Hell Week

by Scott Medbury

  “If we have to go through, we will,” I said. “But maybe something else will come up before we get there.”

  “Sounds like a plan, man,” Luke said, closing the atlas. “I think I’ll hold onto this. It could come in handy.”

  “We should grab another one, too,” Brooke said. “A backup never hurts.”

  “Great idea!” said Luke, a little too enthusiastically.

  Boy he had it bad.

  12

  The sun rose the next morning to find us preparing to leave Walmart. We were all packed. Each of us had a full backpack and bike baskets loaded with supplies. I loaded the shotgun ammo I found into my backpack as Luke wasn’t around.

  “Where is Luke?” Ben asked.

  “I think he went to the bathroom,” Sarah replied. “Here he is.”

  Luke emerged from one of the aisles holding up a box proudly.

  “Crossbow,” he said, and knelt on the floor.

  He began to rip open the cardboard packaging. At first, I thought it was a toy, but when he pulled out the camouflage-patterned weapon I saw that it was indeed real, as were the short arrows, or bolts, or whatever they called them. He slung the crossbow over his shoulder and secured the Velcro belt of eight holstered arrows to his thigh.

  “Where did you find that?” Ben asked. “I could do with one of those, too. The bows are too big and clumsy to take with us.”

  “Sorry, this was the last one. It was tucked behind a counter. All the shelves were cleaned out, probably in the panic after the outbreak. Here, you can have this though.”

  He handed Ben the shotgun. The English boy took it gingerly.

  “Don’t worry, the safety is on,” Luke said.

  I wasn’t sure about giving up a firearm for what was essentially a medieval weapon, but I could tell from the loving way he handled it that Luke wouldn’t be persuaded to give the crossbow up. We got started not long after.

  A mile down Highway 102, it crossed the Quaker Highway which would lead us, after another half-mile or so, to the Providence-Worcester Turnpike. This would give us a fairly straight shot across the semi-rugged and forested southern Massachusetts countryside.

  It was cold and overcast as we left Walmart’s parking lot, weaving our bikes between the silent cars that littered the highway. It started to snow even before we reached the turnpike.

  “This could be some tough sleddin’, Boss,” Luke said, pedaling up beside me. “Bicycles can be hard to ride in the snow.”

  “Nothing we can do about it now,” I replied. “If it gets too bad, we’ll find someplace to stop until it lets up.”

  “What if it doesn’t let up ‘til spring?” he asked. “It’s still January, after all.”

  “Heck, I don’t know ... maybe we’ll come across a place with snowmobiles.”

  The snow did let up before it started sticking to the road, but that conversation with Luke kept playing on my mind. Somehow, I was beginning to feel responsible, not only for myself, but for our entire ragtag little group. What if I led them astray? The thought nagged at me as we rode.

  It was 19 miles from where we got on the turnpike to the edge of Worcester, and we planned on staying on it the entire way.

  We had only been on the turnpike for three or so miles when Brooke’s keen eyesight caught something coming toward us. We had just passed an off ramp, so we turned our bikes around and hightailed it back before speeding down the ramp and hiding in the bushes near the underpass.

  We watched the turnpike from our hideout, the others looking as apprehensive as I felt. Five minutes later, a bulldozer and two trucks came into view. They were moving slowly, the dozer making sure the breakdown lane was clear, pushing the occasional abandoned vehicle out of the way. Behind them rumbled four tanks. American tanks! I could see the flags, and with a surge of joy I started up from our hiding position, ready to wave them down. Luke grabbed me by the sleeve and pulled me roughly to the ground.

  “Dude,” he whispered harshly. “Look at the sentry!”

  One of the tanks had its hatch open and the soldier leaning out of it was clearly Asian. That didn’t mean a whole lot, but the flag on the shoulder of his bluish camouflage uniform was an unmistakable blotch of red.

  A glance into the truck cabins confirmed it. Chinese soldiers. I nodded sheepishly, aware of just how close I had come to getting us all captured, or worse, killed.

