by TW Brown
“Betty, you and Selina stick with me. Carl, you keep the boy close. Each of us should take opposite sides of the road here to try and split up the zombies coming our way.”
“Stop calling them that,” Betty hissed.
I ignored her. We could discuss the proper terminology later. Right now, I just wanted to get out of here alive and unbitten. I rose, but stayed hunched over. I was almost certain that our sniper probably only wanted whatever he or she thought we might have in the truck. Well, I had one last surprise in store for that asshole.
“We will take that side.” I pointed to the side of the overpass closest to where the shots had come from.
On the plus side, we would have fewer zombies…on the negative, we would be closer to the shooter. If my plan worked, none of that would matter in a minute.
“Is the plan still to head for McIver Park?” Carl asked, keeping his voice low, but loud enough for me to hear.
“Yeah, if we get split up, that is still where I plan to head.”
Carl gave me a salute and then got up on his hands and knees and started for the nearest car. He whispered something to the boy who made no indication that he heard, but as soon as Carl was a few feet away, the young man followed on his heels, staying down just like Carl as he crawled away.
I turned to Betty. “Okay, you and Selina move over by that car.” I pointed to the one I meant for them to head towards.
“What about you?”
I was stunned. It was the first words that I’d heard Selina utter since we’d first met.
“I will be coming in just a moment.”
Betty opened her mouth, but we simply did not have time as a luxury where I could explain everything. I crawled to the rear of the truck and then slid into the cargo area. Chewie was right behind me.
“Down,” I commanded. I was so relieved when she did as she was told. That would earn her a treat…one of these days.
I had to tip a few boxes over to find what I wanted, but at last I had a book of matches. Glancing around at all the stuff we would lose, I wanted to cry. Next, I made my way to a box that had the word “clothes” scrawled on the side and tipped it. Grabbing the first thing I saw, it took me until I was out of the truck and around to the far side before I realized it was a gigantic pair of granny panties. I started chanting the mantra, “Don’t look at the crotch!”
“Nasty,” I breathed when my eyes did exactly what I had told them not to do.
I flopped down on the pavement and pulled out my trusty hand axe. It took a few tries because of the bad angle, but finally I managed to strike the gas tank with enough force to puncture it. That ever-present voice in my head returned to tell me that I was lucky there hadn’t been any sparks. As was becoming the habit, I shoved that voice away and continued with my mission. Sopping the panties in the leaking fuel, I dragged them a few feet away, making sure to leave a trail. The voice started to weigh in again and I screamed in my head for it to shut up.
Once I was a few feet away, a distance I was in no way comfortable with as being far enough, I pulled the matches out and struck one on the cover. Inching the tiny flame close, I jerked my hand back when the fumes caught in a miniature explosion. A second later, the panties were ablaze and, just as I’d hoped, the flames began creeping along the ground towards my pickup.
Getting up into a crouch, I sped over to Betty and Selina and grabbed them both by an arm and jerked them after me. We hurried as best we could towards the far end of the overpass. I wove us around cars every time the way was blocked by one or more of the undead that were now converging with purpose towards the truck.
Eventually we found ourselves creeping between an old station wagon with occupants that were slapping impotently on the glass windows of their tomb and the concrete wall that marked the edge of the overpass. A zombie lumbered for me down one side. That was preferable to the five coming down the other.
I was just about to strike when a loud ‘whump’ sounded behind us. While not as spectacular as I’d seen in movies and television, the truck still went up in a ball of fire and black smoke.
“Go now!” I barked as I jumped up and brought my axe down on the top of the head of the business suit zombie.
Betty let out a yelp, but she did as she was told, dragging Selina along behind her. I was impressed with how fast the larger woman moved as I rushed to catch up. The sounds of our would-be sniper’s shots plinking off of several of the cars we were leaving in our wake helped spur us on. I glanced down and had to almost laugh. Chewie was galloping alongside me, her tongue lolling out one side of her mouth, creating a massive doggie grin.
I was pretty sure that I heard somebody screaming a string of obscenities at us as we beat feet. Twice, I had to veer away from Betty and Selina to take down a zombie that would have likely made it across our path as we ran.
Once, I glanced over to the far side and ahead to see Carl engaged with a zombie. He had that huge knife with him and had to get much closer to the zombies than I think I would’ve been comfortable with, but he dispatched them in a way that was video game worthy.
I was amazed when we reached the far end of the overpass unscathed. Carl had already yanked open a car door and stuck his head inside. When he came out, I saw the look of disappointment on his face.
“We might get lucky if we check every single car, but…I have a feeling that a lot of these cars were abandoned while they were still running. They are bone dry. At least this one is. We are going to have to make it out of here on foot. Going back down into one of these neighborhoods is too big of a risk, and I’m not talking about the undead. I’ll take my chances with them at this point.” He gestured to the zombies coming from all over, drawn by the amazing amount of noise that we’d been a part of between the gunshots, explosion, and periodic screams. (I was almost glad in a way that every single one of us had yelped or out and out screamed at some point during our escape. If it had been just me, I would have been embarrassed. If it would have been just Betty, I think that would’ve driven the split between us even wider.)
