The Great Wreck

by Stewart, Jack

The road was much worse than when we came up, but none of the wrecks we saw going down had completely blocked the road like the overturned trailer had. I’d slow down and we’d pass these wrecks careful not to get tangled up in them or accidently drive off the road and get stuck or, even worse, drive off the road and roll down into one of the many canyons we drove around. Each of these wrecks told their own story of terror and death. Sometimes we could see things moving around inside the filthy, blood smeared windows; someone dead and pinned inside that came back and was now trapped forever inside their car to slowly rot away. Other wrecks with the windows shattered out and huge trails of blood and gore leading off into the woods where the people inside were dragged off to be devoured. Other wrecks completely burnt out with the outline of corpses still inside. At the pullouts we’d see a few dead wandering about but these were so far gone that they didn’t even look up as we passed.

  We didn’t stop until we cleared to foothills of Mount Taylor. Not to take a break, not to stretch our legs, or even to get some fresh air. We just kept rolling until at noon we had left the mountain of dead behind and only a straight stretch of clear, open road was between us and Grants.

  I pulled into a rest area that was free from cars or anyone else living or dead. We all sat in the truck with the engine idling waiting to see if anything was going to spring out of the restrooms or come running and screaming from around the back. Nothing moved so I killed the truck and pulled a map out of the glove compartment.

  Ahead of us was Grants. There was no way I was taking us through there so I opened up the map and spread it out across the steering wheel while the others got out and walked around, carefully checking behind the buildings and structures to make sure no dead were lurking around.

  I found our location on the map then traced a route around the town from Route 66 to Sakelares boulevard to get around downtown Grants. Grants would be a complete wreck full of dead, roads blocked by abandoned and wrecked cars, and who knows what else. As it was, the route I had planned may be just as bad but they had to get through Grants to I-40 East if they wanted to make it to Albuquerque before the sun went down. I folded up the map and set it on the seat next to me and checked the gas. Not good. We had less than a quarter tank left. Fucking gas hog. Maybe the guy in the Smart Car wasn’t so stupid. We were less than ten miles from the gas station where the old man had the gravity pump. We’d try that and hope that he had some fuel left.

  I’d take a break and figure it out when we were ready to get going again. I opened the door and stepped out into the blistering hot sun and stretched. It felt like I had been inside that Beast for days instead of hours. I stank of sweat, grease, and fear from the trip. I stripped off my shirt and leaned against the truck letting the sun bake my skin. I closed my eyes and tilted my head up towards the sun feeling the clean heat on my skin. Around me I could hear the others moving around and, one by one, get back into the truck. I opened my eyes and pulled my shirt back on, the climbed back into the driver’s seat.

  “Ready?” I asked as I closed the door and started the Beast back up. I could see heads nod around me as the old girl coughed once then roared to life. We backed out of the parking lot onto the highway and headed south to Grants.

  Even before we reached Sakelares boulevard, we could see that Grants was a graveyard, a burnt out, death filled, wreck where the dead were everywhere; packed into the streets, spilling out of buildings, clogging the highway. Grants was a chokepoint and anyone coming through it would have to go around, just like we were or face a sea of dead

  I watched the signs looking for the turnoff hoping the road we were looking for wasn’t so close to the town center that it would be jammed full of wrecked cars and walking dead. A few miles ahead of us we could see the streets were full of distant figures shuffling back and forth across the roads, in and out of buildings and cars, waiting for people like us to come by and start the party up again. Beyond them, we could see the highway overflowing with trucks and dead forming a perfect dam of metal, glass, and bodies that would prevent anyone from going east or west on I-40. Either the side road would be open, or we’d be doing some off roading activities here shortly.

  “There!” Greer called out and pointed over my shoulder to the left, “Turn there!”

  I slowed the truck down and made the turn onto Sakelares and headed south. The road wasn’t nearly as bad as the center of town or the highway beyond but it was bad enough. I slowed down and carefully swerved around and in between the wrecks where the spaces were so narrow that I’d occasionally take off a side mirror or two while praying that somewhere up ahead there wasn’t a wreck that would completely block the road since turning around would be almost impossible.

