by Maxey, Phil
Jess nodded with tears in her eyes. “Can you find them? Can you promise me that?”
The old man was beginning to understand the transaction that had just been made and quickly moved to get inside the pickup, but stopped on Meg walking towards him, then pointing the gun in his direction.
“Looks like you’re going to have to find yourself another vehicle,” she said.
“I’m old! You can’t leave an old man out here!”
She waved the gun in his direction, each motion making him step further back from the vehicle. Jess moved to the Sedan, grabbed Meg’s pack and quickly gave it to her. She then leaned closer and whispered something to which Meg nodded.
Meg offered her the gun. “I’m not sure you need it… but you want this?”
Jess smiled, shaking her head. “You’re better with them than I am.”
Sam looked at the two men standing in the road. “What we going to do with them?”
Meg snorted, standing half in the pickup. “Let the things have them.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
10: 40 a.m. Kansas Turnpike, western approach to Kansas City.
A tear streamed down Jess’s cheek, as muddy fields covered with a smattering of snow passed by. Her right hand was clasped around her daughter’s left, and it had been that way for most of the journey from their encounter with Clint and Jay. She hoped Sam didn’t notice how her fingers and wrist were thicker.
The shock of having a gun pointed at her, hardly registered in Jess’s mind, instead only one word had replaced the grief filled memories of Landon and Josh.
Alive…
“Umm…”
“Yes?”
“That was kind of amazing what you did with that guy… I mean… like, he was a big guy…”
Jess searched for a plausible explanation for something she herself did not understand. “Oh, umm I took some martial art classes when I was at university. I guess it all came back to me when I needed it.” She smiled at her daughter then turned back to the highway, hoping it was enough.
Sam nodded as silence returned to the car. Her mother had told Tye to go with Meg, and Sam knew why. She was going to change at some point. It was just a matter of when. But the boy might be immune. No reason to put him in danger. Even though they did not discuss it, she agreed with her mother’s decision. “What will we do if there are lots of the things?” she said with a nervousness to her voice.
Jess held up the road atlas. “I had a quick look of alternate routes through the city.” She passed it to Sam. “But double check, and find me other options if the highway is blocked.”
Sam set about doing just that as Jess continued scanning the landscape, which now included advertising boardings perched within trees, offering discount haircuts and lodgings.
They slowed as they approached a stationary car in the other lane. The windows were dark. Something clung to the inside of them, blocking any view of what lay within the blue compact.
No words passed between Jess and Sam and Jess pushed down on the gas, leaving the abandoned car in the rear mirror.
They moved below an overpass and more cars and trucks sat ahead of them, some with their doors open. Jess weaved between them, her foot ready to accelerate if anything should jump out from inside one of the vehicles, but all appeared empty. A space opened up and they picked up speed, both sighing in relief to be on the open road again.
Sam looked down at the thick set of printed maps. “We could take the four-three-five, coming up. Takes us south of the downtown area, and then use small roads to move east. Will add a few more minutes, but might be safer?”
Jess nodded, steering into the right lane. “Sounds good. Let me know when we need to head east.”
Sam continued studying the pages. “Will do…” She looked up. “I’m sorry for how I was… before. I… was angry at you.”
“For?” Jess drove to the right, following the road as it swept away, sloping downwards. She caught sight of more vehicles on the route they had just exited.
Sam looked down. “I don’t know… I know it’s not your fault. I just couldn’t help but be angry, and you were the only person left I could be that way with…”
Jess smiled, grabbing and shaking her daughter’s hand briefly. “You are right to be angry,” she glanced right. “Maybe not at me, but for what’s happened over the past day. You shouldn’t have seen what you did…” She swallowed as sadness started to swill around at the back of her throat. “But, we’re alive and so is your dad and brother. And soon, after we have found the vaccine, we will all be back together, and we will find a place to hide out for the remainder of the time. Just another four and a half days.”
The road became a decline, allowing a view for a few miles. A mass of white trucks and trailers which the highway dissected, sat on both sides, and further were hints of warehouses.
“Do you think things can go back to the way they were?”
Jess searched for a good answer. Words that would give her daughter hope, something to look forward to, but it would be a lie and she had never lied to any of her children. “I don’t know… But as long as we’re together, then we can make our life as normal as possible, right?..”
Sam nodded then realized her mother wasn’t looking at her, but past her to a small lake, half frozen over, a few hundred yards from the highway. Something was standing there. Human shaped but the size was wrong for the distance. Too big. It remained still, a dark form, watching.
They came to a bridge, within a landscape of spidery brown branches. Lumps of ice bobbed upon muddy waters, reflecting a largely monochrome gray sky above. It looked like a landscape of hell to Sam, and even though she didn’t know it, her mother was thinking something similar.
The bridge continued over train lines. A freight train with cars that continued to the horizon sat motionless below, but both of them refrained from commenting. Neither of them wanted to taint their hope with the sense of stillness that pervaded the hills and fields they were driving through.
They continued south for a few miles before vehicles starting appearing in the opposite lane. A column of traffic that lacked any inhabitants. Hundreds of cars, trucks and vans waiting, frozen in time, many with their doors open or the windshields laying in fractured pieces on their hoods.
