Resistant, no. 1

by Ryan T. Petty

  Before I took my first step, I noticed the car’s side mirror and impulsively checked my reflection. Leaning down, I peered at myself. My soft blue eyes and round face surprised me, even though they lay hidden behind so much dirt and grime. Even with my dirty-blonde hair twisted in a snarled ponytail, I still felt my face was hidden, as if I really wasn’t looking at myself. Nobody could feel as bad as I did and still look normal.

  The first few days on the road were probably the toughest. I had decided not to try to drive a car even though it would have gotten me down the road faster. But, even that wasn’t actually true. Cars were turned in so many ways I would have spent as much time trying to find a path as actually driving, and a moving car on the road with no others was certainly an indication of my presence as well, so if a helicopter had seen it, I would’ve been captured for sure.

  Being on foot was best for my safety and my freedom. Helicopters passed overhead periodically, but the rumbling of their blades were loud enough for me to hear from far enough away to hide before they spotted me. Capture was only part of my fear. The harsh reality was that I was alone and surrounded by rotting corpses. Every breath reminded me of it. I could taste it in my mouth and smell it in my nose, like the putrid stench was now a part of the oxygen I was forced to live on. Every step away from a car carrying human remains was simply a step toward another. I seemed like the only person in the world that was still alive, besides those hunting me.

  The cars may have been tombs for all of these victims, but they quickly turned into not only my home, but also my way of life. People had left in a hurry to wherever they were going. Suitcases and backpacks were left behind, and I quickly found clothes that fit me well enough. Jeans and a shirt here, undergarments there. It was on my third day walking down the road on my bloody, bare feet when I finally found a pair of socks and tennis shoes in the backseat of a compact car. The putrid mound of what was left of its owner lie on the ground not too far away. Things I thought would help me, like a flashlight and gloves for example, I stuffed into my newly acquired backpack and continued down the road.

  Food was also left behind, but not in large quantities. Even though it was old, stale, or out of date, I ate what I could, it being the first real food I’d had in days. Staying alive was my first priority and part of that was eating and drinking. Water was still my most important consideration. I had been lucky in the woods with the rain, creek, and river, but on the road it was coolers left behind full of bottled water. When I came across a bridge or low area, I would always investigate, hoping there was something drinkable. There were a few ponds along the way, but my best luck came when on my second day on the road it rained and I was able to collect the water in cups and pour it into bottles.

  On the fourth day, I had found a gun in the lap of one of the skeletons; the back of his car was sprayed with dried blood. Suicide must have seemed to be a better way out than what was happening all around him, and from where I stood, I couldn’t blame him. I placed the pistol in a side pocket of my pack. Finding another one, smaller and lighter, I carried it in my waistband. Weapons seemed to be plentiful and I was able to leave many behind, but always checking to see if their clips would fit mine. However, the thought of all the arms only disturbed me more. People had to be using them for protection, but from whom? Or what? And what didn’t save the rest that had been left behind?

  I couldn’t come up with sufficient answers to my questions, though, and eventually started carrying not only the guns, but a knife on each side of my waist as well, a small stiletto and a long dagger. My only hope was I wouldn’t have to use any of them since I didn’t think I knew how to shoot or stab, nor did I want to. Late in the sixth day, I finally saw a sign on the road.

  “Welcome To Texas” the green sign said in big bold letters, but looking closer, I could see someone had painted a circle intertwined with a triangle. Inside the shape, a small crossbar hung in the middle.

  “Texas?” I questioned myself. I looked back along the road from the direction in which I had come, pondering the questions the land behind me had given and hoping Texas held the answers I desperately needed.

  Not too far ahead of me, a sign said Texarkana was only a few miles ahead. I stumbled forward, one hand up on the strap of my backpack, the other at my waist, a finger resting upon the butt of the revolver just in case I had to use it.

  Sadly enough, Texas was worse than Arkansas. It was probably because I was entering a city, but the cars on the road doubled in front of me, making me change my direction to get between them. The other side of the interstate had fewer cars, but I continued on the westbound side. I could only imagine the people who had traveled east made it to their destination. At least, I hoped so.

  I entered the outskirts of the city at nearly sundown and the first sets of buildings I saw were construction stores, but none of them looked like they had been open in years. Their facades had faded and grass stood tall in the cracks of the parking lots. Ahead of me, the overpasses had been destroyed at their highest points, their concrete thrown in large piles on the road underneath. Still, I continued through the debris and down the road, only stopping when the last shimmers of light faded in the orange sky.

  Grabbing the handle of a nearby van, I pulled it, but was surprised when I found the door locked. Very rarely were any of the cars on the road locked since they had been abandoned there. It wasn’t like I couldn’t have smashed the window to get in, but the thought of creating an opening to the darkness made me uneasy, more uneasy than sleeping next to a skeleton. I decided to move on and began walking, even though it went against my rules. At night, I wasn’t sure what might lie out there for me, so I always wanted to be hidden when darkness fell. But the next car was locked too, like whoever left these vehicles discarded were hoping to come back for them later.

