by Germann, Tom
No one said anything. Major Wagner nodded. “Good enough then. Let’s eat.”
The group started organizing a light meal from some of the rations they had brought back from the vehicles.
They prepared for the night quickly then settled in.
It was hot, muggy and the room smelled bad, yet it didn’t take long before anyone not on guard drifted off into a poor version of sleep. While every night had been bad so far at least now they had more time to lie there uncomfortable and rest if not sleep.
Tomorrow was another day and it would be there soon enough.
THE HORDE ARRIVES
T
hey had been walking constantly for days now. The only main road they had to follow was the highway which took them directly toward the city. The small town had been the start point. As they had walked along they had picked up more stragglers from several small villages just off the main road.
There were still survivors out there. Hiding in basements or in sealed rooms on the second floor of houses. They were staring at dwindling supplies and wondering how much longer the infection would last.
The one woman sitting by the window looking out for any sign of movement had seen the horde walking down the highway just a few hundred feet from her home. It would have been hard not to see them as they covered the road. She looked at the horde, then at the few unopened cans she had left. She went over to the bed and climbed up onto it moving slowly. She didn’t have much energy as she wasn’t eating much. She still had the energy to reach up and fit the noose over her head. Then all she had to do was step off the bed.
She didn’t snap her neck, but she was so weak that she only struggled for a few seconds before passing out, then she died quietly. Downstairs her husband and two children moved around the dining room. When the infection had come, they had locked themselves inside after setting up the room for her upstairs. They wandered aimlessly. Trapped as much as she had been.
The horde was almost at the city limits now, if they continued in a straight line forward then they would walk straight on through and eventually hit the ocean.
They did not think like humans anymore. The horde was much more like a hive. A critical amount of undead had been hit and now the group could not be distracted as easily as only a few hundred would be.
During the previous day, a vehicle had stopped at the top of a distant hill before turning around and disappearing quickly. Some of the horde had seen it but the majority had not. The few had ignored it and carried on with the majority toward their destination.
There were enough bodies moving with the horde that they could now be heard in the quiet of the day at a distance. The shuffling of feet walking, of cloth rubbing against cloth. All small sounds that could barely be heard, at least until there were thousands of bodies making those noises.
They would be well into the city by early morning. If they carried on at the same speed then they would be out of the city sometime in the late afternoon.
They hungered and slowly plodded on looking for something to ease the ache of their hunger.
END
THE TRAIN
After everything that they had been through the group had finally made it to the city and carried out the tasks that the Commanding Officer had demanded of them. All that they have to do now is get on a train, the last train from this region, and head to an old World War Two refuge deep in the interior of the US.
All they are going to have to do is board a train and travel across a country that has been ravaged in the past weeks and months by a flu like infection that kills the infected and then brings them back hungry for flesh.
Get on the train in the morning and roll out in comfort until they arrive in a few short days in the centre of the world’s most powerful army with supplies for years and a plan to take back the country and planet from the dead.
What could possibly go wrong?
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This has been an interesting story for me to write out. It told itself. The entire template of the story insisted that it come out this way.
From normal people off the street near where you live being picked up and dropped in an alternate reality that was just like a zombie movie. The rapid spread of an infection and the ineffective reaction of governments as well as the initial disbelief of the people which help spread that infection through fear and not just destroying the brains of the recently dead. Survivors would be hardened and know what needs to be done but by that point resources are scarce and for some reason there never appears to be a great deal of ammunition left.
So what would you do in that situation? Collect as much supplies as possible while running away? Or do you stop and fort up with whatever you can find? What do you do when the ‘authorities’ in an area stop you and look curious at your looting. Do you stay with them or move on? Are they competent or just have blind luck?
My crew ran and is doing the best that they can to survive. But with a surviving government around that means rules and not always rules that make sense.
There is an end in sight though. I just hope they make it.
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