by Sweet, W. G.
“What?” Joel asked.
“What?” Scott asked him.
“Bugs that can kill you? And, what kinds of snakes.”
Scott laughed. “Snake of all kinds. Too many to list. That is semi tropical. Probably will be tropical eventually, maybe even is now. All the animals that call it home were controlled because of the people population. We already noticed most animals made it and the people didn't, so those snakes are not afraid of much of anything anymore. Scorpions, bot flies, kissing bug, fire ants, a lot more. Most can't kill you but they might make you wish you were dead. Now the snakes can kill you, and it's not like you can run to the hospital.”
“Jesus,” Haley said. “Thanks, Scott. Thanks a lot.”
“Hey. I didn't make these bugs, I just thought you should be aware. Look, it's not a big deal, just something you have to be careful of. Like... Like, say, freezing to death up north. My first winter up there I went out in January, 32 below zero with the wind chill. No hat, and my ears froze so goddamn fast I thought I would lose them.”
“Only takes about ten minutes to get frostbite when it's that cold,” Joel said.
“Yeah,” Haley agreed. “Lucky you didn't lose them, part of them.”
“Okay, so see? It's the same thing. Different area of the world. You just have to be aware of it is all. Learn.”
The cabin shook as something slammed into it from outside.
“What the fu...” Scott began.
“Douse that lantern... Lock that door,” Joel said as he lunged for his machine pistol where he had laid it down by a small, pine table.
The cabin plunged into darkness and they were all momentarily blind from the lantern light. A few seconds later their sight began to return.
“Get your guns in your hand now that you can see,” Joel whispered. “Jesus, don't shoot any of us... Watch the windows.”
There were two small windows that had been set into the cabin wall, one on each side. The one side, Joel remembered, faced the deep woods. The other faced the road. He motioned everyone toward the back of the cabin so they could look forward and see out of both windows.
“Shoot the window out we don't have a way to stop them,” John said.
“A man, or a bear, can easily break one of those windows if they want to,” Haley said quietly. “It's no protection at all.”
Something slammed into the wall directly behind them and Cathy screamed before she could stop herself. Something answered from outside at the back of the shack. A low growl that turned into a snarl that did not sound like any animal any of them had ever heard.
“Oh God,” Cathy said. Haley pulled her to her and buried her head into her breast. “Shh... Quiet, Cat, quiet.”
The silence came back heavy and then whatever the something was, it continued to bump its way around the side of the shack, seemingly headed toward the front. Silence and then the shape of a man appeared in the g;lass of one side window. A second later and the glass shattered; the figure began climbing into the room.
The gunfire was deafening inside the little shack. The man blew into pieces long before he made it through the window, and was tossed back out onto the grass. A second later another came to the window and snarled at them. All of them fired. Silence returned fast and hard. Cathy sobbed from Haley's breast where she held her tight.
“Sss okay,” Haley told her. “It's okay. Ssh, it's alright.” The seconds dragged and the silence remained, punctuated only by Cathy's sobs. Joel and John made their feet and went quickly to the doorway. Flashlights in their hands. “Scott?”Joel turned back around to him. “Scott don't let anything in here,” Joel told him.
“No way,” Scott agreed tightly.
A few moments outside told them everything they needed to know. Noises from the woods told them more. They were back quickly.
“Plague,” Joel said. “Get whatever you can get fast, probably guns only. There are more of them back further in the woods. We've got to go.”
They drove the overgrown dirt road carefully, there were dozens of plague victims crowding close to the road, shying from the light, but not wanting to. They made the small county road they had followed in, turned south and drove into the night.
Joel and Haley
Asheville North Carolina
September 27th
The day was clear and bright as they skirted what they were certain was Asheville North Carolina and headed toward the Georgia border. They would be in Georgia just a short time before they crossed over into Alabama. Billy and Beth had told them they had not been far into Alabama before the state had disappeared, the highway sinking into the sea.
They were three trucks riding the sides of the roads angling their way across wet areas via whatever high ground they could find. They were close to the Georgia border when the attack came.
The trucks had come around a curve ahead of them and swept past on the other side of a wide highway median. Joel had known by the way the men in the trucks had watched them that this was not going to be a friendly meeting. The trucks had slowed. The center median was flooded, there was no way they would make it across there, but it was less than a mile back to where there was a crossing. The same crossing they had used to get onto this side of the highway. Joel had picked up the CB handset in his truck and told the rest to follow him.
He had no place in mind. It made no sense to go back, forward made the most sense. He picked up as much speed as he could and the other two fell in behind him as he skirted the road, running into the fields where necessary. A half hour bought them in view of a small town off the highway they were traveling. Joel drove off the edge of the highway and crossed through the fields into the town
The roads were rough, most of the town was a shamble, but the streets were quiet and darkened by the overgrowth of trees. The downtown section was full of abandoned cars, Joel spied a garage up ahead and angled into the parking lot. A little work and they managed to cut the locks off the garage doors and raise them. An hour after they had driven into the lot they were hidden away inside the garage. They had left the trucks and were gathered quietly looking through the dirty glass at the deserted streets.
