The rain slacked considerably and nearly stopped completely by the time we passed into the wildlife refuge on the shoreline. If my memory served me we were on the glide path to the islands, but somehow I didn’t think the storm was over. A part of me suspected that this was a brief respite and more bad weather was still to come. My optimism was running at a low ebb about then.
I continued to guide Joni along and we made it to Mann’s Harbor without any incident. The first consequential transition from mainland to the islands was the Virginia Dare Memorial Bridge. This was one of the engineering marvels that left me in awe. It was four lane highway spanning five miles over the Croatan Sound reaching to Roanoke Island. It was truly a man made triumph over nature. There must have been a million tons of concrete and steel in the thing. A tremor of fear ran through me as we approached the bridge.
“That’s a lot of water between us and the mainland,” Robbie said.
“It sure is,” Joni said.
“Are we sure the zombies can’t swim?” Robbie asked.
“The Rio Grande stopped them when we were trying to get out of Texas,” I replied.
“But what about us being trapped out there?” Robbie asked.
“Robbie, my man, sometimes you have to take a chance,” I said putting on my best confident mask, hoping I pulled it off. Confidence was a waning commodity for me, but I sure could fake when I had to.
Joni looked to me and grinned weakly, but went with me like she always had and for that I was glad. I only hoped her confidence was well warranted.
The bridge was a hot mess. The rush to get off the island had turned the inbound lanes into outbound lanes with everyone wanting off the island as fast as they could. There had been several collisions and burnt vehicles. Joni was forced to a crawl at times. On several occasions, we heard the harsh screech of metal against metal as the trailer scrapped by wrecks. I would imagine the people in the back were less enthusiastic about this new turn events than we in the cab were, but they knew they were just along for the ride.
“There’s no getting around that,” Joni said pointing down the bridge at an ugly tangle of cars. What was left of a high priced sports car was wedged under a dual cab pickup truck and the pickup was perpendicular to the road. Both vehicles had been burned, leaving a blackened charred mess blocking our way with no way around.
“You know what you have to do,” I said.
“Is it the hard way or the soft way?” she asked.
“Try soft and use the hard way only if you have to.”
Robbie asked, “What is the soft way?” His voice quavered a little when he asked.
I put up a hand and said, “Just wait and see. Joni is a master driver. We’ll be fine.”
She let the truck idle up to the mess and we barely tapped the back of the sports car, but the impact still sent a psychic ripple through us in the cab. Joni gasped.
“It’s okay,” I said, “just a little push.”
She applied gradual pressure to the gas peddle and the mass of metal in front of us protested at first, digging into the concrete. I’m not sure we were making any progress when Joni decided it was time to goose the gas pedal. The car started to move, but the dual cab held fast. Joni gave it a little more gas. The pickup had been an impressive and formidable vehicle in its day, but when it faced off with our truck, it gave up the ghost and started moving. Joni expertly maneuvered the truck as if she were driving a Mini-Cooper as we pushed the sports car and the pickup truck up and over the guardrail and into the ocean. It was a quite impressive display of driving.
When she backed up and got ready for the next forward push, I held my hand skyward and she high-fived me with a resounding smack. Some the tension left the cab. After some less challenging obstacles, we finally made it on to Roanoke Island.
There was no hiding the mass exodus and the chaos it created. Wrecked cars, items discarded in haste, and other debris were strewn across the on-ramp to the bridge as if a giant had come into town and swept its hand across the intersection. A couple cars were on their sides and one was slammed into the bridge’s retaining wall. A body lay half in the car and half on the hood after coming through the windshield. A bird picked mercilessly at the person’s now dead eye. No, it was not a pretty or inviting sight and I was sure the local tourism board wouldn’t have a picture of it on their next brochure..
Joni nudged her way through much of the mess, only having to push one car out of the way, and we made it off the bridge. I took a look to the north down the main street and saw that the mayhem continued there as cars sat smashed together and several bodies lay in the streets. It made me doubt my decision to hold up on the islands, but we were in for an inch so we may as may well be in for a mile.
Our challenges were not finished as we had to traverse the Roanoke Sound to get to the first section of the Barrier Islands which had been affectionately named the Outer Banks. In the past few years, cars would proudly display their OBX window decals after spending time there. Some of the decals even came with a pirate’s skull and crossbone icons. I wondered if I should take that as bad omen?
I felt this imperative to get onto the Outer Banks, as if we made it there, we would finally be safe from harm. Boy, was I wrong.
The bridge from Roanoke Island to the sound was less of a mess than than the Dare bridge with only a few cars scattered around and Joni easily navigated around them. There were two small islands off the bridge between Roanoke Island and the Outer Banks, Pond Island and Cedar Island. Pond had a couple handfuls of houses on it and nearly every one of them sat charred and blackened. A fire, maybe spawned from lightning or something else, must have started in one of them and with no one around to the stop it, spread out of control. The only thing that did stop it from getting to the next island was the water. Fortunately, the the storm had put out all the active flames.
