Into the Badlands

by Brian J. Jarrett

  Once they had finished collecting what little the shelves had to offer they exited the building. The two girls walked out first. As he walked out, Dave paused to look over at the two dead carriers on his left. He stared at them for a few seconds, long enough for Brenda and Tammy to notice.

  “You coming?” Brenda asked from the parking lot outside.

  Dave continued staring. Had he heard what he thought he heard? Surely not. If he had, it could change everything.

  “Dave?” Brenda repeated.

  He turned to look at her. “I’m coming,” he replied, glancing one last time toward the bodies as he stepped through the door and into the bright sunlight.

  After they left the 7-Eleven they scavenged through a nearby Conoco station. They encountered no carriers within, but the supplies they gathered were even more meager. The Conoco find, combined with the small amount of food they already had, would hopefully be enough to last them until the next exit.

  Having exhausted the only stores in sight they walked the entrance ramp back to the highway, dodging parked cars and bodies along the way. The blackened bodies littered the ramp, thinning out significantly by the time they made it to the highway.

  They walked without speaking for most of the day, stopping once to eat and a few more times for water and bathroom breaks. He was happy to be walking for the first time in almost a week without his hands bound. He carried the baseball bat with him, along with the tire tool. Although he expected Tammy to cry foul she didn’t. She just walked, as silently as the rest of them.

  As night set in they camped. There wasn't any wooded area nearby, so they took cover among the millions of decaying cornstalks. They built no fire; they didn't need it with temperature so mild. They sat in a loose circle, much as they had the prior night.

  “Those weren’t the first carriers you ever killed, were they?” Tammy asked.

  “No,” Dave replied. “I’ve killed a few before.”

  “Hand to hand like that, or with a gun?”

  “Both, but mostly hand to hand.”

  “But that one was a kid, at least it used to be. First time for that?” Brenda asked.

  “Yeah,” Dave replied.

  Brenda paused, then spoke. “You okay?”

  “I suppose.” He thought for a moment, wondering how best to phrase the next question. “You planning on tying me up again?” he asked.

  “No,” Brenda replied. “We don’t have a gun for you, but keep the bat and the tire iron. You already know how to use them. What you did back there was brave. You helped us out that time. I’d say we’re about even now.”

  Dave nodded in the dark, then realized they couldn't see him. He decided to just change the subject. “Ever wonder why we’re not infected?” he asked them.

  “I guess we're lucky” Tammy replied.

  “Is it luck? Don’t you think that virus was swimming around in the air back there?”

  “Maybe,” Brenda said, puzzled. “What’s your point?”

  “That shit spread like wildfire. Damn near everyone was infected. How'd we make it this far even?”

  “Maybe we’re just damn lucky,” Brenda added.

  Dave took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Or maybe it's us who are the walking dead, and we just don’t know it yet. Maybe the future is them.”

  They sat for a while longer, not talking. Chipmunks scurried through the woods, birds chirped their indecipherable songs to one another. An owl hooted in the distance. Wind blew dead leaves along the ground, rustling as they moved. Dave became keenly aware that he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard an internal combustion engine.

  “The small one back there at the store, the little girl,” Dave began. “She made a sound before I brained her. I may be going crazy, but I think she might have been talking.”

  “I never heard it. Besides, carriers don’t talk,” Tammy stated emphatically.

  “That’s not exactly true,” Dave argued. “I’ve heard some of them use words, but it’s always gibberish. A couple words here and there, repeated over and over most of the time.”

  “And then there's the screaming,” Brenda added. “What do you think it said?”

  Dave sat there, silent.

  “Dave, what what do you think it said?” Brenda repeated.

  Dave sat, silent still. Then he looked up at her and spoke.

  “I think I heard the little one say 'Mommy',” he said.

  Tammy spoke up. “Bullshit. Those things are crazy; that virus scrambled their brains. They got no idea who they are, or where they are.”

  Dave thought she sounded like she was trying to convince herself of a truth she wasn’t exactly sure of. “What if you’re wrong?” he asked. “What if some of them still think? What if they can still feel emotions? We always call them 'it' or 'things' to dehumanize them, but wouldn't that make them human?”

  No one answered.

  They spent another eight days on the road. Along the way they passed random corpses, skirting them like piles of manure on a farm. They saw a live carrier wandering aimlessly off in a field, but were able to get by it unnoticed. The carriers appeared to be avoided the vast and vacant stretches of the highway, for the most part.

  They stopped at two more exits along the way; one offered very little food and supplies, the other offered considerably more. A grocery store provided some much needed canned food for the trio. Most of what they procured was canned food, but they also took some dried food as well.

  As they walked, they began to talk. Conversation was light during the day, but when they camped at night they were more vocal. They discussed the virus, the aftermath, and the scramble to get to the coasts. Tammy impressed upon Dave the differences in how the wealthy and the poor were treated after the outbreak. Brenda discussed her transformation from broken and overweight victim to survivor.

