by Megan Berry
Ryan doesn’t want to stop anymore unless it’s absolutely necessary. We lost an entire day at the farm house, and every day we wait, travel gets more dangerous as more and more of humanity is turned into flesh eating monsters.
We stop for fuel at a gas station on the outskirts of a small town. I don’t even bother to learn its name, and this time we stay together and alert. It goes surprisingly smooth, with only the gas attendant roaming the parking lot with his vacant, black eyes, and rotting skin. Ryan puts him down quickly and gets to work prying the lid off the underground tank. Abby gets him the hose and hand pump from the back while Megan and I keep close to the other two, staying alert for any signs of danger. Nothing happens. Ryan fills the tank, replaces the cover, and puts the hose away.
I want to say that I can’t believe how easy this has been, but I don’t as it’s the surest way to jinx us. I keep my mouth shut until we are back in the suburban.
“I can’t believe how easy that was,” Abby says as soon as the door shuts, and I groan.
Ryan gives me a funny look in the rear view mirror and peels out of the parking lot as though the dead are nipping at our heels because, let’s face it, Abby just jinxed us.
We drive for another hour without saying much, and I begin to relax a bit after Abby’s blatant jinx, which should have been my first clue that something terrible might happen.
“What is that black thing up ahead?” Megan leans forward in her seat and points at something in the not too distant horizon that looks odd against the grassy landscape. The sun is shining in our eyes from that direction, so it isn’t obvious at first.
“It can’t be…” Abby squints a bit, and I have a sinking feeling.
Ryan pulls over, gets out of the car, and goes toward to the back. He opens it up, causing the chickens to raise an immediate fuss before returning with a pair of binoculars in his hand. He stands by the driver’s side mirror and takes a long look. When the binoculars drop from his lifeless fingers, I know it can’t be anything good.
“Zombies,” Ryan confirms.
My heart starts pounding double time. It’s not that we really needed the binoculars, but I guess we were all hoping that our eyes were deceiving us.
“Looks like a shitload of them,” Megan says baldly, and Ryan nods.
“At least two hundred, if I had to guess.” He gets back in the SUV and puts it in reverse, backing into the ditch a little so he can turn around. “We need to back track to that last road we saw and go around them.”
It’s a plan that I totally agree with.
Ryan gets back on the road and pins it. The Suburban takes off like a shot, and I feel my heart soar—the more distance we put between us and them, the better. My euphoria is short lived as, almost instantly, the car shudders and begins to feel funny. A sensor on the dashboard beeps and I look over Ryan’s shoulder to see the tire pressure gauge lighting up like a Christmas tree.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Ryan yells, slapping the wheel as he jams it in park and jumps out of the car.
I throw open the door and follow him, nearly running into his back when he stops abruptly.
“What’s going on?” I ask, trying to fight down the panic.
“Flat tire,” he points to the driver’s side front tire, which is now completely flat. Ryan bends down and wrestles a fair-sized chunk of metal out of the rubber and holds it up to show us.
“Are we gonna have time to change it?” Abby asks with a whine, making it clear that I’m not the only one in full blown panic mode. The horde isn’t very far away, and now we have a flat tire.
“We have to try,” Ryan says grimly, turning to Abby. “Do you have a jack and a spare tire?”
Abby just shakes her head helplessly, so Megan starts digging around looking for it.
Ryan pops his head underneath the car and lets out a sigh of relief. “Found it,” he calls to Megan, who ducks down beneath with him. For a few minutes, all we can hear is the ratcheting of metal.
I stare out at the impending death pack and fight the urge to run away as fast as I can.
“Why can’t we just drive it flat until we find somewhere safe?” I ask when they finally emerge with a spare tire and some metal things in their hands.
“We would bend the rim, and then we’d really be screwed,” Megan answers.
I still look to Ryan for confirmation.
He nods, “We would risk losing the whole vehicle that way.”
The idea of losing the relative safety of four rolling wheels and metal walls does not appeal to me, but then neither does dying on the side of the road trying to hang on to it either.
“I think we can get this done quick. But, just in case, you girls start unpacking what we’ll need if we have to run for it. Keep it light.”
I look at Ryan, but he’s already jacking the car up. His muscles bulge, and a sheen of perspiration breaks out on his face. I can see him eying the zombies too, and I don’t miss the tremor of his fingers.
I run to the back of the car and start digging out our backpacks. I find Megan’s school bag and my own, just as Abby pulls out hers and Ryan’s.
I flip mine open and make sure there are a couple bottles of water and a few tins of food. I also make sure my fire poker is securely in my hand before turning back to Ryan. He’s loosening the lug nuts, so I turn back to my zombie vigil. They’ve spotted us now and a deafening chorus of excited moans tell me that we are definitely on their lunch menu.
“They’re getting closer,” I say as I watch them spilling across the nearby field like a plague of locusts.
“Not helping!” Ryan snaps at me as he strains against an especially tight bolt.
“We’re going to have to run!” Megan shouts, raising her gun. She aims at a couple zombies that have already reached the fence line. Her gun sounds like cracks of thunder as it recoils in her hands, and three zombies drop.