  I couldn’t help but smile to myself, mostly out of disbelief. Taking a few steps toward the next one, I noticed the road sign was halfway pulled down, the white letters and arrows informing drivers that this was the first exit in Texas. Darkness had taken over and I could only make out the road where it split into the exit, which trailed off into nothing. I had the flashlight in my backpack, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to use it. Like the noise it would have made in breaking out the window, I’m sure a light that started moving around would also attract something I really didn’t care to meet. Still, the road had given me nothing but sights of death, and I knew the only chance to find someone was to get off the interstate.

  It may have been this reason or another, but my feet started taking me toward the exit, away from the safety of the cars, but also a chance to find what I had been looking for—answers. I had to try. I wasn’t about to travel across the state of Texas walking from one car to the next. There should be someone in Texarkana. There should be someone who could tell me what had happened.

  Large eighteen-wheeler trucks sat behind a tall, chain link fence as I made it to the service road, but I was only able to make out their grill and lights. When I saw the first entranceway, a chill ran up my spine and my fingers began to tingle. How would people greet me, if I were to find any, especially in the middle of the night? I knew I had to be careful, but I didn’t want a misunderstanding in the darkness to stop me from finding someone alive. Still, I pulled my extra gun out of my backpack and placed it in the back of my waistband, feeling the weight pull at my belt and jeans.

  I moved quickly across the large parking lot, stopping under an awning, where I squatted down next to an orange car. I chose to leave my pack there so it wouldn’t weigh me down in case I had to make some sort of run for it.

  The space between the awning and the building was short, a mere seventy-five feet or so. I had walked for miles over the last several days, and yet this span of concrete felt like it was longer than my journey so far. There could have been someone there, or no one, but I wasn’t going to find out until I took the first step.

  By the time I reached the front door, the pistol I carried in my front
waistband was held in my shaking hands. I knelt next to it and noticed the bottom pane of glass was broken, so I went through, trying not to make a sound, being careful not to cut myself on the shards of glass that lay at my feet.

  This end of the building was the convenience store section, but it was anything but a marketplace. The shelves had been emptied a long time ago, only leaving behind trash. There was a putrid smell, not like the bodies I had come across on the road, but the smell of moldy or rancid food. It had to be coming from the restaurant that was connected at the other end of the building. I was still crouching, pressing my body against the walls as I cautiously moved down a hallway where signs on the wall read “Restrooms” and “Showers” with arrows pointing to their locations. I also saw another circle intertwined with a triangle, the same symbol I had seen when entering the state.

  When something clattered ahead of me, I was startled, but continued forward, my heart leaping into my throat. My adrenaline spiked as my eyes were focused through the darkness to the opening ahead of me. Noticing a small amount of light, I peeked through.

  “Got to be clean. It’s got to be clean. We’ll be opening soon so the place has to be spotless.”

  It was a female voice, soft, and confused. The words ran through her mouth again without a change in pitch, like she was a broken record and had repeated the words for days, or longer.

  I wasn’t sure how she would react to someone walking into the same room as her and didn’t know how far I would go to actually defend myself. But she was a person, alive, and not wearing a white, plastic suit trying to capture me. Still, from my side of the wall, she sounded crazy. There was only one way to find out how much.

  I pushed myself up and took a few steps into the room. The little light I had seen was coming from candles that were placed on the tables; not enough to see well, but enough where I could see the woman’s face. She was plain and her eyes stared out into the empty room with a glazed look. Her mouth was nothing more than a small incision in her face, but it continued to move, never missing a word she mumbled over and over again.

  “Are you okay?” I slowly questioned, my gun in hand, but behind me, cocked and ready to fire. Her head turned to me slowly and finally took me into view, her eyes meeting mine.

  “Are you wanting to know today’s special?”

  “Uh,” my eyes bounced around the empty restaurant, “yes?”

  “We have chicken fried steak with peas and carrots, a dinner roll, and iced tea,” she said in the calmest voice. It was a moment before I could answer.

  “What happened?”

  “Would you like to take a seat?”

  “What happened here?”

  “Would you like to take a seat?”

  My hand clenched around the butt of the gun behind me when she screamed, but I didn’t bring it forward.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  I moved slowly to a nearby table and sat where I was facing her. Her movements were slow as well, her face blank, but her eyes were large and encompassing, but still stared into nothingness. She went into the back and for the first time since I had entered the room, I took a full breath, relaxing my weapon on my leg, but not taking my grip off of it.

  It only took a few moments for her to return carrying out a plate and a glass. I gave a slight smile as she approached, but her face was unchanged. She sat the plate in front of me and stepped back.

  “Enjoy,” she said with no emotion.

  I looked down at the plate and gagged slightly when I saw the filleted rat that was spread out before me. A shiver ran though my body, thinking this woman was probably living off of rodents and whatever else wandered into her restaurant. Then I was startled to think I had done just that and looked back into her cold, lost eyes.

  “Enjoy,” she repeated.

  “Wh...where is everyone else?” I finally mustered.

  “Enjoy.”

