In the Lone and Level Sands

by David Lovato

  Despite how close they were to the gridlock (which had broken out of the waves of heat and into full-blown reality), Zoe saw no sign of the arguing zombies from earlier. There was blood on the ground, but all signs of them and whatever they had been fighting over were gone. Things were eerily quiet as Zoe and Derrick made their way around the first of the cars and into the jungle of twisted metal and decaying bodies.

  When they spoke, they did so quietly, barely making any sound at all.

  “Can you see where it ends?” Zoe said.

  “No,” Derrick replied. “It goes at least to the top of the hill.”

  They wove their way through the cars, up the hill, toward the top of the overpass. The highway below was even more clogged and even more populated with zombies. They reached a spot where the cars rested from one metal guard rail to the other, and stopped.

  “We’ll have to climb over,” Derrick said. “Try to move slowly, and don’t make too much noise.”

  Derrick slowly hoisted himself onto the hood of a red car, which made a series of little pops as the metal bent in and out. Zoe looked around; a zombie she hadn’t noticed before stood several rows of cars behind them, but it didn’t seem to know they were there. Derrick made his way to the other side of the car.

  “All right, your turn,” he said. Zoe carefully climbed onto the hood of the car. Derrick extended a hand to help her. She took his hand, and then saw a figure rise from the ground and loom over him.

  “Look out!”

  Derrick let go of her when he turned around, just in time to catch the zombie as it grabbed him. Zoe drew her gun and fired. The shot rang across the highway. All around, from between the cars, zombies popped up into view as they heard the sound, like rabbits in a field. There were far more than Zoe would’ve guessed.

  The zombie on top of Derrick fell to the ground, dead, but the shot had sealed the interest of the rest of the zombies. They began to make their way toward Zoe and Derrick in whatever way they could, not running but more quickly than walking, tripping over and on top of cars and wreckage, like children moving through waist-high water.

  “Okay, let’s move!” Derrick said. Zoe jumped from the roof of the car and onto the pavement, and they were off.

  The only immediate path was blocked by another zombie. Derrick shot it, and it dropped to the ground. He and Zoe hopped over it as they ran. Another zombie tumbled over the hood of a car in front of them, but they ran past before it could find its way to its feet, or theirs.

  They hopped over another car, and found that at the top of the overpass sat an overturned semi. Black treads told the story of how it had skidded to its current position, perfectly blocking the highway from end to end, its sideways nose overlooking the highway below. The girth of the truck had broken the guard rail in several places, leaving jagged metal pointing outward on both sides.

  “Shit!” Derrick said. “What do we do?”

  “Hop the median!” Zoe said. To their left was the metal guard rail, and across two feet of nothing but a thirty-foot drop was the guard rail of the other side. A zombie stood just beyond that, staring them down, making noises, sometimes reaching toward them, just barely aware that it wouldn’t make it, but seeming to forget this every few seconds and trying again.

  Derrick shot at the zombie, and Zoe took three shots to clear the space behind them of zombies that were working their way over and around cars. Zoe and Derrick moved over to the median.

  “You first!” Zoe said. “I’ll cover you!”

  The groans and the footsteps were growing louder. Derrick put one hand on the guard rail, hoisted himself up, and swung his legs over, grabbing the opposite side’s guard rail. He pushed himself the rest of the way over. Derrick looked around, shot at a zombie Zoe couldn’t see, and then turned back.

  “Come on!”

  Zoe ran at the guard rail. She wasn’t as tall as Derrick, and couldn’t have made it the same way. She hopped, placing one foot on top of the rail, and pushed off, tucked her legs in as high as she could, cleared the other rail, and rolled on the street on the other side.

  Derrick helped her up. The traffic jam didn’t get much better, and already zombies were making their way through it and toward them from both directions.

  “Look!” Derrick said. He pointed across the median. On the other side of the semi, the path was still jammed with cars, but there appeared to be very few zombies at all, and none close.