  “I bet they’re taking any American military hardware they find,” Luke said.

  We watched as the tanks continued past, followed by a few more trucks, and finally a single Jeep. A man with a pair of binoculars stood up in the back of the Jeep looking around at the edges of the road. My breath caught as his gaze swept over us and, in my mind at least, seemed to linger just a bit too long.

  I held my breath. Finally, the man turned his attention to the other side of the turnpike as the Jeep rolled on. I exhaled sharply. I wasn’t the only one.

  “Holy crap, that was close,” Luke said.

  “I wonder if there’ll be more of them using that motorway,” Ben wondered aloud.

  “Luke, does your map show a way to get to Worcester from here without taking the turnpike?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the road.

  We waited while he rummaged around for the atlas in his pack.

  “Yeah,” he said, after opening it to the page he wanted. “But it’s going to be longer and take us through a lot of farmland and some small towns.”

  “Longer I can deal with, if it helps us avoid patrols,” said Brooke.

  “I’m hungry. Can we stop and eat something?” Sarah asked.

  Typical kid, I thought, ignoring the fact that my own stomach was rumbling.

  “Let’s get a bit further down this road away from the turnpike and we’ll stop,” I said.

  “Looks like we follow this road about half a mile and then turn left,” Luke said. “That looks like a good spot to stop for a rest and some grub.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” I said.

  It was just after noon and we were leaving the small town of North Uxbridge when we noticed we were being followed by dogs. It was, of course, Brooke who spotted them first.

  “We have company,” she said, pulling up.

  They followed at a distance, a pack of mangy dogs of different breeds, but all of them had a lean and hungry look. I could make out at least one Alsatian and there were two other big dogs whose breeds I couldn’t identify. They didn’t come close to us that afternoon, just followed behind, sniffing at our trail.

  “They look terrible,” Sarah said when we stopped to rest a couple hours after we first noticed them. “Who’s been taking care of them, you know, since the Flu killed all the grown-ups?”

  “Probably no one,” Luke responded. “That’s probably why they are so skinny.”

  “Maybe we should feed them,” Sarah said, sadness creeping into her voice.

  “We’ve barely got enough for ourselves, love,” Brooke said, putting a comforting hand on Sarah’s shoulder.

  “Besides, if you feed a stray, it’ll follow you around forever,” Luke said. “At least that’s what my dad always said.”

  “I hope they bugger off. I think they are creepy,” Ben said, mirroring my own feelings.

  Feeding them was the last thing I wanted to do. The thought of them being close enough to handfeed terrified me in an irrational way. I had been bitten by my grandmother’s Collie when I was six and still had the scar from a puncture wound on my wrist.

  “We aren’t going near them,” I said, “And tonight we are going to find a place with doors we can lock to sleep in.”

  When we stopped for the night a couple of hours later, it was just starting to get dark. We found a farmhouse with a large detached garage behind it. The house was locked up tight, and I don’t think any of us fancied breaking in. Besides, the garage door was wide open, so we wheeled our bicycles inside and pulled the big roller door down behind us.

  A couple windows above a workbench on one wall allowed the dy
ing sunlight to filter in as we set out up our bedding. We ate a meal of beef jerky and potato chips as the sun went down, and by the time we finished it was pitch black in the garage.

  Both Ben and Brooke had thought to bring flashlights, but to save on our limited supply of batteries we had decided not to use them unless there was an emergency.

  The dogs began howling and barking sometime in the middle of the night. We could hear them growling and scratching at the garage door before what sounded like a vicious fight broke out and ended in high pitched yelping.

  No one slept much after that. A whimpering Sarah curled up next to Brooke, the English girl doing her best to comfort her, while Luke and I sat upright with our weapons close by. Ben was ready with his flashlight should the sound of breaking glass or splintering wood be heard.