  I sped up to thirty and followed the road until we hit old Route 66. To our right I could see the buildings of the town thinning out and the highway getting closer to us. We passed a huge wreck where a tanker truck had tipped over effectively blocking both of the main lanes but left just enough room in the breakdown lane for us to eek by. And then the road was clear. We followed the almost completely empty road until were past the edges of town and out into the dessert. We didn’t encounter any more wrecks, soon hit the frontage road, and then were back up onto the highway.

  We drove up the onramp, and stopped at the top. As far as I could see to the east, the highway was nearly empty of cars and people. To the west, I spotted a blockade that the military must have thrown up to keep people, or the dead, from heading east.

  “I didn’t think anyone wanted to head to Albuquerque anyways,” Tony said and got back into the truck, “People were trying to get out of town, not into it.” I nodded then put the truck in gear and headed down the highway driving until we approached the old man’s gas station.

  I pulled off of the highway and rolled up to the gas pump, “I hope the old guy has some gas left or we are going to have a long walk,” I said looking over at Tony.

  “We’d better have a look around, you know? Make sure there aren’t any, uh, folks wandering around,” he said as he checked the clip of his pistols, chambered a round, then got out of the truck. I did the same and followed him.

  We first walked to the store and looked inside. The windows had been smashed out and the place stripped bare. We then walked around the back and saw an old, rusty tank set up on four legs behind what must have been the old guy’s house, “What do you think? Is that it?”

  “Got to be. It’ll be empty though. The people who cleaned out the store would have checked it,” Tony said.

  “I don’t know, it looks so old maybe they thought it’s be empty and moved on.”

  “We can always hope,” he replied as we walked towards the dilapidated looking tank.

  The heat from the sun was beating down on us as we walked up to the tank. I could feel the heat radiating off of the rusted metal and quickly pulled my hand back when I touched the flaky surface, “Ah! Fucking hot!”

  “Thank you. Greer thinks I am too,” Tony said and began tapping the side of the tank quickly with his knuckle.

  “Ha, ha. Anything?”

  Tony slowly moved down the side of the tank tapping and listening to the hollow echo inside the tank until he was nearly to the bottom, “Not looking good,” he said more to himself than me.

  “I guess we could always try to siphon…” I said but stopped as Tony held up his hand. I heard him tap on the metal side of the tank and produce a deeper solid thunk, “Something?

  “A bit, let’s get the truck.”

  We jogged back to the truck and climbed inside, then drove back to the old tank, “How much do you think?”

  “A few gallons. Maybe ten at most,” Tony said.

  “We still have the gas in the reserve cans,” I said thinking of the four, five gallon cans of gasoline attached to the tailgate of the truck, “That should give us enough to make it to Albuquerque. We can get more there.”

  “We don’t have a choice, do we?” Tony said jumping out of the truck while I opened up the
gas tank.

  He place the old nozzle into the tank as I looked at the cracked and fragile hose, “If that thing breaks…” I said as Tony opened up the tank valve.

  I could hear the gas flowing into the tank and hoped there would be more than Tony thought. I could also see and smell gas dripping from the hose and onto the ground. Tony and I both stood there listening to the gas flow into the tank hoping the hose wouldn’t fail completely and that we’d get more than a few gallons out of it.

  After a few brief minutes, the sound of flowing gas slowed down until it was just a trickle, and then stopped all together, “I guess that’s it, then,” Tony said and pulled the nozzle from the truck’s gas tank. As he turned to replace the nozzle, the hose abruptly broke off and fell into the dirt with a small trickle of gas trailing out behind it. We stood looking dumbly at the thing like it was a dead snake.

  “Well. That’s that,” I said. Tony just shrugged and dropped the nozzle as he screwed the gas cap back on.

