by Adair, Bobby
Nearly an hour passed by the time we found our way onto the southbound access road to Highway 183. On that access road, we headed north until we made a U-turn onto an entrance ramp. Unlike IH-35, which ran through the center of Austin and had lanes clogged in both directions with abandoned vehicles, almost no cars were on 183’s southbound lanes. Those lanes led into town. The northbound lanes were an escape route out of town and were full, bumper-to-bumper, with abandoned cars.
With visibility measured in a few dozen feet when the rain was coming down heavily, I kept the Humvee’s speed in what seemed like a safe range, below twenty.
From the gray blur of rain, a man materialized, coming into the traffic lanes, waving his arms. Before I knew it, he was in front of the Humvee. My first instinct was to accelerate and run him down.
Just as I pushed on the gas pedal, Murphy yelled, “That dude’s normal!”
I braked and swerved. The distance between the truck and the man was small and it was only our slow speed that saved his life. When we came to a stop, the man dropped his hands to the hood and looked in at us, shouting, “Help us, please!”
I looked at Murphy. Murphy looked at me. Neither of us was ready to jump out of the Humvee and do anything.
The man on the hood called again, “Please.”
“He thinks we’re soldiers,” Murphy said. “He thinks we’re the cavalry.”
I looked off to my left, then behind me to see what I could see through the drenching rain. “Or he thinks we’re targets.”
Murphy jerked around in his seat. “You think it’s an ambush? Maybe we should just get the fuck outta here.”
The man ran around to my side of the Humvee, pleading as he came. Once there, he slapped his palms flat on my window, pulled his face close to the glass, and shouted, “Please! Please! You have to help— Oh, my God. You’re a zombie!” He stumbled back a half-step.
I hollered. “I test zombie positive! But I’m just as normal as you!”
Murphy nudged my shoulder. “Let’s go, man. Let’s get outta here. If this isn’t an ambush, what’s he doing out here in the rain? I don’t feel good about this.”
That was good advice and Murphy’s instincts were usually on the mark. We were parked in the middle of four lanes of empty asphalt with rain pouring so heavily we could have been surrounded by men with automatic weapons and not even known.
I turned away from the guy on the road and moved my foot back to the gas pedal. Just then, a child of maybe seven or eight came running out of the rain, wrapped an arm around the man’s thigh, shouting, “Daddy!”
Murphy muttered. “Shit.”
The man put a protective arm over the boy and backed up a few more steps.
Murphy, without any discussion on the question, opened his door and stepped out into the rain.
Dammit.
Maybe it was the right thing to do, maybe it wasn’t. I was on the fence about it and couldn’t find my way off. So I stayed put and looked through the Humvee’s windows, trying to spy any danger from another direction.
When I looked back at the man and the boy, Murphy was on my side of the Humvee, three or four steps from the two. He had one hand on his rifle and one palm in the air as he talked. Both the boy and the man were frightened, and looked like they might take off at a run.
I couldn’t hear what Murphy was saying, but at some point, the man started speaking. He gestured toward the side of the road. He and Murphy spoke some more. More gestures. More pointing.
Maybe Murphy thought I could hear what was going on. Maybe he figured since he was already outside, exposed, he’d follow his instincts and make his own choices. Because that’s pretty much what he did. He looked over at me with a pained expression, turned and headed into the heavy gray rain.
Double dammit.
I checked through all of the windows again to see what I could see, which was pretty much nothing.
Nervously, I stayed on the lookout for something bad to happen. Time passed slowly.
The rain didn’t let up. The lightning seemed to dissipate, though the rumbles of thunder, some near, most far, told me that dissipation was a misperception at best.
Trying to trust Murphy’s intuition, I whiled away long moments. Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer. If he was in trouble out there where I couldn’t see, I wasn’t going to let him be in trouble alone. And according to that line of thinking, waiting was pointless. I swung my door open and stepped out of the Humvee.
Wet though I was, the new rain was cold when it pummeled me and soaked through my clothes. It took all of two steps for the cold water to seep back into my boots.
With my rifle at my shoulder, I scanned back and forth in front of me, ready to fire at anything that looked like danger. As I made my way across one empty lane and then another, the shapes of people and a big square-ish thing formed out of the rain. Murphy and the man were behind an SUV that had gone off the road and come to a stop at a precarious angle on a steep embankment.
Murphy saw me as I neared. He hollered, “Man, we need to pull them out of here.”
I looked at Murphy and looked at the man, still not sure I needed to do anything. Did I want to? Sure. But one of the many things I was learning about life was it so much easier to be a super hero in video games.
The man pointed toward the front of the SUV and motioned me over to the edge of the shoulder.
The SUV was stuck with only one rear wheel on pavement. The front wheel I could see, the one on the passenger side, was buried in mud up to its axle. I guessed the wheels on the other side were similarly buried. It was both bad and good luck wrapped in the same package. Had the ground not been so saturated, the heavy SUV would have barreled down the steep embankment and slammed into whatever was parked on the highway access road thirty feet below. But now they were stuck.
