by Evans, Mike
The entire group fell to the back of the Humvee. They hit hard, stacking one on top of each other. All but Shaun, who seemed to be the only one smart enough to put his seatbelt on. His hair hung down and he could feel the blood rushing into his head as the belt dug into his skin. The Humvee was surrounded by The Turned seeming to materialize out of nowhere. The bright daylight was no longer coming through, the amount of legs surrounding them was enough to put them in near pitch black.
When Shaun saw the mess of bodies looking like a camo, scientist, redneck pretzel, he had to remember the dire absolute shit position that he was currently in...that all of them were in. The secondary thought of the other fact that he was bringing death to people again, something he’d told himself that he wouldn’t do. The dead never stopped smashing the glass. Shaun cut his seatbelt, holding on so he didn’t come down on his face. When he raced to the bag, he pulled out a handful of vials. Shaun looked to Scott and said, “This isn’t going to kill us is it?”
“No, we tested that at least. Earl’s gun isn’t working...it isn’t even within a half mile of here now!” Scott yelled as he felt multiple knees in his thigh, balls, and back as they tried to readjust themselves.
Greg said, “Earl, I will give you a tour when we get back. I don’t want any excuses for you smelling like this ever again.”
“Look, I go el naturalarino.”
Shaun ignored the bickering. The glass all around them was starting to spider web. Clary was thinking this wasn’t going to end well. He didn’t want to be one of these things, and sure as shit didn’t want to go out trapped. He watched Shaun, who seemed to be the only one with an idea of what he could do. Shaun was just praying he could do something...something that would right the wrongs that he felt responsible for. Clary said, “What are you doing, Shaun? Can I do anything to help you, anything at all?”
“No, I wish this was more complicated. I’d actually have a lot more confidence in this working if it was.”
“You aren’t filling me with a whole lot of confidence, Shaun,” Greg said.
“I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up...you know, about there being another day.”
“You’re fucking funny aren’t ya?” Greg replied.
Shaun pulled a fire extinguisher from next to his seat, which was now above him. He began pulling the tops of vials off with his teeth and spitting them out. He hoped that what he had was enough to accomplish what needed to be done. They righted themselves as they watched the teen pouring all the vials, he’d taken from Scott’s bag into the hose which he was keeping very steady to make sure not a grain of the powder was lost to the ground...or to the roof which was the ground now. Earl who like everyone else had figured it out but just hadn’t said anything couldn’t help himself. “You got any idea what you’re doing? You know how long it took me to make that zombie lung. I spent months working on that damn thing. You can’t just dump some powder down pull the pin and bam you got zombie lung 2.0.”
“Then we are screwed, aren’t we?”
Earl was going to say something else when the glass in front of Shaun finally couldn’t take any more stress and abuse. The glass broke and Shaun did the sign of the cross with his free hand as he pulled the pin on the fire extinguisher. Shaun screamed, “Everyone hold your breath!”
Chapter 9
The group rode in silence as they approached the gate. Joe asked, “You sure you know where you are going?”
Ellie said, “Yeah, we are going to go straight and then we are going to mix things up a little. You’re going to have to trust me. Given the fact you’ve probably never been to Des Moines I would have to guess you don’t know where you are going, so you shouldn’t have too much of a reason to doubt me.”
“Sure, teens are who I always want to ask how to get somewhere. So, where are we going?”
Ellie said, “Once we get out of the gate just hang a left.”
Henry came out from the guard gate when they got up to the exit. He saw Joe in the front and didn’t have a clue who he was, or why he was in one of the vehicles. He was holding a rifle and absolutely no one was scared of him. He was attempting to try his best to intimidate the group but there wasn’t any chance that was happening, considering the fact everyone outside of Joe knew he wasn’t going to do anything.
Ellie leaned over Joe screaming, “Put the poles down so we can get out.”
“Does Clary know you guys are leaving?”
“Absolutely,” Ellie lied through her teeth.
Joey said, “Of course he doesn’t know, he’s out doing something with Shaun and Greg and the new guys. We are doing the important work. We are getting the supplies so that everyone can be safe.”
“No kidding,” Henry asked.
“Would I joke about a thing like that? Besides, you know I don’t like lying. It’s going to be fine. Mr. Clary will be so happy we went when he got back that he’s going to be happy that we took the lead on it.”
Henry looked at Jon and remembered vividly the ass chewing which he’d gotten. Having a man with Clary’s temper and anger upset with him was not on his list. Henry asked, “How about I let you guys through and then we can put up the poles and shut the fence and lock it.”
Ellie wasn’t sure what he was getting at and simply asked, “Is there more to this or are you just wanting to make sure if we come back in a hurry that you’ll be able to take your time opening things and will let us be torn apart while you watch?”
