medicines are stored and given to people who need them," Katie explained.
"Ah. I didn't know places like that existed. Back home, the healers are the only ones that have such things, and they normally carry their medicines with them."
"Maybe, instead of going out and around Flint, we should try staying closer to the city. Hopefully we can find a pharmacy there with something useful inside to fight off this infection," Kati
e suggested.
"We're wasting time sitting here talking about this. Can we please just get going?" Jack asked in frustration. Now that he'd grown fond of Melissa, he didn't relish the thought of her dying. He feared he would lose his mind if he had to cope with the death of another person he cared for. His headless wife still haunted his dreams, another death would be too much. A tear leaked from the corner of his eye as he bent down to pick Melissa up.
Edward saw that everyone was ready, so he led them outside. With all of their thoughts drifting toward Melissa's well-being, they didn't notice that their exit from the house had garnered unwanted attention.
By the time any of them realized what was happening, two zombies had gotten within ten feet of them. Edward struggled with the shoulder strap attached to the shotgun, trying to free it up for use. Katie had similar problems. She had reached for her crossbow before remembering that it had gone over the side of the Mackinac Bridge, then went for the bat on the outside of her pack. Somehow, it had gotten tangled in the strap that held it in place.
Carrying Melissa, there wasn't a whole lot Jack could do except try to get behind the others for protection. Thankfully, at least one of the group had their head in the right place. Julie leapt in front of everyone, a bat in each hand, and struck a defensive pose.
Her baseball bats swung rapidly before her, looking almost like propeller blades, criss-crossing each other. It made her look a little like she was some sort of ninja from one of the old martial arts movies. The ones where the voices never seemed to match the movements of the actor's lips.
The zombies didn't seem to regard her as a threat, they just kept coming. When they were only a couple of feet from Julie, she lashed out with lightning speed, both bats crashing into their targets simultaneously with such force that the fight was over before it even started. Both zombies slumped to the ground as their heads rolled unevenly down the street.
She twirled the bats like a gunslinger from the old west, stopping the spin just long enough to blow on them for effect. She smiled and turned back to the rest of the group as she slung them into place on either side of her backpack.
Despite her aggravation at her inability to get her bat loose in time to help, Katie laughed at Julie's display. "That was fuckin' bad ass! I didn't know you had that in ya," she teased, grinning.
"That helpless little country girl you used to know is dead now," Julie said.
Katie laughed. "Apparently so! Keep that up and we can save a lot of ammo."
"I don't mean to interrupt this little celebration, but can we find that pharmacy you said we should look for?" Jack urged.
Katie's shoulders sagged. How could she have been so thoughtless? "Sorry, Jack. The heat of battle ... I kinda lost focus there for a minute," she apologized.
Edward began to lead the way again with Katie beside him, Jack right behind them, and Julie bringing up the rear.
It wasn't long, maybe a couple of hours, before the grimy buildings of Flint loomed in front of them. Katie knew that it was likely the biggest city they'd tried to cross yet, and was a bit unsettled that they hadn't come across any more zombies. She only hoped that there wasn't an enormous group of them hiding just out of sight, waiting for their next meal to arrive.
Chapter 7
Things had been going almost perfectly for Chris so far. At least, since he'd gotten onto Interstate 75 it had. He'd been behind the wheel for more hours than he could count. There hadn't been any more accidents blocking his path, just the occasional stalled vehicle that he had to maneuver around. No zombies. No signs of possible survivors like himself. Just the open road before him, more or less.
His Jeep had been acting a little wonky for the last fifty miles or so, running kind of ragged. He feared the generator might be starting to go out on him. They were supposed to last for ten years or more, but he never seemed to have very good luck when it came to his vehicles. The Jeep was only five years old, but he often felt that the car manufacturers said things would last longer than they actually did. Anything for a buck.
He supposed that it would be better to be safe than sorry, and get off the highway to try and find another means of transportation. He wanted to make sure he could make it to Canada, and the way the Jeep was coughing and sputtering now, he knew he wouldn't make it. Maybe his luck would change and he would find something better, but he doubted it. That wasn't how his luck normally ran. Usually it went from bad to worse.
A blackened sign was coming up on his right. Through the grime he could see, L in ton ... 5 m les. He pieced together what he thought to be the missing letters and came up with, Lexington ... 5 miles. If he'd been anywhere other than Kentucky he might've had more trouble figuring out the nearly indecipherable letters, but he had grown up around here. It wasn't until he'd gotten married that he had moved to Alabama because his wife wanted to stay closer to her sister. As uncommon as it was these days, she'd been diagnosed with cancer, and the prognosis had been that she would die from it in no more than two years.