  “We’ll never make it back across, there’s no room!” Zoe said.

  “We can make it!” Derrick replied.

  “No!” Zoe said, but Derrick didn’t listen. He rushed at the median, jumped, and slammed into the hood of a car that had broken the guard rail, but stayed on solid ground. He grabbed the edge of its far side and climbed onto the hood, then turned around and kneeled down, arms outstretched.

  “Come on!” he said. “You’ll make it, I’ll make sure you do!”

  Zoe looked at the approaching creatures, then at Derrick, ready and waiting for her. She reminded herself that she was not alone, then rushed at the median.

  Zoe hit the car harder and lower than she hoped, and her feet slipped from the guard rail. Despite Derrick’s best efforts to catch her, she passed out of reach almost instantly, her side sliding across the jagged metal of the guard rail as she fell. Her hands caught the ground just below it, stopping her fall. Zoe cried out, but she held on.

  “Shit! Zoe!” Zoe could feel her legs dangling, and she imagined that if she fell she wouldn’t die, but she’d be broken, mangled, completely wrecked. Zoe pushed these thoughts aside and looked up. Derrick was leaning down as far as he could, one arm outstretched. “Come on! Climb up!”

  The zombies were gathering on the other side of the gap, pressing against the guard rail, reaching out for Zoe, some of them inches away.

  Zoe had no footing, only her hands clamped around the cement edge, her now-aching side dripping blood onto the highway below, where zombies had gathered and were reaching up as if to say, “Let go, we’ll catch you!”

  Zoe tightened her grip with her left hand, then thrust her right hand up as high as she could. She closed her eyes, knew it was her only shot, but before she could imagine herself missing and falling, she felt Derrick’s hand clasp around her own.

  “Come on!” Derrick said. He began to pull Zoe up.

  The zombies on the other side of the median pushed, and one of them fell over it, grabbing for Zoe’s legs as it went. Zoe didn’t look down to see, she just let herself be thankful it had missed her.

  As soon as she could, Zoe reached her feet onto the concrete she had been holding on to for dear life only seconds before. Derrick held her there, and she caught her breath for a moment before climbing onto the car with him.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I will be,” Zoe said. She looked at the wound in her side, clearly visible through a tear in her shirt. It was bleeding, but not badly. “Let’s get off this highway.”

  They climbed off of the car and onto the pavement. The zombies on the other side of the median gathered where they could, groaning and grasping, an utterly futile effort that didn’t stop a few more from being pushed over the edge.

  The jam went on for a few hundred yards, in which Zoe and Derrick found little opposition. Finally, the gaps between cars grew from just big enough for a person to just big enough for a minivan. Zoe and Derrick found the nearest car with gas and keys, got in, and drove the rest of the way through the jam. Twice they had to get out and move a car out of the path, but after that, things went smoothly. They reached their exit, took it, and once again found open road.

  ****

  Derrick made the popcorn while Zoe cleaned up in the bathroom. He had repeatedly asked through the closed door if she needed him to get her anything, and she had assured him she was fine.

  They had stopped at a small house a little out of the way. They weren’t as far out as the houses near the woods had been, so they covered the windows with comforters and
thick blankets and locked the entrances before doing anything else.

  The wound wasn’t very bad, but had bled a lot. Zoe looked at it in the bathroom mirror, her arm raised as she cleaned the wound with toilet paper. There was some peroxide under the sink, which she applied to it before wrapping it with gauze.

  Zoe looked at her shirt. There was a tear in it, the surrounding area had been soaked through with blood. She didn’t have another shirt on her, so she put the old one back on. Finally, she stepped out of the bathroom.

  “You okay?” Derrick said from the kitchen.

  “Yeah,” Zoe said. “I’m going to see if I can find a shirt that fits me.”

  “Okay.”

  Zoe made her way to the first bedroom. She took one look at the Star Wars bedspread and moved on to the next. It was a girl’s room, but the clothes were all big and baggy. Zoe put the wardrobe in her mental “maybe” pile, preferring less baggy clothes, as they were less likely to be grabbed by zombies or get caught on things.