  The sound of the dogs finally died down just as dawn was breaking. I heard one final sniff under the roller door before they disappeared. Everybody but Luke and I fell into a fitful sleep.

  “We should let them sleep a while,” Luke said. “We can get started again in a few hours.”

  “Okay, everybody’s exhausted from yesterday’s ride and last night’s ... excitement,” I replied, stifling a yawn.

  “You should sleep, too,” he said. “I can keep watch.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No sweat, man. I picked up a few energy drinks before we left Walmart. If I feel myself crashing I’ll just slam one of them.”

  “Alright, if you’re sure ...”

  I got into my sleeping bag and shuffled till I was comfortable. Well, as comfortable as one could be lying on a concrete floor. My eyes closed for what seemed like just a second and suddenly I was being shaken awake. I glanced around in bewilderment.

  Everybody else was up and had their sleeping bags repacked.

  “What ...?”

  “It’s about noon,” Luke said. “Time to rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

  “Okay, okay,” I muttered, shaking my head, trying to clear the cobwebs from my mind. Sometimes I think a little sleep is worse than none. I got up and stretched. I wasn’t quite as exhausted as I had been, but still felt like I’d been worked over by a burly man with a baseball bat. Muscles that I never knew I had were aching. I rolled up my sleeping bag and tied it before returning it to the basket on the front of my bike.

  “Any sign of the dogs?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Luke replied. “When Ben woke up, I got him to watch my back while I went outside to take a wizz and have a look around. They must have found something better to do.”

  “Well, then we should probably be heading out. We’ve already wasted too much daylight as it is.”

  “I figure we’ve got maybe five hours of light left,” Luke said. “We might be able to make it to Worcester by nightfall.”

  Luke was getting ready to pull up the door when we heard the first thrum of a helicopter in the distance. I motioned for him to leave it closed and he nodded. The chopper flew low over the house and garage we were in and, in truth, I was waiting for huge bullets to begin tearing the garage apart at any moment, but after what seemed like an eternity it moved off into the distance.

  “Are they going to come back?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know, but maybe we should wait a while before leaving. I don’t want them to catch us riding down the road if they fly back this way.”

  “If we wait too long, we won’t make it very far before dark, man,” Luke said.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t try,” I responded, conscious of my aching muscles. “We could wait out the day here, spend another night and leave early in the morning.”

  “As you Yanks would say, I’m down with that,” Ben said, massaging the back of his leg.

  “Please, can we?” Sarah asked, her eyes brightening slightly for the first time since I had met her.

  “Wouldn’t bother me,” Brooke chimed in.

  “You’re the boss,” Luke said, shrugging. He pulled the sleeping bag off of his bicycle basket. “If we’re staying here though, I’m going to get some shut eye. I’m bushed.”

  “I’m not the boss,” I said.

  “It’s just a figure of speech, man,” Luke said, shrugging before unrolling his sleeping bag onto the floor. “I’ll take the watch tonight.”

  “You do kind of take charge and act bossy,” said Sarah, smiling, with a nod of her head.

  The way she said it made it sound like it wasn’t a bad thing.

  13

  It was cold in the garage and we spent most of the day cocooned in our sleeping bags and talking quietly. We were out of the wind, which was a blessing, but a fire was out of the question. Luke slept most of the afternoon, and toward late afternoon I also nodded off.

  I awoke just before nightfall, when the dogs returned. We could hear them growling and snarling as they scratched at the garage door. That night we were more secure in the safety of our shelter and the rest of my group, including Luke, even managed to get to sleep despite the dogs yammering at the door.

  I couldn’t, however, and was awake until well after midnight with the .38 in my hand, listening to the pack. Luke awoke in those early hours and took my gun, telling me to sleep. I didn’t protest. I was pretty exhausted by then.

  Once again, the dogs were gone before first light. We had a quick breakfast of cold beans and were ready to go within a half-hour of the sun cresting the horizon. We hit the road, riding carefully to avoid patches of black ice. Sometime before midday it began snowing again, this time harder. When we stopped to have lunch in a clear spot under some trees, I worried that we wouldn’t be able to make it too much further on our bikes.

