by Sweet, Dell
“We can,” Alan agreed, “but don't let that map fool you. It's not as straight forward as it appears. I think we'll head out on East Avenue from Fairport. Try that first, and see.” Glenn looked for East Avenue on the map, but couldn't find it.
“Thirty-one,” Alan said.
“Route 31?” Glenn asked.
“Yes, straight out of Fairport. It's really East Avenue still to me, but I think they list it as Route 31 on the map,” Alan said.
“Got it,” Glenn replied.
“It doesn't go straight in anymore like the map shows,” Alan warned, “They changed it, but it goes far enough to hit Winton road.”
“According to the map,” Glenn said, “it'll take us north or south, and that opens a lot of ways in to the city.”
“Sounds like a done deal,” Johnny said, as he turned on the heater in the Jeep.
“Hey,” Glenn said, “don't you feel a little guilty driving around in a stolen Jeep?”
“Nope, If you're gonna steal something make it something nice, I always say,” Johnny replied, with a smug look on his face. “Besides, it's getting colder out again, isn't it?” he asked, turning the conversation back to something more serious. “I mean I'm from Los Angeles of course, and you always know what it's going to be like there. Cold in the mornings, usually, this time of year. Hot all day long.”
“It does stay cooler, or at least it did,” Glenn said. “It can get hot in the summers, maybe edge up to the eighties, even low nineties on very rare occasions, but not as high as it was earlier. I really gotta believe that there's another reason for it. It seems to be swinging back to cold again though. Of course it's right back to the friggin' scientists you know,” he continued, “only time will tell on that one, I guess. Remember that Japanese island that had the quake about thirty, thirty five years ago?”
Johnny said. “Moved it, right?”
“About six feet,” Alan said, “and that was just a quake, not a meteor blast. Who's to say what a large blast like that, coupled with a super quake, or whatever it was, would have caused? Or several large quakes, volcanoes for that matter? I don't pretend to know.”
“I don't guess we'll be finding that out right away,” Lana said.
“No... More wait and see,” Glenn said. “I'd sure like to get my hands on a compass though, but who knows if a compass could tell us much? Probably not anymore, I'd guess. Shit, where the hell can you find a good scientist when you need one?” Everyone laughed, breaking the tension that had been building, as it always did when the conversation turned serious.
“Hey,” Johnny said, as he thrust his open hand over the seat back, towards the rear. “You guys hogging all the beer back there? No wonder you're both starting to sound like a couple of fifth grade scientists.” Glenn laughed as he passed Johnny another beer. “Your license,” he said.
“Guy's?” Lana asked. She waited until they looked at her. “Well, I was wondering, if, well... When we get to Oswego, if we could stop and get some clean clothes? I've been in these for two days now, and if there's no one there, in Oswego, I mean, I'd like to stop and get some clean ones.”
Johnny looked down at his dirty shirt; he could use some clean clothes too. And a shower wouldn't be bad either. Aloud, he said, “I vote yes, does anyone know where there's a shopping center, a mall?”
“There are a couple just inside the city limits,” Alan said, “They should have just about anything you'd want.”
“It would probably be a good idea to stop,” Glenn said. “It would give us all a chance to clean up too. Of course that's if there's running water.”
“Even if there isn't,” Lana said, “there's the lake, right?”
“True enough,” Glenn replied, “but we may not be able to get close to it. I'll hope for running water myself.” A chorus of 'Me too' greeted Glenn's last statement.
Johnny spread his fingers apart and looked from face to face. “Well, let's get this show on the road.”
West of Mexico NY: Johnny and Lana
Early Evening
Johnny had been able to pick up speed once they had left Mexico. The pavement was fairly even, but after the first three or four miles the traffic began to block the highway and they were down to a slow crawl. He could go no faster than ten miles per hour. There were several blind hills, and curves, and abandoned cars and trucks that seemed to be in the least likely places.
The four wheel drive had come in handy, as several times they had to go off the road and into a field, or someone's yard to get around it. As evening fell they drove partway up the side of a concrete bridge escarpment and set up a camp. They were protected by the trucks, sheltered under the bridge itself, yet high enough to see in all directions.
The dead came for them not long after they had set up their small camp for the evening.
Lana was sitting next to the fire, helping some others prepare a small meal when the first of them sprang from the opposite side of the Jeeps where they had been hiding in the thick shadows. Lana had shrugged the fully automatic rifle she had been wearing off her back on a shoulder strap into her hands without thinking. Her fingers automatically brushed the safety off as she ran her index finger past the trigger guard.