He replied, “No, that isn't the reason at all. I figured if I go with you, then I can make sure that you guys all come back. You have room in there for one more don't you? It isn't like we get a lot of people trying to come up to the gates, anyways. I kind of think Larry just puts people here that he doesn't like.
Joey, always the optimist, pushed his door open yelling, “Come on in, Henry. We got all kinds of room in here. We're going to do something great today.
Henry, who wasn't necessarily a pessimist but also wasn't the most optimistic person in the world said, “How far is it that we are going to go?
Ellie said, “Well... It kind of depends on how you look at that. You see, we are only going to go into the middle of Des Moines. But the difference between normal miles and zombie miles can be a drastically huge difference. So, we're going to go down by Drake College. We figured that they would have the largest science lab available that we could get into.
Henry replied as he got in, feeling sick to his stomach, “So we're going somewhere because you've never been to college a day in your life and you think that we are going to find what you think we need? Do you have anything that actually backs up your hypothesis here?”
“Sure, the science nerd, Mark, thought a school would have what we need. He gave me a list and made a bunch of copies and I figured, if it isn't there, then we could hit a different college or possibly we could go to somewhere that might have a research lab.”
“You been to a lot of research labs, have you?” Henry asked.
“Oh, I can smell me some smart ass from a mile away, Henry. No, outside of the facility that Shaun's dad worked at, we don't really do a lot of science things. Basically, we're hoping. If you can't have just a little bit of hope, then what the hell can you have?”
Joey said, “If we get lucky, we could have cookies. I don't even care if they're stale, you put those suckers in some milk and they're going to taste delicious.”
Ellie held up a finger and Joey stopped. Joey knew when Ellie was being serious and this was that time. He figured he could keep his expectations about cookies on the down low and everyone could thank him when he came back with a giant backpack of everything they needed and then on top of that had some sugar sweets that would make everyone feel like they were in a different place in time. He also thought on a side note that if nobody realized he'd found a vending machine that maybe just maybe he would keep a little extra for himself. He wouldn't want anybody getting too many sugars in their diet is what he told himself. Joe drove forward slowly and
Henry jumped out putting the poles back up and leaving the gate open.
As Henry was walking back, Kya yelled “Oh, shut the gate! If they are coming back, they'll have a radio they can ask somebody to open it up. I know it doesn't seem like you do much at the gate, but what you are doing is letting us know if someone bad is trying to get in, alive or dead. The last thing that we are going to want to have to come back to is another massacre, given there's another group, of course, around this vicinity that would do something or want to do something to us.”
Henry knew all too well about what had happened and was in no way going to put anyone in this circumstance if he could avoid it. Within a few minutes, they were headed in the direction of Drake College.
Joe drove at a slow pace. He was a motorcycle guy in his free time and the one thing that he practiced more than anything else while riding a bike was always having an escape route. Given the fact that he was currently living in a zombie apocalypse the absolute last thing that he wanted to worry about was not having a way to get out. Driving through cars with either side blocking you in, going down an alley not knowing if the door you want to go in is open, he could think of a million different scenarios where you needed to have an out. This was no different, especially given the fact that he had absolutely no idea where he was. He was in a state he had not been to before, a road he’d never been on and the last thing he was going to do was die driving a borrowed Humvee with a bunch of kids and whatever it was that he would classify Yassa as.
Ellie looked around as they drove and she saw the Johnston Soccer Fields, which she had only had a reason to go to a few times. She’d not been big into sports, and her mom, who worked a lot of hours, did not complain when her daughter did not need every waking hour of her own to be taken up with activities. Ellie saw the sea of minivans spread out across the field. Apparently, it had been a soccer day when the outbreak had begun. There were no shortage of people who had not survived the day and who had not had enough body mass to become one of the Turned. Ellie let out a small whistle- it was in no way a shocking surprise, given the fact that everyone had to be somewhere, and the virus had spread faster than anyone could have predicted. It seemed as if it was a zombie wildfire.
Ellie's biggest concern about this was that there was a potential for the Turned to still be here. If they didn't have a reason to move, or they didn't have the promise of food, no smells to attract them, then it basically meant they were going to still be there. Ellie put a hand on Joe's bicep patting him whispering as if they could hear her, “Go real slow, Joe. Go really, really slow.”
“Could you tell me why I'm going to go really, really slow, Ellie?”
“Sure, because the dead could rip this thing apart, regardless of the fact that it is made to take heavy fire. Do you see all of those vans up there?”
Joe let the Humvee roll to a stop, not trying in any way to assume that he knew more than someone that he didn't know anything about. Joe surveyed the area seeing the vans and the giant Gatorade containers knocked over. He could see people who had obviously been trying to flee and had done a horrible job at that. Half of the vans were on the field, some were in the ditches, others had rolled over, and the majority of them all shared one thing alike, every single one of them appear to have had the windows ripped out of them and there'd been no shortage of blood covering them. Even after all this time, there was still carnage leftover from the day that would forever change the world.
