We drove by the U-Haul slowly, noting the back hitch was open already so it wasn’t locked shut which was good. I rethought my plan as we were driving by.
“Leaving the car at the ten-mile mark is probably not a great idea if we have to get out of here really quick.”
“Agreed.” Chrissie jumped in. “Reeves and Ginny probably won’t be too worried if we are not exactly at the ten-mile mark based on who was driving us.”
“Is everybody done making fun of my math abilities so we can go see what kind of goodies are in the back of that U-Haul?” I had stopped the car in the breakdown lane close to where the U-Haul was laid out down in the ditch. I stared around at everyone. Ann started to say something, laughed to herself and muttered something that sounded like, “Too easy.”
Whatever. I killed the engine, leaving the car in the road where it was plainly visible if Reeves happened by sooner than anticipate. Ann and crew climbed out the driver’s side door on the back of the car and we all started walking down the gentle incline towards the overturned truck. We got down to the bottom of it and I reached down and started pulling the door open. It was stuck and took some brute force to get open, which I was happy to apply since it gave me something to work my frustrations out on.
I got the door halfway open and then it would not budge another inch. I went to the bottom of the truck where Ann was already poking around while Chrissie and Thomas looked on curiously.
“Thomas, can you walk back up to the road and maybe lean against the car a little bit and just pull watch for us while we are poking around in this car?” I watched Thomas as he took one last curious look in to the back of the U-Haul and headed up the hill, cast swinging around on one arm and a .22 revolver dangling out of his other hand. Turning back around I glanced into the back of the truck and saw what looked like human legs sticking out everywhere.
Ann looked up at me, “Help me pull these out of here. Not really sure how useful mannequins dressed in lingerie are going to be for us.”
“Huh? What the hell kind of person has a truck filled with mannequins wearing sexy underwear?” I asked.
“It’s not filled with them, there are some boxes and junk behind them, looks like they were just put into the back of the truck to keep them from getting messed up.” Ann kept pulling out mannequins and mannequin parts with various lingerie attached to them.
Once we had pulled all the mannequin parts out and I had made the obligatory requests for it to be modeled for me and received the equally obligatory kick aimed at my crotch we started pulling out boxes. Three of the boxes were full of random crap; books, lamps, playing cards, vases, dishes, etc. I crawled in and pulled out another box which was stuffed full of comforters and bedding. That should make the night a little bit better at least.
After looting the back of the truck, we ended up with a couple of nice comforters, some pillows, a few decks of playing cards with Marilyn Monroe on them, and three large pink robes. The robes were nice and the comforters were a good catch. Otherwise, it had been a waste of a lot of energy and time for a small amount of junk. Gathering the items into a box we carried them back up to the car. I had considered using the U-Haul to sleep in but its proximity to the road and the fact that we’d only have one way out of it kind of precluded it as an ideal situation.
We decided to go with moving the car back to be right on the ten-mile mark and camping out in the woods next to the car. We all crammed back into the car with our box of bedding and drove the quick distance back to the legitimate ten-mile mark. We put a note in the wiper blade detailing where we would be in case we didn’t see Reeves when he got back then we carried our stuff into the woods and started setting up. We knew there would be some Zombies wandering by who would have followed us down the road and would still be coming this way so we wanted to be far enough off the road to avoid them. However, we wanted to be close enough to station a sentry to watch the road without having to worry overly much the Sentry would get snagged or in trouble without us knowing.
We ended up sending Chrissie up a tree where she could see the road from and giving her a robe to sit on and another one to wrap around the tree to lean on. The tree we chose was back far enough from the road where she should not be noticed by anyone casually looking over. Once she was up there we promised to send someone to review her in a couple of hours and we all went another forty yards into the woods and setup a camp at the base of some other trees. The ground was marshy in some places but we were able to find a fairly dry spot to setup camp. Also, by ‘setting up camp’ I mean putting all of our crap on the ground and sitting on comforters.