  She got to the master bedroom and found only men’s clothes. They had chosen the first good house they’d seen, and apparently picked a motherless home.

  Zoe went back to the boy’s room. She assumed whoever had once lived there had been twelve years old at the most, but his clothes fit her better than the baggy ones from the girl’s bedroom. She found a Spider-Man shirt that fit well, put it on, then headed into the living room. Derrick was sitting on the couch, a big bowl of popcorn in his lap, already half-eaten.

  “Spider-Man, huh?”

  “It fits,” Zoe said. “What are we watching?”

  “Well, there are a lot of kids’ movies here,” Derrick said. “And a few movies for Dad, but I don’t think you want to watch those.”

  Zoe looked at the shelf full of DVDs. Derrick shoveled more popcorn into his mouth.

  “Donnie Darko,” Zoe said.

  “Do what now?”

  “…Donnie Darko. You’ve never seen it?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Nope,” Derrick said. Zoe grabbed the case from the shelf and put the disc into the DVD player. Derrick turned off the lights, and the two of them sat down on the couch.

  “What’s it about?”

  “The end of the world,” Zoe said.

  “Sounds great. I could really use a few hours outside of reality.” The movie started to play. “You all right?” Derrick asked one last time.

  “Yeah. Better than ever.” Zoe smiled as she watched a movie with another human being for the first time she could remember.

  ****

  The next morning, Zoe woke up first. Derrick had insisted she sleep in the master bedroom, and he slept on the couch. She woke him and they gathered some supplies, including medical items and some extra clothes, and then hit the road.

  “So where are we going?” Derrick said.

  “Well, the best map I could find in that house says we’re in Iowa.”

  “Iowa.” The sun was shining, and both were wearing sunglasses that looked ridiculous, but that made them all the more worth wearing. “What’s there to do in Iowa?”

  “Jack shit,” Zoe said. They laughed.

  “Well, maybe that’s a good thing. Less shit to do means less people… Things to run into.”

  “Yeah. We stick to the desert states, and we should reach California in a few days.

  “And we can see the ocean,” Derrick said.

  “Yeah.” Zoe brushed hair from her face, but the wind from the open windows pushed it right back. “We can see the ocean.”

  They were outside Boone, Iowa, when they stopped before a gigantic tag in the middle of the road:

  BAZK!

  Carroll, Iowa

  6/30/13

  Admission is free! All ages show!

  “Bazk,” Zoe said. She leaned against the hood of the car.

  “Wonder what that is,” Derrick said.

  “Says it’s a show. Could be a band, a comedian, maybe? But it’s tonight, and not too far, whatever it is.”

  “Might be worth checking out.”

  “Might be.”

  “Let’s find out,” Derrick said. “It’s on the way.”

  Zoe and Derrick arrived in Carroll a few hours later. They stayed on the outskirts of town, avoiding the zombies, and eventually found a flyer taped to a traffic light. Zoe read it from the window.

  “‘Bazk in the glory of the last rock band on Earth! All ages shows. Protection provided. Want a taste of your old life? Come see BAZK, the last rock band in America. We’re not the best, but not so bad that you wouldn’t come see us if we were the last band on earth.’”

  “Cute,” Derrick said.

  “Let’s go,” Zoe said. She looked at Derrick. “It’ll be fun!”

  “Sure.” Derrick put the car in gear and drove past a zombie, who shambled after them but gave up as the car faded away.

  ****

  The show was being held in a small amphitheater. Derrick and Zoe watched from a line of parked cars, surprised to see there was actually a large crowd. Perhaps a hundred people were gathered in the grass, and a huge ring of men with shotguns circled them, facing outward, keeping things covered all the way up to the stage. There were several buses in a lot behind the stage, and musical equipment was being set up.

  “It looks like a real show!” Zoe said.

