by R. M. Smith
“I don’t think they’d stay on for 24 hours, do you?”
“Probably not.”
They were holding hands as they stood outside the tunnel.
“I don’t know if we should follow these lights are not,” Kim said. “What if they’re a trap?”
“A trap?”
“Yeah. What if someone’s leading us into something?”
“I think you’re being a little bit over cautious, hon.”
“I’m just scared.”
“Hell, so am I. This is some freaky ass shit.”
She kissed him then. Not because she liked him or thought it was nice that they were holding hands. She kissed him because he was being a good man to her, something that she had never experienced in all of her married years.
He accepted her kiss and gave her a hug when they were done. Her back arched as they hugged. Scott was an easy foot taller than her. She accepted his hug, her eyes closed, her chin raised to the sky.
As she opened her eyes, she screamed.
The dead were all leaning over the bridge above them. If she hadn’t kissed him, she wouldn’t have seen them. They would have been inundated with dead spit. She pulled Scott into the tunnel with her just in the nick of time.
Was that a scream? Carmen asked herself. Or is this dark tunnel just playing tricks on me? Do I yell back?
She stood between two cars using both of them as supports as her broken foot creaked. Opening the door of the car on her right, she found the headlight switch and popped it on.
She was only one quarter of the way through the tunnel. The car headlights were helping her keep her sanity. If it would have been pitch dark in here, she would easily be lying on the floor somewhere crying.
“At least there aren’t any rats,” she whispered.
Rats.
She shuddered. Why make myself think of such a thing? Come on. I know I have a little bit too much of a vivid imagination, but that’s a little too much right now.
A scream came echoing through the tunnel up to her ears.
Her eyes darted here and there, against the tiled walls, over the cracked wet ceiling, down at the wet soot covered highway.
Stop it. You’re going to freak yourself out here. It was nothing. Stop being silly.
And then a thought hit her making her stop cold in her tracks.
They might be following you. They might be tracking you, following your breadcrumb trail of headlights. Why are you leaving the lights on? You know they can see you. They’re hiding in the shadows, following you. You’re like a bright light. Your undies are like white flags, and they’re just waiting for the right moment to pounce on you and take advantage of you because you’re an injured woman all alone in a tunnel.
“Shut up,” she whispered. “That’s not true. It’s not even true. No one’s in here with me.”
Still, the thought of someone pacing her through the dark brought shivers to her spine. Someone with a sharp cleaver or knife, someone finding other people who might have survived and were hiding in their cars because they were afraid to get out in the darkness. Someone finding them and slicing their throats, making them scream, begging for mercy.
“God. Stop!”
Or maybe it isn’t people screaming, darling. Maybe it’s the mole people…the hairy mudded deep earth creatures coming out with their razor yellow sharp teeth and their squealing voices, coming out because now this tunnel is empty. Empty and quiet after the years of nonstop rushing of cars over the dirty tarmac. Now they can crawl out of the deep underneath and feast on the panicking survivors.
She closed her eyes, listening to her breath, feeling the thudding of her heart as it kept time with the pinching ache in her foot.
“I’m freaking myself out here and it’s not even dark,” she said to herself.
You’re gonna feel the rats against your bare legs in a minute. Their tiny teeth are going to chew your skin.
She opened the door of the car next to her, got in and shut off the headlights. She hunched way down in the front seat.
They’re going to find you sitting here in the last car with its headlights on. You’re setting yourself up to be found! They will find you easily here! They will get you!
With tears running down her cheeks, she opened the door, got out and started to walk slowly ahead into the darkness, feeling, using the cold metallic sides of cars for support.
“The lights stop ahead,” Scott whispered.
“What should we do?”
“Keep going.”
“We going to turn the lights on?”
“No.”
“But it’s gonna be so dark.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be scared.
“So will I.”
“Can’t we just go back?”
“No.”
“Do you really think Carmen got this far?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why can’t we turn the lights on?”
“Because whoever was turning them on stopped.”
“Why would they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it’s a trap?”
“It might be.”
“Do you think they’re watching us right now?”
“They might be.”
“Oh God. What do we do?”
“Just keep going.”
“Jesus Scott, I’m fucking scared.”
“Me too. Me too.”
She was sitting in the back of a utility van. It was almost completely dark where she was except for a little bit of light which was visible from the last car with its headlights on a quarter of a mile away.
Carmen was shaking.
Far away, the dim headlights blipped off and back on again twice.
What caused that?
Someone crossed in front of the headlights. Two people. Two murderers.
Oh God.
Please.
“It’s so dark, Scott. I can’t see anything.”
“Just follow right with me. I can barely make out stuff.”
“Ok.”
Slowly, the dead started to enter the dark tunnel after falling from the bridge above. On one side of the group, two of the dead leaned forward and began to walk faster. Immediately behind them, the rest of the group leaned forward and began to walk faster into the darkening tunnel.
Carmen watched two people approaching from the direction of the last car with its headlights on. One was a man. He was taller than the person behind him who was a woman. The woman had a shirt on with a white collar. The collar stood out in the dark.
