by Thomas Key
There were no truer words than those, I thought to myself as we drove along. That woman was a true fighter and on the early side of her twenties to boot. She was as sassy as they came, stunningly gorgeous and although she was quite short, her attitude more than made up for it. I started to grin, and received another nudge from Rachel. I didn’t even realize that she had woken up. Maybe her women’s man thought radar went off, who knows? Her right eyebrow had an upward tilt to it as if she was somehow reading my thoughts. I dropped my grin as quickly as I could and coughed as if that would somehow fix it. She stared at me long and hard, as if marking my soul for transport to hell. Women are scary. Eventually though, she looked away and back out her own passenger window. The amount of pure relief that I felt as she finally moved her eyes away from me was palpable. It was an enormous weight lifted off of my shoulders. I could keep going with the descriptors but I bet you get it. I knew exactly what mistake not to make in the future. I’m not knocking Rachel at all; she is stunningly beautiful. More on the petite side though, and even though she kept her hair usually in a braid, she was as feminine and beautiful as ever. She could sport jeans and a t-shirt with no problem and hopefully soon, a flowing white wedding dress. I stared at her for long moments, feeling my emotions going from happiness at picturing her with her hair down, and her in a white dress to realizing that I was already nearing the end of my short life. I’d never get to experience that happiness that I so truly desired, and because of my mistake, neither would she. I had not only doomed my hopes and dreams, but hers as well. I looked away, and tilted my head away from her so she wouldn’t see the tears forming in my eyes. This so fucking sucks, I thought as we drove on, my eyes fixing on the dust-covered open road ahead of us, moving ever forward.
Chapter Ten: Ashmore’s Story
Another dozen or so miles flew by of which had passed in silence. I was actually starting to doze off as a new voice spoke up. “My Dad worked graveyards, and was away when they came to my house,” Ashmore, the medic spoke up. My first thought was, are we really going to travel down depression lane a second time in an hour? My second was, I wonder what happened. She continued, without a moment's hesitation. “I had been doing clinicals and job shadowing EMTs the week everything went to shit.” She paused briefly and then continued; “I saw over and over these people turning into those things. Even with the National Guard being called into the hospital where we were bringing patients, it didn’t seem to matter. We were flooded with emergency calls. It was absolute chaos. It wasn’t until we started getting swarmed by those things that we finally realized that there was nothing further that we could do to help. Three of us in one ambulance trying to make our way out through that shit fest,” she said, her head shaking back and forth now. “Then what happened?” Rachel asked quietly, nudging her forward in her narrative. It worked. “We tried to follow the military instructions of a safety point at the community college, but we got there too late too. The whole place was a raging firefight. The military was trying their damndest to hold the parking lot but between the civis trying to jump into the Evac trucks, and the sheer number of infected converging on them, it was just a matter of time. There were points when soldiers were just firing into crowds, not caring if they hit the living or the dead, just trying to keep the hordes away. This wasn’t always the case. For every one panicking soldier, there were five with a good head on their soldiers, trying to keep things moving the right way. In the end, it didn’t matter though. Only a handful of trucks made it out of the Evac zone before it fell. It was a bloodbath. We saw the writing on the wall and tried to just bail. Kind of hard to though when you run out of gas.” She paused again, looking back at Rachel. “The three of us walked for hours before we realized one of us was bitten. He damn near got us in our sleep. We found shelter in an abandoned van along route 66. I woke up that day to my friend trying to eat my other friend. I had to beat the bitten friend’s head in. That was the only training they gave us to defend ourselves. Aim for the head. For fuck sake, I knew both of their families.” The tears were coming down hard now, and though she tried to contain them, she broke down. Atencio leaned over to hug her, a gesture that Ashmore readily accepted. “I was the only one to make it to Cannon. After that with my limited medical knowledge, I was put through as a medic. I don’t know what happened to my family. I never heard from them again, and no one that I had known my whole life made it to Cannon,” she said through sobs. I drove along silently, letting her get it out. In this shitty apocalypse, we all have to release our burdens sometime or just fall apart. Man card or not, if you weren’t in touch with your emotions during this era of survival, you probably weren’t meant to survive. We as humans can only hold so much inside of us before we snap. It’s one of the reasons why they did everything that they could back at base to keep morale up. Those that had nothing to live for would just cease to live, either by taking themselves out or in some documented cases, they just stopped breathing in their sleep. The human body is an amazing thing, capable of incredible feats of strength but it’s only as strong as a person’s will. Where there's a will, there’s a way.
