Casey -that pretty lady we lost in Missouri- says as the fires crackled in our barrels, "I wanna go. I wanna go north and find that man."
Dentley and Greg were sitting there with me and her, and Dentley says in his Arkansas drawl back to her, "What's this man going to do for you? Assuming he's real at all? He gonna turn your water into wine? He gonna make things safer? You thinkin' he's got a force field that keeps all the dead folks away? More'n likely he's surrounded up to the gills with disease, bandits, the living dead, and people lining up to kiss his ass, whether he's worth it or not."
Then the funniest thing happened. Casey just smiles with her dimples and looks over at Dentley like he's the biggest damn fool in the whole world -and let's be honest, she wouldn't be too wrong in that assumption kids- and she shakes her head. Then she says, "Dentley you old dog I don't care about any of that. What I can't stop thinking about since the McCoy family came along is that for the first time since June, I have a reason to live. Just thinking about this man and the two others gives me hope. And I haven't had hope in a long time, and I'm thinking that's enough for me to head north."
That shut him up. Shut Greg and I up too, and you know what? She was right. Hearing about this stranger gave us all purpose. There had been a certain sense of life since we'd heard of him, and with our grapes withering on the vine in Longview, I knew Casey was right.
I stood up, looked at 'em and said, "I'm going to start getting ready to leave. I need to find this man and decide for myself."
And I left. I had welding to do. Casey left too, and that left Greg and Dentley there talking it over.
The next day I met up with your daddy, and told him I'd assembled some parts and gotten some work done on the flatbed so it was mobile. I had some hinges and some plate steel I welded over the tires, and I had started work on the wedge that's now on the grill. He was happy.
"This is the pilgrimage of our time," he said unsure. "I don't understand it, but I know we should do this."
"Adam we've got so little here now. Only a few tankers left of good fuel, another hot summer headed our way next year, and the people here get hungrier and angrier with each passing day. The dead aren't getting thinner either, and one way or the other, change is upon us. Real or not, there's something in the air, and it's coming from the north."
He looked at me, and to this night I can't tell if I saw love and hope, or desperation in his face. No matter how you cut it, we set on our path to get it done that day.
Of the thirty two of us at that time twelve wanted to leave to go elsewhere. Family in Oklahoma, or San Antonio, et cetera. Six wanted to stay. That left fourteen of us to make the trip. The trip we're in the middle of right now.
So yeah. Kids. That's why. Because we decided it was better to chase hope on the road than sit and stew, waiting to die.
Time for bed. We only got a couple hours before we need to get the horses out and looking for supplies before we head back on the road. If we're lucky, we'll find more water. I'm sick of boiling snow. At least it's not yellow snow.
Maybe next time I'll tell you about that time we was attacked on the road in Tennessee near Bristol.
Meanwhile in Utah
Josh Green
Leaning my head against a door frame, I began to reflect on the events that led up to this moment. It had only been three days since this place went to hell in a hand basket. Just like any story, that day was like every other day.
I live in a place called Moab, Utah, which is a small town that’s four hours from Salt Lake City. We have hot summers, cold winters, hardly any moisture, and it’s basically a tourist trap. I was doing my normal thing, showing up to work fifteen minutes early in hopes that my boss would take notice and promote me to a foreman position. I put my construction bags on, then my framing hammer in the back-pocket hanger. I dropped some nails in my pockets, cranked the radio in my truck, and then slowly went to work building a new wall. I was the only one there.
That morning on the radio, I kept hearing about panic over on the east coast and other parts of the world. I would have paid more attention, but my friend Cley Buhler kept texting me pictures of this girl we nicknamed Hard-Body (HB for short) at the gym running on the treadmill. Someday, I’m gonna talk to her. But now, she’s probably dead like everyone else on this stupid street I’m stuck on. If I only had one more day. Ugh, whatever. I’d probably waste that day by going in to work twenty minutes early at a dead end job that I was overqualified for. Damn economy.