Just as I turned to walk back to the rear of the truck, a girl of four or five pressed her face to the foggy passenger side window and stared at me. A woman pulled her away from the glass.
Crap.
“Are these your kids?” I asked the man.
“Yes.”
“How many do you have?”
“Three.”
“Why aren’t any of you infected?”
“None of us ever got the virus. I think we’re all immune.”
“All of you?”
The man shrugged. “We were all exposed. All of our neighbors, all of our friends got it. None of us ever came down with the fever.”
That didn’t seem at all plausible. But what could I argue? The evidence was right in front of me.
Going back to the rear of the truck, Murphy was wrapping a chain around the ball on the SUV’s trailer hitch. “They hydroplaned when the water got deep and they skidded off the highway.”
“Got it, Sherlock.” Looking around, I asked the man, “Why not just get another car?”
He pointed to the back window of the SUV. It was packed full. “It would take too long. We have all of our stuff in here.”
“How long have you been out here?”
“Maybe five minutes.”
I pointed at the SUV’s wheels stuck in the mud. “So this just happened.”
The man nodded.
“Are you guys from here in Austin?”
“Yeah. We noticed there weren’t any infected out on the street. We thought we’d use the rain to shroud us so we could get out of town.”
“Where to?” I asked.
The man clammed up.
My old world sense of manners urged me to get miffed over the rudeness, until it occurred to me that if I was in his shoes, I wouldn’t tell the location of my next hideout to two armed strangers either. “Never mind. I understand.” Then, not seeing a pistol or rifle on the man’s person, I followed my intuition. “Are you armed? Do you have any weapons?”
More silence.
“Look, we obviously have guns. You don’t have a weapon on you. So I’m guessing you’ve only got one, in the car, probably. Please don�
��t tell me you don’t have anything.”
Unable to contain the guilt showing on his face, the man said, “Our house has a safe room. We stayed in there. We’ve kept quiet. We didn’t need anything. Hiding was working out.”
Looking around to distract myself while I thought about my next choice, I finally said, “Listen. We’ve been pretty lucky with collecting weapons. We’ve got plenty. We can spare a few.”
The man stuck his hand out to shake mine.
I didn’t put mine out. “Better you don’t touch me in case you’re wrong about the immunity thing.”
He dropped his hand and said, “Thank you.”
Murphy hollered at me. “Man, get that Humvee over here. I don’t want to be out here all day.”
I motioned the man to follow me and jogged over to the Humvee. “Hop in the passenger side.”
Once we were both in, I started to maneuver the Humvee over to the edge of the road.
The man looked around and spotted all the rifles and pistols in the back seat.
“Here’s the deal.” I pulled the Humvee up behind the SUV and came to a stop when Murphy motioned with his hand. “Every time I do what seems like the right thing, it bites me in the ass. See those rifles with the silencers on the end? Take one of those. The infected can’t hear the silenced weapons when they fire.”
The man nodded.
“Listen, and this part is really important. Don’t ever shoot a gun without a silencer unless it’s a matter of life and death. These fuckers hear gunshots and come running like you’re giving away free french fries at McDonald’s. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Take another rifle, one without a silencer, and two pistols. Get as much ammo as you think you’ll need. We’ve got plenty back at the boat.”
“At the boat?” he asked.
More harshly than I wanted to, I said, “You can’t come with us. Trust me. That always ends badly. I’m giving you the weapons. Be cool with that, okay?”
The man was shaking his head, “No, I… thanks. The guns are enough. Thank you so much.”
“Just take care of your family. Okay? Be careful. I don’t know what’s going to work and what isn’t, but get as far away from the cities as you can. Hordes of these things can tear down any house they think people are inside of. Don’t underestimate them.”
The man gave me a serious look. “I’m Greg. What’s your name?”
“I’m Zed. That’s Murphy out there.”
Murphy stood up straight and waved me to start pulling.
I nodded at the man, who wasted no time in gathering a couple of rifles and a couple of pistols.
“Take those and come back for the ammo.”
I gunned the engine. The wheels alternately caught and spun. We started to move.
With a jerk that seemed like it should have bent its frame, the SUV popped up onto the roadway. The SUV’s brake lights lit up and it came to a stop. I rolled the Humvee forward just a bit so Murphy would have enough slack in the chain to disconnect it.
The man hurried back to the Humvee to gather up some ammunition for his weapons.
I got out and went over between the vehicles with Murphy.
Working to disconnect the chain, he asked, “You didn’t give him a silencer did you?”
I looked over past the highway’s access road. The rain was starting to slacken, and I could make out a tall red and yellow sign for Rudy’s Barbecue. “Maybe.”
The chain clinked to the ground and Murphy gave me the look disappointed mothers save for when their children do something stupid. He unwrapped the chain from the trailer hitch.
“You’re the one that wanted to stop and help,” I said.
With the chain off, Murphy stood up, looking around out of habit. “Don’t do that, Zed. You know you would have done the same thing. I just came to the decision sooner.”