Luckily, that hadn't been the case. She'd outlived her doctor's expectations, long enough that when the virus struck that wiped out nearly everything, she'd turned into a zombie. Sadly, she was the first one Chris had ever come across, and also the first that he'd killed.
As the first exits for Lexington began to go by, he kept his eyes peeled, hoping to find a car dealer near one of the ramps. After a few miles, he spotted one that looked perfect. He swerved off the next ramp and backtracked to where he remembered seeing the dealership. A couple of minutes passed before he found it.
He pulled the Jeep onto the lot, which looked to be a gold mine to Chris. A few rows away, he spotted something he'd always dreamed of having. An entire row of them even! He parked his Jeep in front of the behemoth vehicle at the end of the row, grabbed his shotgun from the passenger seat, and got out to inspect it. With his luck, every one of them would be locked up tight and he wouldn't be able to get into them.
He walked to the driver's door of the vehicle, the swooping letters spelling out the word, Raptor, clearly visible on the front panel of the truck. In one hand Chris held the shotgun, his finger on the trigger, the barrel resting against his shoulder pointing toward the sky. He reached for the handle, not expecting the door to open, and pulled. Amazingly, the door opened right up.
He gazed in awe for a moment at the plush leather interior, then poked his head inside to make sure it was empty. It was the model with the extended cab that could supposedly seat eight people. Looking inside, he thought it was another dealer exaggeration. Six at the most, he thought. At least ... six people his size. As he turned around to go check the bed of the truck—since it had one of those fancy covers over it—he saw an unexpected, but welcomed, sight. The keys, dangling from the ignition. Unlike his Jeep, these babies still had the old fashioned starting system. They had all the other goodies that his Jeep had, like generators and winches, but there was also a lot of fancy stuff they didn't offer on cheap vehicles.
Things like shatterproof glass, tinted so dark that you couldn't see into it from outside. The inside was the same way, but if he remembered correctly, there was some kind of viewing gadget in there that allowed you to see everything. A full three hundred and sixty degree view!
He stepped away from the driver's door and went to the back of the massive truck. Turning the latch that held the bed cover in place, he lifted it high enough that he could determine if it was empty or not. It was. He let go of the latch and left the bed open for a moment, returning to the cab. He hopped into the driver's seat and turned the key, hoping his luck would continue.
The engine began to turn slowly, acting like there might not be enough juice left in the battery to get it started. After a moment, he turned the key off and got out again. He went back to the Jeep, opened the back hatch, and located his jumper cables. Popping the hoods of both vehicles, he attached the cables to both batteries. He got back inside the Jeep for a moment, revving the motor to send more juice to the Raptor.
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After a couple of minutes he let the Jeep idle down and went over to check the truck again. He banged his fist on the ceiling, cheering as the Raptor roared to life when he turned the key.
Quickly, he jumped out of the truck and walked over to the Jeep to get his supplies from the back, and transferred them to the bed of the Raptor. He then went back to get his pistol and the map from the glove box. He tossed them onto the passenger seat of the truck along with his shotgun.
He returned to the Jeep just long enough to pull it out of the way so he could get the truck out, then killed the motor. Moments later he was back inside the Raptor with the door closed and locked. Chris surveyed the dash, taking a few moments to acquaint himself with all the gadgets, gauges, and controls.
One of the buttons had a dimmer-style switch. When he pushed it, the windshield lit up with a view of the scene behind the truck. Testing to see what it did, he turned the dial of the button. As he did, the scene on the windshield rotated before him. It made him queasy for a moment while the view spun around, making him feel like the room was spinning wildly after a night of heavy drinking.
When the view changed to what was in front of the truck, he stopped turning the dial. It was almost like tunnel vision now, so he checked the other buttons nearby to see if they would fine tune what he was seeing. Thankfully, he found one that widened the angle of his view, allowing him to see to the sides of the truck as well. That, at least, seemed a little better. He found yet another button, that when pressed lit up a small image on top of the current one, displaying what a normal rearview mirror would. It was disorienting at first, seeing the overlapping images on the windshield, but he hoped it would be something he could get used to. Everything else about the truck he absolutely loved!
Let's see how this baby drives, he thought, throwing the truck into gear. As soon as he did, he felt an odd sensation. Almost like a feeling of weightlessness. He could no longer feel the vibration of the engine, even though all the gauges before him assured him that it was still running. Slowly, he lifted his foot from the brake to allow the truck to idle forward. Grasping the steering wheel and watching the image on the windshield, Chris released his foot from the brake entirely.
Desolace Omnibus Edition Page 44