“Save your ammo!” Ryan yells at her, his face is a puddle of sweat.
“Should we bring the chickens?” Abby asks, panicked.
All three of us yell back at her in unison, “No!”
I don’t want to leave them to die, but I’m also not going to try and outrun a zombie horde with a box full of clucking chickens in my arms.
Abby looks sad for the chickens, but slams the door shut tight. Ryan finally gets the wheel off and starts to press the spare into place.
The zombies have reached the fence now. With the sheer number of them, it doesn’t slow them down very much. I wince when I hear the twang of snapping wire, and then they are spilling down into the ditch beside the road.
“Ryan!” I scream.
He looks up from the tire, dropping his tools, and springs to his feet. “Fuck!” he yells as he grabs his pack from me and throws it onto his back. “We have to run.”
I don’t need any urging; I was already half running before he said that.
We run along the gravel road at full speed, barely getting away from the car as the first wave of undead moan and groan and bump their slimy, oozy bodies along the Suburban. My heart sinks and races at the same time. I had really believed Ryan would get the tire changed in time and save the day.
“We should get off the road,” Megan pants as we run four-abreast along the gravel road. The zombies are not that far behind us, though we momentarily have the advantage of speed. They, however, have the advantage of never getting tired.
Ryan points to the opposite side of the road, and we race down the ditch. He holds the barbed wire apart with his foot and stretches the other one up with his arm. Megan dives underneath, followed by Abby, and then me. Megan holds the wire in turn, and I nearly scream when Ryan’s backpack gets caught on his way through. He tugs a little harder, and then it releases with a small rip of fabric before he tumbles across the grass. He gets to his feet really fast though, and I thank God for that.
Some of the zombies are almost to the fence already, and are leaning against it, moaning and gnashing their teeth with their arms
upraised.
“We have to get moving!” Ryan yells to be heard over the noise, and we take off again.
I have no idea where we are going—we’re just running across a huge, grassy field that looks like it goes on forever. We run for a solid twenty minutes before my legs start to feel like jelly, and my lungs burn in agony. I’ve had a cramp in my side for the last ten minutes, but it’s crazy what you can ignore when you are being chased by something that wants to kill and maim you. We have outdistanced the zombies a bit, and I can’t go on. I slow to a walk and double over, clutching the stitch in my side.
“Jane,” Ryan grabs me by the arm and tries to propel me back into a run.
“I can’t,” I gasp in agony. I don’t want to die, but I can’t run another step without a rest either. Ryan looks behind us before slowing to a walk with a resigned huff.
“Thank God,” Abby moans, clutching her side. Even Megan has a red face and is puffing like she’s about to die.
“We can’t slow down for very long, or they will gain back the bit of ground we’ve put between us,” he warns.
Ryan doesn’t let go of my arm, and I force myself to walk through the agony—at least it’s not running, I tell myself. I focus on steadying my breathing while digging in my bag for a bottle of water. I take long, chugging swallows. Everyone else does the same.
“What are we going to do?” Abby whimpers, and I know how she feels.
“Run until we find somewhere safe.” Ryan says.
I am not a huge fan of that idea, but it’s not like we have a choice. We walk for another five minutes before Ryan says the words I’ve been dreading.
“Alright, breaks over.”
All three of us girls groan as we force our already stiffening muscles back into longer strides.
Sweat is pouring off every inch of my body, making me itch, but I force myself to ignore it and attempt to focus on the barely-there breeze that is somewhat fanning my forehead. We come to another section of fence and cross through it into another field of grass. This grass isn’t green and thick, it looks more like grazing land with yellowing grass that has been chewed down to a nub.
I force myself to keep going as I try to think of anything else to make me forget the pain in my body.
“There…has to be…a house….somewhere,” Megan pants.
I shake my head in dismay. We are in the middle of nowhere with hundreds of zombies on our tail.
“What’s that up ahead?” Ryan slows his gruelling pace back to a walk.
I try to blink the sweat out of my eyes enough to focus on the lone figure ahead of us.
“Do you think it’s someone who can help us?” I ask hopefully. My dreams are crushed when I run an arm across my eyes and see that the figure has the same staggering gait as the monsters that are chasing us. Ryan pulls out his huge hunting knife and approaches the creature. Moving so that fast he’s almost a blur, he spikes the zombie in the head before wiping the black goo off his blade with the things own shirt. He tucks it back into the sheath at his waist, and I wince at the goop.
“He had to have come from somewhere, hopefully there’s a farm around here.”
I try to feel motivated and relieved by his words, but I can’t help but wonder what will happen to us when we finally do bunk down and that horde behind us catches up. I hate this running across the countryside stuff, but I know I will hate being trapped inside four walls by two hundred monsters even more.
We take another short walking break before Ryan ruthlessly prods us back into a jog. I am beginning to envy the unfeeling state of the zombies, and I don’t initially notice the noise as the wind whistles past my ears. It starts off as a weird noise that I can’t place, but then it begins to get louder and louder. I finally realize what I’m hearing. It’s the whirring sound of helicopter blades. All four of our heads turn to the sky. We stop running and wave our arms as an olive-drab combat helicopter comes flying into view.
