by Key, Thomas
After getting their gear, Ken walked Rachel to her room. He stopped her before she entered, "Listen. We've got to make sure that we are prepared for this. We can't just jump in and hope for the best," he said. "I know that. I'm all for whatever knowledge they can bestow to me. But to me, it's all just a means to an end. We've got to do everything that we can to find Shepard." Ken noted that the determined look had come back onto her face. "Okay, let's just not rush this." She nodded as she turned and entered her room. As Ken walked back to his own room, the thoughts going through his head were numerous. ’How do we get away from our mission area? How can we possibly find Shepard if the military isn't looking for him? Could we even make it back?’ He was pondering these questions when he nearly bowled a woman over. "Oh shit, I'm sorry about that," he stammered out as he stepped back. The woman caught her balance and looked into his eyes. "Hey. Long time no see," she said. "Bella. I'm sorry about that. I was lost in thought." She smiled and put her hands out in a placating manor. "Don't worry about it. No harm no foul," she said. Isabel was completely decked out in crisp military fatigues. "I didn't know that you joined up," Ken said, looking her over. "Yeah, I'm on escort duty for the teams that go out. I get to ride the fancy helicopters and guard them when we land and take off. Glorified guard duty but it's a job," she said. "It looks like Rachel and I will be seeing you out there soon," Ken replied. She raised an eyebrow. "We joined up for scavenging detail," he responded. Her questioning eyebrow slowly lowered. "Oh okay. I'll be happy to be in the field with you again. I've been meaning to come and see you," Isabel said. "Oh?" It was Ken's turn to raise the eyebrow. "Why's that?" he asked her. "Just to catch up. Visit. That kind of thing," she said as she moved some strands of loose hair out of her eyes. "Yeah, that sounds good. I have training tomorrow. When are you free?" "Right now, if you're up for it?" she said back. Ken saw what he could only describe as fire in her eyes, and not the bad kind of fire. "Oh...Sure.. We can go right now," he shuddered out. "Great!" she said, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him towards the mess hall.
Chapter 26
It took over two hours for the horde coming from Albuquerque to pass us. I had naturally not slept well and woke up about half way through. We waited, fairly impatiently, if I do say so myself. The swarm was massive, and the stench horrific. While we had waited, Rodriguez and I had created a game of passing a rock between the two of us. Sort of like hot potato but without the frantic tossing or fun sounds. Obviously, it was nothing fancy or noteworthy but boys will be boys. We tend to play with whatever is available. After the undead army moved passed our position, we both stood up, feeling our sore muscles scream in protest. My back and I think every single joint in my body popped as I righted myself. A large smile crept over the soldier's face as he heard what sounded like automatic gunfire come from me. "Getting old sucks, doesn't it?" What the hell? I was only thirty years young. Once I was able to finally take a step, I took one look at him, and told him to go fuck himself. He laughed out loud as he walked to the front door and opened it slowly. "It looks like there are a few stragglers. We're going to have a fun time getting out of here," he said. I peeked over his shoulder. In the moonlight, I noticed a bright orange object in the parking lot. What just so happened to be one of my dream vehicles was parked nice and neat in one of the spots. I was definitely not a fan of the color, but a beautiful, fully tricked out Hummer H2 sat in all of its glory. I looked up to the heavens at that point and whispered, “Thank you God,” before I started walking to the SUV. With the zombie stragglers in the area, we played it safe, using car after car as cover. I finally reached the gorgeous beast and stared at it in appreciation. "I've always wanted one of these," I told him as I looked in through the vehicle windows. They were slightly tinted, but I could still see inside. "Damn it." I sighed as I took a step back. "What's up?” Rodriguez said as he stepped forward. "I can see the keys but we have another problem." He just stared at me, waiting for me to elaborate. "There's a dead guy in there," I said as I pointed to the driver seat. He finally stepped up to the window and inspected the inside. As I stated, there was a man slumped over the steering wheel. It looked like he had been there a while. "Well, we are in a bit of a time crunch," I told him. "I think we're going to have to pull this dude out and try to do some quick cleaning." The guardsman nodded slowly. "You pull, I shoot?" he asked me. I shrugged in response. I walked around to the driver side door and yanked on the door handle. It popped open easily. I could see the dome lights just barely coming on. As I went to grab the dead man's shirt, he shifted and fell onto me. I had tried, and I mean really tried to get out of the way. Yet again, I found myself underneath a rotting corpse. The guardsman, once again, pulled the bag of flesh off of me. There was no need for a bullet, the guy had obviously offed himself already and was dead dead. As I stood back up, I bent immediately over and began to dry heave. After it was out of my system, I looked to the heavens. "Seriously God. Are you messing with me?" I asked, looking skyward. When no response came, I sighed and reached back inside of the SUV. I took the keys, still new with a dealer tag and inserted it into the ignition. It took several tries for the unused battery to start the behemoth engine. The smell inside was just terrible. It was as if I opened a container of spoiled canned zombie. The tank read 3/4 of a tank. "I think we are in luck," I told him as I jumped back out and took a deep breath of fresh air.
