The Long Road Ahead: A Zombie Tale

by Key, Thomas

  We came across another lonely town after several more hours of driving. The town looked about as empty as the last one. I spotted a Shell gas station and pulled off of the interstate, heading straight for it. As we came to a complete stop, the soldier in the passenger seat finally stirred. "Are we here?" he asked as he sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Yeah, after about three hours, we're here. No traffic, that kind of thing," I told him as I hopped out. He looked around subtly. "Very funny," he uttered quietly as he opened his door and stepped out slowly. The sun had risen, much to both of our chagrin and he shielded his eyes. "So, where the hell are we?" he asked. "No clue. I figured we'd see if we can grab some gas and snacks then head back onto the road," I said as I began to walk towards the storefront. I heard some commotion behind me and turned, seeing Rodriguez carrying his rifle and my pistol. I looked down at my holster, realizing that I had forgotten it on the dashboard. "Whoops," I said with a grin. "Yeah, whoops could kill your dumb ass," he said as he handed it over. "Come on, what are the chances that this place in the middle of nowhere is occupied?" I asked him.

  As if a direct response to my question, the front glass window of the Shell station shattered as three infected cowboys came right for us. All three had blue denim jeans, plaid shirts and perfectly fitted hats. It was almost as if they were grown up triplets whose parents thought it was just adorable to keep dressing them all the same. The guardsman reacted far quicker than I did, pulling his rifle up to his shoulder and firing three rounds in quick succession. Each one of them dropped to the sand covered asphalt, one after the other. "I'll be damned," I told him. He shrugged and once again, we began to proceed forward. "Wait," I told him softly, raising my hand towards him. He pulled the weapon back up and scanned the dark interior of the store. "What's up?" he whispered. What I saw caused a chill to creep right up my spine. I could literally feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up again. On the other side of the broken glass, I saw a shelf that had been knocked over. That in itself was fairly normal in this day and age. However, the shelf had looked like it had been moved and positioned so that, when it fell, it would do so in such a way to break the glass. "It looks like they used the shelf to break the glass," I told him, pointing to my point of interest. He sidestepped to come to rest beside me. "Yeah, see here?” I pointed to what seemed to be the breaking point. “It sure looks like it. Most storefront glass is pretty strong, and it would have taken a lot of power to break it. With the sharp hard corners of the shelving they had the perfect way to break out.” I told him. “It makes sense," he said as he stepped up into the window with his gun at the ready. I stood there, staring at the shelf. "This shows rudimentary intelligence," I told him as I too stepped up inside. "Who knows? Maybe it was an accident," he said as he headed towards the counter, clearing each isle one by one. "If it wasn't by accident, then we've got a serious problem," I told him from behind his advancing position. In fact, I thought, this could really change things.

  Since the beginning of the outbreaks, these freaks had proven to act like cruise missiles. They went straight at their targets, without seeming to worry about damage to themselves, and if they couldn't directly get to their prey, they'd lose focus and leave. If they are now using tools to get to their prey, we could be in a whole world of hurt. Besides the three rowdy fellows that we, and by WE, I meant Rodriguez dealt with, there was not a single person, living or dead in the store. He and I began to stuff boxes and bags of snacks and began loading them into the SUV. There was not much left, in comparison to when this place had been in actual operation. We had enough Twinkies and ding dongs to make it to our destination though that was for sure. Unfortunately, the place had been completely sold out of beer. We would have had a grand ole time, following a zombie horde in a hummer, drinking beer and hanging our heads out of the sunroof. After loading what we could, we approached the fuel pumps. "It won’t work," he told me as I went for the handle. I immediately pulled back. "Why, what's wrong?" I asked somewhat horrified. "The power that pumps the gas won’t work without electricity." He smiled at me. "Oh. Well shit, you scared the hell out of me," I told him. "We've got about a quarter of a tank left. Is there any other way to get the gas?" I asked him, surveying the lot. "If we could find a hose, we might be able to manually pump some out using the syphon. It’s far faster than us trying to syphon the almost empty cars along the road.” He stated. I walked back into the store, looking for anything that would work. I didn't see anything that rang the bell. We figured we'd take another look.