I breathed a sigh of relief when we made it past Cedar and onto the Outer Banks. Laid out before us in all its glory, majesty, and fearsomeness was the mighty Atlantic Ocean. It’s enormity and endlessness never ceased to amaze me whenever I saw it. Violent waves, stirred up by the storm, smashed against the shore ahead.
At the base of the bridge, I directed Joni to take a right and toward our final destination. Joni slowed and made the turn southward.
“I’ve always loved the ocean,” I said quietly.
“Grant,” she said as she pointed at the dashboard. There was a nervous edge to her voice.
I caught some of her trepidation when I looked down and saw the gas gauge needle sitting on ‘E.’
“How much farther?” she asked.
“Not too much,” I said. “We’ll make it.” It wasn’t that far. Just a few miles, but it would turn out to be some costly miles.
The shore was lined with beach house after beach house, all packed tightly together for maximum profit. They had cute names like Sundiver, Gone Fishing, and Pirates Cove. Some of the more elaborate ones even had their own pools. Many a small child had frolicked down the wooden walkways to play on the beach to build sandcastles and to swim in the ocean. It was a place of fun and sun for thousands of families each year and the suntan lotion manufacturers couldn’t be happier.
We made it past the largest mass of them and onto a narrower stretch of the island where no houses existed. On the east side of the islands, the Bodie Island Lighthouse, painted in large black and white horizontal stripes, stood dormant. I had taken my young nephews there on my last trip to the islands.
We had one last substantial bridge to cross and that was at the Oregon Inlet. It was less than a mile across, but turned out to be a very long mile.
My eyes bounced from the gas gauge, watching the needle on the dip below ‘E,’ to looking ahead, hoping gas fumes would carry us the final few miles.
“What the hell is that?” Robbie asked with a mix of puzzlement and fear.
When I looked up I saw a large dark mass just at the tip of Bodie Island. The shape was massive and obviously manmade. But it
wasn’t there the last time I had visited and something in me told me that it hadn’t been built there in that duration.
The true story was told as we got closer.
“Is that a big ship?” Joni asked.
The falling rained obscured our view somewhat as windshield wipers worked to keep up with the drops. Joni slowed the truck and actually brought it to a stop just before we drove onto the bridge. The bridge extended across about two thousand feet of water, slid past the south tip of the island, then extended on to the northernmost point of the next island -- which is where we needed to go.
“It looks capsized,” Robbie said.
It was all so surreal. The scene reminded me of a diorama, only instead of it being perfect and ordered, it was chaotic and disjointed. The ship should have been floating upright in the water, but instead it listed nearly ninety degrees to one side, leaving its deck perpendicular to the land. Most of it was still in the water, but the upper section leaned precariously onto the shoreline. The churned up ocean tossed waves up into the air, splashing against the ship violently.
“It looks like a cruise liner.”
It was one of those jumbo cruise liners, as big as luxury hotel with all the same amenities only it floated around the world. There was significant damage to the hull and upper section with jagged hunks jutting out in different angles. Chairs, chunks of the hull, the railing around the deck, and other debris lay on the beach or floated in the water.
Robbie jerked forward in his seat and yelled, “Hey, are those people falling off the deck?”
They looked like flailing large specks from the distance we were away, but figures tumbled off the deck of the ship and onto the shore. One after the other, they fell. A few disappeared into the waves, but most ended up on the beach.
“Move up slowly,” I said quietly to Joni She eased off the gas and we started across the bridge. The closer got to the ship, the bigger the specks became and what was once was horror amplified to pure terror.
“Holy shit!” Robbie shouted. “Those are zombies!”
Dozens and dozens of zombies toppled off the ship and onto the beach. Then the zombies started to stand. Some fell back down, their legs shattered from the fall, but many of them made it to their feet and started shambling inland. There were already hundreds on the land from previous launches from the deck.
“Where the hell did the zombies come from?” Robbie asked.
“Maybe someone who got on the ship was infected,” I said. “It could have spread across the ship, and in all the chaos, the infection took everyone down. Then the hurricane came and blew the ship to shore.”
“They’re on the bridge!” Joni shouted.
Sure enough, dozens of zombies shambled across the bridge in our direction. They came in all shapes and sizes. Men, women, and kids. Whites, blacks, and grays, the infection working its way on them, leaching their humanity away and leaving only what was most monstrous about them -- their hunger. They one thing they had in common was they all wanted a piece of us.
“What should I do?” Joni said, her voice coming out with a nervous quaver.
“Can we back up?” I said.
Joni turned to look in the side view mirror and quickly said, “Oh shit.”
“That can’t mean anything good,” I said.
Robbie leaned back in his seat and took a look in the mirror on his side and said, “There’s a few dozen zombies coming up from behind us?”
“How the hell did that happen?” I asked, feeling like someone had yanked the rug out from under me.
“Does it matter?” Joni asked. “They were probably already on shore and were drawn onto the road by the sound of truck. Now, they’re coming for us.”