Anyways, I was looking at Hard-Body's pictures, completely oblivious to the fact that everything around me was in total chaos. It was 10am by that time. I was just obliviously hammering my life away when I heard a loud crash behind me. I jumped and turned around to see my boss stumbling through a pile of 2x4s and trying to gain his footing. It was a very odd sight to see, especially since he could have just walked around them and not through them.
“Todd, are you okay?” I asked. I walked in his direction and I noticed that something wasn’t right with him. He bled from the arm and had a laceration on his face. I hung my hammer up in my bag and rushed over to him. “Todd, what's up, man!? What's going on?” I shouted.
Todd looked at me through milky white eyes and lunged at me. As luck would have it, he didn’t have good footing and he fell flat on his face. I freaked the fuck out and started to back away. Todd continued to advance towards me and I began to put some distance between us. I did my best to talk to him, and I even told him that if he was joking I was going to kick the shit out of him. Todd never responded once, and I knew something shitty was going on. I started to think about the radio and that’s when I decided to pull my phone out and call 911. The line was busy. I called Cley to find out if he knew what was going on. He answered and his voice was muffled, then he disappeared from the line. My boss was hot on my tail and I fumbled with my keys to get the truck door open. I got inside the truck, put it in reverse and started to back up. My boss kept advancing, but then slowly turned and started heading another direction. I looked to where he was going and I saw a woman pushing her kid in a stroller. I honked the horn at her, but the stupid chick had headphones on and couldn’t hear me.
My boss was getting closer and closer, so I just said, “Screw it,” and threw the truck into drive. I gunned it forward and clipped him, but he somehow turned fast enough to grab hold of my bug shield. I eyed a tree just ahead of me and aimed the truck right at it. I think because I was so pumped up on adrenaline I didn’t exactly realize how fast I was going. I hit that tree at thirty miles per hour. My airbag deployed and I was knocked silly. When I regained my bearings I could hear my phone ringing. I pulled it up to my ear and it was Cley. He was panicking because he had been watching the news while he was at the gym and he said that some guy said that the dead were coming back to life. I couldn’t understand him because I was starting to fall into unconsciousness again; hitting that tree really messed me up. I passed out.
I was out cold for at least an hour. When I woke I was confused because I had this white pillow in front of me. Deflated and not soft at all. I realized that it was an airbag and I started to remember the details of me hitting my boss with my truck. First thing that I noticed was that I was still wearing my construction bags, which was funny to me because I never brought them into the cab. I always tossed them in the back in a plastic bin. I climbed out of the truck and walked up to the front of it. There, pinned against a cottonwood tree was my boss. He desperately clawed at the hood and tried everything he could to come get me. I stared at him in total disbelief and I remembered thinking: This guy should be dead and he wasn’t. But he was. Seriously, what the fuck is going on here?
I got closer to him and he started biting in my direction. That’s when I remembered that my friend said something about the dead coming back to life. I got to my truck and found my phone; luckily it had a pretty good charge left on it, so I called 911 first, but found a busy signal. I then called Cley and it went straight to voicemail. I called my parent
’s home phone number, but it just rang, and rang, and rang. I had other friends I could have called, but I assumed it would be the same everywhere. Using my phone I spent a good part of an hour reading about what was going on. I checked the social media sites and then I streamed the news. NPR was the only one that was really getting the story to me. Every other news site was telling me to stay inside and lock my doors. Social media though… damn. They were putting videos up of undead people eating living people. It was surreal. I looked to my pinned down boss and noticed that besides the scratching of nails on the hood of my truck, he was very quiet. No moans. No growls. Just… silence. When my phone died, I put it in my construction bag and went to my truck. I tried to turn the key over, but it wouldn’t start. I opened up my tool box and pulled out my backpack.
Luckily for me, I’m an avid hunter and a part-time prepper. I made it a priority to keep a backpack in my vehicle with random supplies in case shit hits the fan. My dad always said it was better to be safe than sorry; I took that saying to heart. This backpack had food, a Camelback water source, flashlight, fire starting kit, poncho, a knife, sewing kit—almost everything you would need to hunker down for 72 hours. I threw it on and took a good sip out of the straw. I went over towards my boss’s truck and started to go through it. Of course the keys weren’t in it and I had no intention of searching my boss for them. I raided his ice chest and got a few waters out, as well as a few cans of soda. I also scored two bags of chips in the backseat. I stuffed them all into my backpack and adjusted myself under the weight of it.