She watched in shock as three of the dead leapt from the shadows, clearing the hood of the Jeep they had been hiding behind and came down in a squat on the opposite side without ever touching it. Time seemed to drop from its normal speed to a slower speed all at once. She could see the muscles bunching in one zombies legs as her eyes swiveled and locked on Lana's own. The zombie seemed to scream, but no sound reached Lana's ears
From the squat they had all launched themselves. Lana watched as one hit Amber and drove her to the ground. She was surprised to feel a heavy vibration from the rifle in her hands, and as her eyes came back to track the one that had launched itself at her she saw it disintegrating in mid-air. Even as she turned and tried to track the third zombie she felt a cold splash of fluid strike her face and she closed her eyes involuntarily as she finished her turning. Something heavy hit her and drove her sideways and backwards, but she managed to keep her feet as she bunched her thigh muscles and dove for the edge of the fire where Amber was wrestling with the one that had driven her to the ground. She could see her name forming on the edge of Amber's lips. She had not screamed it yet, but Lana knew she would scream it. A second later she was straddling the zombie's back, yanking her head back by her filthy, matted hair, and planting her knife squarely in the top of her skull. She had no idea when she had gone for her knife, but she was glad that she had. Amber's scream reached her ears long after she had rolled the zombie off her, down the concrete abutment and was settling herself back onto her feet.
There was no time to check on Amber as she spun quickly and tried to take in the entire underpinnings of the bridge in one sweep of her eyes. She watched Johnny swing a tree limb they had gathered for firewood and take another zombie's head off with it. Her eyes continued on. Two dead lay on the ground near Scotty, that was it. Almost everyone had pushed back into the shadows of the overhang of the bridge abutment. Safe... They seemed safe to her.
She heard herself draw in a deep panicked breath as she spun in the other direction, eyes moving, and found nothing there at all. One hand came up and wiped at the mess that dripped and ran down the side of her face as she finished her breath and bent over to help Amber to her feet. She heard herself asking if she had been bitten, but her mind was elsewhere, looking at her shirt, her jeans, her exposed arm: Before she was done looking Scotty and Johnny were there by her side and time seemed to take a fast jump back into its regular framework. Conversation suddenly sped up and voices resumed a regular level where she heard them long before she understood them.
Johnny was looking in her eyes and it took a second to understand his words. They seemed to be spoken so fast. She understood at last. “No... No... Not mine,” she told him as Johnny wiped the mess from the side of her face.
Twenty minutes later they were al
l silently watching the flames leap from the fire. They had built it higher, the circle of light reaching farther, making them at least feel safer. The night was silent, but it had been silent before, Lana told herself.
She let her eyes travel from person to person. No hysterics... No crying, weeping, cursing. It was like they had accepted it as their due in this new world. She wondered over her thoughts, realizing that she felt exactly the same. The fear of just a few weeks and a few thousand miles passed no longer held her. She walked back to the fire and once again began stirring the dinner pot.
NYS Route 104: Johnny and Lana
Late Afternoon
By the time they reached the outskirts of Oswego the next day, they were ready to stop and rest. Alan pointed out a large shopping center on their left, and Johnny pulled into the mostly empty parking lot and rolled up to the front doors of a large department store. “Thrifty Deal?” he asked Alan.
“Chain store,” Alan replied. “You can find a little of everything.”
The other two Jeeps pulled in behind them as they were getting out. Johnny walked up to the front doors and tried to open them. “Locked,” he said.
“That's okay,” Glenn smiled, reaching back into the Jeep. “I've got the key.” He handed the jack handle in his hand to Johnny as he walked up to the glass doors.
“Well,” Johnny said, “I guess here goes.” He swung the jack handle at the door and the glass shattered into millions of green-tinted crystals that skittered across the pavement.
“It's my first real crime,” Johnny said, turning around with a large grin on his face.
Just then a loud alarm began to whoop from within the store, and a split second later an even louder alarm, mounted in a steel box above the doors, began to bray into the quiet afternoon air. Johnny, along with almost everyone else, had turned and began to run back towards the Jeep when it went off. The jack handle clattered to the pavement.
“Holy shit,” he sputtered.
Lana was doubled over laughing, leaning up against the Jeep for support. Johnny looked at her stupidly for a few seconds and then smiled. Most of the others began to laugh as well, breaking the tension the alarm had caused.
“Y-Y-You,” she tried to say, but couldn't stop laughing. “I thought you were going to have a heart attack, Johnny,” she said, once she had gained some control. She held her stomach and began to laugh again. Johnny began to laugh himself, along with everyone else.
“Well... it frightened me at first,” he protested. He hadn't been the only one, he knew. Glenn's eyes had looked as though they were going to pop right out of his head, he recalled. He seemed to be all right now though.
Glenn walked forward and picked up the tire iron from the pavement. Standing on tip toe he pried the metal box open. He hit the large siren inside with the jack handle, until it finally screeched and then quit. The other alarm inside was still going off. He disappeared into the store, and a few seconds later that one stopped too. Glenn came back outside and peered sheepishly at the small crowd, most of whom had finally stopped laughing.
“If we're gonna do this on a regular basis,” he said, “we better pick up some real burglar tools while we're here.” Everyone laughed again, but the laughter died down quickly, and once it had they all crunched across the glass and into the store.
The power was off, it turned out. The alarm had been backed up by battery, and had apparently switched over automatically when the power went off. The mood changed once they had gotten into the store. Just the fact that no one did come when the alarm had gone off would have been enough, but the empty store had also contributed its share to their somber mood. It served as a reminder that they still had met no other people at all. They had traveled over seventy miles and seen no one, and it reinforced what had happened in all their minds. No cashiers at the empty checkouts, no police cars screaming into the parking lot to see who was breaking in, there was nobody, anywhere it seemed.