  Dave spoke of Sandy and Jim. It still hurt to remember his dead wife, but his guilt had waned considerably. He was now just sad and lonely. Through the course of these conversations they learned that all three of them had lost someone close to them to the virus; it was a common thread between otherwise disparate people.

  Each night after they spoke they felt a little closer to one another. Tammy softened as the days passed, to the point of even laughing at some of Dave's jokes. Dave was surprised to even hear himself tell a joke. Brenda listened to Dave's stories, commenting and laughing where appropriate. Tammy noticed her friend's body language changing; she was letting her guard down. She hoped Brenda knew what she was doing.

  They continued the pattern, walking, camping, talking. The deserted road presented no major hurdles, and they encountered no carriers beyond the one they saw early on. At night they could hear them in the distance, screaming with bone-chilling agony, deep in the woods. It reminded them that they had to remain cautious.

  On the eighth day they came upon another exit. It was very large, made up of multiple stores laid out in strip mall fashion. They noticed the bright orange colors of a Home Depot, along with a grocery store and a Sam’s Club. Knowing that any discount warehouse would have been overflowing with stock at the time of the outbreak, it stood to reason that there must be something valuable there. They decided they should check it out and see.

  They exited the highway and headed toward the large warehouse. When they reached the front door Brenda drew her pistol. Tammy readied her rifle. Having no gun Dave produced the baseball bat he'd found in the car at the 7-Eleven station more than a week ago. It had a longer reach than the tire iron and a more solid impact.

  “This time I think we should stay together as best we can,” Dave told them as they stood in front of the main entrance. “It’s big in there, and we need to cover each other’s backs.”

  “Fair enough,” Tammy replied. Dave thought it nothing short of amazing that Tammy would concede anything to him at all.

  Brenda looked Dave in the eyes. “Dave, whatever you may or may not have heard back at that gas station, you know it doesn’t change
anything.”

  Dave looked away.

  “Look at me, Dave, right in the eye.” His eyes reconnected with hers. “It doesn’t change anything. Those things want to kill us and eat us, period. That little one back there, no matter what she may or may not have said, was still trying to kill you.”

  “And eat you,” Tammy added.

  Brenda glanced at Tammy, then returned her eyes to Dave. “Promise me you won’t forget that.”

  “Fine,” he said. “I promise.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure.”

  They walked into the darkened store, Brenda in the lead, followed by Tammy. Dave brought up the rear, another achievement in gaining Tammy's trust. The light was ample near the front door, but was considerably reduced in the inner regions of the large structure. There were some skylights installed though, and they were providing enough light to operate by.

  They walked past the cash registers and then deeper into the store, weapons drawn, searching the aisles for anything they might useful. It was obvious that others had already been there before them but, as Dave had suspected, they were unable to scavenge it all. There were leftovers, and plenty of them. It was a gold mine.

  The plan they had devised was to find as many essentials as possible, and then stuff all they could fit into their backpacks. Dave had wanted to fill up a shopping cart originally, but the girls argued that they should only take what they could carry. In the end he bent, partly because he thought they were right and partly because he didn't want to cause any rifts in this new partnership between them.

  They made their way further into the deeper regions of the building where the light began to peter out. The skylights did their jobs of allowing in just enough light to see, and the light passing through the front doors looked like bright dots in the distance.

  They filled up on canned foods wherever they found them. Where possible they took the smaller cans; each one was a meal with no waste. Dave picked up a toothbrush while there along with two tubes of toothpaste. It had been some time since his teeth had seen a good brushing, at least since he’d been raiding houses with Sandy and Jim. The thought of his dead wife immediately filled him with sadness; he pushed the feeling down in order to focus on the task at hand. He could mourn when they were safe.

  They stayed together, their weapons holstered while they used their hands to fill their packs. They worked as quickly as they could; all three of them were aware of the dangers of being trapped inside by even a few carriers.

  Suddenly, they heard footsteps in the store, followed by the sound of low voices. Although Dave couldn’t hear what was being said, he could tell a conversation when he heard one. He reckoned those voices were not coming from carriers. Carriers spoke gibberish. Or at least he had thought so before last week.

  Dave shushed the girls, then held out an arm to tell them to stop walking. He made a gesture for them to ready their weapons. They did. The footsteps approach closer. Dave could hear them coming from an aisle running perpendicular to the aisle in which he and girls stood.

  The three of them crept to the end of the aisle to wait for the strangers to pass. Despite the strangers' attempts to speak quietly, their voices carried in the openness of the large warehouse. Their footsteps echoed loudly throughout the structure, further giving away their presence.

  “Are those carriers?” Brenda whispered.

  “I don't think so,” Dave answered quietly.

  “Thieves, maybe?” Tammy asked.

  Dave looked into the distance trying to spot any movement. He couldn't see them, but he could hear them. “Maybe.”

  “You think we can we get out without being noticed?” Brenda asked.

  “I don't think so,” Dave whispered back. “What do you guys think we should do.”

  “Surprise them,” Tammy said. “We need to act first.”

  “I don't know about that,” Dave said.

  “We don't have time to vote on it. They're almost on top of us!” Brenda whispered as loudly as she could.

