The Long Road Ahead: A Zombie Tale

by Key, Thomas

  Chapter 21

  While we weaved around destroyed cars and debris; we continued to make our way towards the interstate. I felt that I was still fairly drugged. As Matthew McConaughey used to say, I felt 'Alright alright alright.' Every now and then, I felt our car slow down or speed up, and a few tight turns, with my head making a loud 'thump' as it smacked into the passenger door. "Damn dude, I think you're going to give me a concussion," I told the driver. The national guardsman just sighed. "Don't worry about it. We're about as far as this car can take us anyway." I felt the car once again decelerate and then come to a complete stop. I wiggled my way to a sitting position, trying to keep weight off my back. I'd imagine that it was quite comical. As I was finally able to look over the seat, I saw a near wall to wall, bumper to bumper traffic jam. I had hoped that since we were heading west, traffic would have been lighter since we had been in the inner city and now on one of the several ways out. I looked around and saw that we were at the 'Big I' overpass. Albuquerque had three major interchanges. The Coors and I40 overpass on the west side, the Big-I where the two interstates met, and the Paseo and I25 interchange. Since these had all been the fastest ways to the interstates to get out of the city, it stood to reason that everyone had tried this route. There were literally thousands of vehicles up and down the interstate and off ramps. It was what looked like an automobile graveyard. Sports cars beside semis beside those cars that should have been junked a decade ago. "I guess we'll be walking for a while," I told Rodriguez. You might be curious about why I don't ask the guy for his first name. I don't tell people my first name. I lost the few people close to me who knew it, and I'll reserve using it again until I find them again. I don't want to be constantly reminded of the past during every single conversation. Although, when I really thought about it, I was having conversations less and less anyway. Besides, last names stand out far more than first names. How many Johns have you met? Yet how many McDougall's? See that would stick out in your memory way more than a first name anyway. "Yeah, it sure looks like it," The guardsman said as he unlocked the doors and climbed out. He grabbed his bag and opened my door. I carefully scooted my ass along the seat until I was at the presuppose and then turned my legs to the side so I could, not jump down, but more slide eloquently to the asphalt. "Wow, I think that was the most graceful thing I've ever seen," he said as he watched me. I stood on very shaky legs and looked at him once I finally stood up straight. "We both know that that was an incredibly sarcastic comment." We both smiled. I liked this guy. Not ‘like like’ but like. In a very I've-got-a-man-card kind of way. In another life, I could have watched football with this guy, drank beer and talk about women. Or men if that was his thing. Who am I to judge? I didn't know this guy. He could even be an alien.

  He caught my scrutinizing stare as I then had an inner dialogue about if he was an alien or not. "Are you good to move?" he asked me, turning his attention and looking around at the automobile total cluster fuck in front of us. "As good as I can be. I think whatever you gave me is wearing off. That or my back feels better," I told him. I hoped this doesn't go the entire way to Cannon AFB, or it would be one hell of a long ass walk. "Let's get started," I said as I grabbed my own pack and began to slowly walk west. "You look like a zombie," he said to me as he trailed behind. "Shut the hell up. As long as no one shoots me, then I'll be the prettiest zombie out here." Speaking of which, I had not seen a single infected on this entire strip of interstate. We continued walking and I turned to him. "Where did they all go?" I asked. His face looked grave. "From the reports that I saw, as everyone tried to get out of the city, the zombie’s ranks grew as they started walking from the center of the city outward. They became like a tidal wave of infected. They washed over the roadway. Plus because of your group pulling them from all over the area some probably walked all of the way from here just to see you all.” As we walked, I saw broken windshields, blood stains along the outside of the vehicles, and more dark unknown stains inside most of the cars. "It looks like a lot of people stayed inside their vehicles," I said. "I doubt that it did much good though. The reports I saw said thousands of those dead things flooded the streets. With that many of them, they could crush the safety glass fairly easily." We did come across a few dozen infected, still inside of their cars, strapped down with the seat belts. As we passed, every single one of them stared at us, their soulless eyes tracking our every movement. Or did they have souls? Again, I had no clue. Many of the specters had cars that had not been broken into it. My best guess was that they had turned before the horde arrived. Zombies don't seem to attack other zombies, so they were left untouched during the Z migration. Luckily, as most of their windows were still rolled up, their moaning went unheard. There were occasional body parts along the roadway. Sometimes, we could guess what they were, a hand, or a leg, but sometimes, no matter how long we stared at them, we had no idea what it was. What a macabre road trip game to play, I thought to myself. "How long of a walk do you think we have ahead of us?" I asked. "If we keep up this pace, without finding another vehicle and without stopping, we'd be looking at around 80 hours." I stopped walking. "Are you serious? Three to four days?" He nodded. "Let’s just hope we can find a working vehicle soon," The guardsman said as he passed by me. "Fuck my life," I whispered to myself as I trailed after him.