It wasn’t long before we came upon yet another blockade of vehicles. As we came to a stop before the closest line of cars, I put the Humvee in park. Kenneth led the team through the mess of cars on foot, looking for the easiest path through. They also kept an eye out for any diesel vehicles that they could syphon fuel from. It wasn’t a large haul of fuel by any means, but it would help shore up our supply. While they moved forward, Rachel and I stayed back with the convoy. I asked her to keep a lookout while I changed out of my blood-stained, fatigue cover and into a fresh one. Having a dirty shirt on didn’t bother me one bit, however, having a clean one would make hiding my fatal wound that much easier. It took us two hours to move cars out of the way to skirt through that barrel of fun. This time around, not one infected made an appearance. Hopefully, this was a sign of what was yet to come; our mission getting easier. I doubted it though. One of my colloquialisms was that ‘Life is funny. Not funny like ha ha, but ironic and full of plot twists.’ I had a feeling deep inside that most of us would perish on this mission. Too much could go wrong and it's not hard to imagine the incredibly wide variety of ways that we could meet our end. Falling down a cliff, stepping on a nail and getting an infection, getting struck by lightning, being eaten by a ravenous group of lose wild dogs, the possibilities were damn near endless. We finally drove through the newly created path and I noticed in my rear view mirror a storm forming behind us. New Mexico is well known to residents and aviators alike for the incredible thunderstorms that spawned here. I just knew as I stared back at the dark clouds that they would head our way, because why the hell not. The question was, where would we be when it finally caught up with us? I put my foot down a little harder on the accelerator as we drove onward, hoping to not be on the road when the clouds finally took a dump on us.
Chapter Eleven
We passed through the town of Vaughn without a hitch. We still had not seen neither hide nor hair of anyone, undead or otherwise. When we made it into Encino, New Mexico though, our relatively positive outlook quickly changed. Just as we came to what had appeared to have once been a mechanic shop, a rifle round dinged off of the hood of my vehicle. I slammed on the breaks, and this time, Kenneth did not have enough time to react. He slammed into the rear of my Humvee, causing a case of whiplash that I really did not want or need right just then. I looked around as quickly as I could and surveyed the occupants. Everyone was fine, minus some pain from the immediate stoppage. I recovered from the disorientation of the nudge of the other Humvee and I threw mine into reverse and yelled out of my window, “Back the fuck up!” Ken must have heard me as I saw him glance down at the gearbox, then look backwards as his vehicle began to move away. Another two rounds made their way up the hood of my Humvee, and a third put a neat round hole into the windshield. Thank our lucky stars or whatever deity you may believe in, but it passed harmlessly through the vehicle. Ke
nneth must have finally figured out that we were under some serious fire as we were both now in full reverse, nearly attached, grill to rear. When we were out of firing range, I lightly hit the brakes several times, hopefully signaling that it was clear. We came to an abrupt stop, and all of our group stepped out from our seats. The damage had been minimal, as these beasts were made to handle almost everything. Whoever took a shot at us though was now at the top of my list for people that I disliked and any hopes of them receiving the other half of a best friend’s forever necklace from me were completely dashed. “We’ve got two options. We go around them, or we go through them,” I said calmly once everyone had settled down, the adrenaline that had built up dissipating. The weather had a cool breeze flowing by, rustling all of our clothes and the ladies hair while we stood. “We need to hurry the fuck up and get to Albuquerque,” Rachel said, “We’re already far behind schedule.” I nodded in agreement. “That’s my thought as well. Anyone else have any ideas?” I asked, looking at each person in turn. Atencio spoke up, “They shot at us without even a moment’s hesitation. I say fuck them,” she said, the ever-present fire in her eyes. “Maybe they thought we were hostile?” Jaylin asked the team quietly. “They didn’t give us a warning shot, or anything else to give us a chance to let them know that we weren't. If they thought we were, odds are they think everyone is,” Ashmore piped in. “If they shot at us so quickly, I can only imagine their response to refugees trying to make it to Cannon and attempting to pass through here,” Atencio said. “Alright. That sounds like a consensus. Everyone get prepped for a firefight. Hopefully, we won’t need to fire a shot but if that changes, weapons free.” Nods came from all around the group. I stood for an extra moment, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply. I was attempting to mentally prepare myself for the upcoming battle. Killing zombies and even their infected by not undead counterparts are one thing. Killing other human beings, especially with the world the way it was now where every life was precious did not sit well with me. Unfortunately, I doubted that they’d just flag us down and apologize for shooting at us, and I wouldn’t allow those in our group to get hurt because of some assholes not liking us driving through their town. The cool breeze felt invigorating on my skin as I slowly shook my head, letting those thoughts dissipate as I turned and walked back to the Humvee. Everyone else had already filed back into our vehicles and every window minus one had rifles pointing outwards