“They’re all immune. They may have the magic genetic combination to start over.”
“So you’re saying the Mighty Null Spot gave him the silencer to save the human race?”
“I’m just banking some good karma.”
The man came back around and Murphy handed him his chain.
Greg said, “Thank you so much.”
Murphy said, “Don’t sweat it, man.”
I gave him a nod.
The rain was rapidly settling down to something like a sprinkle and visibility was back. As if to punctuate that, the howls of a few hundred infected rose up from down the embankment and across the access road.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Murphy yelled at Greg. He moved to his left to get a better view and raised his new silenced M4 to his shoulder.
Greg started to mouth something else.
“Go,” Murphy yelled at him.
He ran for a door of the SUV.
I was beside Murphy by then, and without the SUV blocking my view, I saw the Rudy’s Barbecue down the steep embankment and across the access road. Wrapped around the front and one side of the building was a wide, covered patio large enough for tables to seat a couple of hundred people. It was also a great place for Whites to huddle and stay dry, which is what they had been doing until the rain eased enough for them to see us in our noisy vehicles.
But they were already pouring off of the patio and out across the parking lot. Some were on the access road and several were trying to run up the steep, slippery embankment.
Murphy fired his weapon at those closest.
The SUV’s starter cranked and the engine growled.
I fired my weapon toward the oncoming infected, but couldn’t tell whether I’d hit anything or not.
The SUV started to roll slowly forward. Murphy slapped the back window with his hand. “Go! Go!”
It did.
At least twenty Whites were already clawing their way up the muddy slope. The SUV was picking up speed and already beyond the hope of any White to reach it.
I shouted, “They’re safe. Let’s get out of here.”
Murphy gave the SUV one more look and bolted for the Humvee.
With the first of the infected just clamoring their way out of the mud and taking steps onto the asphalt, we accelerated our Humvee north on the highway.
Chapter 35
Not two miles up the highway, we were right back into another squall and I slowed the Humvee down to fifteen miles per hour.
“What is up with all this rain?” Murphy asked.
“Maybe Dalhover was right.”
“Top is right about a lot of shit.”
Then something occurred to me. It was only mid-afternoon, so unless something drastic happened on the way back to the river along the circuitous route we were taking, we’d get there well before dark. “There’s an Academy up here on the left.”
“An Academy?”
“You know, that store that sells all of that camping and sports stuff.”
“Tell me this isn’t going to be another inspiration of yours.”
I swerved the Humvee out of the center of the roadway until I was driving along the shoulder. “Hear me out on this one.”
“Whatever. You’re gonna do whatever you’re gonna do. That’s the way it works when you’re driving.”
“Don’t be petulant.” I U-turned onto an exit ramp, cut across the access road and jumped a curb beneath the Academy Sports and Outdoors sign. In the process, I ran down some crepe myrtle trees, really just tall bushes that had lost their bright pink flowers in the rain. The parking lot was mostly empty, at least what we could see of it. Coming to a stop about halfway across, I looked at Murphy for confirmation. “I’m going to crash right through the front doors.”
“Crash and grab? I like it.”
“Do you think it’ll damage the Humvee?”
Murphy shook his head. “Nope. It’ll make a hell of a noise when we go through, but I’m betting the Humvee will be fine.”
“Once we’re inside, there’ll probably be some infected. I mean, the damn things are everywhere right? They’ll pr
obably be in there, too.”
“And?”
“Do we open the hatch and shoot them with the fifty caliber machine gun?”
“Nope. I say we jump out and shoot ‘em, unless there are a bunch standing right there when we drive in. If so, we drive out and leave.”
With a nod, I revved the engine and aimed at the entrance.
The pavement between us and the store disappeared quickly. I braced for the impact. The Humvee bounced over the curb and smashed through the glass and window frames. A second later, we rammed through another wall of glass at the back of the foyer and hit some product display shelves. Scores of multi-colored T-shirts exploded across the hood and windshield.
Still, the Humvee’s momentum was carrying it forward and I pushed hard on the brakes. Tires skidded on waxed floors and more display racks fell victim.
And we stopped.
The hood was covered with so much debris from the collision that we couldn’t see through the windshield. Murphy shouted, “Well, here goes!” He wrestled his door open and I did the same.
We’d made one hell of a mess out of the front of the store. Glass, bent aluminum and merchandise lay everywhere.
“Up top!” Murphy shouted.
I didn’t see any infected coming at me, so I followed Murphy’s order, turned and climbed as quickly as I could to the top of the Humvee. Murphy beat me there. He had his rifle up and was firing before I got my feet under me.
A long row of cash registers ran across the front of the store and Murphy shot down two infected who were running past those on their way from the fishing department.
On my side of the store, the weightlifting gear filled out the corner and a long wide aisle led up to the shoe racks. I assumed that to be my area of responsibility. Women’s sports apparel was directly in front of the Humvee. Murphy and I would have to share that.
An infected woman came out of the shoe section, wearing an employee’s blue smock. She was hungry and in a hurry. I fired.