Sam wanted to ask her mother where were all the people had gone. It was the obvious question, but she feared the answer. Instead, she looked back at the maps. “I think we should take the next exit. After a few intersections, we should end up on ninety-fifth street. Takes us all the way to the other side of the city, and then it’s a straight run to Jefferson.”
Jess followed her daughter’s directions, quickly coming to roads with sidewalks and malls sat behind parking lots. There were more vehicles as well, equally as devoid of life as every other they had seen.
They were close to the city’s suburbs, and the lack of life was reflected in the fear building in Jess’s stomach. They had seen the effect of the virus when trying to escape Denver, but since then they had just witnessed small population centers, split between hundreds of miles of countryside. It was easy for Jess to imagine that people still existed. Right? They had to. But as they drove deeper into another big city, the true horror of what had transpired over the past twenty-four hours could not be denied.
The muscles in her leg tightened. She wanted to push down hard on the gas, but then she equally couldn’t shake the feeling that they were not alone in the silent city. And the slightest of noises would shake the things from their slumber. That just out of sight, were creatures even more inexplicable than they had already seen. A whole city of them. Ten thousand? A hundred thousand?
They arrived at a junction as a light rain started to hit the windshield. Each of the multiple lanes from the four compass directions were chock full of vehicles, but that’s not what caught Jess’s and Sam’s attention for in the center was a car wreck. It hadn’t been caused by a collision, but rather an expansion. A red pickup had been dismantl
ed in an explosion of something from within its cab, and pieces of the former vehicle were now strewn across the damp concrete.
The sedan bumped over a part of a seat, a dashboard and luggage as Jess steered to the east.
Sam couldn’t hold her thoughts any longer. “Where are the things?” Her words came with an urgency.
Her mother swallowed. “Out there.” Her comment lacked any direction, but they both looked to where they were heading. Deeper into the city.
The road was flat and straight. That was good, and there were only a peppering of vehicles.
Jess pushed down on the gas and watched the speedometer increase until they were pushing eighty.
Office buildings with proudly presented scientific sounding names, parking lots and beige faded lawns slid by. They reminded Jess of her own former company’s compound of structures, some of which were underground. The industrial park they were moving through soon gave way to small wooden homes closer to the road. They almost moved past too quick to notice, but Jess caught a glimpse of a few open front doors.
Sam coughed, but before Jess could react, she sat back up. “I’m fine. Just a tickle in my throat. I’m fine.”
Jess’s heart returned to just a light thundering in her chest, and she focused again on the four lanes in front of them, steering left… then right… around what vehicles had been left behind.
They were doing ninety now, the buffeting of the wind loud enough to be distracting, but that was okay because at that speed it would only be a few more minutes before they were leaving the built-up areas. Jess’s grip on the steering wheel was assured, her view a hundred yards ahead of them, seeing any obstacles seconds before she needed to move into another lane. So it was her daughter that saw the first of the forms emerging from small groups of trees, and from behind stores and motels that were flashing past.
Sam didn’t want to say anything. What was the point? The things, which were just blurs due to the speed the sedan was traveling were gone before they were anywhere near the car, and soon they would be free of the city. But then they started to appear ahead of them, moving like a wave towards the three-lane road.
“I know. I see them,” said Jess. Her boot was now entirely to the floor. Her eyes flicked briefly to the speedometer. The needle bounced around ninety-five and even if she could have gone faster, she wouldn’t have wanted to, due to needing to avoid the abandoned vehicles.
Sam’s head whipped around, tracking not one but groups of things, emerging from yards, gardens and side streets. She had the answer to where all the ‘things’ were. They were always there, lurking, waiting, and they had discovered the imposters in their midst.
The sedan sped through intersection after intersection. Jess didn’t want to admit it, but the wall of things was growing closer to the curb.
“How much further!” she said, trying to keep her desperation as subdued as possible.
Sam fumbled the pages. “Um, I dunno, maybe five more miles.”
Too far, thought Jess.
The things were almost within touching difference, definitely close enough to leap. The route ahead was becoming a mass of brown flinching things. As if a forest had uprooted and planted itself in the middle of the road.
“Hold on!” shouted Jess. The sedan rapidly slowed and seeing a gap within the creatures, she swung right, up a curb, over the sidewalk and across a parking lot. Despite the roar of the engine, the air was thick with screeches. A thing with solid brown limbs stormed towards them, trying to get to them before they escaped the lot.
“Mom, mom!”
Jess steered left, bumping down a muddy bank, landing heavily on the concrete of the road then kept on going right. The creature followed, staggering into the street behind them and continued its pursuit, but the sedan was already moving away, and Jess had also seen the other creatures massing a few hundred yards at the end of the south facing route. She hit the brakes and took a left, almost hitting a parked pickup, missing it by inches. A creature bounded across a faded lawn, knocking over trash cans, its bottom was almost human, containing thick legs wearing torn jeans, but its top was just tentacles, which waved and flailed and with a lunge smashed into the rear windows, shattering the glass. Sam screamed, but they were moving too fast for the thing to gain any purchase.