Kim had a shirt on with white trim, Carmen thought. A tank-top, right? Wasn’t she wearing a tank-top?
Is it Kim? And Scott?
Where’s Janet…and that asshole, Nick?
She sighed, shook her head and swallowed. “Guess we’ll see.”
She popped open the back of the van.
Immediately, light flooded the tunnel.
Scott spun around, blocking Kim behind him.
Someone was getting out of a van. A young girl.
Carmen!
“Carmen!” Scott yelled, overjoyed to see her.
“Hey!” Carmen sighed. “It’s you guys!”
Kim smiled. “Hey!”
“So glad to see you’re safe,” Scott said with a sigh.
“I’m glad to see you guys, too. I was freaking out bad.”
Kim reached into a car next to them and turned on the headlights. The tunnel got brighter.
They all hugged, relieved.
Carmen asked, “Where’s the other guys?”
“Nick and Janet took off on their own.”
“Well good about Nick, I guess.”
“Yeah, sorry about Nick,” Scott said. “He lied to us. He said you got spit on.”
Carmen said “I don’t think he liked me for some reason.”
“I don’t know why,” Kim said.
“Maybe he thought I knew more than I was telling or something
– but I have no idea what’s goin on at all.”
“Listen, I’m just glad you’re safe,” Scott said. “I’m glad you didn’t get crushed.”
Kim asked, “What caused the bridge to fall?”
“The dead people,” Carmen said. “I saw them pushing on the bridge when part of it went down. They were all pushing on it so it would fall down.”
“The force needed to cause a bridge to collapse is pretty fucking massive,” Scott said. “And for a human being to do that…I don’t see how it could be done. Imagine all of the broken bones…”
“They’re not human beings, Scott,” Carmen said. They’re something else.”
“Let’s get out of here,” he said with a shuddery sigh. “This place gives me the creeps.”
Scott helped Carmen. He let her lean on him, keeping the weight off her broken foot. Kim led them through the rest of the tunnel stopping occasionally to turn on a stalled car’s headlights.
Near the center of the tunnel, Scott said “Oh shit!”
“What’s the matter?” Carmen asked as she shuffled along on one good foot beside him.
“The tunnel’s blocked. Don’t you guys see it?”
In the darkness, deep shadows made it difficult to see anything other than the vehicles right near them. They slowly walked past trucks or buses, holding the sides, feeling the cool metal on their fingertips.
With each step, anxiety grew. Were dead people in the tunnel, too, waiting around the front of the next taller vehicle, hiding, steady, preparing to vault vomit on them?
Vehicles were bunched together. It was literally bumper to bumper.
Then they came up to the wrecked cars. Bad rear-end collisions. Dead bodies were still in these cars. Families. Some of the vehicles had skidded sideways before crashing or even flipping onto their sides. Others cars had crashed into them. It was a clutter of ruined vehicles.
“Great, now what are we gonna do?” Carmen asked as Scott sat her down on the hood of a car.
“We’re gonna have to climb over this mess,” Kim said. She opened a door of an undamaged car and popped on its headlights.
Scott said, “Well, let’s see what we can see. Kim let’s turn on all of the headlights we can around here. Hopefully we’ll be able to crawl through somewhere.”
Carmen asked, “Are there people still in the cars?”
“Some are,” Scott said. “They’re dead though. They’re not the freaky dead, thank goodness.” He opened another car door nearby and flipped on the headlights.
“Jesus,” Kim muttered, climbing over a wrecked car. “I wish headlight switches were all in the same place. Some of these are so hard to find.”
In a few minutes, the crash scene was lit up. This was the cause of the traffic jam in the tunnel.
Carmen said, “I wonder if this is as far as the infection went. Do you think any of the freaks made it past here?”
“Hard to say,” Scott said. We haven’t seen any of them since we came in here; so they must have.”
Carmen asked, “Ok so where are they?”
“I have no idea. They must have left the tunnel long before we came in here. Maybe last night when we were in the truck. They could have been the ones who brought the bridge down.”
“What about on the other side of this mess? What about the people in those cars? Where did they go?”
“Hopefully they didn’t make it through to the clear side,” Kim said climbing back over and leaning back against Scott’s chest. He laid a hand on her hip.
“Well, let’s see if we can get through. Kim, you’ve got lead.”
“Gee, thanks,” she said, slugging him softly on the arm.
“Hey, I gotta take care of Carmen,” he said with a smile. “Come on, girlfriend, let’s go. How’s the foot?”
“Screaming bloody fucking murder,” she said.
“Damn, I wish we had some pain medication,” Kim said as she started to make her way through the jumbled maze of crashed vehicles.
Reaching up for Scott’s shoulder, Carmen turned her head. Looking back where they had come from, her mind kept playing tricks on her even though she had these other people as company. She still thought she was hearing screams every now and then. They were barely audible, like the sound of kids playing in the street far away. But these weren’t playful screams. They sounded like the screams of someone being tortured.