  “Fine,” he responded.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Tammy whispered.

  “I’d give you the same advice,” he shot back.

  “Shut up, both of you,” Brenda chided. “They're almost here.”

  As the group of strangers walked into view Dave inhaled deeply, then exhaled. His hands shook and his heart was racing. The adrenaline flow combined with the memory of his wife's murder caused his knees to feel weak and wobbly. It’s now or never, he told himself.

  He stepped out of the shadows, baseball bat in hand, Brenda and Tammy wielding their guns behind him.

  “Stop right there!” he yelled. “Don’t anybody move a fucking muscle!”

  CHAPTER 13

  Ed stopped running when he saw Trish lying on the ground behind them. “Zach, Jeremy!” he yelled. “Stop!” Both boys stopped when they heard their father's command. They turned, immediately noticing that Trish wasn't with them, then ran back to their father as he made his way toward Trish's motionless body on the ground.

  When he reached her he saw more carriers approaching. He picked her up quickly, tossing her small body over his shoulder. She was so thin that she hardly weighed anything.

  “Come on!” he yelled to the boys. They glanced toward the oncoming carriers, and then followed their father. Ed ran, flanked by both boys, as Trish lay slumped and motionless over his shoulder. They reached the highway and kept going, running until they could run no longer. Once they hit their exhaustion point they slowed to a fast walk. They kept a lookout behind them as they walked, but they saw no carriers in pursuit. They continued to walk for some time, wanting to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the carriers.

  They were still in cornfield country. Ed motioned for the boys to follow, and they veered off the road and into the cornfield, penetrating a dozen yards or so. Ed needed to buy some time to check on Trish. He instructed Zach to keep a lookout then lay Trish down gently on the ground between the cornstalks.

  He held his hand under her nose and felt warm breath. She moaned, her eyes fluttered, then she opened them quickly. She looked around at the cornstalks, then up at Ed. A frightened look crossed her face.

  “Where are we? What happened?” she asked.

  “You passed out while we were running. You’re still pretty weak. We’re in a cornfield, just off the highway. We can’t stay here though, we have to keep moving.”

  “I don’t think I can walk very far.”

  “That’s okay. You're riding piggyback.”

  Ed helped her to her feet, steadying her when she became dizzy. “Hold on,” he told her, kneeling down and lifting her onto his back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, then rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to him.

  “Don't mention it,” he replied.

  Ed found he was able to carry Trish further than he though he could. She had always been a small girl, and not having a square meal in so long only made her that much lighter. She held on tightly as they walked, while both boys walked on either side of them.

  They continued walking along the highway at a pace that would continue to maintain distance between them and the carriers from the farmhouse. Ed doubted the ones they left standing had the physical stamina to pursue them, but it was better safe than sorry. They walked for an hour or so, stopping periodically for food and water, and for Ed to rest his arms. They still had all their supplies, so they had enough food to keep them going for a while.

  Eventually daylight began to wane and Ed knew they needed to set up a camp. His arms were becoming extremely weak from the strain of carrying Trish for so long, and they had all had one hell of a day. The weather wasn’t freezing, but it was still very cool. They would definitely need to sleep in their sleeping bags tonight.

  He wished he could have had a couple more days, even a week in the farmhouse. Trish really needed warmth, comfort, and rest in order to recover. She h
ad that in the farmhouse, but on the open road these things were in short supply. Wish in one hand and shit in the other, then see which one fills up first, he thought to himself. It was what it was, and there wasn't much he could do about it. And there definitely wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about much of anything in the short time before dark fell. They were committed to the road for the night, regardless of Trish's condition.

  Before long they happened upon another section of the road flanked by forest. The cornfields were broken by this patch of woods for maybe a mile or so, at least as far as Ed could see in the fading daylight. He decided this area would do; he wanted to get off the road and under at least some cover before night fell.

  They walked off the road and headed into the woods. The canopy of trees blocked some of the sunlight, but since the trees were just starting to bloom there wasn’t the heavy ceiling of leaves there would have been in full summer. Ed figured they had at most another thirty minutes of useful light while under the trees.

  They chose a place to stop, then he had the boys unroll their sleeping bags. They lay the sleeping bags down on the layer of plastic they carried with them to keep the fabric from drawing any moisture out of the ground. Ed lay Trish gently down on the sleeping bag.

  “I’m chilled again,” she said softly. He felt her forehead; it was hot again. He thought she’d shaken that fever back at the farmhouse, but she had been through a lot that day, not to mention the abuse her body had taken before Ed and the boys knew her. It was little surprise she might have a small relapse.

  She not only needed rest, but also heat. He had both boys lay down on either side of her then he covered them all with the other sleeping bag. The kids’ body heat, combined with her own, would help to keep her warm and would hopefully make her sleep more restful. He thought the same might be true of the boys too; they really had taken to her.

  “I’ll take first watch,” he told them. “We'll take turns, first you, Zach, and then Jeremy. That should take us through the night.” The boys agreed, then snuggled in next to Trish. They were out cold in less than five minutes, all three of them.