“Oh God, Eric…,” Kendra said.
“What?”
But I saw what she was talking about when I turned my attention back to the road.
A man had been crucified upside down from one of the large green interstate signs that told me Charlotte was somewhere ahead in the looming darkness. The man had been stripped naked and then gutted. His legs were bound together and his arms were stretched perfectly downwards. In the murky dark, it looked almost like the shape of a fisherman’s trophy.
Kendra looked away from the mock crucifixion and placed her head softly against the window. The baby stirred in her arms and I knew it was one of his signs; he was going to wake up soon and he’d be hungry.
I drove on. The baby did stir awake about five minutes later and Kendra nursed him.
“Is the milk coming in any better?” I asked her.
“I think so. Just the little bit of consistent fluid we’ve had since we got to Athens has seemed to help.”
“Good.”
“I guess we also need to figure out what to do about diapers,” she said. “This one he’s in is soaked and I think there are only two left in our bags.”
I was out of shirts to tear to make diapers and had no idea what to do. So I just nodded.
“We’ll figure something out, I guess,” she said.
“Yeah, somehow,” I replied.
“You know…I don’t thank you enough, Eric. You’ve been a great father for him. I couldn’t have asked for more. You’ve done so much to make sure we were okay…or as okay as we could be. Thank you.”
The tears hit my eyes before I was even aware they were coming. I wiped them away quickly, even though I knew it would be evidence that her words had moved me. But I didn’t care. I could deny it to myself all I wanted, but I loved her. She knew it. This was just further proof.
“Of course,” I said.
We ended up holding hands again. Our fingers did not separate until we saw headlights approaching from the oncoming lane. There was a median between the south and north-bound lanes, but there was nothing there that would hide us.
I pulled the Nissan all the way into the breakdown lane and parked it. My hand instantly went to the rifle beside me.
“They were too far away to have seen us, right?” Kendra asked.
“I think so. Probably.”
We watched the headlights approach. Staring at them across the darkened lanes, it was like peering at fabled ghost lights across a swamp. I just hoped that even if they did see us, the driver would assume that the Nissan was just another of the several stranded vehicles along the side of the road.
The headlights approached and I was sure the vehicle slowed a bit as it came even with us. There were five or six lanes between us as it approached. Kendra and I both lay down as much as we could and I let out a sigh of relief when the white glare of the headlights flickered through the Nissan and continued down the interstate.
I counted to twenty and then sat back up. I looked into the rearview and the headlights were already a very distant speck of light.
I pulled the truck back out onto the highway and continued on.
“Is it bad that we always assume that anyone else we see is bad news?” Kendra asked.
“Not anymore,” I said. “Not after Vance. Now, I think it’s the smartest approach.”
She nodded and looked ahead into the darkness.
I estimated that we had another two hours before dawn would once again uselessly try to retain its former glory within the sky. I was tired as hell and didn’t know how much longer I could drive. I looked at the gas gauge and saw that we had gone through a bit over half a tank.
I looked ahead and tried to prepare myself for the trek we’d have ahead of us once it hit E.
27
The Nissan started to buckle and sputter five hours later. Daybreak had come and shed some light on the road, so I managed to get the truck up to forty-five without feeling too dangerous. Kendra had been sleeping, the baby cradled in her arms. When the truck let out its first sputter, she jerked slowly awake.
“What’s that?”
“We’re out of gas,” I said. “We might make it another half mile.”
“Where are we?”
“We passed Greensboro about four miles back. There are some other smaller towns coming up.”
“Greensboro is what? A little over one hundred miles from the Safe Zone?”
I grinned at her. She had studied the map studiously whenever she’d had the chance during our journey. “Yeah,” I answered. “Something like that.”
The truck died uneventfully. I didn’t even bother pulling it off of the road. Kendra and I sat there for a moment as the baby woke up again. Kendra fed him as I started taking things out of the back of the truck.
We had a light breakfast standing by the back of the truck—dry Cheerios and a stick of beef jerky, which we shared. We had gone through half of the first bottle of Gatorade and even that little bit made me nervous. Our bellies weren’t nearly full when we started walking again, but it was the best breakfast I could remember having in several weeks.
We walked for about an hour, passing signs that told us several small towns were up ahead. I was beyond tired; surprisingly, driving slowly through the night had seemed just as exhausting as walking. I suggested we get off of the interstate at the next exit. Not only that, but the open road left nowhere to hide should another car come by like last night. So we took the next exit, which took us into a little burg-like North Carolina town called Rudduck.
The tiny town was an oddity of sorts. It looked to be mostly untouched by looting, riots, the army, and the bombs. Still, the place was a ghost town. It was odd. I was sure there would be some travesties to discover if we actually looked for them, but the idea made me feel even more exhausted.
Five blocks into Rudduck, we came to a Hotel 6 that looked to be as relatively unmarked as the rest of the town.
“A bed,” I said tiredly. “A real, actual bed. You think we’re that lucky?”