And at that exact moment, Joe was wishing that it was dark out, he figured he could either use a spotlight to know if any of the Turned, as these kids called them, were standing around waiting for a fresh meal. Or, he figured, at least he could die ignorant, not knowing about his demise until it had already happened. He had always told himself if he did get taken by one of the Dead, that he would be thankful as hell to not become one of them. The idea of running around trying to hurt people purposely was not something he was too fond of. It was the main reason why he had become a police officer in the first place.
Joe saw no dead anywhere. Joey leaned forward saying, “So, everything looks okay here?”
“Joey, we have no idea yet, buddy,” Joe replied
They started inching forward, taking their time, everybody peering around looking, trying to see if there was a threat. As Joe got closer to the soccer field, he could feel a tightness in his chest that he knew was not going to go away until he got everyone back safely to the base. The bodies that had been left were not something for the faint of heart. It appeared that they had been meals for more than just the dead. Coyotes were one thing that they had thought it could be. There were also a plethora of maggots and flies on the bodies and everyone was very happy for their windows being up.
Kya said, “I kind of want to puke. Would you look at this? You know if we end up winning and taking these things out, we're going to spend a lot longer than a year getting all of those that weren’t as lucky as us cleaned up and buried where they belong and put to peace.”
Ellie could care less about how long it took to clean up the dead. It was the Turned that she was concerned about, and she knew that given all of their ages not a single one of them was going to have anything to complain about. The years they still had left on Earth if they took out the Turned were going to far exceed the years that they've had to deal with having the Turned. Ellie said, “Just think of the payoff. Being able to walk anywhere you want to go, being able to drive, being able to swim, being able to feel peaceful, it's more than anyone who has lived through this could possibly ask for.”
Kya thought about what Ellie was saying, and she did not want to be a Debbie Downer, but at the same time, she also was thinking the only thing that she could ask was for Patrick to still be here. She missed him more every day, especially as the time had passed and she had realized that he was gone forever. Unfortunately, as of right now, she had not seen anyone that would be able to fill the hole that he’d left in her heart. Kya said, “You know Ellie, when you are right, you're right. It would be awesome to get to see something outside of Iowa that didn't have to do with the Turned.”
Joe rolled through; there were soccer fields on each side of them. Everyone looked around like their eyes were going to pop out of their head, knowing that the dead could be everywhere that they were going to be rolling through. When Joe got through the cars, they saw that the bridge was covered with cars. They were all different angles and there was quite literally no way to get across. Their path was going to be blocked. Joe said, “Do you have any other ways around here?”
Ellie looked at her map; the river ran the length of where they were and every direction that they could go. The only options they had were to backtrack and go through Des Moines, not something anyone liked the idea of, or they could move the cars so they could continue heading in the direction that Ellie had thought was a good plan. She was very quickly realizing just how bad of an idea this all was turning out to be. She saw something in her periphery as she was trying to make the best least chance of dying decision to take them on. Ellie knew it was all a guess; every time they left it was a guess. Ellie had always been thankful that, so far, as long as she had gone out most of her guesses had gone somewhat okay.
Ellie was going to say I think that we need a second try to get across the bridge but that idea quickly faded away into obscurity. Everyone watched as the Turned made their way across the bridge coming out of the woods, dropping down from trees, and those who’d taken serious damage on the first day, she could assume, were hobbling, some missing arms, others legs, feet, ankles. You name it, there was probably a piece of them missing. No one tried counting, because it really made little difference. With all the firepower in the world, they wouldn’t have enough to take out the horde before they made it to the Humvee if they didn’t get moving. Joe ripped the map out of her hands looking at it and realizing backtracking was the only way they were going to get where they wanted to go.
Joe yelled, “Hold on, I'm turning this bitch around!”
Chapter 10
Everyone closed their eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Shaun pointed the hose directly at the closest Turned and held down the discharge lever. The truck filled with a cloud of carbon monoxide powder mixed with the agent which would be, what he hoped, the end of the Turned, or at least the ones currently threatening their survival. The group held their breath for as long as they could before they finally couldn’t take it any longer. Earl, being the ex-heavy smoker of the group, was the first to go and had to inhale. He immediately began coughing and covered his mouth with his shirt, trying to do something to try and keep the chemical reaction happening around him from entering his lungs.
The group sat in a white blindness, no one daring to move. The pounding that was going on didn’t take long before, to everyone’s surprise, it stopped. Shaun had never been so happy to hear nothing in all of his life. One by one, they all needed that thing called air to continue. The cloud finally settled, leaving all of them covered in a white mist, looking like a group of ghosts. Clary and Earl looked the worst, with it stuck in their beards. Shaun opened his eyes, freaking when he saw a hand wrapped around his ankle. He tried to pull back his leg but it had a death grip on it. He had a flashback that he did not need in his life of his dad...which seemed like just yesterday.