  I stood up, but slowly, holding my gun at my side, trying not to startle her, but her eyes centered directly on me and her face grimaced as if she was angered I hadn’t eaten the rat.

  The next few seconds were over before I knew what happened. The woman ran at me, screaming, with her hands out like claws. I brought the weapon up well before she reached me and, even in the darkness, she quickly noticed what it was and fell to the floor.

  “Got to be clean. It’s got to be clean. We’ll be opening soon so the place has to be spotless.”

  She rolled up into a ball practically at my feet as I continued to point the gun at her, but slowly I dropped my hand. Her mind was gone. From what, I don’t know, but there was no reaching her.

  Taking a step away, I moved back across the restaurant, back to the door I had entered. I couldn’t stay here, not with her and her lunacy. The odd thing was that I felt more alone here than I did with the dead outside on the interstate. I was heading down the hall when I heard her again.

  “Would you like to know today’s special?”

  Chapter Three

  I was able to find a comfortable car that night and slept in the front passenger side seat curled up in a ball. The crazy woman bothered me more than I thought. After I left the truck stop, I broke my own rule and walked through the darkness to put enough room between us. It wasn’t that I was scared of her following me, but just the thought of her being there, in such a situation, was something I didn’t want to partake in. She was the only thing living I had seen in days, but now I was more comfortable surrounded by the dead.

  Luckily, there had not been anyone in the car I found unlocked. It was one of the best night’s sleep I had had since my escape. I even caught myself smiling a little as the early morning rays of light shone through the windshield. Stretching my body to wake up, I pulled the lever on the side of the bucket seat and slowly sat up, my eyes catching a glare of sunlight reflecting from the side mirror.

  I looked away from it quickly, but the sunlight left a few white spots in my eyes, which quickly faded. When I looked out of the front glass, I saw something moving slowly between the cars ahead of me. It was tall enough to see above the cars, but far enough ahead to make it difficult to discern. I thought it might have been an animal, maybe a horse, cow, or deer. There had been many on the road, moving around amongst the cars and the dead without a care in the world. But when it stopped and turned, I could clearly make out an orange baseball cap.

  “That’s not a cow,” I whispered to myself, but clenching my pistol at the thought of another person, remembering the woman from the night before. Still, I wanted to find someone who could tell me what had happened or take me to where other, normal people might be living. With a sigh, I opened my door and stepped out on the pavement, keeping low as I moved forward stealthily, staying behind each car as I crept toward the person. Besides the cap, I could see the person wore a camouflaged jacket with orange patches on his arms. He could have been a hunter searching for his next kill, and with his back to me, I couldn’t make out if he was carrying a gun. This time I didn’t want to take any chances. When I cleared the last car, I pointed my gun at the person as he crept forward.

  “Show me your hands, please!” I insisted, but in the kindest way possible. It seemed like the right words to use. I didn’t want to shoot him. I just wanted help.

  But when he turned, my spine ran cold. The man’s face was bloody and he gnawed at his own lips with his teeth, as spit and blood ran down from the corners of his mouth. His eyebrows hung heavy over his eyes, which were staggering and shaky, like they were trying to focus on me, but couldn’t. Finally, in a low voice, he snarled, and began taking steps toward me.

  “No! Back up! Please! Back up!” But he came at me faster than what I expected and before I knew it, I had pulled the trigger. The recoil was more than I thought it would be, forcing me backward. The blast cut through the air and seemed to reverberate off of every car. But he wasn’t down, only knocked back, the bullet hitting him in the shoulder. He screamed in anger and came at me again. I ran away, dodging through cars, tryi
ng to stay ahead of this monster pursuing me, but he gained ground, lunging when he got close, ripping my backpack from my shoulder.

  I turned and fired. The bullet caught him in the abdomen and I watched him collapse to the ground, screaming wildly in pain and agony. Even so, he crawled forward, trying to get to his feet, still on the attack.

  “Please, just stop!” I wanted to put an end to the noise and to the fear that I had until I knew he was dead. Planting my feet so I was as balanced as possible, I raised my gun with both hands, taking the best aim I could. The shot tore through him and knocked him back on the pavement. The horrible shrieks turned into muffled groans and then died away. I didn’t look at him, I couldn’t. There was something wrong with him, mentally, physically, all of which made him attack me.

  Like with the woman the night before, I felt utterly alone. I still had no recollection of my life before escaping into the woods, but I could only think it was better than this. What had happened to society?

  There was no life in the man when I finally approached. I grabbed the backpack, throwing it over my shoulder, hoping to start forward, away from the death I had just caused, but as I did, I noticed another person standing a few cars in front of me. Her face was much like the man’s, and she growled at me, making an appalling noise. It wasn’t just her though, as another man, older, more heavyset, was only a few cars away. Whether it was the gunshots or the man’s shrieks, something had attracted these monsters to me.

  I backed up slowly, like I would have had it been an angry dog in front of me. When the woman started forward, I turned and ran, not noticing another man was on the opposite side of the car. He scraped his hands across the top of the vehicle, scratching and clawing his way over the hood, barely missing me with his grip.