  “I hope it’s…” I started then stopped as I looked around past the tank, past the old guy’s house and down the service road to where I could see a hotel and casino surrounded by a huge parking lot and a truck stop, “Did you hear something?”

  Tony looked around as the girls got out of the truck, “It sounded like…”

  Far off towards the casino, I could just barely hear someone yelling for help, in a tiny, distant voice.

  “Casey, there!” Nicky called out pointing along the road. I looked to where she was pointing and saw a lone figure running towards us.

  “Where the fuck did she come from?” Tony said.

  “The casino maybe?” I thought as I squinted into the sunlight and saw that she had spotted us and was running our way.

  “Casey, look,” Tony said point back towards the casino, “She’s bringing friends.”

  I looked to where Tony was pointing, “Shit! Get in the truck!” I yelled. Behind the girl, streaming form the hotel came dozens of dead. She must have been hiding in the hotel and when she heard the sound of the truck approaching, saw us filling up the truck, and decided to make a break for it. How could she have gotten through all those dead? I wondered as we all jumped in the truck and speed towards her.

  “Problem!” Tony called out pointing ahead of us. I could see immediately what the problem was; between us and the fleeing girl was another overturned semi-truck partially blocking the lane, and beyond that a small pileup of cars blocking a bridge that crossed over a large arroyo bed. We eked past the overturned truck, stopped at the pileup, and looked to either side of the bridge, “Not going to be able to drive around,” Tony said as he hopped out of the truck and looked down into the wash.

  I jumped out of the truck and crawled up on one of the overturned car cars looking for a way around, “No way around unless we go back up onto the highway and get off at the next exit.”

  “We don’t have enough time!” Tony said racing back to the truck and grabbing one of the rifles, “Grab one, Casey! We can hold them off and give her time to get here!”

  Meanwhile the girls had all jumped out of the truck and had climbed over the cars and stated yelling, “Run! Run! Over here! Run!”

  The girl ran out of the parking lot and onto the road. She was quickly outpacing the dead behind her. Tony and I jumped off the overturned car and leaned against another stalled car aiming our rifles at the mass of dead trailing the girl, “She’ll make it,” Tony said, “She’s got plenty of time.”

  I wasn’t so sure as I watched her pumping her arms and legs up and down, racing towards us for all she was worth. She’d reach us maybe thirty seconds before the mass of dead would and we’d have to get in the truck and get moving in a hurry. Far behind her, on the second story of the hotel, I saw a figure hurl itself through the window, followed by another and then another and then the whole hotel seemed to erupt with dead as they poured out the window and rained onto the street. The figures hit the pavement in what should have been a bone shattering impact but instead quickly jumped to their feet and began sprinting after the girl.

  “Did you see that?” I asked Tony as my heart jumped up into my throat.

  “I did. Sprinters?” he said.

  I couldn’t know for sure, I didn’t want to know for sure but the figures were moving far faster than the other dead and were soon closing the gap between themselves and the fleeing girl.

  Tony and I began to shout along with the others, “Run! Run! Fucking run!” as we heard the screams of rage and hatred carry across the thin air.

  “God damn it! We’ve got to do something!” Dreysi screamed as we started to shoot into the mass of dead but from this distance, neither Tony or I could really hit anything and the dead continued to close in on the girl. The shots did, however, attract the attention of the dead behind her and I could see that the sprinters were going to reach the girl before she reached us.

  Dreysi ran back to the truck, grabbed one of the rifles, and quickly climbed over the wrecks. Nicky saw what she was doing and screamed after her, “Dreysi! Come back!” but Dreysi was already running towards the girl. Tony and I exchanged quick, surprised glances, then took off after her.

  She ran about a hundred yards, kneeled on the ground setting the pistols down on the ground next to her and pointed the rifle towards the masses of oncoming dead. I watched as nestled the rifle into the crook of her shoulder, carefully aimed, and fired. Behind the girl, the closest of the sprinter’s head jerked back and the thing collapsed on to the asphalt. Dreysi fired two more rounds in quick succession and another two dead collapsed.