Back the way they came shadows were moving in and out of the headlights.
“Hold on,” she said. “Scott, do you see that?”
He set her down. “What? Where?”
“Back where we came from.”
Squinting, he leaned forward, trying to understand what he was seeing.
“Oh my fucking God,” he whispered. “Oh shit. Run you guys, fucking run now!”
The dead were running full speed at them.
“Alright. Yes, I left her there! Yes she was alive and no she didn’t get hit by spit. I just…wanted us to be safe, you know, and she had a broken foot, so –“
“So, you left her there for the dead. You’re a sick bastard.”
“You wanted me to drive by her when we first saw her.”
“I did not.”
“Yes you did. You said better her than us.”
“I never said such a thing.”
Ok whatever. I’m not gonna argue about it anymore. It’s done.”
“It’s not done!”
"God damnit, I'm sorry, alright. Damn, what do you want me to do? How many fucking times do I need to say I'm sorry?"
"To me? Not anymore. But to her, yes. You need to apologize to her. She didn’t do a god damn thing to you, Nick."
They were quickly speeding along the frontage road.
“You want me to turn around and go back to apologize to her? What are you, nuts? I’m not going back into that shit.”
“Fine then. Let me out. I don’t want to be near you anymore.”
He slammed on the brakes leaving long tire treads on the pavement. “Get out then.”
“What? I was just kidding! I don’t want to get out. Come on, let’s keep going.”
He stared at her. He didn’t keep driving.
“Please. I don’t want to be out there alone!”
Cruelly he said, “Better you than me.”
“Oh Nick,” she cried. “I won’t make it alone out there.”
He shoved the car into park. He unlocked the doors. “You can go.”
“Nick, I…”
He yelled, “Get the fuck out!”
Crying, she fumbled with the door. Her hands were shaking.
“My fucking God,” he yelled. He slammed out his door, ran around to her side, yanked her door open and pulled her out of the car. She stumbled, falling down in the street skinning her hands.
She was crying. “Nick, please.”
He went back to his side, opened the back door, reached in and pulled a wrinkled t-shirt off the back seat. Putting it on, he slammed the door and got in the front seat. He put the car in drive. Spinning the tires, he drove away.
Janet laid on the road, crying.
Two blocks down the road, Nick muttered, “Fuck her.”
He slammed on the brakes. The car spun around to face the other way.
Janet was crouched down in the road as he approached. She was crying, trying to stand up.
She turned when she heard his car coming back. Maybe he was going to let her back in. He knew how frail she was. She’d never make it out here alone.
He ran her over.
Her body thumped under the car’s wheels.
“You’re weak,” he said. “You won’t make it.”
At the Rent-A-Center, the dead all turned to face him as his car approached.
He drove around the back of the store. Inside the parking garage, more of the dead stood motionless.
“Where the fuck did they go?”
He drove back around to the front of the store. Dead people were crushed under his wheels like cheap plywood.
They had no weight, no resistance as he slammed through them.
Weak like Janet, he thought. I need to be with the strong. People like Scott. And Kim. But not that Carmen bitch.
Scott’s car was parked near a barrier next to the highway. Nick jumped out of his car. As he looked over the edge; to the left he saw the destroyed bridge and crashed Rent-A-Center trucks. “Jesus,” he muttered. “What the hell happened here?”
Behind him, vomit splashed on the ground. Turning, a group of the dead closed in on him. A large glob of spit flew past his head.
With no time, Nick gripped the top of the barrier and slung himself over. He hung there for a few seconds, wondering why the hell he did that when he could have easily run back to his car. With nowhere else to go but down, he let go. Luckily he didn’t break an ankle. Brushing the hair out of his eyes, he quickly ran into the center of the crowded highway.
Realizing it would be hopeless to get past the demolished bridge, he turned toward the dark entrance of the tunnel.
Did they go in there? Where’s Scott?
Globs of spit started to hammer the ground around him. He needed to find protection fast.
Subconsciously covering his head with his arms, he ran away from the rain of spit. He ran into the open darkness of the tunnel.
“These cars have headlights on,” he said to himself as he ran through. “They must have used headlights to see where they were going. Good idea, Scott.”
“Get up here,” Scott said, straining to pull Carmen up onto the roof of a smashed car. Kim was already far ahead using her penlight as she climbed over the tangle of wrecked vehicles at the exit of the tunnel. Daylight was bleeding in. A few more cars to climb over, a bus to skirt around, and they’d be out of the tunnel.
“I’m trying,” Carmen gasped. “My arms hurt so bad! God.”
“Just deal with it a little more,” Scott said out of breath. “We’re almost out of the range of their spit.”
The dead were shoving themselves into the tangle of crashed cars, trying to push through the metal, much like they had pushed on the concrete to destroy the bridge.
“Hurry up you two,” Kim shouted. “I can see daylight. We’re almost out.”
Scott pulled Carmen up onto the hood of another car. “They can’t reach us now.”