“Okay,” I said collecting myself as I rubbed my face with a hand, “let’s plow through these sons of bitches.”
“But what if there are even more ahead of us down the island?”
“There’s nothing to be done, but go forward,” I said with as much conviction I could, hoping I could sell it to the others. I wasn’t sure I was buying it.
Joni put the truck in gear and jammed down the gas pedal. The engine roared as we raced forward.
Robbie shouted a question, “But won’t the others follow us?”
“We’ll deal that after we get over the bridge,” I yelled in response as the zombies came up at fast speed toward toward the grill of the truck. Despite every last one of these bastards being dead, I winced with each impact. Blood and gore splashed up onto the windshield. A disembodied arm flew past the windshield, flapping like a broken wing as it went over the cab . You don’t see that every day.
We got past the mini-horde and continued forward, picking up speed. I felt myself leaning forward in my seat, as if that might increase our momentum.
Joni got us past the last bit of land on the southern tip of Bodie Island leaving us out over open water. Waves splashes against the side of the of the bridge sending up a fine murky spray onto the windshield washing away some of the blood.
The northern tip of the next island lay tantalizingly close just ahead of us in the distance, seemingly taunting us with its hope of safety. That hope turned out to an illusion as more zombies appeared on the bridge just ahead of us. I took heart in the fact that Joni could mow them down with the truck.
But strangely enough, that’s when Joni started to slow down.
“Why are you slowing down?” I shouted.
“Oh shit,” she said again.
“Is this like an, ‘Oh shit,’ that is worse than a horde of zombies?” I asked.
“We’re out of gas.”
The truck bucked and shuddered as we coasted roughly along for another hundred feet. The engine gave out with a belching backfire and we were dead in the water.
It was worse than a horde of zombies.
Things were about to get interesting. We were on a bridge over a storm ravaged ocean with zombies coming at it from both sides. I was beginning to think this coming to island plan was a bad idea. A very bad one.
“What are we going to do?” Robbie almost shrieked.
“We’re getting out of this truck and making a run for it,” I said and pushed him to the door on his side. “Let’s go.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “There are zombies out there.”
“And the ones behind us will be all around us in matter of minutes,” I said as I reached across his body, grabbed the door handle, and pushed the door open. He snatched it to try to close it, so I was forced to do something nasty. I put both my hands on his shoulder and shoved. He went out the door with a scream and I jumped out after him.
I hit the ground on both feet. Robbie wasn’t so lucky and tumbled across the road. I wasted no time going after him, but did shout an apology while I strode back to the trailer. I made it to the side door when it popped open and Dave jumped out.
“Why the hell are we stopped?” he said, looking around with a perplexed expression. He jerked his head to the right and peered down the highway. What he saw caused him to take a couple steps back. He looked back at me, his eyes wide, and said, “There’s a shitload of zombies coming down the road at us.”
“Yes,” I said, “they’re coming...and we have to run south. Now.”
While he took that in, Randell came out the door, rifle in hand. He took it better than Dave, who was staggering down the road backward, watching the horde coming at us from the north. “What’s going on?”
“We’re out of gas,” I said. “We have a horde of zombies coming at us from the north and another set coming at us from the south.”
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“We’re shooting our way south.”
“Ooooo-kay,” he replied, but was having trouble buying it.
The air was thick and wet in the aftermath of the hurricane. It was the kind of smell after a heavy rain with the atmosphere seeming cleaner than it was before the storm.
Joni pushed her way past, went to the door, and shouted in, “M
artin and Jessica, we have to go. Now!”
Jay and Jane came out the door, blinking at the outside light after being cooped up inside for all those hours. Jessica and Martin came out next and rushed into Joni’s arms. She hugged them tightly and said, “Listen kids, we’re going to run south. Stay close to me and your dad.”
Churned up by the hurricane, the ocean sent wave after wave against the side of the bridge. Each wave broke on the concrete, sending a spray of salty water in a fine mist splashing down on us. The rain continued to fall, soaking everyone as they got out of the trailer. Randell went back inside and came out with Rosalita at his side. They tottered out of the trailer and onto the wet roadway. Randell supported her as she gingerly walked around.
Someone let out a scream at the front of the truck and when I looked that way I saw Dave jumping away from someone hanging off his wrist. In the rain, it was hard to make out, but the picture became clear as I stepped toward him. It was a small zombie child and it was locked onto his forearm with its mouth, biting into Dave the way a shark bites into a fresh hunk of meat.
Some instinct restrained him from striking the child even though it was undead. He slung it one way and then back the other way, but it held on for all it was worth.
Another zombie walked around the cab of the truck and this one wasn’t so small. In fact, it was quite big. Hulking really, with long powerful arms and gray emotionless eyes. It lumbered toward Dave and I reached for my gun when a shot rang out from over my shoulder and the top of the big zombie’s head exploded and it toppled onto the road. I looked back to see Randell in a perfect shooter’s pose while still keeping Rosalita upright. It was quite a performance.
Forget The Zombies (Book 3): Forget America Page 15