The soldier looked inside of the vehicle at the dashboard and nodded his head in satisfaction, shortly before gagging himself. "We have got to do something about that smell if we are going to travel in this," he said as he caught his breath. I reached my hand in, trying to keep my face away from the stench inside and hit the window release. All four windows, and even the back windshield rolled down. "Cool," I said as I watched in semi fascination as they all rolled down. I saw another button on the driver side door panel and hit it. The sunroof also opened. "Oh, I like this," I told him. After a few minutes of letting the vehicle air out, I reached in yet again and this time, popped the trunk release. Rodriguez slowly opened it. Inside, he found the following incredibly helpful survival tools; one package of hand sanitizer wipes, three reusable shopping bags, a tire changing kit, and a folded burlap type material blanket. I'd love to say that there was also a machine gun with 10 boxes of ammunition. Alas, that was not the case here. I grabbed the package of wipes and began to scrub where the lone passenger had previously sat. I don't think that it did much to remove the stained stench if at all. Finally, I just put a layer of them down, and using them like a sheet, and sat on the semi-wet cloths. The guardsman jumped into the seat beside me, adjusting it for several minutes until it was just right. "Really?" I asked him with a raised eyebrow. "If I'm going to be riding in this thing for a while, I might as well be comfortable," he told me as he tilted it back and made as if to get some shuteye. "I'll take first watch," I told him with a hint of annoyance in my voice. He just gave me a thumbs up and passed out. I had a feeling that this was going to be a long ass road trip.
Chapter 27
We had driven for an hour and a half, keeping our speed way down so we could avoid the random walking dead pulling rear guard duty. We planned to avoid the main horde until we could somehow get around them. The best laid plans of mice and men though. We began to run into more and more infected and we figured that it was our que to take an exit. As we swerved past a pack of five in the roadway, we took the exit and came upon a Flying J travel center. As we pulled into the lot, my thoughts began to wonder as I put the vehicle in park and stared at the building in front of me.
Many years ago, my father and my step mother were taking a small vacation and needed their home watched over. I was in desperate need of my own vacation and readily accepted it. Having been born and raised in a small town in Washington state, I had loved the feeling of being in a smaller community. My then occupation in retail required me to attract as many customers as possible into my store and I was very adept at it. The thought of getting away, staying at a house in the country,
away from anyone else and feeding livestock again was a craving that I didn’t know that I had. On my way out of Albuquerque to Missouri, I had traveled this same I40 route through NM. This same travel center had been one of my stops on my trip. It was also the first time that I had visited a travel center on my own. It may not sound exciting to most people, but it sure was for me. I left with far more snacks than anyone should buy, and my body paid me back for it later. The 14-hour drive had been bliss, with nothing but me and my tunes and the open road. It was also the first time that I pushed my truck to 110 mph, and luckily, I hadn’t gotten caught. After arriving at the farm and after bidding my family adue, I got to sit down on the porch and just sit there admiring the sights and the sounds. That week had been a week of calm and quiet, something that most of us are far too busy to enjoy. Even years later, I remember that feeling of time standing still while I looked out at the fields.
Rodriguez tapped my shoulder, and I was brought out of my revelry. "What’s up," he said, still in a bit of a daze from his nap. "We were getting a little too close to the horde. I figured we could stop for gas while we wait." He nodded and stretched. I glanced back up at the center and stepped out of the Hummer, stretching as I did so. We both grabbed our weapons and walked around the travel center, looking for threats. We saw nothing. "We’re going to need to find a hose and siphon gas from the tank under the station," I told him as we came to the front entrance of the truck stop. "Alright, let’s go shopping," he told me as he pulled the glass door open and I walked inside, rifle at the ready. Once again, a completely dark interior greeted me as I did so. The shelves had mostly been looted but there were a few items left over. My partner watched over me as I looked through each shelf and finally found the components that I needed to make the siphon. I showed him the items and we fist bumped each other. On our way back out, we stuffed our pockets with anything else handy. I followed him out and ran right into his back as he stood in front of me. I had, naturally, not been paying any attention to my surroundings. I was just too excited about the random items that I had thrown into my pockets. He still stood, unmoving, and I glanced over his shoulder. Our hummer was surrounded by a dozen undead, with several more coming from the way that we had, just minutes before. "Oh. Shit," I said with dismay. "We’re going to have to get past them if we want to have any hope of getting out of here," he said quietly. "I think we need a distraction," I said as a plan began to form in my head. "I have a plan," I told him as more and more infected poured in from the off ramp.
