by Ann Riley
I glance at Marc. He is looking out to his left at something.
“What is it?” I ask him.
“Don't know. It looks like something on fire, but it's hard to tell.” He says.
“Yeah. It looks like flames coming off something.” I say.
I start looking. I slide through the back and tell Marc to stop. I stand up in the truck bed and can see something big, like a big truck, house or something on fire. It's so far away, I can't get a good view.
“It's definitely a car, house or something.” I tell him.
“Keep going. We don't know what is going on and who, if anyone, is out there.” I say.
So we continue on our way. We enter a little town called Durant. There isn't much here. Well, there wasn't much before the zombies and now, after, there sure isn't. Stores have been ransacked, a few buildings are on fire and there are zombies ambling around. They turn their attention to us. Oh goody, followers now.
“We need to try to find some gas somewhere since that last store didn’t have any.” Marc says.
“Well, that may be a little tricky.” I tell him.
Marc laughs.
I look around for a store that is zombie free and have no luck. I get back into the bed of the truck and tell Marc to drive slow but fast enough to where we can't be car jacked by zombies.
We finally come to a store that seems to be free of the deaders. I tell Marc to pull in and I keep a watch.
He gets out and starts trying to get gas. I pull out the manual pump we brought and through it down to Marc and he gets the in ground tank open.
And here come the amblers. I start picking them off one by one. Do I feel bad for killing them? Sure I do. But would I rather kill them or leave them to be in the form they are now? I wouldn't want to be left to crave human flesh and roam in search of it. So I keep that in mind when we have to kill them.
Marc gets the gas started.
“Want me to throw one of my famous Molotov cocktails?” I ask him.
“NO!” Marc yells.
I think I should be offended at that.
Chapter 2
We finish with the gas and start loading back up. There are a few zombies left, but mostly they are far enough away so that they aren't a concern to us right now.
We head out the drive to get back on the highway leaving our friends behind.
We leave out of Durant city limits and Marc seems to floor the truck.
“Do you really have to drive this fast?” I ask him.
He ignores me.
I turn to look back in front of us and see something, a glint maybe, on the right side of the highway in the grass that just happens to be about waist high now. I keep staring in front. Before I can yell at Marc to stop, a spike strip flies across our lane. And we run over it.
“Damn, hold on.” Marc yells.
We are weaving all over and holding on for our life now. Hitting a spike strip at 80 miles per hour is not on my list of entertainment items.
We continue our skid sideways, then the truck flips over and over. It seems like we flip a hundred times, but finally we come to a stop, upside down in the ditch with the high grass. And darkness takes me.
I like I am floating in a tunnel. I can't see anyone or anything around, but it's very colorful and bright. Finally, I lose the floating feeling and look down to see my boots are covered in lush, green grass. I look around and it is utterly beautiful here. Flowers, all colors. Birds, animals walking around. A beautiful blue sky. Where am I? I have a feeling of being in a place I never want to leave.
I stand there and gaze at the beauty, then I feel someone watching me. You know that feeling you get when someone is watching, but you can't see them. I look out in front of me and see a figure, shrouded in a fog, is the only way I can describe it. It comes closer and I can see it's a woman.
“Hey Tracie Ann.” The figure says.
I keep looking and tears fill my eyes. There is only one person who ever called me by my whole name.
“Momma, is that you?” I ask.
“Yes, it is.” She says.
I start a full on crying spell now. My momma was the most important thing in my life and she passed away when I was 25.
“Oh momma. I miss you so much. I have always wanted to see you again. You don't know how much pain I felt when you left us.” I tell her through the tears.
“I know and I miss you too. I miss all of you. But see how beautiful it is here? I am in no pain anymore. I am happy here.” She says.
“Where am I?” I ask her.
“You are in the garden. Or, what most call the gateway. And you shouldn't be here. It's not time yet.” Momma says.
“Why momma? I want to stay here with you. I don't want to leave.” I tell her.
“I'm sorry baby. It isn't time. You still have things to do at home. One day, we all will be together again. Until that day, you have to finish your life out and continue to do good and take care of everyone.” She says.
“Is daddy here with you too?” I ask.
“He is.” She says.
“My heart was ripped out when I lost you. I still think of you all the time and miss you momma.” I tell her.
“I know baby.” She says.
“So why did I come here? Am I dead? Did we die in the accident we just had?” I ask her.
“No, not dead. But you have to be careful. There are people out there to hurt you. And you have to take care of yourself and my grandson. He has grown into a very good man. And your husband is a good man. I wish I could have met him.” She says.
I can't see anything at this point, but tears.
“Go back now baby. Go back and survive this and live out the rest of your life. Get everyone to safety. Take care of your sister and my grands and great great grands. They need you. Go on now.” She says.
“Ok, I love you momma.” I tell her.
“I love you too Tracie Ann. Always.” She says.
And she's gone.