“You can’t mean for us to stay on this freeway,” Betty exclaimed.
“It ain’t like you gotta worry about traffic,” Carl snapped.
“Let’s just stay close and get moving,” I said before this could escalate. I had a feeling there was no love lost between these two.
We started along at a brisk walk. To our right were the tracks for the light rail. We spotted one train ahead and I began to dread our reaching a point where we could see inside. Even from a distance, I could see dark stains and smears on the windows.
The sounds of screams were back in full force as well as that of gunfire, and even the occasional explosion as neighborhoods filled in the vista on both sides of the interstate. I was just starting to appreciate how sounds that were even the slightest bit muffled while we rode in the truck could be pushed almost entirely out of my consciousness. Those first few minutes out of it had been somewhat frantic, so all the peripheral stuff had been shoved aside. Now we were faced with the hellish nightmare that was falling over the entire city; and the world by the sounds of things.
As we wove in and out of cars, things thinned out for a bit and we were almost able to relax. Most of the zombies we began to encounter were belted securely within their defunct automobiles. Thank God for click-it or ticket, I thought as we passed cars, many with open doors where the occupants reached for us impotently, unable to release themselves from their self-imposed bonds.
We neared a green sign on the side of the road that read “Happy Valley Next 2 Exits” but some clever person had spray-painted the prefix “un” in front of the word Happy. Apparently, Selina thought that was the funniest thing in the world and began to giggle like a fiend. The more we told her to quiet down, the worse it got, until she could barely walk.
“Hysterics,” Carl whispered as he sidled up beside me, his face a grim mask of disapproval. “If she don’t snap out of it, we may be in trouble.”
“I
’m pretty sure she’ll mellow out eventually.” I tried to hide my eye roll by looking the other way.
That was a mistake.
We’d come up alongside that light rail train by now. It was worse that it had looked from a distance. It wasn’t the dozen or so zombies wandering around inside the cars, and it wasn’t the smears and splatters of blood that were on every single window.
“What the hell?” Carl whispered as he actually veered towards the side of the road and closer to the scene.
Staring out at us from the three windows towards the back of the last train car were perhaps two dozen children. Correction…zombie children. Their filmed over gazes were locked on us and I had no doubt that, unlike the adult versions inside that seemed oblivious, these were very much aware of our presence.
I grabbed Carl by the arm and pulled him back. He started and looked around as if he hadn’t realized what he’d been doing. After a sheepish grin, he simply stood with his hands on his hips and stared at the bizarre sight.
“It’s like the little sumbitches are thinking,” Carl said as he pointed unnecessarily towards the cluster of zombie children.
Something tickled the back of my mind, like perhaps I’d seen something before. Unfortunately, at least at the moment, my brain was too scrambled to pick anything out of value. By the time we made it across the next overpass of sorts, we had thick trees on either side of the interstate. I’d hoped that it would muffle some of the sound, but that was not the case. In a world this dead—no pun intended—every sound seemed to be magnified exponentially.
We were moving along at a steady pace when we heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Because we were in a bit of a dip, our visibility was somewhat limited, and so we could not tell if it was ahead of us on our lane or in the other lane across the divide that existed between the north and southbound lanes.
“Everybody down,” I said, pulling the group towards a flatbed truck hauling a very long trailer with a trio of forklifts strapped into place.
We all huddled together and waited. Eventually, the vehicle grew close enough that we were able to tell that it was in the northbound lane as opposed to our southbound one. It wasn’t moving very fast, and that really amped up the level of anxiety that I was feeling with each passing second.
We continued to sit still, each of us with our backs pressed against the wheels of the flatbed. A single zombie had spotted us and was heading our direction, but it was moving so slow that I was confident that the approaching vehicle would be past us and beyond the hump of the northbound lane before we would have to take it down.
When it did come into view, I saw that it was a green SUV. It obviously had a sunroof, because a lone individual was poking up through it with a gun to his or her shoulder as they apparently swept the road ahead. That was not the soundest strategy in my opinion and showed a lack of understanding that enemies could easily lie in wait and ambush them from behind. After all, they’d driven right past us. If we’d been bent on attacking others, we would’ve been able to snipe them with no trouble.
I’d just given the word for us to move out when I heard gunfire back in the direction the SUV had disappeared. A tinge of guilt pasted my conscience a bit as I realized that I’d made no effort to warn those people about what waited for them from back the way we’d come. Looking around, I saw that I was not alone in that sentiment. Even Carl had a downcast look to his expression. For some reason, that made me feel good. I think, up to this point, I’d believed he was all about himself and to hell with anybody else.
“You think those bad people got them?” a small voice spoke from beside Carl.
I jumped at the unfamiliar sound of the young man’s voice. My reaction apparently scared him a bit as he ducked behind Carl for protection.
“Maybe,” Carl answered, gently steering the boy back out to the group and from behind his legs.
I caught the look of disapproval in Betty’s eyes, but I had to agree with Carl’s approach. I didn’t think we had the luxury any longer of protecting the children from certain aspects of the truth. That thought made me sad, but it was a reality of what was happening around us.