The road was narrow, two lanes and bordered by pleasant two-story homes, which creatures were bursting from, sprinting towards the vehicle. Jess swung the sedan left as they leaped at them, now driving on the sidewalk, but quickly saw the problem ahead. A swarm of things were running directly at them. As Sam’s cries and yells became lost in the engine noise and fury of the creatures outside, Jess turned the steering hard to the right, rejoining the road but kept on going, sliding between two things which grabbed and scraped along the side doors. Sam shouted in shock at the fence they were heading towards but Jess was now lost to panic. The sedan smashed through the planks, bumping over garden slabs, then down a slope, through bushes, another fence and across a front yard, before she slammed on the breaks, and did a turn to the left.
The road ahead looked clear, but the thunderous vibrations of thousands of indescribable things made itself felt through the road then seats of the sedan. Jess floored the gas and they took off again.
“We have to get out of this city!” she shouted. They quickly reached the end of the small street, turning right, joining a much larger four-lane road, which appeared empty of vehicles. She glanced at Sam, whose knees were up against her chest, her cheeks wet and red. “Hey, we’re okay. We’re alive. We’re going to get through—”
A loud bang came from her left, the car immediately slumping slightly on that side. Jess knew what it meant. She had something similar occur a year before on the way to Rocky Pine, but this time, in this situation, she didn’t want to admit that their front left tire had just blown. She eased back on the gas, the car’s speed falling to around forty and glanced in the rear-view mirror. A few hundred yards behind was constant movement of dark forms. A strange thought jumped in her mind.
They’re acting together… like one…
Sparks flew from below her side window, jolted her back to her surroundings. She reduced the speed further, now just topping thirty but the sparks continued. The rubber had completely gone, now just a metal wheel which was rapidly being melted away, until she would lose all control.
She looked in the mirror again. The wall of things was larger. They were gaining.
Sam looked behind. “They’re coming! Can’t we go any faster!”
“If we go faster, the axel could break!”
The road sloped down, past a parking lot. Jess’s mouth fell open while her daughter froze with fear.
Rather than be full of cars, it was full of things, pouring out from the building behind, a medical center. A sea of swirling limbs attached to impossible bodies, lumbering towards the road.
The car suddenly sunk lower on the left side, producing sparks from the entire front, the speed dropping to barely ten miles an hour, the screeching the vehicles own.
Jess scanned the surrounding roads and lots for the vehicles, but there weren’t any.
The sedan was now crawling, its engine chugging and smoke had joined the sparks. They moved across an intersection, then up a slight incline onto a bridge, which railway lines ran beneath.
“No, no, no!” Jess slammed her hands on the steering wheel as the car ground to a halt. “Come on! We have to…”
A brightly colored van was driving towards them.
“Run… Run to the van!” shouted Jess. They both pushed open their doors, grabbing their packs but Jess made the mistake of looking behind. A football stadium of beings filled every inch of space, all converging on them. An angry, seething mass of unnatural creatures with only one purpose, to obtain for themselves the pure organic material, almost within their grasp.
With her daughter in hand, she ran towards the other end of the bridge and the van which was almost upon them. It skidded to a stop, turning in o
ne motion. Its rear side door slid back. A man wearing a military uniform waved them onward.
Jess and Sam, their lungs bursting, sprinted to the open door, scrambling inside as the door slid closed.
They both fell back against the metal wall. Jess gulped, trying to catch her breath as the engine roared.
The man looked to someone driving. “Better put the metal to the floor, Arlo. I ain’t never seen this many before.” He looked back at the woman and the kid. “They wanted you, real bad.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
10: 59 a.m. Southern outskirts of Kansas City.
Jess looked at the inside of the van which was a confused combination of motorhome and hoarder’s paradise. Newspapers and magazines sat in bundles next to cupboards, a small stove, fridge and containers, their see-through plastic hinting at items that belonged to someone who lived inside this small space. A small table sat up against the front cab wall, with a laptop on it. Its screen was bright within the gloomy interior, showing images of carnage.
“You have internet?” said Sam to whoever would answer.
“Er, no, that’s all gone down.” said the man driving, who she figured was in his forties. He pushed his glasses back up his nose, his dark mop of hair doing its best to interfere. “I’m Arlo. The soldier dude is Eugene.”
The ‘soldier dude’ flashed a sarcastic smile at the newcomers.
Arlo continued. “I just stored as much as I could before they turned off the network. I bet the military still have theirs up and going though!”
“There’s still a military?”
“Hell yes,” said Eugene. He looked back to the road, running a callused hand across his short cropped blonde hair. “They just busy protecting the president or something…”
“I’m Jess, this is my daughter Sam. Thank you for saving us. You’re both immune?”
Eugene nodded. “Reckon so. I was with my platoon, we were fighting back the mutants, when… well, things got real bad, real quick. Just luck that I got out alive… the only one not to change. I thought I was the only man left alive in the whole city, then I heard this van’s engine, and well, that was the start of a beautiful friendship.” He looked to the front. “Ain’t that so Arlo?”