“I don’t kn—,”
The sound of a distant car engine interrupted her. It was a good distance away, but it was enough to shatter our hopes that we had discovered the perfect little untouched and deserted town. The engine noise let us know that we did not have Rudduck, North Carolina all to ourselves.
The scream we heard next backed this up. It was somewhere on the other side of town, but chilled us all the same. We wasted no time and hurried for the hotel.
The door to the lobby and office was locked, but I shattered the glass as quietly as I could, using my shirt and the stock of the rifle. We made our way inside and took a key for a first floor room from behind the check-in desk.
Holding the key as we walked towards the first floor hallway was beyond surreal. It made me think of getting home from work and unlocking my front door. I felt terribly displaced for a moment and even more so when I slid the key into the door of Room 115. We had chosen 115 because we figured being on the first floor would make escaping easier if we needed to. And since 115 was in the center of the hall, we would have time to prepare for an attack if we heard intruders, but would only have to run half the length of the hallway to escape if the attack went badly.
The room smelled stale and felt thick. But none of that mattered. Two beds sat to our left, untouched and perfectly preserved like items in a museum.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, letting out a chuckle.
Kendra laughed behind me. The baby, whom had been quiet and lethargic all morning, let out a pleasant garbled noise.
“Yeah,” Kendra said. “The beds are nice and all, but I bet you their cable sucks.”
We both laughed hard at the joke. The baby let out one of his little cackles as he usually did whenever he heard his mother laugh.
I sat the bags down in the floor and then flopped enthusiastically onto the bed like a child on vacation.
28
I only slept for a handful of hours. It was just after one in th
e afternoon when I woke up. Kendra was playing with the baby on the other bed. Feeling the give and softness of the mattress beneath me was enough to make me want to go immediately back to sleep, but I wanted to check out the rest of the hotel. Surely there would be supplies here.
I walked into the bathroom and went for the sink.
“Not that lucky,” Kendra said. “I tried it already. No water, no electricity. I thought it was weird, seeing as how this town seems like it’s in perfectly good shape.”
“That is sort of odd.”
“I was going to go looking for supplies but thought we should do it together just in case.”
I knew she was referring to the car engine and the scream from earlier in the morning. No matter how quiet Rudduck seemed and how empty the hotel felt, we couldn’t know for sure what was going on outside.
I took the baby and placed him in his little sling. He grabbed my nose as I set him in place and we left Room 115 in search of supplies.
We found a single granola bar in the main office, in the bottom drawer of what we assumed was a cashier’s desk. There was also a poorly stocked first-aid kit and a flashlight in the same drawer. I took the flashlight out and tested it instinctively. My jaw nearly dropped when a yellow beam of light glowed from the bulb. While we already had one, another could never hurt.
Pleased with finding the flashlight, we checked the rest of the first floor. At the end of the first floor hall, there was a little nook to the right that contained an ice maker. While the power meant there was obviously no ice, I tinkered with the tubing along the back of it, hoping to find some sort of reservoir where water was stored before it became ice. The tiny bit of water I did find was stagnant and tasted like plastic.
Our last discovery was a small janitor’s closet that was tucked away beside the check-in counter in the lobby. It was locked but we found the key easily after trying a few we found behind the counter. The inside of the closet was neatly stocked and I saw the baby wipes right away. I wasn’t sure why a janitor would need baby wipes, and I didn’t care. I swiped them up and was already imagining how it would feel to wipe myself down with them.
As we gathered our findings, Kendra collected the few sporadic hand towels we came across. The towels that so many overnight guests often took for granted and asked for multiples of on occasion were like gold to us. Each time Kendra found one, she’d speak cheerfully to the baby and say, “A clean booty for my baby.” The baby found this hysterical and laughed heartily. With the two in our room and the three she found behind the check-in counter, we had enough diapers to maybe make it to the Blue Ridge Safe Zone without making the baby go without any cover below his waist.
We went back to the room where Kendra promptly changed the baby’s makeshift diaper for another makeshift diaper. I took the bath towel from the rack in the bathroom and tore it into four pieces, giving us four more diapers.
The whole process made me feel domesticated beyond belief. It made me wonder again what a normal life might have been like with Kendra and the baby. And how much easier would it be to put actual diapers on the baby? Lost in these thoughts, I smiled. It felt good on my face. Kendra saw me smiling and she smiled, too.
We sat together on one of the beds, enjoying the security and silence. The baby lay on the bed between us, drifting off for his afternoon nap.
Kendra and I went into the bathroom and used the baby wipes. While I had seen her breasts on multiple occasions as she fed the baby, she still tried to keep some semblance of modesty as she wiped herself down. She asked me to get her back and I did so gratefully, as she crossed her arms over her chest. I wiped her sweaty skin slowly, my fingers drifting along the hollow in the center of her back.