“They will follow our tracks right off the road,” Joel said.”
“And if not they had got us on the road with no safe place to fight from,“ Scott said. “We have concrete block at our back here. They don't know this is where we went.”
“Maybe,” Joel allowed.
“There,” Haley said and pointed.
One of the trucks they had seen on the other side of the highway idled down the street in low gear. The load exhaust reaching them inside the bays.
“How in hell did they find us so fast,” Alice wondered aloud.
“I don't know,” Joel said.
“Maybe mud... Wet spots on the road from where we crossed out of the fields and headed down this way,” John offered.
“Dammit,” Joel agreed. “That's it.”
“Nothing for it now,” Scott said quietly. “Well, do we bring it to them or let them bring it to us?”
John Frowned, Haley spoke up, Cathy right behind her. “I say take it to them. That's one truck we can take out, out of three, right now. Might make the others think twice about it.”
“You're sure it's one of them?” Alice asked.
“Positive,” Joel said.
“Then we got to do it,” Alice agreed. “How?”
“We can't shoot through this glass... Go around back, out the back, I mean. We'll take him as he rolls out of the other street corner,” Joel decided at last. The rest followed him out the back door and around the building to the overgrown weeds and shrubs that hid the corner of the building.
A few moments later the truck rolled through the intersection on the opposite side of the garage and they opened up on it. The driver floored it and the truck scorched the pavement as it jumped ahead, but a split second after that the motor died and the truck bounced as it slammed back down to the pavement; drifting across the road hea
ded for a small playground on the opposite side of the street and a construction area just beyond that.
A second went by, another, and the front passenger door opened and three people jumped from inside, stumbled, rolling onto the ground, trying to get to their feet and then began to sprint off down the street as the truck continued on, mowing over the chain link fence of the playground, and then hanging up on a small concrete barrier just inside the fencing line.
Joel led the first man and carefully fired. The man collapsed to the pavement like a rag doll, arms and legs flopping as he tumbled to an awkward stop. The second runner stopped, turned, and opened up on them. Haley felt the wind as a bullet zipped past her face before she heard the shot. At the same time she was pulling the trigger on her machine pistol. A notoriously bad weapon for long distance shooting, but a killing machine in full auto mode. The man seemed to start a slow tap dance for a second and then slowly toppled forward onto the pavement. A pool of blood spread quickly from under him. The last runner turned, a woman, threw down her weapon and raised her hands. A shot rang out and she topped over into the street.
“Oh my God,” Cathy said. She choked back a sob. “I didn't mean to kill her. I didn't mean it.”
“Doesn't matter,” Haley said. “If you hadn't, I would have.”
“But she surrendered,” John said. “She was surrendering to us.”
“Well, too late. She never should have come after us. We can't take prisoners. Do you think they would have? No. They would have killed everyone. Maybe not us... Me, Cathy and Alice. That would have been worse. Don't cry for her she made her bed and she's dead now. Fuck her,” Haley finished quietly.
“It is what it is,” Alice said softly.
“Hey... Hey, hey, hey,” John said. “More!”
A second later the whole day seemed to come alive with noise. Gunfire crashed non stop as the other two trucks rolled onto the street and began firing. The battle was short lived. The last truck never fully turned onto the street. One of them got it with a lucky shot, the two front tires blew out and it dove for the ground. The huge tires making it seem sloped at a steep angle down onto the rims. The men inside the truck scrambled to get away as the men inside the lead truck continued to fire.
Eventually the gunfire fell off. No one moved. They had seen three men run from the last truck, back down the street. Two had lurched while they were running. They seemed to have been hit, the other might have made it, Joel thought. The silence held. Nothing. No sounds. No shots. Joel looked around and saw Cathy sprawled on the ground, the side of her face missing. He looked away quickly, watching the street carefully. From somewhere farther away they heard a motor turn over slowly, grinding to life. It caught, quit, and then caught again. The idle evened out and a few minutes later the engine rose to a higher pitch, almost screaming as it fled from the small city, east, back toward the highway.
Joel drew a deep breath. “Bring her inside,” He said tersely. Inside they laid her out on one of the work benches, but it was clear in just a few moments that she was dead.
Joel paced back and forth in front of the windows, pausing to listen. Across the street the first truck popped loudly and then burst into flame, a trail of fire running away from the rear of the truck toward the street and the garage where they were.
“Great... Okay, listen, we have got to go. We have got to go right now before that fire turns real bad.” As he spoke a car at the curb in front of the garage caught fire as the pool of gasoline found its way under it. Old oil on the motor, something, it caught fast and began to burn right along with the other truck.
“We should bury, Cathy,” John said.
“We should, and any other time we could, but this time, no,” Joel said. “Either of those tanks could blow at any second. Then we'll be forced to run. On foot, because there will be no way out,” as he spoke he began yanking up the closest garage door. Scott wrenched another up close to him. Haley shoved up the last one.
