“They’re chicken shits. They won’t bother you.”
“You sure of that? Because I’m not. Here’s the deal. We just need to fill-up our truck and get out of town. If you tell us where and how to do that, we’ll help you out and be on our way. If not, we’ll let you bleed out. That’s our final offer.”
He agreed. What choice did he have?
We bandaged his leg and he acted as a navigator, guiding us around the side streets to his farm on the north side of town where we were able siphon enough diesel fuel off one of his tractors to fill the truck. That’s where we left him as we drove off into the night.
My ass ached and every time we went over a bump. It felt like someone was spanking me with a barbed whip dipped in acid. Joni noticed my grunts and once we were a safe distance out of the town, she insisted that we pull over.
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “Keep going.”
“No, you’re not,” she said. “You’re whimpering like a baby.”
“Am not.”
“Are, too.”
She stifled a laugh. “Listen here, Chief, I’m driving, so we’re stopping. No ifs, ands, or buts. We need to take a good look at the wound.” A sign for a rest stop loomed just ahead off the side of the road and slowed down, easing us into the rest stop. It was a small one, with bathroom and a picnic area. A small grove trees sat behind it. There were no other cars there.
“You just want to look at my ass,” I said.
“There’s that,” she said and smiled.
It turned out that Rosalita got that pleasure. Before she had retired, she had worked in a nursing home, and, as she stated, ‘had learned a thing or two about taking care of old people’s culos.’”
There was no escaping the indignities of the zombie apocalypse.
“It is not that bad,” Rosalita said as I bent over a picnic table with my butt hanging out. The others were milling around the truck, but I could swear that Joni was watching intently from off to the side.
“Just a graze,” Rosalita said as she worked on me with a first aid kit she discovered in the back of the truck. “You have a nice groove in your cheek now.”
“There goes my modeling career,” I said trying to maintain some dignity. That’s when she poured alcohol over the wound and I let out a yelp.
I could swear I heard Joni laugh.
After I was all bandaged up, it was decided that we’d we camp there until morning. With the breakout from the camp, the long drive, and the run-in with the rednecks, we were all wrung out. The consensus was that we would all be better off if we started fresh in the morning. I certainly didn’t object.
I worked with Randell and Sammy to arrange guard duty. I volunteered for the first watch, but Joni demanded that I rest. So, off to rest I went.
As I limped to find a place just behind small bathroom, Jay sidled up beside me.
“Hey Grant man, you need anything for the pain?” he asked. “I’ve got some good stuff in my bag here.” He patted his shoulder satchel.
“No, thanks,” I said. I’ll be fine.”
“If you change your mind,” he said, “I’m always here.”
I found a soft place on some bristly grass and eased myself onto it. It was hard to get comfortable, but I figured out a position after a minute and closed my eyes. The events of the days played out in a macabre theater behind my eyes making it difficult to really shut down. I considered taking Jay up on his offer, but utter exhaustion took over and I drifted down into sleep.
I don’t know how long I was out, but I awoke to the touch of a hand on my shoulder. Initially, I thought the worst, jerking up my arm up, until a voice shushed me.
It was Joni. Her face hovered over mine, silhouetted against the moon which hung as flat and bright as a silver plate in the cloudless night sky. I could see the slightest bit of the glint of light in her eyes.
“Grant, I killed those men,” she said, her voice far away. “I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Never even hurt anyone, really.”
“This won’t make it all that easier, but it was us or them,” I said. “They were bad guys. You weren’t up there with me. I doubt if any of our men would have made it out of there alive and what would have happened to women…I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Is that what I have to do? Make them evil?”
“You do whatever you have to do. This world isn’t going to make it easy on us. If you can find a way out, I say take it.”
“I’m tired of all this,” she said. “All the dying. All the running. What kind of effect is this having on my kids?” Something caught in her voice.
I sat up even though it shot a pain down my backside and tentatively reached a hand up to touch her shoulder. She collapsed in on herself and then into me as she choked back sobs, not wanting anyone else to hear.
I was out of my element. Way out. The last woman I had consoled was the one that broke up with me on my birthday a year ago. I was weak when it came to women crying, but also felt about as useful as a Dixie cup of cold water tossed on raging fire. The tears came and I wrapped my arms around her, trying to help her ride them out. Her body bucked with each wave of wracking sobs. A part of me wanted to join in, but that wouldn’t help her or anyone else, plus it would be breaking the man code.
The sobs lessened with each round until she finally got them under control. I gently patted her back for about a minute, stopping when I sensed that she was ready to pull away.
“Look at me,” she said. “I must look horrible.”
“The zombie apocalypse isn’t a beauty pageant, you know.”
“But still,” she said as she wiped at her eyes and pulled herself together. I thought she was about to get up when she reached and touched my face. “You cut your cheek.”
“When the cop was shooting at me, I caught some asphalt there,” I said.
She moved into take a closer look. “Do you want me to get something to clean it out?”
“No,” I said, “it will be fine.”