As I wiped my face and then my arms, I was amazed at how much of a difference it made. I smelled the lotion of the wipes and even that small sensation was enough to temporarily forget what the world was like outside. Kendra wiped down my back and even helped with my feet. We giggled at one another, caught up in this brief moment of simple luxury. I desperately hoped it would turn into something—even if just another speedy kiss—but there was nothing. But I honestly didn’t care. To be laughing with her and sharing this moment was enough.
We walked back out into the room where the baby was sleeping. We started sorting through our things, the distraction of becoming somewhat clean now slowly fading.
“I was wondering,” Kendra said. “Is it morbid that I want to look through Vance’s computer?”
I looked to the case which I had propped against the wall with our other bags. “No. I want to, too. I’m just not sure I want to see the videos of the others that they sent into the nests.”
“I want to see it all,” she said. She spoke as if she was giving confession to a priest. “If Riley was right and there are answers about the monsters and what happened to the world, I want to see it.”
“Now?” I asked.
“It’s as good a time as any. I have a feeling that when we get to the Safe Zone, the computer might get confiscated. I’d like to get all the information I can.”
She had a good point. I took the laptop from the case and noticed right away that there were two pouches along its interior sides that held square devices that I assumed were some sort of batteries. I checked the bag but found no form of electronic cords or wall plugs. All I found was the piece of paper Riley had indicated with all of Vance’s passcodes on it.
I opened the computer’s top shell and pushed the power button. The screen flickered for a moment and then a blue progress bar popped up in the left-hand corner. I had never seen a computer boot up as fast as this one. The home screen and a pop-up asking for a password were up within five seconds.
I typed in the passcode that was labeled login 1 on Riley’s list. The computer accepted it and Vance’s desktop icons popped up. There were only four and I didn’t recognize any of them. In the bottom corner I saw a few numbers that, for some reason, made me go cold.
It was the date. If the computer was still accurate, it was October 7th. I had lost track of the date just before moving into the Dunn’s house. To have some sort of record of things beyond my questionable watch made me feel empty in a way I can’t properly explain.
I shook it off as best as I could by distracting myself. “You were a receptionist, right?” I asked Kendra.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re probably better with computers than I am. Why don’t you drive?”
She took over and found Vance’s video archives within a few clicks. It turned out that Vance was as meticulous as he was crazy. He had the videos archived neatly and in order of their dates. He had them filed into two folders, one titled MILITARY and the other NEST EXP.
Kendra opened the MILITARY folder first and we found seven video files. She opened the first one and when the video screen popped up and began playing military surveillance footage, it felt like we were peeking into a different world.
On it, we were given a bird’s eye view of a large city. There was a droning sound in the background of the footage that sounded like a motor of some kind. As my eyes focused on the angle and grainy colors, Kendra gasped and leaned back away from the computer like it had bitten her. Before I could ask her what was wrong, I saw it, too.
A large shape was taking up most of the right side of the screen. It took me a while before I recognized it as being similar to the large creatures I had seen twice on the news before all broadcasts had been terminated. The shape had made no sense to me at first because its height went above the source of the camera—which appeared to be on an airplane very far above the earth.
The creature’s hide was as I remembered it from the news reels. It was actually fairly similar to the flesh that had been on the tentacles that had come shooting out of the nest. If it had legs or appendages of any kind, I could not see them. As it came closer into view, it started to lose definition because it basically blocked out the camera.
I tried to get an idea of the location but it was im
possible. On the ground, around the perimeter of the creature’s base, I saw tiny flickers that I assumed were explosions of the city going to hell beneath it.
A male voice hissed in, clearly coming through some sort of radio communications. “Effort One-Seven-Six failed,” it said. “Ineffective.”
“Roger,” came the reply. “Fire will be deployed in thirty seconds, be advised. Retreat.”
With that, the camera angle shifted as the plane took off at a greater speed and climbed higher. Even then, we could not see the top of the creature. I saw what I assumed was its torso, but it was impossible to tell.
The screen was a blur of motion as grays, blacks, and a fading blue swept by. We watched on and I was pretty sure what had been meant by “fire will be deployed.” Our suspicion was proven thirty seconds later when a soft tinged streak of white crept in on the right side of the screen, accompanied by what sounded like a hollow drum being banged through the laptop’s speakers.
“A nuke?” Kendra said.
“Yeah.”
She shut that video down and opened another. They were really all the same. Some showed the destruction prior to the blast while two others showed the blasts occur; on these, the footage was promptly terminated.
Perhaps the most terrifying video was one that showed one of the monsters in the ocean. Like all of the others, it was shot from overhead but the depth of the ocean allowed for a better view of the creature. We could actually see the top of its head. The head of the creature curved outward in the same way an elephant’s trunk began to sprout out from the rest of its face. There were hook-like shapes all over its head, overlapping and often merging into a single shape. It reminded me of depictions of a triceratops from my childhood dinosaur books.
In terms of eyes or a mouth, the angle of the camera kept them hidden. Still, seeing more of a defined shape to it was terrifying. I waited for further action—probably a nuke being dropped—but Kendra shut the video down before it happened.
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t take it.”
Nests: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller Page 11