We turned the box upside down and used it as a table to play cards on, as it started getting darker we tried to keep playing using my phone as a flashlight but that didn’t work really well so we gave up. Every fifteen minutes there was a quick hit of static to our Walkies as Chrissie hit our ‘all’s well’ signal. We sat around in silence for a little while.
“Do you think Ginny is OK?” Thomas asked.
I honestly didn’t have an answer for that. I looked over towards Ann, she was looking at Thomas with pity in her yes. “She’s going to be fine. Reeves is going to contact us any second now and tell us they’re Ok and they are on their way here.”
Our radios went off and I wondered if it was a bit early, Chrissie must be getting sore from sitting in the tree. I was not looking forward to taking my turn.
“Get up! This is Reeves, I got Ginny with me, we’re driving on fumes and there’s like a million Zombies behind us. Do you read me?”
I grabbed my radio. “We read you. We’re parked at the ten-mile mark from where we dropped you off at. We’ll be in the car waiting. Can you make it, over?”
“Are you sure you counted the miles, out right?”
Unbelievable.
“Don’t worry, we helped him make sure it was right. Just keep driving. How’s Ginny?” Ann asked over her Walkie.
“She’s fine, she fell out of a tree and broke her Walkie, and her wrist, but she made it to the overpass. She was wedged up way underneath it but she saw us flash the lights so she was coming towards us already when I got there. She’s in the back seat now taking shots at any of the Zombies who get too close. Left handed shots so she’s mostly just wasting my bullets.”
I pushed talk on the Walkie, “Why are you shooting at them? Just drive away from them and get up here where we are.”
“You’ll see. Just be ready when we get there. May take a little while but make sure you’re ready.”
Reeves reply was confusing. They were in a car, right? About ten minutes later we started hearing random gun shots off in the distance and then we heard a high-pitched squealing noise. We saw occasional little flares coming from down the road where Reeves and Ginny were coming from.
We also heard a roar like the sound you would imagine people hear before a tsunami hits the beach they are on. A dull roar building slowly in ferocity. It was a chorus from hell, the screams of the damned, frustrated, cold and inhuman the individual Zombie screeches crashed together on the sands of our souls. Riding the crest of that wave was Reeves.
His ride was a sweet looking mustang, except all the tread was missing from all the tires and he was pushing forward on just the rims. Sparks were shooting up all around him from the rims striking the ground. He was sliding all over the road, individual Zombies would sprint ahead of the horde and try to catch the car at which point Ginny would shoot them from point blank range.
“Everybody get in the car.” I ordered the group standing around me with mouths hanging open. Eyes widening in terror, both for themselves and for their friends coasting in that death trap of a car within spitting distance of the mouth of the demons. They rushed to get in the car. I hit the talk button to prep everybody as I started walking briskly towards the Elantra. “Reeves, don’t answer, as soon as you are next to our car bail from yours and get in ours. Go in the rear driver side door. We’ll have it open for you. Tell Ginny to stop shooting and get
ready to switch vehicles.”
I sat in the driver’s seat of the Elantra, “Ann, you and Thomas cram into the front seat so Reeves and Ginny will have plenty of room to dive into the back.” I started the car and we waited. The noise built to the point where we could not hear each other speak. I stared at the talk button on the Walkie to see if Reeves may be trying to tell us something. I watched as Reeves got closer and closer.
“Chrissie, make sure the door is open back there. They’re going to be coming in hot. Don’t worry about shutting it since it’s broke anyway. We’re just going to haul ass as soon as I think they may not roll out. Try grabbing them both to keep them in the car.”
Reeves tried to brake and the Mustang went flying past us. I accelerated to catch up to him as the Zombie sprinters started banging on the Elantra and getting between us and the car Reeves and Ginny were in.
“This thing ain’t stopping!” Reeves voice came out of our radios.
I looked over at Ann and signaled her to pull out her Walkie. “Tell him to just keep going and see if he can speed up. We need to put some distance between us and the Zombies then I have an idea.”