I try to open my eyes and it's really hard. They feel glued shut. I finally keep trying and get one open. I am hanging upside down by the seat belt. How am I going to get out of this? I wipe across my eyes and face and see why they are glued shut. I have blood on my hand. Which means I have a wound somewhere. I feel around for the seat belt latch and find it. I press the release button and fall. I wasn't prepared for that. I sit on the inside of the cab for a minute to try to get my balance back. I look over at where Marc was in the driver’s seat and he isn't there. Where is he?
I lay down on my belly and start crawling out of the truck. Oh the pain. My chin is killing me so I feel of it and find a big gash. That's where the blood came from. When I was upside down it run down into my eyes. And it hurts. Damn it hurts.
I continue my crawl and finally get clear of the truck. I roll over on my back and look at the sky, seeing the sun has gone down already. Shit has it been that long ago that we wrecked?
I turn my head from side to side looking for Marc. Still no sign of him. Now I'm getting worried because he isn’t here and he wouldn't have left me.
I slowly sit up and look around again. Still, no sign of him.
Dammit. I think to myself.
I crawl back over to the truck in hopes of pulling myself up to stand. I grab onto the bumper and pull myself to my knees. I rest for a minute, then pull myself on up to my feet and stand there for a minute to get my bearings. I turn and look around again and I can now see Marc about twenty-five feet from me. He isn't moving. I stumble over that way and fall half way there and have to crawl the last few feet. Glad I have on boots and jeans.
I get next to him and feel for his pulse. I can feel it. It's weak, but there. I start at his head and go down looking for injuries. His left arm is broken. I can tell by the way it is laying. I look all over him and besides some cuts and his arm he seems ok. I crawl back to the truck and get the first aid kit. I once again pull myself up to my feet at the truck. This time I make it back to Marc on my feet.
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sp; I sit down and start cleaning scratches and bandaging them. Then I get to his arm.
“Here comes the fun part.” I say.
Tammy had shown me how to reset a break, so hopefully I get this right. I say a silent prayer and pick up Marc’s arm gently.
I have the splints ready and a sling out that was in the first aid kit, so all it is now it to set it.
I take a deep breath and feel around on the bones and try to line them up. I feel and hear a pop and his arm is straight now. And then I hear screaming.
“What the fuck are you doing? You are killing me. Stop, stop.” Marc yells.
So after that outburst and a string of very colorful expletives, I decide that Marc is awake now and is not going to die.
Chapter 3
Marc rolls his head side to side trying to look around.
“I wrecked my damn truck, didn’t I?” He asks me.
“Afraid so.” I say.
“Son of a bitch.” He says.
“At least we aren’t dead.” I tell him.
“You’re right.” He says.
“Where are we?” Marc asks.
“Well, in the tall grass in the ditch. You flew about twenty feet from the truck. I was stuck upside down in the seat belt with a busted chin.” I tilt my head up for him to see my chin.
“Damn.” He says.
I grab the first aid kit and start cleaning on my chin. I get up and go back to the truck to look in the mirror and it looks bad. A big gash long ways across my chin. That’s going to scar. Damn.
“There are woods over there. We need to get off the side of the highway. We may need to make a camp on the edge of the woods since the sun is going down. I don’t want to walk at night. Plus, we need to try and get ourselves together again before walking.” I tell Marc.
“Fine.” He growls.
My nephew is a man of few words, until he gets mad that is. Then he has more words than a Webster’s dictionary.
Marc sits up and I start getting stuff out of the truck that we need. We have three backpacks full of food and water and one with a few clothes and a couple of blankets. I get those out and take them over by Marc and go back for the rifles and other weapons we brought. We have an ammo bag full and that is going to be a little heavy.
“Can you stand up?” I ask Marc.
“Yeah, I think so. My arm is broken, isn’t it?” he asks.
“Yeah, and when we get to the woods you are taking a pain pill Tammy packed for us. She packed a small pharmacy in case we needed it.” I tell him
He nods and stands up.
I start taking back packs to the edge of the woods while Marc ambles over that way dragging the ammo bag. He starts looking around for some wood to make a fire as it is getting darker now and hard to see. He makes a fire pit and gets a fire started while I get the last of the back packs over.
I get our rifles out and check to make sure they are loaded and hand him his.
“Can you shoot with one arm?” I ask him.
“Yeah, it will be hard, but yeah, I can.” He says.
I nod.
I dig around looking for Tammy’s pharmacy and pull out some pain pills and hand him one. She stocked us up. What did she do? Make them in the basement? It looks like she had an assembly line going.
“What are we going to do?” He asks.
“Well, the only thing we can do is walk tomorrow. We need to find another vehicle. I don’t know how far we are away from any town; I haven’t had time to check the map. And I don’t know if there are any car lots around or if we can find a working car that has gas.” I tell him.
“I saw a sign before we wrecked that said Canton on it. I think it showed twenty miles away. So that may be where we have to walk to. I know there are car lots there and should be some cars sitting around as it is where the Nissan plant is located.” He says.
“Sounds good.” I say.