My plans tend to not be as thought out as I would like, but even half assed plans are plans. "You go one way, I’ll go the other. I’m going to get behind them and make it to another store down the way there." I pointed east to a building just barely visible in the moonlight. "I’ll cause a distraction and we both meet back here," I told him, handing him the funnel and other parts. "If you get back here first, throw that shit in and get the hummer ready." He nodded and ducked back down into the store. I hugged the wall of the building and made my way into some bushes. The bushes allowed me to stay mostly hidden as I bypassed most of the group of dead people. When the bushes at the travel center ended, I had to make a break for it. We could absolutely run faster than these things could walk, but they could outlast us easily. I bolted, making a beeline for my saving grace. A large sign out front advertised ‘Buy 1 get 1 free fireworks.’ A grin crept over my face as I came upon the Firework World Outlet store. I pulled the door and this one was locked. Go figure, the one time that I was alone. Nearby, I found a rock and hurled it at one of the large windows, shattering it. Using my rifle to clear away the largest shards still in the frame, I hopped over and into the building. The air was stale, as if no one had been here in years. That, I knew, was a good thing. Zombies stink and it's a dead giveaway, Zing. I looked through the store and found a $1200 box of mixed fireworks that was almost as tall and wide as I was. "This should do nicely," I said out loud with a big cheesy smile. I heard the crunching of feet on broken glass and glanced back at the window of which I had come. Several infected stood in the window staring at me. "Great," I huffed as they started to pour in in droves. I hurriedly looked around and found a sign for an emergency exit. Before I reached the door though, I stopped and my smile came back full force. My excitement grew as I pulled a brand-new lighter from my pocket. I had also grabbed a small bottle of lighter fluid. “Thanks God.” I said looking up as if to see him hanging from the store ceiling waving. Or her, who really knows? I began pouring the fluid all over the firework displays and pouring a line back towards the emergency exit. I set my firework package down and opened the plastic, laying them out around the pool of liquid, using every drop of fluid left in the bottle. With a childish glint in my eye, I lit the line and saw it began working its way to the displays. I then quickly lit all of the assorted fireworks that were in front of me. Everything before me began to light up in the most beautiful array of colors. The smell of powder quickly began to fill the air as I began backing up to the door. The sounds of the fireworks going off began to make my ears start ringing and as much as I wanted to stay to enjoy the festivities, having the ability to hear is an important part of survival these days. I shut the door behind me and the coast was clear as I walked away from the now smoking building. As I proceeded from the store, a very large group of infected were standing around the parking lot, staring at the growing inferno. "It actually worked," I said to myself in satisfaction. I casually strolled back to the waiting hummer, both hands in my pockets, with Rodriguez looking at me in bewilderment. "Distraction complete," I uttered as another round of screaming rockets went off in the store. We loaded up, and drove down the ramp back onto the interstate. The entire Albuquerque horde had stopped and back-tracked to the sound of the firework store. Thousands upon thousands of infected gathered around it as it burned. I could see the skin and clothing of the closest zombies begin smoking and even start catching fire as they stood and watched in amazement. Once a majority of the group walked off the interstate, we saw our golden opportunity to bypass the horde and make our way to Cannon with haste. As we put the posse behind us, the silence of the dark night was filled with the sounds of victory.
Interlude
The infected man, once again, stood still, watching the rest of his kind move past the town of Moriarty. Slowly, he turned completely around, looking for any signs of food. He…It saw a shadow run into the street outside of the gas station just off the exit. He followed cautiously, as its target was very obviously a food and not one of its kind. The human entered the building, the kind of which the infected had never seen before. Its curiosity got the best of it as it stood outside, looking at the different signs and then peering into the now broken window. Zombies around him began to enter the windows, chasing the human. His mouth began to salivate at the thought of biting into the man in the store. What overrode its curiosity and its meat cravings was one thing; the need to survive. It would not do anything to jeopardize its own survival. As it watched the human evade its brethren, it began to back up into the store’s parking lot. It did not want to be anywhere near the front lines of any kind of altercation just yet. As the store caught fire, it began to spread in an amazing array of colors and sounds, the infected spotted the human exiting a side door. A feeling that had not crossed the mind of the infected was slowly rising within it. It didn’t understand what the feeling was or even what the word feeling was. As the heat spread up its body, it moaned loudly as it turned back and saw dozens of zombies being burned from the blaze. The feeling, if it were in a human, would be akin to anger. It let out a loud growl, which caused all of the infected within earshot to turn in its direction. The infected moaned in the direction of where the human had gone, and as one, the horde began to move in its direction, as if commanded to do so. Not realizing what it had done in the least, the infected joined the rest of its brethren in giving chase to the vehicle that was now fleeing the area. With another growl as the tail lights faded away into the night, it walked ever onwa
rds with its sole purpose to eat the ones responsible for the damage inflicted on its brethren. Into the night the horde marched, in the last known direction of the Hummer and the food inside.
Chapter 28
I spent what felt like hours dodging around the stragglers from the main horde. It was rather annoying having to slow down or stop completely, pulling onto the shoulder at points to get around them. When we were finally able to get back onto the interstate, it was just as bad as we had expected. The zombies had pushed every vehicle to the sides of the railings, and in most cases, completely off of the road and into ravines below. Random bodies littered the roadway from time to time. As I slowed to evaluate the corpses, it seemed as if most of them were infected that had been crushed and trampled. The way I saw it though, it was all good for us. To the best of my knowledge, no one was making bullets anymore. Every dead Z dispatched without losing a single round of ammunition was an absolute win for humankind. We would need every tool at our disposal to counter this dead and deadly enemy.