I sped up as Ann gave me a suspicious look and said into the Walkie, “Reeves, Steve has an idea, can you speed up so we can get past this group of Zombies? Also, give Ginny your Walkie and let her talk so you can focus on driving”
“Hey Ann!” Ginny was waving from the other car; we could just make her out through the window of the mustang as sparks showered all around them and Zombies tried throwing themselves on the car. “Reeves wants to know what the plan is. We’re both a little curious since the faster we go the faster we’re going to wrap ourselves around a phone pole or something. Also, just a little FYI, the little low fuel light has been on since we got in this car.”
Ann looked over at me with one eyebrow raised. “What’s the plan then?”
I almost pulled out a Shaun of the Dead quote to answer that but considering the gravity of the situation I went with saying my plan instead. “We’re going to drive fast to get rid of the Zombies in between the cars. They can’t stop because they have no tire for the brake pads to rub against so all they can do is drift to a top while being eaten by Zombies unless we get them out at full speed. So, we roll down our windows and they just hop right in.”
I might as well have whipped out the Shaun of the Dead quote. I was met with incredulous stares and the looks normally reserved for kids who are ‘special’.
“Hop right in?” Chrissie asked. “That’s the plan?”
“Anyone who has anything better let me know. I don’t think we have a lot of time.”
The radio went off; it was Ginny letting us know they had run out of gas and were now in drift mode. Ann went ahead and told her the plan.
Ginny came back on the radio, “Really? We’re just going to hop right in? From this wildly skidding car with the sparks shooting out of it that we can barely control? Alright, cool, I’ll roll the windows down. Probably better than skidding to a stop and waiting for them to break through the windows and eat us alive.”
That was a pretty accurate summary and made sense to me. I saw the passenger window roll down and I moved towards the Mustang as it slid around on the road. We only had a few minutes before the Zombies were going to catch back up with us so this needed to work fast. I decided just to go for it and started driving straight towards them, sparks flew up and rained down on our windshield. I pulled forward and Ginny came through the window and held her arms out. Chrissie reached out and grabbed Ginny’s arms and yelled to jump then she leaned back and pulled as hard as she could while Ginny wormed her way out the Mustangs window and in through the Elantra window.
She was screaming her head off, probably because of the broken wrist, but she spun right around to help Reeves. The flaw in my plan made itself pretty apparent at that point. How the hell was Reeves going to get out and get over to us? The howling behind us was getting louder and some of the faster members of the horde were getting a lot closer.
I yelled over the horde to be heard, “Ann, tell Reeves to crash into the median on the right side of the road and then get out and come through the passenger side door as fast as he can. I’m going to stop right beside wherever he crashes himself. Let’s do it!”
Ann hit the Walkie and told Reeves what to do. We heard Ann’s voice coming from the backseat. Ginny had Reeves Walkie. I went with wildly waving at Reeves and mimed crashing with my hands while he stared at me like I had grown a horn out of the middle of my forehead. Then he seemed to possibly get it. He yanked on his steering wheel and the mustang kept going straight. He gave me a now what look.
I leaned out my window and yelled, “Jump Out! Jump Out! Jump Out!”
Then I slammed on my brakes. Everyone in the car jerked forward. The only thing louder than the continuous wave of noise coming from behind us was Ginny’s yelling as she braced herself with her broken wrist. I chose to ignore the age inappropriate, decidedly not lady-like language, she was using given the circumstances.
Reeves must have heard me because he opened the door and jumped. The car kept right on rolling and Reeves did a couple flips then slid along the concrete for about ten feet before coming to a stop. I drove up beside him and yelled for Ann to get him in the car. She opened her door and I opened mine at the same time. Ann jumped out and grabbed Reeves and started shoving him in the passenger seat. He was trying to help get himself in but was obviously out of it from his recent aerobatics display on the concrete.