I began to silently kick myself in the ass because I opted to not conceal-carry today. I usually didn’t pack my .38 special with me during work hours, mainly because I like to wear it on my hip and my construction bags pushed it into my side. Whenever I got home, it was instinct to pull it out of my safe and tuck it in my pants whenever I went to town.
“Well Spencer, you got that permit so you could be prepared if shit went down…well, shit’s going down and now you’re unprepared.” I scolded myself and then shrugged. Not much more I could do about it now.
I armed myself with my framing hammer and opted to keep my construction bags on me. It couldn’t hurt, right? The more prepared you are, the better off you are. I started on my way and the street was eerily quiet. I knew I was at least five miles from my house and my plan was to get there, get my guns, and then get to a safe house somewhere. I had a gated community in mind that was just down the street from my place, but I’d have to better assess the situation first. At my house I had enough food to feed me for six months. I had a deep freezer full of venison and beef, plus canned food. And guns. Lots and lots of guns. I fully admit that I love to practice our Second Amendment rights with extreme prejudice. I kept enough ammo and weapons in the house to arm a small militia. Hey, I didn’t have a girlfriend, so what else was I going to spend my money on?
I continued on and I eventually came across that woman with her baby. They were both being devoured by three zombies. My heart sank in my chest as I watched them yank away at her lifeless body. Her face had been eaten off first and now they were working on her stomach area. The baby was in the hands of another zombie and I wouldn’t let myself see what they had done to it. I actually felt vomit enter my mouth, but I swallowed it back down foolishly. I should have just let it out, and then I had a burning throat. I sucked on the straw of my Camelback and crossed the street away from them.
Cautiously, I moved on and was soon met with the sound of gunfire. I found cover and saw a man who was covered in blood trying to reload a magazine while backing away from four attackers. He tucked the box of ammo under his arm, slid the magazine into the pistol and pulled the trigger. In his panicked state he forgot to slide the action back to chamber a round. He looked to the gun dumbfounded and that’s when they took him to the ground; the box of bullets fell from his grasp and scattered everywhere. I could hear screaming and gurgling as they started to tear into his exposed skin. I hurried up to them and spun my hammer around to the claw side. I swung and hit one of the zombies in the head; it slumped over. I actually had to put my foot on its back and pry my hammer free. When I took on the next one, I used the business side of the hammer and started to smash away at its skull. I kept a rhythmic pace when I smashed the other two's heads in. They didn’t even bother to look up from their fresh kill, too involved with their mouthful of skin and muscle.
I did a onceover on the guy and decided that he was a goner. Took the Glock 9mm out of his hand and saw that he had two magazines hanging out of his pockets. The ironic part of this is that both of those magazines were fully loaded. He was just too frantic to remember. I pulled them both free and removed his clip-on holster from his belt. I looked around for that box of ammo he was using to reload with and that’s when his body started to twitch and spasm. I collected all the ammo that spilled and kept my eyes on the dude. He sat up and looked at me with milky eyes—those same eyes my boss had—and I figured out right then that the dead came back to life. I hit him with my hammer and continued on.
From that point forward it was a mad dash to stay alive, all while moving in the direction of my home. I spent the first night in the cab of a turned over pickup and nearly had a heart attack when a group of them stumbled by me when I woke up that following morning. They meandered out of sight and I slipped away unnoticed. Luckily, I came across a spewing fire hydrant and refilled my Camelback. I even got in a quick shower before continuing on.