“But it's wrong,” John said. He was frozen in the middle of the floor, glancing back and forth to Cathy's body. Joel walked quickly from the door to John. He didn't hesitate, but threw a quick punch at his jawline. “Scott,” he called as he caught him. Scott was there a second later and together they shoved John's unconscious body into one of the trucks.
Haley, Scott and Joel himself drove. Screeching out of the garage and across the pavement out into the street. The trucks jumping and diving, motors growling, the tires spinning and screeching as they fought for purchase. They were less than two blocks away when something back at the garage blew up. Joel sighed and followed Haley as she made her way out of the small city and southward once again.
Joel and Haley
Fort Deposit Alabama
October 15th
It was early morning. One moment the road had been there, and the next it had been gone, angling away down into the water. They all stopped, shut down the motors and looked over the water.
Joel fitted a pair of binoculars to his eyes, as did Scott.
“Way out,” Joel said as he passed the binoculars to Haley.
“Yeah... Yeah, hardly see it,” Scott agreed. He passed his own binoculars to Alice.
Haley lowered her binoculars and then passed them off to John. John had been quiet lately, but he was speaking to them. “So we're here,” Haley said.
“We are here,” Joel agreed.
They had stopped two days earlier when they had found a small marina and picked out three boats, trailered them, and hooked them to the trucks. It had made the going slow as they finished the last few miles into Alabama looking for the place where it ceased to exist, but it had been worth it. After all, they had decided, they would have to have boats. Get them now or get there and have to back track to get them.
“It's not deep at all,” Scott said as he looked out over the water. “It's, like, barely there, maybe just inches... I wonder if this is high tide or low tide?”
“Good question,” Joel agreed. “We're here, we have time, let's wait and see. We may find ourselves driving quite a lot of the distance.”
“Or backing up from here to higher ground,” Haley joked.
“I don't think so,” John said. “Look. There are no marks anywhere that resemble water rings... That means this might be high tide right now. If so, and it's only inches right now, this road might be high and dry in a few hours.”
Joel nodded. “Tides can be a foot or more in places.” He snapped his fingers. “Billy mentioned a truck dealership not far from here. Four wheel drives.”
“Right,” Haley agreed. “What do you have in mind?”
“Four wheel drive, and those kinds of trucks sit higher... Put some wider tires on them, what do they call them, tires that float over the top of the mud instead of sinking in?” No one spoke. “Well, I can't remember the name, but we should put tires like that on them, wider, that should do better if we have to drive on the bottom... Sand, mud... Just in case it doesn't go all the way out.”
“Now?” Scott asked.
“No. Let's see what is up with the tide first. We have the time now. It's on our side,” Joel said. “I saw a herd of goats back a mile or so, I say we go get us a goat, come back here and make a celebration meal.”
“Kill the fatted goat?” Haley asked.
“Kill the fatted goat,” Joel agreed. “Honey, you feel okay here alone? Me and Scott will head back and get a goat. You can get a fire ready, a place to stay... Probably for the night.” He looked off to the sides. “It's clear over in there.”
“Go ahead,” Haley said. “We'll get a fire going and get set up... Wait on you.”She leaned forward and kissed him. “Come right back,” she said.
“Will do,” Joel agreed. “John? You want to come or stay here?”
“Stay,” John decided.
“Anyone else?” Joel asked.
“Just you two,” Haley agreed as Alice and John shook their heads once more. Joel smiled, bent and kissed her once more, turned and left.
Fort Deposit Alabama
Joel and Haley
“This should be low tide,” Joel said as he stared up at the sky, eyes shaded by one hand.
“Should be,” Scott agreed.
They had spent the last few days observing the tides and working on the three trucks. They had found a garage a few miles back while they had been searching for tires to swap out the ones on the first truck. A rusted truck had sat on the cracked and kudzu choked pavement. Wide mud tires on all four corners. A few minutes work had gotten it to run at a choppy idle.
Scott and Joel had driven it out in to the Gulf themselves, ten miles on the odometer, but it had plowed along with no problem. The bottom was hard packed sand, not mud. The water at low tide was no more than a foot deep, at least where they had driven. It had been a good deal farther out to land, maybe twenty miles or better, maybe less than another ten: Distance over water was hard to tell, Scott had said. Joel had tended to agree with that statement. To him it looked like the land mass had gotten no bigger at all. He had begun to wonder if it would.
They had stopped, debated, and then decided to drive back. They had little fuel, no boat in case it did get deep, and no idea how far they had to go. As far as the binoculars could show them, the water looked no more than a few inches deep.
That had been four days ago. Their own trucks, now equipped with wider, aggressively tread mud tires should be able to drive right over the sandy bottom: Dig themselves out if they did bog down. The question was whether the drive to the land could be made in one low tide window. The deeper question he had asked himself more than once now was why? Why was it so important to reach a spit of land that was cut off from the mainland. Abandoned by nature to the ocean? And what would be there?
He had no answer except a vague certainty that it would be safe. Safe from the gangs, safe from the dead, safe.