I pulled out my Nine Millimeter and blew through the clip picking off the Zombies that were running ahead of the pack. As soon as the hammer clicked down on an empty chamber I jumped back in the car. I glanced over and saw Ann and Reeves were both about halfway in the car. Ann was screaming at me to drive! I floored it as I saw felt Zombies slam into the back of the car and saw one reaching for Ann. Chrissie and Thomas were both leaning from the back seat and were grabbing whatever parts of Reeves and Ann they could reach to keep them from flying out of the open door.
I swerved past the Mustang that was still rolling and looked behind us to see if we were getting a little safer. I saw that we were not safe yet so I sped up to about forty miles per hour. I kept that speed going for a few minutes then slowed down to a jogging speed so Ann and Reeves could get in a little bit better.
I looked over and saw that Chrissie had grabbed Ann by the thong to keep her from falling out and pulled it into the back seat giving her a huge wedgie. I smiled over at her, “Saved by your thong!”
She looked back at me, “I wasn’t wearing a thong!”
Ouch!
With us all jammed into the tiny beat up car I went ahead and floored it to put some distance between us and the nightmare in our wake. I slowed down to a safe speed once I could barely make out the screams anymore and we cruised into the darkness.
Entry 9: Baby blue
“How is everyone doing?” I asked, expecting to get some pretty off-color answers based on the general state of hurt everyone was in.
Ginny decided to answer for everybody, “Well, Thomas still has a broken arm, it’s evidently contagious as my wrist is now pounding like crazy. I need a sling or a cast or something. Chrissie is fine, you’re still annoying but otherwise seem to be in fairly good health. Reeves is unconscious and bleeding all over Ann who is suffering from one of the worse wedgies ever. We’re driving around in a car that’s about to die, we have barely any gas, and we’re down to our last pack of wet wipes. So about normal for us really. I missed you guys!”
Ann, looked up from trying to figure out if Reeves was still alive or not. “We’re almost out of wet wipes?”
Ginny nodded. “Yes ma’am.”
Ann looked over at me, “We need a bunch of stuff, I’m Ok with sleeping in trees on moving blankets and being super miserable most of the time. I am not Ok with us running out of wet wipes though. Ginny needs a cast and a splint and we need supplies, plus a new car would be nice. How about we hit the ne
xt exit?”
“I’m not even sure we’ll be making the next exit. This gas light is on pretty bright, plus this car is pretty beat down. It could pretty much give up anytime now and we’d be stuck walking.” I was thinking the next exit was SR 44 and I was pretty sure if we got off on it there was basically nothing around it but one little mini-mart gas station place. If we could make it there we might be able to find a new car or gas or at least a box or two of the ever vital and required wet wipes.
We kept cruising. The back-driver’s side door kept banging since it wouldn’t actually shut. We were pretty much driving through the middle of nowhere so I really hoped we’d be able to find some gas at the exit. Walking sucks. Walking in Florida through the middle of the swampy parts sucks donkey butt. I did not want to go through that kind of misery again. I also didn’t want to have to listen to Ann bitch about having to walk in the heat through a swamp again.
It was critical for us to keep moving. There was still that large number of Zombies we’d left behind who would be coming up the road behind us. We couldn’t afford to get too slowed down or they’d be on top of us before we knew it. We’d be carrying Reeves if we had to stop so we wouldn’t be making great time regardless. Ideally, we’d find another vehicle at the exit or somewhere along the road that we could transfer over to. Then we could just keep going for a while. I was thinking we needed to get off of I-4 before we got too close to the large cities and try to skirt around by staying on the turnpikes and toll roads that didn’t necessarily have a lot of people living along them. The current plan I had in my head stemmed from road trips North where I’d basically taken a bunch of toll roads and the turnpike to I-75 on the Gulf side of Florida and gone up through there. It was pretty much a wasteland of nothingness. Exactly what we I would like to drive through now.
Zournal (Book 2): Cruising The 'Poc Page 8