  “Except the bouncers are keeping the crowd in, and they have guns,” Derrick said.

  “Can we stay and watch it?”

  Derrick grimaced. “To tell you the truth, I’m feeling a bit anxious about getting back to Mara.”

  Zoe sighed and looked away. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, I’m being selfish.”

  Derrick started the car, but then stopped it again. “Know what? Let’s take a break, see this show. We’d be stopping in a few hours anyway. It won’t hurt anyone.”

  “You sure?” Zoe said.

  “Yeah.”

  They made their way into the crowd, which was cheering because the band was taking the stage. Two of the bouncers parted to let Zoe and Derrick in, and then formed a solid line again.

  “Hellooooooooo, Carroll!” the band’s lead singer said. Despite the fact that probably few people in the crowd were actually from Carroll, they all cheered. “We are Bazk, and as far as we know, the last touring rock band in America!”

  The crowd cheered some more. A few shots rang out, and Derrick and Zoe nearly jumped as they looked off to the far left side of the field. A few of the bouncers were shooting at some oncoming zombies, but quickly took care of them.

  “Tsh,” a young man near Zoe and Derrick said, “what a couple of winkies.”

  “‘Winkies’?” Derrick said.

  “Yeah. Jumping like that. You’ve never been to a Bazk show, it’s obvious. Dudes, chill out. Really. You have nothing to be afraid of. These guys have played shows in far bigger areas with far more zombies, and have never suffered a single casualty. You’re safe. Chill out before you get booed out of the crowd.”

  “Oh, okay!”

  “Whatever,” the man said, and then moved away from them. Zoe and Derrick looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

  “So we’re all here to have a good time, yeah?” the lead singer said into the mic. The crowd cheered. “We’re all going to be badass out here, and not a bunch of winkies, yeah?” More cheering. “We’re here to take part in what just may be the world’s last rock tour, yeah?” The cheering was growing louder and louder. A few more shots rang out, barely audible over the crowd. “Let’s get on with it, yeah?” The cheering grew even louder, and then the band began to play.

  They made their way through several songs. Gunshots were heard from time to time, but few paid attention to them. A mosh pit erupted near the front of the field, by the stage. A few more songs were played, followed by an encore, and then the band began to pack up.

  “Remember, guys, we do this for free, and these big, lovely gentlemen with the guns keep you sa
fe for free, so don’t be a bunch of winks, and make sure to tip on your way out. We’ll take whatever you can part with. Clothes, food, guns, water… We have a lot of people to take care of on this tour. But take care of yourselves first, and don’t give us anything you need to live. We wouldn’t be a band without any fans, after all!”

  The crowd cheered, several people began to leave.

  “Thanks for coming out, and keep on being badass!”

  ****

  As the car pulled into the driveway, the four ears within were still ringing.

  “That was a good show,” Derrick said.

  “Yeah. They don’t lie, they aren’t great. But they aren’t awful, either.”

  “Yeah.” Derrick stopped the car. “Hey…” Zoe turned to him. “Thanks for convincing me to stay. That was a lot of fun.”

  “Thanks for going with me,” Zoe said.

  They grabbed their guns, now a bit shorter on ammo than they had been (and Derrick switching from a handgun to a shotgun he’d been saving), loaded up, cocked their weapons, and headed to the house. Derrick knocked a few times, heard nothing inside, then kicked the door in. Zoe and Derrick went inside, cleared it of the zombies, and then got ready for bed.

  61

  At Jordan’s House

  Jordan and the other survivors made sure to block all the doors and windows as best as possible. Luckily, there was some lumber in the garage that would have been used for a future project by Jordan’s father. Since that likely wouldn’t happen now, the wood was put to better use. The survivors also closed the shades and curtains.

  When they were done zombie-proofing the house, they took turns showering since Jordan’s house still had water and power. The water went cold before all of them could finish, but it was still a welcome improvement. Afterward, they unloaded their baskets of groceries to make dinner.