  As I was moving boxes around in the back room, I heard the crunching of glass and then Rodriguez came into the backroom and closed the door, putting us into total darkness. "Is this where you come out?" I asked him, confused. "What?" He took a moment, "Oh hell no. I heard a vehicle coming." The worry in his voice was evident. I pulled my pistol from my holster and put my back to the front wall by the door. He slowly opened the door so that we could both peek through. The vehicle had already come to stop by our hummer. It was an old beat up Ford Bronco. Two men stepped out, holding what looked like hunting rifles. They peered into our SUV and one of them, the older of the two by the looks of it, pointed our way. The older man stood guard over our vehicle. As the other man approached, it seemed like he may have been a teenager or in his early twenties. His rifle was up as he approached the store. He seemed twitchy to say the least. "Maybe they're friendly," I whispered to my companion. "Doubtful," he whispered back. As Twitch entered, he stopped at the interior of the window. "Is anyone in here?" he yelled into the store. "Yeah, I'm coming out," I said loudly as I slowly opened the door. I put my pistol behind my back in my belt and stepped out, holding my hands up. The man waited until I was completely visible then yelled back to who I guessed was his father. "I found one. What do I do?" he yelled at the older man. "We don't take male prisoners. Shoot him," the man yelled back. "Sorry mister," the young Twitch said as he once again raised his weapon. "Oh shit," I said with an audible gulp of air. In a flash, in the corner of my eye, I saw the door that I had come out of being ripped open. Before the kid in front of me could move his rifle to focus on the new target, Rodriguez fired two rounds, both hitting him center mass. The look of utter surprise on young Twitch’s face as he fell would stay with me forever. As he toppled over, I saw the man near our vehicle duck behind his truck. He began to fire in our direction and we both took cover of our own. After a few moments, the firing stopped, and I figured that his magazine had emptied. As we stood back up, scanning for targets, we heard the screeching of tires as the Bronco took off down the road they had come.

  Chapter 29

  As we finished loading up our Hummer with everything that we could, I couldn't help but feel as if that guy was going to bite us in the ass. Metaphorically, of course, as I'm not a fan of actual ass biting. It’s just not my cup of tea, but to each their own I supposed. Those two men had me quite triggered me. We weren’t hurting anyone and they wanted to shoot us and leave us for dead? I totally get that it's the apocalypse and such, and its human nature to want to survive. As history has repeatedly shown, the best way to survive is with other good-natured people. Civilizations through time have shown that the 'take what I want, whenever I want' type of groups always fail in the end. They either destroy themselves, pick fights with stronger groups and loose or just simply die out from starvation or sickness. Raiders don't want to farm, or herd or learn medicine. Sustainability is the thing of life these days. I shook my head slowly, trying to clear it of all of these rampant thoughts. The last thing that I needed right now was to not pay attention and step into a well or some shit.

  Rodriguez jumped into the driver seat this time. "I think it's time for you to get a nap." I nodded his way appreciatively. I don't think that I had ever been so tired. Even with the state of the world before our helicopter got shot down, I still had a place to call my own at the end of the day. I highly doubted that sleeping in this truck would afford me the kind of true rest that I needed, but one does what one must. As
I tried to get into a comfortable position, I kept thinking about the events of the past few weeks. We'd been attacked by raiders at our compound, luckily, we were able to stop them at the gates. Rachel getting hurt, then someone shooting down our helicopter, the zombie horde and now these two redneckish men who try to waylay us as well. I audibly sighed to myself. "What's up?" my driver asked me quietly. "Just thinking about this absolute cluster fuck. It only seems to be getting worse," I told him as my head slightly rocked back and forth with the movement of the Hummer. "It will get better," he said matter of factly. "How do you know that?" I asked him. "It has to, otherwise, humankind will cease to exist and we won't be alive to care about it. We have children back at base though, so it's our duty to ensure that they survive and so do their children, and so on and so forth. We've got to keep building up our security and eventually, start taking back our planet." "Do you really believe that we can accomplish that?" I asked back. "I think if we all come together to do it, yes. We will need to not only exterminate the infected, but the lawless as well. It's harsh, I know, but people like that who can't play nice with others have no place in this new world. We need to crackdown on violators whenever it happens, and bring back the inescapable rule of law." I found myself nodding as he spoke. "Who decides what the law is? Who decides the punishment for breaking it?" I asked. "Back at base, we follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and if something isn't covered by that, then we have a select group of civilians who act as our judiciary branch for the civilians housed in base. Each of them was voted in at the beginning by other civilians and can be voted out. At the beginning, it was tough. There were a lot of people out for themselves. Now it's a community and everyone does their part," he said.