“I hope they were smart like Evan and got away.” The boy looked up at me, his eyes squinting as the sun hit his face.
I hadn’t even known that he’d known my name. Maybe it was time that I learn his. “Okay, everybody, I think we should all know each other’s names since it looks like we will be together for a while. I don’t wanna be sayin’ ‘Hey you!’ every single time I need to get somebody’s attention.”
We went around one by one and gave our names. When it was over, I now knew that I was travelling with Carl Higgins, Betty Sims, Selina DuBois—age eleven and three-quarters, and Michael Killian—age nine (no fraction given). The two children seemed to be the only ones interested in Chewie enough to ask her name. I winced when they didn’t get the reference to my favorite Wookie.
“Okay, so the first thing we need to do is obtain weapons for everybody. Carl and I can handle a lot, but if you get trapped, then you are going to need to protect yourself,” I announced.
“You want to give weapons to the children?” Betty gasped.
“I hate to say it, but the mindset of as recent as yesterday has to go. If we want to survive, all of us are going to need to be able to fend for ourselves,” I answered, then realized that Selina’s rifle was back in the truck and lost to us forever. “As unlikely as all this seems, the dead are getting up and attacking the living. They get up and kill…the people they kill get up and kill.” I channeled a little snippet of a speech I’d heard in the original Dawn of the Dead. “And as sad as it seems, I believe there are going to be a lot of people who take advantage of the chaos. They will be more dangerous than the walking dead. Trusting people is going to be difficult. I think our best bet for the time being is to avoid any other survivors.”
“What if somebody is in trouble?” Betty challenged. “Are you prepared to simply walk away and leave them to whatever terrible fate they are facing? Is your ability to care restricted to just the children?”
“I think they are the least likely to turn around and stab us in our sleep.” I gave a shrug. The reality was that children might be the least dangerous to us as a whole, but they would also be the largest negative draw on resources without offering a return in labor or security. “I will be the first person to tell you that I’m not much of a hero. I am not some military-trained type who has all the answers. I worked in construction to get myself through school to be a music teacher. I am winging it and playing it by ear. I am going to make mistakes. Also, I am absolutely not the leader. We are a group and everybody has a say in what we do. If it gets to a situation where we have strongly opposing views, we can take a vote.” I glanced at the kids. “Sorry, but that will only be the adults.”
I saw Selina scowl, but Michael didn’t seem to care. In fact, he wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on here. His gaze was fixed back the way we’d come. I glanced over my shoulder to see what had him so captivated.
“Okay…first thing I want to make clear,” I said as I started ushering our group onwards, “is that if you see something like a pack of zombies coming our direction…you tell the group right away.” I fixed Michael with my gaze, but it did not seem to matter to him in the slightest.
We started walking again. The undead were really spread out on the interstate at this point. But they were still in numbers that made us have to weave and duck around the assortment of vehicles that would never move again for the most part.
As we walked, I kept looking over our shoulder at the zombies that were now starting to fall in together and form a pretty large horde. I was not all that keen on leaving the interstate, it was a nice straight shot to our destination for the most part. Also, the sounds of people dying, the sporadic gunfire, as well as more than just a few fires burning out of control had me uncomfortable with the idea of venturing into the neighborhoods. Those were basically war zones. If
I was travelling by myself, I could slip in and out of places. Run, hide, and do whatever I needed to do as the circumstances warranted.
With these kids in tow, the reality was that we were severely handicapped. I hated even thinking it, but having them along might hamper our chances for survival. It was something that I would have to take in a moment-by-moment basis and see what might arise. Again, I hated myself for even thinking this way, but I don’t know if I will let myself die to save somebody that would then have no chance of survival in my absence.
“You’re thinking them kids is a liability,” Carl whispered as he moved up and matched my stride.
“How the hell…?” I started, but then clamped my mouth shut.
“For one, you keep shooting them looks and your face just goes pale as one of them deaders. I kept thinking you would start crying.” Carl clapped a hand on my shoulder. “And you ain’t alone. In fact, if it woulda been solely up to me, I might’ve left ‘em behind a while back. This ain’t some damn show where things look bleak and then we magically come up with the answers. The dead ain’t gonna give a rip about our best intentions and good deeds. They will tear us apart without hesitation.”
“Are you saying we need to abandon them?” I whispered, fighting myself to keep my eyes forward and not to look back where Michael and Selina were now both walking with Betty.
“No. Not now. Sorta like farm rules, you don’t name the animals you plan to eat. Them kids have names…can’t just up and leave ‘em to be zombie snacks.”
I wasn’t sure how to feel about Carl. The biggest problem was that he was actually saying out loud many of the things I was thinking. I didn’t recall that sort of thing coming up in any of the movies I’d seen. At least not from the folks I would’ve considered the so-called good guys.
“Morality is gonna be something each of us will have to struggle with as this goes on.” I glanced over at Carl and saw that he was looking over his shoulder. He turned back to me. “Each of us is about to find out who we really are. And I will be honest with you, I am not sure what that means for me.”