She pulled back, but not all the way, ending up with her face only inches from mine. Her hand stayed on my cheek gently caressing it and I sort of liked it. Her eyes locked onto mine and she looked at me as if she were seeing me the first time. Something passed between us and we stayed there for several seconds. I forgot about the pain and it was just the two of us.
She made the first move, pushing her hand back into my hair and gently pulling me towards her as she closed her eyes. I closed my eyes, too and our lips met.
It was nice as everything melted away, including the past few days. There were no people around us. No zombies ready to munch down on us. No menacing rednecks. No dead or dying friends. And, Toto, it seemed like we weren’t in Texas anymore.
I don’t know how long our kiss lasted, but it seemed like forever. It also felt like only a millisecond. A warm tingling started rising within me and that’s when the real fireworks started.
Well, not really fireworks. More like gunshots. Three shots to be exact.
“Zombies!” Someone shouted.
Dammit! Do zombies have to ruin everything?
We broke apart but despite whatever danger lurked out there, we sat still for another few seconds, just looking at each other.
She said, “Thank you.” It communicated more than just gratitude.
“No, thank you.” Two more shots were fired.
“Grant!” Rosalita shouted.
“It’s time to get moving,” I said.
“Another time,” she said.
“Yes, another time.” It was my turn to touch her face as I cupped her chin in my hand. I leaned forward and kissed her tenderly on the forehead and stood up.
“What is it?” I shouted, trying to mask my annoyance.
“Mom?” Martin asked, a little twinge of fear in his voice.
“I’m here, honey,” Joni responded, sitting up.
I put out a hand and she grabbed it. Unlike the other times we had touched there was a deeper connection in
this simple act and we both knew it. I helped her up and she went to her kids and I was on the move to whatever shitstorm was coming our way.
I got beside Sammy and saw three zombies on the ground. All three were missing different parts of their heads as Sammy had done a good job taking them out.
“There’s more coming,” he said. “Out there.”
I must have slept longer than I thought because the horizon was making that gradual transition from black to blue and then orange, the telltale signs of the encroaching dawn. Dotting that horizon were shambling silhouettes. I’d say there were two to three dozen of them.
“I shot two over here,” Jane shouted from off to our right. She was facing southward.
“Gnarly, man,” Jay said. He put up a hand for a high-five and she slapped it hard. “Oww,” Jay said, rubbing his hands together.
“Load up, people,” I shouted, “We need to get the hell out of here.”
With the threat of the undead nearby, people didn’t need any further encouragement. They quickly loaded up and we were on the road. Still even with us in fast forward mode, we had to shoot four more zombies. For shambling creatures, they seemed to be covering a lot of ground. Or else there were more of them and the virus was spreading faster than anyone thought.
The cool morning air woke me as we drove northward. Dawn broke fully and the breeze starting heating up as the temperatures rose. About thirty miles down the road, we passed a farmer on a tractor, driving along as if it was a normal day. He tipped a large brimmed straw hat to us as we passed. The whole incident seemed surreal.
Just about a minute after we passed the farmer, Martin’s head popped through the canvas flap and he said, “Mom, I’m really hungry. Do you think it would be okay if I ate one of those Ready-to-Eat things?”
“What are you talking about, honey?” Joni asked.
The canvas opened further and Jay stuck his head through. He was holding a several fist-sized brown packages in his hand. “These,” he said. “Mrees.” He pronounced it as if it were a word and not an acronym.
A light finally went off in the back of my head. “M-R-E. Meals Ready to Eat,” I said. “Where’d those come from?”
“Huck grabbed them before we left,” Jay said. “You never know when you’re going to get the munchies.”
“What do you have?” Joni asked.
“Let me check,” Jay said and ducked back behind the canvas, but quickly came back through with his hands full of more small brown packages. He started reading the labels to us. “We’ve got a barbeque beef sandwich, a barbeque chicken sandwich, green pepper steak with rice.” He rattled off a few more names before he stopped and said, “Bummer.”
“What?” I asked.
“They all have meat in them,” he said. “I’m a vegetarian.” He paused for a moment then added, “Except for bacon.”
Except for bacon? There was not a lot of logic going on inside Jay’s head and there was no use trying to make the puzzle pieces of what he said fit together.
“What do you think, kiddo?” I asked Martin, “Can you eat one of those?”
“It’s like I’m an Army man. Cool.”
“Can somebody supervise him with that?” Joni asked.
“Yeah, I can,” Jay said.
“No, someone else,” Joni said. “You look busy. Don’t you have some more packages there?”
Jay looked puzzled for a minute, then started going through packages again. He stopped with one and a huge grin appeared on his face. “Awesome. Bacon in a bag.”
He started to pull back, but I asked, “Can you leave us a couple?”
“Sure man,” he said and dropped two random packages on the seat then disappeared behind the canvas.
I picked them up and took a look. “What do you want, barbeque or Italian?”
“I don’t know, whatever you don’t want is fine with me,” she said.
I decided to overlook the ‘old married couple’ dialogue that we were about to fall into. I felt like I should reply with, “No, no, whatever you want,’ and let her have what she wanted, but I just took the barbeque. I should have gone with the Italian because the barbeque was a tough as shoe leather and tasted like melted red crayon with smoke flavoring.