  Rodriguez was about to continue his narrative, but was interrupted by the slamming of the Hummer's brakes. I was thrown forward, with the side of my face planting not so nicely against the passenger dashboard. As I peeled myself off of the hard-plastic surface, I really wanted to take my wonderful driver friend out into the desert and beat his ass. As if he was a traditional bongo drum. When I was finally able to look at him though, I immediately changed my tune. The look on his face seemed to be a look of horror. I had never seen anything like that look on his face since I had met him. I pulled myself back into the seat so I could follow his line of sight. The sun had begun to set ahead of us, and it was creating majestic hues of oranges and reds across the New Mexico sky. The sunsets here were world renown for their beauty. As my eyes tracked downward, I saw what he saw. Along the side of the road were a series of eight wooden crosses, each one with a person crucified on them. "Fuck. Me," I accidentally let slip as I looked on. I saw two women and six men hanging from the crosses. "Can we help?" I asked aloud. I felt the vehicle start to crawl forward. We came to another stop, just a few feet away from the closest cross.

  I slowly exited and I heard my companion doing the same. My pistol and flashlight were pointed at the first individual, a woman. As my light moved up from the bottom of the wooden pole, I, to my horror, saw that she was indeed impaled with a wooden spike through her feet and wrists. Her what could have originally been a blue dress, was torn and covered with dirt and grime. Her breasts were hanging freely from a completely torn shirt. Her hands were pinned against the cross and her head was hanging down. She was dead, there was no doubt with rigor mortis having already set in. She looked like she died fairly recently though, as she was not fully rigid. I moved my light to the next cross. One by one, we checked each person. When we got to the last one in the row, the poor man's head moved. It was barely noticeable, but us being on high alert, we did luckily notice it. I saw out of the corner of my eye, Rodriguez raising his rifle. A moan came from the man as I shined my light into his face. "Hello?" I asked the figure. "Hello," the man whispered out. Immediately, we jumped into action. I pulled the stake from the man's feet. The top of the cross was too high for us to reach. The guardsman ran to the Hummer and nearly ran me over as he pulled the large vehicle right next to the man. He jumped from the driver side and climbed on top of the roof of the SUV. He was able to reach the man’s hands, and pulled the stakes free. The man fell straight into my arms. I did what I could but we still landed in the dirt.

  The man's skin was pale, with his lips already having turned blue from blood loss. The soldier was wrapping the man's wounds with bandages as quickly as he could, trying to staunch the flow. He handed me a water bottle, and I put it to the man's lips. He opened his mouth only just enough to receive the liquid. He coughed a few times before again becoming still. "What happened?" I asked him. He moaned again and turned his head to look at me. His eyes were barely focused and I felt like he was slipping away. "We tried to leave," he said quietly. I strained to listen. "You tried to leave what?" I asked. "The Exiles." "I'm sorry," I said, "I don't know what that is." "A bunch of really bad people. They call themselves the Exiles. We were prisoners that tried to escape. This was our reward after they caught us." He again coughed, this time, it rocked his whole body as he did so. "Where are they?" I asked the man. "About four hours’ drive east of here. There's a camp. It's full of trucks and motorcycles. They keep us in trailers. His breathing began to get shallow and his voice got even quieter. I lowered my ear to his head so I could continue listening to the man. By now, it was obvious that we could do nothing to save him. The blood continued to pour from his wounds. Inwardly, I berated myself for taking him off of the cross without having some plan to stop the bleeding. In reality though, he would have died either way. We only hastened the inevitable. "They killed my wife," he sobbed weakly. "Please help the others. Please..." he trailed off as he slumped over with his head resting on my arm. I put my fingers to his carotid artery, feeling for a pulse. Nothing, he was gone.