We eat and get ready to sleep for the night. I sit up and watch for the first five hours as that pain pill has knocked Marc out. I stare at the fire and let my mind wander. What is Bobby doing? He couldn’t come on this trip as he was helping Trey with the fencing and rebuilding of some of the borders around the woods. I miss my Riley. I know he is mad because I left him, but he will be ok with Bobby there. What is Diane doing? Probably cooking as always.
Will we be able to find another vehicle? I can only pray we do. I hope the people we were going to help can manage on their own as it looks like we won’t be getting there anytime soon.
I hear some leaves rustling over to my left. I sit and stay quiet not knowing what it may be. I keep looking and try to focus past the light of the fire. We need night vision goggles. Finally, I see a raccoon come from behind a tree. I get out some peanuts and throw some over to him. He waddles over and picks them up and runs off. I smile to myself. I am an animal lover so I could sit and watch animals all day.
Pretty soon, I start getting sleepy. Damn, I am on watch, I can’t fall asleep. So I start looking over the map again. When we find a vehicle, we are heading back home. There is no need to go on and Marc has a broken arm. Tammy needs to check it out.
I think back to the experience I had when we wrecked. Was it real? Did I actually talk to my momma? I am a believer of heaven and hell. I believe people go to one or the other when they die. I have heard of people having experiences like this, but never knew anyone who did. This is something I will probably keep to myself as some people look at you funny when you mention things like that. Some may not believe.
Or some may not want to believe it. So I will keep that to myself.
Marc stirs and wakes up.
“You feeling ok?” I ask him.
“My arm is throbbing now. Give me another Percocet.” He says.
“When we find a car, we are going back home so Tammy can check your arm out and make sure I set it correctly.” I tell him.
He nods.
“At this point there is no need to continue on and risk your arm being fucked up for life.” I say.
“I know.” He says.
“Get some rest.” Marc tells me.
“Can you stay awake?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m ok.” He says.
So I lay down and close my eyes. I swear I am out in seconds.
Chapter 4 – Marc
“I can’t believe I wrecked my truck.” Marc says in a whisper.
What are we going to do now? Not much with a broken arm. Damn. Can things get worse? Yeah, so I need to shut up.
I can’t let anything happen to Tracie. Momma would kick my ass even with my arm broke. I should have made Trey come with us, or Bobby. I’m just glad it was my arm and not my leg that is broken. That would be a bigger pain in the ass.
I can’t believe the shit that is going on now. Who would have ever thought there would be an apocalypse, much less zombies? This is stuff we hear about in movies.
Life is all about surviving day to day now. And making sure those around you that you care about are safe. I miss my grand babies. Little Remi and Langley. I miss my kids and wife. Wonder what Becky is doing right now?
I pick up the map and study it for more options on where we may find a car and so I can take my mind off home. It looks like Canton is our best bet so far. There isn’t any traffic out anymore, so we should be able to hear any that approaches. Still, we will stay on the edge of the tree line while we walk, just in case we need to hide.
It will probably take us about ten hours to walk twenty miles so we need to start out early.
Starting out at 5:00am would get us in Canton by 3:00pm maybe. If we can make it without many stops along the way to rest.
Since it’s already 4:30am, I get up and get our stuff together and pop another Percocet. My arm is hurting, but as long as I have some pain pills I hope I can keep the pain dulled.
I wake Tracie up so she can get her things together and get a bite to eat before we go. I check our water and see we only have about ten bottles left. We have three cases in the truck,
but we can’t carry that. That will be something to look for when we get to our destination.
I get my knives strapped on and get my rifle slung on my shoulder. Not an easy task with a broken arm, but I managed. Tracie is up and ready to go. I guess all we need to do now is start walking.
Chapter 5
That was a short sleep I think to myself. Marc let me sleep about five hours, but I could have caught a few more winks. We have started our walk towards Canton hoping we can get there by 3:00pm or close to that time. We want to find a car before it gets dark. I really don’t want us to have to sleep in the woods again. It’s too open and anyone could stumble upon us. I am carrying two of the backpacks with food and medicine and Marc is carrying the ammo bag and the water back pack. I don’t know how long he will be able to walk carrying that weight with one arm out of order.
I have wondered if the CDC, Center for Disease Control, knew about the toxoplasmosis outbreak we were having before they started issuing flu shots. That has weighed on my mind a lot lately. Did the CDC know about this and may could have prevented it with more testing? Did they even test for toxoplasmosis in the beginning before flu shots were given to those who had the disease?
I guess those are questions we may never have answers to. But I plan on trying to find out. Even if I have to make a trip to Georgia to see if anyone from the CDC is left there. It’s hard to believe that in this day and time, they didn’t know we had an epidemic going on.
We continue our walk silently. We are both wrapped in our own thoughts, and it feels like we have walked a thousand miles, but I know it’s only been a couple.
“How is your arm?” I ask Marc.
“It’s ok.” He says.
I nod.
Finally, we come upon a little town called Vaughn. It’s small and has a few stores but no car lots. So we look around for a car sitting out somewhere. We only see a few. This town is so small there probably wasn’t a couple hundred people here before the zombies. We have no luck finding a car with gas, but we do find some zombies. Just great. I think to myself.