Joni said after taking a bite, “This is pretty good.”
I refrained from throwing my sandwich out the window.
For the record, let me just say that Texas is one big-ass state. It felt like we had been on the road for months. The terrain did seem to change as we moved further north as the dry scrub of the backcountry slowly transitioned over to gentle rolling hills and green farmland reminding me of the central plains.
The only upside on our long trek was the fact that there were very few other cars on the road and also very few zombies. We saw the undead only occasionally shambling along in the fields or lying dead beside the road. It was reassuring to some degree. Maybe they were being contained to the southern part of the state and the ones we had encountered were just random sightings?
Other than stopping for pee breaks, we made good time as we headed north. The sound of the tires on the road gave off a constant and monotonous hum that was almost hypnotizing, and I dozed off several times.
I finally felt guilty enough to ask Joni is she wanted me to drive.
“No, I’m okay,” she said.
“Sure?” I asked again.
“Sure. I like driving,” she said. “Otherwise, I get car sick.”
“Really?” I said.
“Don’t say it like I’m some sort of freak.”
“Sorry,” I said. So much for the honeymoon.
Traffic did pick up the closer we got to the border though as we fell in among more and more cars. Many of them were filled with families and all their possessions. Most of the drivers and passengers had nervous looks on their faces. I did notice the near total lack of any authorities, either police, state patrol, or military.
“Does this thing have a radio?” I asked.
“You can look for yourself,” she said. “It’s probably right there,” she said pointing to the dashboard area.
I looked and discovered a neat bullet hole sitting right in the center of the radio. It had to be a product of Bill’s gun. He had not only killed Mack, but had also killed our chance of getting any news from the outside world. We had no idea what was going on out there. There could be tornados, earthquakes, and, hell, a zombie apocalypse going on and we’d be none the wiser. Maybe ignorance was bliss, but I didn’t have to like bliss.
The further we traveled, the more cars we encountered and where we had been moving along at a good clip, we slowed considerably. After ten more miles, we entered traffic congestion as the cars started stacking up in an orderly line. It seemed like a lot of people had the same idea we did, which was to get the hell out of Texas. I had no idea how far we were from the Texas-Oklahoma border, but it had to be close if the line of cars in front of us meant anything. We finally came to a complete stop south of a little town of Ringgold which really wasn’t much of a town but more of a bump on the map.
After about a half of an hour I stepped out onto the truck’s running board and looked down the road. The view wasn’t too encouraging.
“What do you see?” Randell asked, sticking his head through the canvas and into the cab.
“Cars as far as the eye can see,” I said. It was so bad that there was no southbound lane as all cars were heading north on both sides of the highway. It seemed like the population of Texas was dropping dramatically in this exodus.
“We moving anytime soon?” he asked.
“Not that I can tell,” I said. People were outside their cars milling about, talking and trying to get a better idea of what was going on. I looked behind us and the line of cars seemed to now span for miles.
The gridlock lasted for hours with nothing do but watch the line of cars extending in front of us. The sun hung like a heat lamp in the sky slowly baking us which only increased both the tension and people’s frus
tration levels. Even with this, most cars stayed in place and tempers remained restrained. I just wondered how long that could last?
At the mid-afternoon point, a Humvee headed our way from the north bumping along off the side of the road, making me feel very conspicuous in out stolen Army truck. People shouted and waved at the Humvee trying to flag them down, but the soldiers on-board took no heed of it until it slowed as it approached us. I did my best to look cool and collected, but I felt a pit growing in my gut.
The Humvee came to a complete halt about twenty feet off the side our truck and a soldier stepped out of the passenger compartment and came our way. He was well armed with a rifle and tactical gear as if he had just arrived from Iraq or Afghanistan.
“What are we going to say about stealing this truck?” Joni asked.
“Nothing about stealing it,” I said. “Let me handle it.”
“Anytime,” she said. “Just don’t get us all shot.” She froze. “Oh Grant, I didn’t mean that. Not that way.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I knew you were just kidding.”
Our conversation ended when the soldier stopped just outside my door.
“Sir, where did you get this vehicle?” The soldier asked in a very official tone.
I wrestled with how to handle this and wonder just how big a lie I could get away with. Lies usually work best when they’re intermixed with the truth, so, like the Grinch, I thought up a lie and I thought it up quick.
“We were at the refugee camp down near Austin. When the camp was overrun, the commander there asked me to take these refugees out of the camp with this truck.”
“That doesn’t sound like military policy, sir,” he responded.
“Well soldier, you weren’t at the camp when it was overrun, were you?”
“Sir, I don’t like your tone,” he said. “What do you have in the back of the vehicle?”
“Just more refugees,” I said.
“Bernie,” he said back to the Humvee, “Go check the back.”
Oh shit. I had to do something because it was bad enough that we had a stolen truck, but if they saw the weapons, thing could go very badly for us. Fast.
Forget The Zombies (Book 2): Forget Texas Page 7