  “Holy fuck, Annie Oakley!” I yelled as I kneeled next to her, took aim, and began firing. Dreysi actually smiled and took out another two Sprinters as the girl closed in on us. Tony had started firing to my right and soon we were taking the dead out one after the other. The girl put on a burst of speed as she closed in on us. Dreysi stood up just as the girl threw herself into Dreysi’s arms, “Thank you! Oh, god thank you!” she said as she planted a giant kiss on a surprised Dreysi’s mouth. Tony and I just looked at each other as the girl tried to devour Dreysi right then and there.

  We both got to our feet and all of us ran back to the wreck. We each took turns climbing over the cars as the other two fired back into the onrushing crowds singling out the fast ones first. As Dreysi, Tony, and the girl climbed over, I followed them and we all jumped into the idling truck as the dead hit the wreck and began to swarm over it. I jumped into driver’s seat as the first of the screaming cleared the wreck and ran towards us. I dropped the truck in reverse as Tony leaned out the window firing randomly at the screaming thing. I watched, amazed as the it’s forehead blew apart as one of Tony’s bullets found its mark.

  “Wild Tony Hickok!” I scrammed out crazily as I spun the truck around.

  “Piss blind luck look out!” he yelled back.

  “Piss blind luck look out?” What the fuck does that mean? I thought as the rest of the people in the truck screamed, “Look out!”

  I looked from Tony and out the front of the truck and saw that the broken down semi we had passed now filled the windshield. I screamed and jerked the wheel to the right and felt the back of the truck slide to the left. We swerved, narrowly missing the semi but were jerked violently back to the right as the Beast rear end collided with the front of the rig. We swerved madly to the left as the back end bounced to the right as we cleared the semi and I got control of the Beast again, “We’re all right! We’re all right!” I cried out like a madman and laughed hysterically as we speed away from the site of the wreck. Behind me I could see that the dead had swarmed over the cars and were still chasing after us but we were too far away and gaining speed and after a few more steps, the dead stumbled to a stop, looked around aimlessly, then retreated the way they had come.

  We quickly passed the old guy’s house and the gas station and were soon back up on the highway. After we had put a few miles between us and the hotel, I pulled over to the side of the highway and loo
ked back over my shoulder at our new guest, “Are you OK?”

  All four of the girls had piled into the back seat and the new girl was sitting on Dreysi’s lap. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen, with short brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, bright green yes, and a small upturned nose. She was dressed in a filthy pair of jeans covered in old, dried blood, worn down cowboy boots, and an equally dirty white, sleeveless button up cowboy shirt. She had her arms wrapped tightly around Dreysi’s neck.

  I should have looked closer. I should asked her whose blood was on her jeans. I should have paid attention to her too pale skin and her red eyes but we had just escaped a horde of dead after fleeing down the side of a mountain and narrowly avoiding a head on collision with a truck so, looking back, I felt I could forgive myself for what happened next.

  She looked up at Dreysi with a look of sheer gratitude then at me and said, “Yes. I’m OK. Thank you! Thank you so much for rescuing me! I’ve been holed up in a room in that hotel for weeks.”

  “Do you live around here?” Greer asked.

  “No. We’d gotten out of the city after the military left and were headed west towards the mountains after things got so bad in the city,” she said. We all exchanged glances with each other but decided to let her finish her story, “But we were running out of gas so we stopped here. Before we could even fill up, the dead came pouring in from the highway like a flood. We ran towards the hotel, but that place was full of the dead too. Somehow we made it inside but the dead were everywhere. I don’t remember what happened after that, but somehow I had made it into a room and barricaded the door so those things couldn’t get in. I don’t know what happened to the others.”

  I knew had happened to the others. They were bitten and turned into the things that had chased after her or had been completely devoured and now had their bones decorating the inside of some casino lounge. I didn’t need to say anything, I could tell by the way she looked down when she talked, that she too knew what had happened to her traveling companions.