as we began to roll forward. It’s far too difficult to aim and shoot a rifle out of an open window while driving in my case. Difficult, but not impossible as countless road signs around small towns can attest to. The bullet hole in the windshield was not large which led me to believe it was not a very high caliber round and so the distance from the shooter to the Humvee when it was hit must not have been very far. I told everyone in my vehicle to keep as low of a profile as possible, and as we once again came up to the mechanic shop, rounds began to pepper my bumper. I swerved, in an attempt to relieve some of the stress for the Humvee. As I moved the wheel to the right, I saw flashes of light coming from atop a small building on the right. A small-town post office sat, with two pickup trucks in the parking lot, turned sideways. I pointed to Rachel who was still in the front passenger seat. “Up there!” I shouted. She followed my gaze and started firing rounds in that direction. The shooter, an obvious amateur stood up to continue firing at us. After giving up his only cover, it didn’t take long for Rachel’s bullets to trace up the building and to stitch him along his button up shirt buttons. He fell hard onto the old cracked concrete on the ground level of the post office. If this had been a cartoon, I have no doubt that landing would have been accompanied by a splat sound effect. I had to give the woman props, even with the gunfight raging, she didn’t flinch as rounds hit our vehicle repeatedly. Her rifle danced from target to target, firing short bursts and eliminating each threat one by one. Two more men opened up on us by the pickup trucks as we passed, peppering the side of our ride. We returned fire like an old-fashioned ship to ship cannon battle and as I glanced to my right, I saw another go down. I heard a yelp of pain as we pulled past the small makeshift barricade. Kenneth was directly behind me and much to the chagrin of the shooter on our right who was still trying to take us out, Isabel pulled even with him and put a well-placed shot directly into the man's head as he turned to bring his rifle to bare on their vehicle. Kenneth then sped up to get back onto our tail. I knew someone was hit but I couldn’t tell who and I didn’t have the time to figure it out. People seemed to pop out of everywhere, damn near out of nearby bushes. As Kenneth and I drove on, keeping our heads down, the women around us continued to pour lead into our attackers. I felt one and then two of our tires pop and deflate. Most Humvees are fitted with run flat tires, and they allow the vehicles to continue to operate albeit at a reduced speed without locking up the axles. It took a lot of work on my end to hold the wheel steady as the run flats did their work. We weren't hauling ass through the town originally but now we were even slower, and the amount of fire that we were taking was insane. For a small town during a zombapoc, there were a crap ton of these aggressors. I honestly hadn’t thought that there were this many people left alive outside of our gates in the state. Another yelp from my right almost had me hit the brakes. Rachel was to my right. No no no no I repeated to myself as I slammed down on the accelerator as hard as I could, nearly standing on it, trying to get out of this death trap. We finally passed out of the range of the shooters in the town and out of the city limits. I drove another two miles before pulling over. Kenneth didn’t miss a beat as he pulled in behind me. I jumped out and immediately went for Rachel’s door. It was already open. Ashmore was tending to her before I even made it to her. I had to give it to her, she was fast. I was not a slouch either as I came to her. The bullet had grazed her shoulder and she was bleeding. “Baby, are you okay?” I asked her, worry evident in my voice. “She’s fine, chill,” Ashmore said to me, not interested at all in my attempts to get in her way. “Sorry,” I said, but still completely in her way. She physically pushed me backwards. “Back the hell up, I’m trying to work!” she said. The look in her eyes told me to start treading very lightly. I stayed back and watched intently as she applied a small bandage to the wound. It was not bad by any means but if you’ve ever been in love, you’d know that even a stubbed toe is enough to be concerned about with your significant other. Ashmore stepped to the side and Rachel finally stood from the Humvee and embraced me and I hugged the hell out of her while trying hard to avoid the wound. I then snapped. “Oh my God, who else got hit?” I damn near shouted. “It was me and I’m fine,” Atencio was behind me, watching the whole spectacle. A fresh burn mark ran along her cheek. “Holy shit,” I said as I looked over at her. Ashmore applied some ointment to her cheek and that was about it. “Yeah, a little more to the left and I’d be dead,” Atencio said. “Just like that?” I asked, a bit surprised that she was so nonplussed about it. She shrugged. “I’m not dead and chicks dig scars,” she said. My eyebrow raised at that a little bit, but I didn’t have time to ponder that whole bag of whatever that was about. I let go of my fiancé and ran to the Humvee behind us. All three of those occupants were standing around and in completely good health. Our vehicle had apparently taken the brunt of what the town had to offer and for once, I was totally okay with being the guinea pig. We survived and no one was seriously injured. It was a damned miracle. I swore though that if one of us got back to Cannon, we’d have them bomb the whole damn town somehow. Fuck those guys, I thought as we spent the time to replace not one but two fricken tires. Afterwards, we piled back into our vehicles and once again set out on the long road ahead, hopeful that the next town would be a bit more welcoming.