They had gone together through the deserted aisles of the store, unwilling, or unable, to split up. Johnny and Scotty had visited the garden center while the others stayed together as a group. Scotty had spotted what looked like a water tower as they had pulled into the lot, mounted on the roof. It may have rarely held more than a few hundred gallons of rain water at any given time, used to water the flowers and plants the garden center sold. Now it was overflowing, running down the moss covered concrete block wall. The wall was cracked. The tower had never been meant to be over filled and the weight was taking a toll on the wall and the roof beneath the tank. The ceiling below where the tank mounted had caved in, but the steel girders that held the roof looked strong enough.
A little work had located the thick hose that brought the water down from the tank. A little more work and some duct tape had grafted a shower head to the hose end and fastened it to an over head beam.
Johnny, his hair still wet from the cold shower; dressed in a faded pair of jeans and a blue chambray work shirt, leaned up against the wall outside the garden center with the other men, and waited for the women to come back out. They talked quietly among themselves as they waited.
“You think Rochester will be the same as here?” Dave asked. He had seemed especially shaken by the alarm in the parking lot, and still seemed shook up over it.
Terry stood silently next to Glenn, tapping the heel of one work boot against the cinder block wall. “It does sort of seem like everyone is gone,” he said, as he stopped tapping the boot heel and straightened up.
“Could be,” Glenn said, solemnly. “It really could be, but I don't think so. I think there are probably people right here in Oswego. They're scared, is all. I can't say as I blame them either, they don't know anymore about what's going on than we do. Even if they saw us come in, I don't think they're about to come running up to say howdy. I wouldn't,” he paused, before continuing. “If I saw a bunch of people come driving in, I'd probably want to stay away. No police means there's no protection, and they don't know who we are, or even where we came from, or what we want for that matter. I think though, that there are people. Maybe it's just going to take some time before we all get back together. I just can't believe we're it, I guess.”
“I have to agree with you, Glenn,” Alan said. “If we were to stay here a while, I would bet we would probably see someone. The curiosity would bring them out, I think.”
“I agree,” Johnny said. “I was none too keen when you guy's approached us back in Watertown either. I thought about ignoring you, as a matter of fact.”
“Glad you didn't, Johnny,” Glenn said. The other men nodded agreement as he spoke. “I can see though where a body wouldn't want to. Especially since we were carrying guns, or rifles, at that point. I am glad you did though.”
“Think we'll make Rochester tomorrow?” Dave, asked, as Gina and Jan came walking out of the garden center.
“It's not far, only about another sixty miles,” Alan answered, “but I doubt it. We will probably get there late tomorrow or the next day sometime, depending on the stalled traffic of course.” He seemed to consider for a second. “Maybe longer. The stalled traffic is even heavier and it might be ten times worse than this once we get closer. I mean they may have also taken to the secondary roads, so there may not be any real way to get there in one straight shot anymore.”
“That's about what I figure,” Glenn chipped in, “at least a few days.”
Lana and Amber walked out, and the small group prepared to make a meal and settle down for the night.
Everyone, at Glenn's suggestion, had changed into sneakers or boots in case they ended up walking. They had taken the time to pick up extra clothes, as well as some more canned goods to replace what they had eaten, and Johnny had found some Quick Cold in one of the side aisles.
Quick Cold had only become popular in the last couple of years as a retail item. Before that it had only been used by the medical profession, to transport anything that needed to stay cold, or frozen. Organs for transplant, fresh blood, and cou
ntless other things. The plastic bags contained a small stick shaped tube. Johnny had filled three large coolers with soda and beer, and tossed in several of the bags after snapping the small cylinder within, to activate the chemical the bags contained. They had instantly frosted up and began to cool the warm cans. A few minutes later they rolled the trucks inside the store and built a fire for the night. Johnny took the first shift of guard duty with Scotty, just inside the main entrance.
NINE
Johnny
My hand is cramping, but I am almost finished. The dead are quiet right now. Quiet as in, not scratching, not trying to get in. I was glad about that at first, but after a while it has started to bug me. Makes me wonder what they might be up to. It is something to consider, and something for you, whoever you are, to consider too. One of the things we noticed as time slipped by was that those bastards got smarter... Faster... Like... Okay, Crazy-Town, as Lana would say, like they were evolving. There I said it. I know how it sounds, but it is true. Watch for yourself and see.
So I wonder if that is what this is. Like they are up to something stealthy... Like those bastards cooked up a plan and are putting it in play... Maybe, maybe not, but it can't be long until sunrise. An although sunrise no longer holds them back, they don't readily come out as much. It's like they need that sleep, just like we do, and they are not far from when they used to be humans, and so they have our sleep cycles... Make sense?
Oswego: A small place in New York I had never heard of before. We were there only overnight, but I wish to Christ we had stayed...
Oswego NY: Johnny and Lana
Late Morning
They spent the morning scouring the store for useful items. After they had loaded the Jeeps, they had left the abandoned shopping center and began to work their way through the seemingly empty city, when they reached the first bridge they were forced to stop.