That water felt refreshing because I was a stinky mess. I was covered in blood and I reeked of body odor and death. By the way, death smells a lot like shit, because every single one of those bastards I’ve come into contact with have soiled their pants. Even though I got washed up yesterday, I can smell my pits in a bad way. Body odor is an unfortunate side effect of being a bigger guy. I’m not morbidly obese by any means, but I am large and in charge. Genetically, I’m just a bigger fellow. I’m thinking it’s because my entire family is made up of farmers and ranch hands. I’m guessing that somewhere down the ancestry line, my family’s genes figured out that they needed to produce big kids in order to keep the farm going.
I continued towards my home as it got dark. I found the door to a shoe shop open and slowly stepped inside. I grimaced as the bell above the door made a ringing noise. I stood there for five minutes, waiting to see if something was coming to get me. When I realized that nothing was there, I decided to clear the place. I know this sounds kinda dumb, but I employed my paintballing skills to help me sweep the area. Back in the day I used to be a part of a local team that would tour the area. Our team leader was a former National Guard guy named Dustin Winkel. The dude didn’t like to lose, and he pushed us very hard to learn how to maneuver around corners and check for blind spots. If I could see him right now, I’d give him a big fat kiss and tell him thank you. When I went aisle to aisle, I found one of the employees still hiding here. She freaked out when I shined my flashlight on her and she started to scream. I urged her to keep her voice down and she started to toss shoes at me. It was really, really weird. After a few minutes she finally calmed herself down and collapsed on the floor in a heap.
“You scared me so bad,” she sobbed. I looked around myself to see if anyone else was in here. I holstered my weapon and clicked off the light.
“Are you in here alone?” I asked. The woman nodded and started to cry some more. I asked her if there was anything she needed and she said she needed a gun so she could get home to her children. I told her that I only had the one pistol, and she asked me to hand it over. Obviously, I told her no. But I also told her she could come with me to my house, and we could maybe stop over at her place on the way there to pick up her kids, but we had to wait until the morning. She was adamant about leaving this very minute, but I told her it was a bad decision. I talked her into waiting until the morning and offered her something to drink out of my backpack. She refused it politely and fell asleep sitting up across from me. I soon dozed off, but was awoken by that bel
l ringing again. I jumped up and pulled my pistol out. The woman was gone, and I rushed up front to see that she had unlocked the door and fled into the night. I shook my head and locked it all back up again. As I fell back asleep, I was hopeful that she made it to her children. But realistically, she’s probably out there being snacked on right now. That’s how life was now, sadly.
When I woke up the next morning, I was happy to see that the power was still on. That meant that my deep freeze was still keeping my food cold. I took a moment to enjoy the air conditioning, dreading the three mile trek I planned on taking. The June sun was going to be a bitch, and I wasn’t ready to step out there.
I leaned against the doorframe, reflecting on how exactly I have gotten to this point. I probably had one of those “1000 yard stares" drool and all. I was suddenly brought back into the moment by gunshots ringing out from down the street. This wild haired guy had his back to me as he tried to reload his shotgun. He had on a hunter's vest, which I’m guessing he snagged at the general store a few blocks over. I wish I had made it there, but I imagined that it had already been overrun. I looked beyond his shoulder and saw about thirty of those undead pricks quietly advancing on him.
“Hey!” I shouted. I was so happy to see someone alive that I didn’t even consider the possibility that I would startle him. He spun around and fired; I felt the air distort as the pellets missed me by inches. I pulled my pistol up and pointed it at him. “I’m a friend, asshole! My name's Spencer Adams! Get in here, I got this place cleaned out!”
The man turned back towards the mob, then back to me. He rushed in my direction and I unloaded a few rounds into the horde and dropped two of them. I said “fuck” out loud, mainly because I needed to work on my aim and start putting them through the heads and not the body mass area. Some habits are hard to break.
The wild haired man rushed up to me and shouted, “Ryan,” as he ducked inside the shoe shop. I pulled the door closed and slid the bar over it. We watched as they stumbled up to the door and started beating against it. I chuckled because that door was made out of reinforced glass. Those fuckers could hit that thing with a cinderblock for an hour and it wouldn’t phase it. In my cockiness I forgot one minor detail: I didn’t even once think that they’d come through the big glass windows to either side.
Unhappy Endings Page 16