Chapter Twelve
The gas station at Clines Corners was completely dry, which was quite unfortunate, if I do say so myself. We had enough fuel to make it to Albuquerque, but anyone left alive these days could tell you that it’s always best to top off the tanks whenever possible. You never really know where you
’ll be when the gauge hits E. We repeatedly stopped to syphon fuel tanks from other trucks along our route with the abandoned semis generally having the greatest yields.. Every stop had us on edge and that, naturally, wore us out. The human body can only take so much and all the adrenaline over the course of the past twelve hours or so was almost too much. Everyone in the convoy was exhausted. I began to see locales that I could remember from my previous trek in the opposite direction. I had narrowly escaped Albuquerque with Sergeant Steven Rodriguez. I carried the memory of that brave man in my heart wherever I went. He and I had made the trip together all of the way to Cannon and he had been like a brother to me. All good things must come to an end as they say and I lost my brother to the horde attack at Cannon just after we arrived. Putting a bullet in him was the thing that single-handedly haunted me the most in my memories and my dreams and even in this apocalyptic wasteland and with a mighty high zombie kill count, that's saying something. It is different though pulling the trigger on someone that you knew. Even worse when it’s family or a dear friend. This world sucks, I thought as I drove on, slowing to move around the obstacles littering the roadway. Two more hours and we reached the Albuquerque city limits. The path had previously been mostly cleared by the sheer numbers of infected following in our wake out of the city. They had pushed cars aside and off of the main road as they stretched out. Soon, our Humvee rode over the final hill leading into Albuquerque, we saw it once again loom large in front of us. I had made this trip a dozen or so times. Albuquerque had previously been my home of around 15 years, and each trip, seeing Abq over the hill, it had been an absolute relief. To know that I was almost home. Now though, it was an empty shell of what it had once been. No city lights greeted us this time and no traffic driving just a little too fast without using their blinkers. As we came upon yet another roadblock, this one past the Tramway Boulevard exit, but before the Juan Tabo exit. I decided that it was time for us to figure out our next move. I parked at the leading edge of the car pile and Kenneth pulled up beside me. The ladies were all asleep. Kenneth and I stood, surveying the interstate in front of us. “I think we should backtrack and find a safe place to sleep,” Kenneth told me. I eventually nodded and sighed, stretching as I did so. “If the kids have lasted this long, then I doubt one more day will make much of a difference. We being dead on our feet though won't help matters at all,” I replied, looking back at the other man. His eyes were bloodshot, probably as much as mine were. He nodded and we shuffled back to our vehicles. He pulled out ahead of me and I followed his lead. We made our way back onto the Tramway exit, ignoring the wrong way signs and found a local motel within eyesight of the interstate. We woke everyone and cleared the rooms with ease. Not a single living infected remained, or undead for that matter in the building. Rachel and I bunked together with Isabel and Kenneth doing the same. Jaylin, Atencio and Ashmore got the room next to ours. With all of our doors firmly locked, and our rifles nearby and ready for action, we all passed into the realm of deep sleep. As if on cue, a dream began to roll in my mind, like that of an old-fashioned movie projector. I hoped for all that I was worth, that it was just a dream and not some kind of vision.