  As we walked on, the sun finally began to rise. There was truly nothing that could compare to seeing the miles and miles of traffic ahead of us, as if stretching to end of the world. The drugs had definitely worn off by now. I felt like shit. Like shit run over by a bus and then being thrown into a wood chipper, and sprayed all over the kids at the bus stop as it dropped them off. It took the two of us two and a half hours to get to Tramway Boulevard, which was the last major street in Albuquerque on the east side. I had previously lived off of Tramway. It was the path to the high-end houses, with smaller streets that fed off of it and spread out like an old man’s leg veins. As I looked down from the interstate over the street, I pictured in my mind the hundreds of back and forth trips that I made through this whole area. The countless trips to go shopping, to see friends, even to see this wicked cool movie theater that serves food while you watch the movie. They even had a brewery built in there. It was pure bliss.

  I was still focused on my flashbacks when I heard what sounded like something being dragged on the asphalt. I snapped my attention back to the path of dead vehicles. Rodriguez was at the opposite wall of the overpass, looking down and it seemed like he had not heard anything. I began to relax when I heard it again. I began to look from one side of the bridge to the other, scanning the vehicles. I still did not see anything out of the ordinary. Or so to speak because it was a zombie apocalypse after all.. I slowly made my way over to the guardsman. As I approached, I saw that his attention was still focused on something, or it could have been that he was just lost in thought. I pulled my pistol, but before I could get close enough to say anything quietly, I saw him back pedal. He looked down and let out a surprised yelp as he fell backwards. I rushed over and saw a crawler on the ground, intent on making Rodriguez its next dinner. The soldier had fallen back, landing on the hood of a car behind him. As I took aim, and fired at the dead spooky asshole, my ears were rewarded with a blaring noise. It was not the noise of a gunshot that got to me, but of a car alarm. "Oh shit," I heard my companion say as he stood up. The BMW that he had landed on apparently had one of those viper systems. Never heard of those? They're literally the loudest, most insane car alarms on the market. We were now a noisy, flashing beacon for every dead creature in Albuquerque to hear and see that there were two hot and ready meals. As if on cue, a moaning could be heard all around us. It was not the sound of one or two of them, which we could handle. The mass of vocal cords being moved sounded like hundreds of Zs. Here we were, with no vehicle, me being wounded and now we've alerted everything in the city. "Awesome," I said to myself as I started doing my version of a wounded speed walk. "We should go!" I yelled to him as I passed him by. "Yeah, no sh
it," he replied as he too picked up his pace.

  Interlude

  From a short distance behind the two men stood a lone infected. Dressed in a faded pair of blue jeans, and a blood-stained black button-down shirt, it watched as Shepherd and Rodriguez took off down the interstate. Its matted black hair did not move at all in the breeze, glistening and a large scab covered a bite wound on its neck. The scab was fresh, and still oozed puss. The infected listened with its head tilted to the left to the chorus of zombie moans coming from all around them. Instinctually, it began to walk forward, between and around the cars, always keeping the two humans just in sight. Whenever the two men turned around to peer back the way they had come, the creature behind them lowered itself behind the nearest cover, and continued to peer at the men before they began to walk again. The zombie horde behind it was coming closer and would soon pass this infected, which suited it just fine. He...it… was on the trail of the two men, and nothing would stop it from filling its stomach with their warm flesh.

  Not far from behind the lone infected was a small group of four men, clad in all black. They were just moving into a small retail storefront when they heard the moans of the zombies begin to assail their ears. Once inside of the store, they spread out. Two disheveled looking men, both wearing leather pants and jackets to match entered after the first group. “Hello boys.” One of the scoundrels said to the black clad men as they entered. “Hello. We don’t do small talk. Take this.” The apparent leader of the men in black replied, standing directly in front of the duo. He then reached into his backpack and retrieved a cylinder that contained a small device inside. “When you’re ready, activate the device. It emits a frequency that the infected hear and are attracted to. Use it to lead as many of those things west as possible. Remember, stay ahead of them, and as long as you’re emitting they’ll be following. Turn it off when you sleep. Do not let anyone get a hold of it, or we will hunt you down and gut you. Any questions?” The man said, seeming to square off with the two leather men. They both looked at each other and shook their heads. “Alright then.” The leader handed the device over and left the store, his men in tow. The two leather men then got onto dirt bike that while they had seen better days, were kept in peak condition. The shorter of the two was assigned to carry the device and activated it as they drove all around Albuquerque, picking up as many zombies as possible before heading west.