  “Where are we?” I asked Luke, who’d spent most of our lunch stop studying the map of Massachusetts in his atlas.

  “Based on that last big crossroad, I’m guessing that we’re someplace right about here,” he said, jabbing at a spot on the map with his finger. “We’re probably five or six miles from Worcester; should make it there in another hour and a half, maybe a bit longer if the weather keeps being a dick.”

  “Now might be a good time to discuss what we do when we get there,” Brooke said. “Worcester’s a city and there are bound to be Chinese military there. It’s probably where that chopper was headed yesterday.”

  “I know, I’d prefer to go around it but that might not be possible given the weather,” I said.

  “Going around would take us too far out of the way,” Luke chimed in. “A stealth run through it has to be the best way. It would save us time and distance.”

  “Both paths are risky,” Ben said. “But, given the weather especially, I would think we should try to get through Worcester as soon as possible. If that means dodging Chinese patrols then so be it, but we should wait and make a go of it after dark.”

  Luke nodded.

  “It would be easier to avoid the patrols that way.”

  “Let’s get to the outskirts of town and make our decision then,” I replied.

  Going through seemed like the best course of action to me too, and I could see the reasoning behind making the crossing at night. The problem was, I found the thought of travelling through the cold, dark night unsettling. I looked around at the snow falling beyond the trees we were lunching under.

  “We should get back to it.”

  “The dogs are back, and they’re closer,” said Sarah, tugging on my sleeve and pointing back the way we had come.

  I looked over my shoulder and felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. They were closer all right.

  “Everybody on their bikes, let’s go. Now!” I said.

  My bicycle tire slipped in the slushy covering that was beginning to form over the road for the first few turns of my pedals, but then it caught and the bike shot forward. I tucked in as a back marker behind the others, Luke in front followed by Sarah and then the twins.

  I didn’t need to look over my shoulders to tell the dogs were coming, the sound of their baying told me all I needed to know. They weren’
t keeping their distance – this time they were chasing us down.

  We rode as fast as we could under the circumstances, our bikes slipping and skidding on the icy road, but it was clear that we weren’t going to outrun them. We would run out of steam long before the desperate canines did – either that or one of us would end up skidding off the road and be at the mercy of the pack.

  I desperately looked around for some way out and spotted a large house ahead about fifty yards away. It wasn’t set as far back from the road as most of the houses around it and the short gravel driveway was mostly clear of snow and slush.

  Please don’t be locked, the thought shot through my head so fast that I hardly had time to register it. I sped forward.

  “There!” I shouted to the others and I pointed to the house. “Dump the bikes in the yard and get up on the porch!”

  I angled dangerously off onto the driveway and jumped from the bike before it stopped. I hit the ground running, slipping in a patch of snow. I felt a sharp twang in my inner thigh as I did the splits before catching my balance.

  The adrenalin running through me masked the pain and I scrambled up onto the porch, relieved to see that the others were all right there with me, adrenalin powering them all, even Sarah.

  Ben rushed to the door and I turned, scrambling to pull my gun from my pocket as the dogs charged across the icy lawn.

  It was Luke that saved us from what may have been a disaster.

  With a guttural roar, he jumped off the porch, grabbed the shotgun from Ben’s basket, and charged at the oncoming pack screaming like a maniac.

  The sight of the crazy human was enough to cause some of the dogs to pull up and comically slide to a stop on the slippery grass. Three kept coming. Luke fired his shotgun at the pit bull that was leading the charge and it was flipped violently backwards by the blast.

  The rest of the dogs scattered, frightened by the loud blast and the yelping of their pack mate. Luke paused and watched as the dogs ran off and then racked the slide of the shotgun to load another round. He stepped up to the pit bull. It was still thrashing on the ground and yelping.