The sound sends a thrill through my body, but also terror at the amount of noise and attention it’s attracting. Ryan doesn’t hesitate. He starts waving his arms around and jumping up and down like a crazy person. The girls and I join in. I try to jump as enthusiastically as Ryan, but it isn’t easy on legs that are on the verge of collapse. The helicopter starts to circle, and I get my hopes up that maybe someone is going to rescue us. Suddenly, the helicopter flies off and heads back towards the herd behind us.
I fall to the ground and cover my ears when the deafening roar of a machine gun starts blasting off. The others follow me down, and we huddle in a terrified pile for a minute. When no bullets pierce through our bodies, we slowly sit up and turn back to see the helicopter hovering in front of the zombies with a huge machine gun rattling off round after round. The zombies fall to the ground in a huge messy pile of slick, black blood. Some of them aren’t dead for real yet, despite the numerous bullets punched through their flesh. Their torso’s wiggle around, slipping in the gooey mess made by their fallen comrades.
When nothing is left standing, the helicopter turns back to us. I feel a huge rush of wind and dirt sting my eyes and face. I stand still and close my eyes, bracing myself for the bullets, but they don’t come. The wind is increasing so drastically that I am almost blown over, and I realize that the helicopter is landing. It touches down lightly on the grass—no more than fifteen feet away. The doors are thrown open, and six army men in combat fatigues, carrying large automatic guns, come barreling out.
They form a complicated-looking formation that covers every angle with the business end of their rifles. It’s smart, but I don’t like the number of guns pointed at us.
“Have any of you been bitten?” One of the army men comes and stands so close to us that his spittle hits me in the face. He’s practically screaming to be heard over the whirring of the chopper blades. We emphatically shake our heads no, and he seems satisfied.
“Come with us,” he motions to the helicopter, and I don’t even hesitate. Once I move forward, Ryan and the others follow. Large, gloved hands reach down and help us up while the rest of the men remain outside to cover our backs. The rest of the men pile in after us.
They don’t speak for a minute. One motions to the pilot with a hand signal, and then we are lifting up into the air.
I close my eyes and grip Abby’s hand tightly; she knows that I hate heights. Though, given the choice between this helicopter and running in the field, I will choose the helicopter every time.
As one, the men in the helicopter remove their combat helmets, and I get my first real look at our rescuers.
“Welcome aboard, I am Lieutenant Nichols,” A large, blond-haired man with a buzz cut introduces himself.
“Ryan,” Ryan puts out his hand, drawing the attention away from us girls, and the other man shakes it heartily.
“It’s good to find survivors out here,” the Lieutenant has a booming voice that fills the chopper. “Was that your van back there on the road?” he asks.
Ryan nods. “Flat tire. I tried to change it, but they were on top of us too fast.”
I can feel the eyes of some of the men on me and feel like squirming, but I hold myself rigidly still.
“Where are you taking us?” Abby asks baldly.
“We have a secured camp set up a few miles away. We do daily patrols to collect supplies and look for survivors.”
A smile cracked across my face at the news.
“So everything is okay?” I asked, sure that the army means the government, and the government means civilization.
The lieutenant frowns, and I know his answer before he even opens his mouth.
“We lost communication with Washington early on. There are a few of us that have formed different bases in the area to secure safety for civilians. Our orders were to protect civilian lives and destroy the enemy. We have been following those orders ever since, even with the lack of higher command.”
A hot tear leaks down my cheek, and I brush it quickly away. The government has fallen, t
he world really has been destroyed by the undead.
Ryan puts his arm around me, but I am unable to take any comfort from the gesture.
“T minus three minutes to rendezvous,” the pilot speaks up for the first time, his voice crackling over the speakers in the cockpit.
I look out the window and discover not a huge army base like I had been expecting, but a high school that has been surrounded by large sections of chain-link fence bolted together.
“It ain’t pretty, but its home,” Lieutenant Nichols pipes up, obviously reading the disappointment on our faces.
The helicopter lands with a bump on a large section of cement that looks like it had been the basketball court, and the pilot cuts the engine. I can still hear the high-pitched whine of the engine in my ears for several minutes as I adjust to the sudden quiet.
“Welcome to Camp Freedom,” one of the soldier announces proudly as he throws the doors open and hold his hand out to help us down. I can see that the school is actually pretty busy; soldiers in uniform are hurrying around. I can also see a few Humvee’s and even a couple of people in regular clothes who are eying us curiously.
“If you will follow me, we will get you situated,” the Lieutenant says, motioning for us to follow him before he takes off across the yard without looking back to make sure we are following.
Two soldiers are stationed outside the double doors of the school. They salute the Lieutenant when we walk by. The Lieutenant salutes them back, and the door swings open to reveal a hallway full of uniform blue school lockers.
“This way,” Nichols says as he leads us down the hallway. He then turns sharply down another smaller hallway that criss-crosses the first. I can’t help but notice that several of the soldiers have followed us inside and are now marching along behind us with their heavy boots echoing off the floor. It’s more than a little intimidating.
“All new arrivals must be inspected and spend an obligatory twenty four hours in quarantine,” Nichols informs us suddenly, coming to a stop.