  We did what any decent human beings would do and laid them all down to rest. We broke apart the cross and used the sharp edges to help dig shallow graves for each of these lost souls. One by one, taking them down off of the torture devices, gently laying them into their final dirt resting places. Two of the men.. no not men, teenage boys had a definite family resemblance. Brothers was my best guess. What a fucking tragedy, I thought to myself as I looked over the dead. It dark had once again fallen by the time that we finished burying them. We then took all of the wood from the crosses and with unabashed anger, we threw the pieces into a large pile. We poured just enough gasoline onto the pile to burn, and then we lit it. For what seemed like hours, we watched the flames dance into the night air until only a pile of ash remained. We then both turned, and walked back to the hummer with the fire of vengeance filling our souls.

  Chapter 30

  With a contented sigh, Ken fell back onto the cot. His breathing was labored, as he tried to bring himself back down to Earth. It had been a great many moons since he had felt like this. A feeling of deep and penetrating bliss continued to wash over him. "Are you alright?" Isabel whispered to him quietly from what little room was left beside Ken on the cot. "Yes, I think so," he responded as he took in deep gasps of air. He could feel Bella’s warm flesh beside him as his core temperature slowly came back to normal. Her hand gently caressed his side, nearly tickling him. "This was not how I had planned my night at all," he told her. "Me neither," she said as she smiled at him in reply, causing him to smile right back at her. "I think you should get a smaller cot. This one is way too big for the two of us," he said playfully. "Usually, it only sleeps one," she said as she looked at her watch. "Not that we have much more time to sleep." The time read 04:15. "Let's get as much rest as we can," Ken said as he yawned. "I have a feeling it's going to be a busy day." With that, they spread the small wool blanket out as much as they could and Bella snuggled up to Ken. "Any closer, and you'd be inside of me," Ken said quietly as sleep tugged as his mind. "Go to sleep funny one," she whispered, kissing his cheek lightly as she too began to fall back into the abyss of sleep.

  Rachel stood with her gear at the entryway to a conference room. A small handful of other recruits stood inside and were
being greeted one by one by the Post Commander. A fairly tired looking man, a colonel, was shaking each one of their hands. As Rachel was about to move up to join the line, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Kenneth. "Better late than never," she whispered to him as she walked forward. "Sorry," he said as he came into step behind her. It then was her turn. The man held out his hand, and she took it, feeling a strong firm handshake. "Welcome," he said. She nodded and moved past him. "You look a little flushed," the Colonel said after she had walked past. She turned to see Ken in front of the man. His face and neck were red, as if he had run the whole way to the room. She could not conceal her grin, but tried in vain to do it anyway. "Yes sir," Ken said with a slight smile. The Colonel shook his hand, and took a step forward and whispered something into his ear. Ken's smile faltered briefly then he nodded, said, "Thank you sir," and fell into line behind the others. The Post Commander went to the opposite wall of the room and began to speak. "My name is Colonel Nathan Johnson. I am the commander of this base. I was here when everything went to shit, and I plan on making sure that this base does not follow in the rest of the world's footsteps. Everyone left here are volunteers. They are men and women like you who know that we cannot give up. We've got to rebuild a little bastion of safety so the human race can keep a toe hold." He was standing at attention now, his eyes making contact with each person in the room. "We are against the clock people. Every single day, the supplies that we bring back decrease, the food spoils, and the number of human beings decline. With your help, we're going to save as many people as we can, and we're going to begin retaking our homes back from these vile things that have inhabited my precious country. If any of you is not up to this task, please say so now." The room was completely silent. Not a man or woman so much as moved an inch. The Colonel grinned. "Alright then. I'm going to pass you off to my training team. They're going to teach you everything from how to clean and fire our weapons, to the best ways to dispatch of our undead guests and so much more," he said as he lifted his arm, pointing towards another door. "Thank you for joining. Good luck," he said as the group began to filter through the doorway and into the start of their makeshift basic training.