  Chapter 22

  I was dead on my feet. Not dead enough to warrant a bullet in the brain mind you, but if I had kept going on like that, it might have been what I became. The sun had fully risen and the heat of the day was not helping. As we had strained to keep up the pace, I kept feeling like the whole world was permanently tilted upwards. Every step was more and more difficult. Abandoned cars continued to litter the interstate. With barely enough room to move between them, and the added fact that we were walking up a mountain pass made everything just that much more pleasant. We came upon a military roadblock, or at least what was left of one. We were along the I40 east bound lane right before the highway 330 overpass. A line of half ton army trucks, deuce and a half’s my partner called them, with sandbags set up in front of them with a couple of M2 machine guns still mounted on top of them. Big block lettered signs in front of the first line of cars said, ‘Road Closed. Any attempts to pass will result in arrest’. As I neared, I saw that end the end it hadn’t done much good. Civilian vehicles had obviously attempted to bypass the road block. As we came abreast to the front line of cars, we saw multiple large caliber bullet holes that littered every car in sight. Bodies were everywhere, littering the roadway between the vehicles. The cars that had tried to pass were just destroyed, and several had caught fire. The soldiers had not fared much better, as people with firearms had obviously shot back. Small caliber bullet holes were all over the trucks. Dead soldiers were on the ground, one of them still had a bullhorn in his hand. My guess was that the refugees pushed forward and with sheer numbers, overwhelmed the army. Of course, that was before the wave of infected hit. Many of the corpses had been snacked on by the zombies that had been following very close behind.

  "Damn," Rodriguez said as we surveyed the damage. There were no weapons leftover besides the M2s that had been left behind with the chambers open. "American soldiers killing American civilians. I never thought I’d see something like this. This is not what we do," he said quietly. I slowly put my hand on his shoulder. "It wasn’t you. We’ve got to keep moving." He nodded and we began to walk again. It took us another hour and a half to make it to the next town, Tijeras. “So, what did you do in the national guard?” I asked him as we walked along. “Well for starters, I’m actually in the air guard.” He said. “What's the difference?” “Well the air guard is the air force national guard. My unit was Red Horse. Which stands for Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers.” I stopped walking and looked him in the eye. “I’m dead serious. The military loves their acronyms.” “That’s still a long ass name.” I told him as I turned and started walking again. “So, what does that long ass named group do exactly?” I asked. “We basically are a support unit, but we can pretty much build a base from the ground up in no time flat.” “That’s pretty handy.” I said. “Yeah no kidding. We’ve helped with a bunch of humanitarian missions as well. We’re self-sustaining with our own security forces and even our own finance services. Hell, a bunch of us are trained in demolition too. We can build a base or blow one up. We’re the jack of all trades.” He said. “The more you know.” I told him. As we walked down the exit and into the abandoned town, we saw an assortment of small businesses, a library and a post office. The sun had been out in full force, and the pain in my back was still throbbing. It was absolute torture. We walked down the main street and a sign a ways off caught Rodriguez’ eye. "There’s an animal clinic down that way," he pointed. It was only a few minutes’ walk from our present location, but I didn’t understand the need. "Why is that important?" I asked. "Animal hospitals carry antibiotics for their animals. They should have supplies that we can use on you. Hopefully, to clean out the wound and head off any infection." "I didn’t even think about that," I told him honestly, as we started heading south towards the building.

  We walked into the parking lot and the animal hospital was closer to that of a small clinic. It was a brown and tan building that was otherwise fairly unremarkable. My companion took the steps first and tried the door. It was unlocked. We both readied our weapons as he went in first, with me following close behind. Inside the lobby was clean and organized other than some pamphlets that were on the floor. One thing that was not normal, however, was the smell. Decomposition was an unmistakable foul smell that anyone left alive these days knew only so well. We covered our noses out of instinct, not that it would do much good. I was drawn to a back room, apparently for recovering animals. When I pushed open the door, the stench hit me hard, nearly dropping me to my knees. Cages upon cages of all different sizes were before me with rotting dead animals of every type. The dogs especially, had fought the metal of the cages to their dying breaths, having scratched and bit at the bars in a desperate bid to escape. I just stood and stared, looking at the carnage before me. These poor creatures, left to starve or to die of dehydration. What a horrible way to go. It was Rodriguez’ turn to put his hand on my shoulder. "Come on," he told me as he guided me back out the door and into the waiting room. I sat down heavily, feeling the weight of the day on my shoulders. He handed me a bottled water and two pills. "It’s your lucky day," he said as he handed them over. I drank greedily and downed the pills in record time. Within two minutes, I was asleep, smell be damned.

  We both took 4-hour sleep shifts. Being in the middle of literally nowhere made sleeping fairly freaky once I woke up from my original drug induced nap. Well, let's be honest, for me, it was. Rodriguez, being a member of the armed forces passed right the fuck out when it was his turn. I had heard that through training and afterwards, you tend to get sleep whenever you physically can.
So, the ability to just close your eyes wherever you are becomes an extremely valuable tool. Not for me though. Damn civilians. Between my back trying to heal, and the complete silence of the dead of day (see what I did there), and the fact that hundreds of people had lost their lives on this very roadway kept me up and alert. Eventually though, exhaustion won out again and I closed my eyes again. I awoke to the soldier shaking me gently. I wiped drool away from my lips as I moaned and rolled over. "I was going to say that you reminded me of sleeping beauty but that was kind of gross," he said with a chuckle. I slowly sat up in the waiting room chair. "Thank God you didn't just kiss me instead. It would have made this friendship very awkward," I told him with a grunt. Night was now rapidly approaching. Yay, I thought, another night in zombieland.