(Book 2)What Remains

by Barnes, Nathan

  Inside I wondered if any of us would be alive to meet again. We shook hands then he unslung the AK-47 from his side and marched forward. I hopped inside, clicked my seat belt, and popped 522 into drive.

  0900 hours:

  The four of us were silent for an uncharacteristically long period. Hitting the road again was hard after a hot meal, a hot shower, and a night in a warm bed. Since we had been sleeping in the attic for a few weeks beforehand, it was easy to let one night of normalcy go to our heads. I used the quiet time to ponder our night with the Fishers.

  Having seen firsthand evidence of how survival, beyond cowering in the shadows, was possible left me with a sense of hope. The more I thought about Randall’s suggestion to steal a solar panel, the more in favor of it I became. A solar panel might be the difference between life and death if the winter was as bad as we feared. Thinking of a long term tasks like that was comforting in its own way; like my subconscious began to believe that there was a ‘long term’ to work towards.

  The roads were slick yet manageable. It had to be in the mid-thirties, at most, so nothing melted. Road salt or sand would have made this much snow a non-event. White inconsistently caked the pavement just enough to make speed a tricky balance. We had to drive slowly because sudden stops weren’t a possibility. I was terrified that a shambling asshole would jump in front of us, I’d hit the brakes or swerve, and lose control of the truck. Luckily, road obstructions were few and far in between so I saw any of the bastards long before they got the drop on us.

  Monsters still lurked randomly along the route. There was something different about them compared to every other dreaded time I’d seem them. Their movements were more rigid, like the cold had slowed them down. Some had a pathetic white hue from snow that had collected on their rotting bodies. This cold could be advantageous if it slowed them all down like what I was seeing.

  Route 58 turned into South Boston Road as we approached Danville. There was an option to take an expressway around the city, however, knowing that we had a larger detour coming around Martinsville I decided to keep the course straight. I warned Sarah and the kids that we were headed through a city area so it could get bumpy if I had to drive evasively.

  I could see a faint, pulsing glow far ahead. I thought I was hallucinating at first, and then I knew what it was. There was a message sign trailer on the side of the road. Signs like this were once something I came across every day near construction zones. We’d passed a few along the route but all were as dark as anything else that required power. I pointlessly tried to read the message. We weren’t close enough to tell what it said without all of the lights functioning.

  Traffic congestion picked up. The interchange detour to go around Danville was ahead. Cars clogged the right lanes so I stuck to the shoulder on the left. We couldn’t have hugged the Jersey wall any closer without scraping against it. Now we were on a long overpass bridge that crossed over another highway. I was hypnotized by the flashing sign that came from somewhere on the right. We were almost close enough to make out what message had survived all of this time.

  “ROFD CLOSLD” it flashed with missing letter sections. I could make out the solar panel running long the top when the letters dimmed. Then the message changed to “TAKE GRFENSBORO DETOUR”.

  I slowed down to try to figure out what it all meant. Stopping wasn’t an option because the infected were all over the traffic jam. They moved slower than usual but were still moving towards us.

  “Babe,” I called back, “I need you.”

  Sarah pulled the blanket barrier aside to come into the driver’s cab. She look astonished by what was outside.

  “Holy shit… there’s so many of them. Are you going to take the Greensboro detour like the sign says?”

  The road became more saturated with motionless cars every inch we crossed. It all shifted towards the detour exit leaving more room on the left. A few hundred feet past the ramp traffic cleared leading towards two State Police cars and a pickup truck in front of a dotting of Jersey barriers placed in the travel lanes. There didn’t seem to be a good option left.

  “I guess we can find a way to snake down there. Can you see over the wall down to the road? Maybe it’ll be more passable. I can’t tell from where I’m sitting.”

  Sarah carefully climbed atop my gear and peered out the window. “No,” she said with her face to the window, “that’s not going to be a good option. There’s cars as far as I can see. And hundreds of them.”

  We didn’t have any choice in the matter; that much was clear.

  “Get the kids to hold onto something. I have no idea how this is going to go.”

  Sarah hustled to the back as we passed the detour ramp. With the road emptied I moved back to the center lane. I slowed on the approach to the curious placement of the pickup truck before the police blockade. Inching past, I stopped completely to evaluate what could have happened there.

  Three bodies were laid like the corners of a triangle. Two wore uniforms, the last had a tan bloodstained jacket and quite peculiarly, none were torn to pieces. That’s what was wrong with this scene - they hadn’t been attacked. Bodies were everywhere I looked during this trip. I had grown all too comfortable with seeing human remains in varying levels of completion. The two officers and the third man were as intact as a corpse should be after this long outside in the elements. With them being that close to a panicked cluster fuck I’d expect them to have been gnawed to the bone by the infected. Snow covered enough of the gruesome details to make the three of them look as oddly unassuming as mannequins left in the road.

  I was puzzled enough to keep my foot completely pressed on 522’s brake pedal while I tried to figure it out. The undead motorists in the area noticed our lack of momentum, and at least a dozen fought their cold-stricken limbs into the cleared lanes past the exit ramp.

  “Umm,” Sarah said from the back, concerned about why we’d stopped, “Nathan? Can’t we get through?”

  While I heard her, I wouldn’t allow myself to move the truck or even respond until I understood this mystery. The dead hobbled into view of the side mirror. It caught my attention for a split second then my eyes returned to the mystery trio. All three cars were dusted in white. There was something else, something that wasn’t right about the pickup truck. I allowed us to crawl forward slightly to get a better view.

  A gap in the pile of snowy luggage in the bed of the truck enabled me to get a peek past to the rectangular rear window. Cracks spider-webbed the glass, obscuring most of the view. Inside, a splash of bright blue broke up the otherwise drab interior; it was a difference in coloring that suspiciously had no place there. Sarah renewed her plea to move behind me.

  “One second!” I snapped impatiently.

  I glanced at the mirror to see we had minutes left before the infected would reach us then I squinted hard to make out the details. The only detail of the patrol cars that looked unusual and wasn’t hidden by snow looked like a bullet hole bored through the door of closest patrol car. If not for the snow erasing what I assumed had to be a littering of shell casings I might have figured it out sooner.

  The bullet hole, the cracked windshield, and the untouched bodies: this was a shootout. As the State Trooper units held the blockade this truck had tried to get through. Whoever drove the truck was so determined to get past the troopers that he was willing to engage in a gunfight that killed them all. I imagined being there, imagined what would have driven me to react the same way.

  What would make me react the same way? I thought while I stared absently at the blue object in the back of the truck. It was the only piece I couldn’t figure out.

  “Daddy, I’m scared,” Calise whimpered. “Can we go? Please?”

  Then I knew. My little girl’s plea from the back of our truck made my mind put the last piece in place. It was a car seat. The truck had a blue car seat in the back and its driver was willing to fire upon State Troopers because of it. Thank God the cracked windshield kept me from knowing whethe
r the car seat was occupied or not. I wished that my imagination had left well enough alone rather than filling in the gaps like it often did.

  I hit the gas. The tires spun for a moment in the snow then we moved. In the mirror I saw the closest monster lunge at the truck. There was some satisfaction in seeing the infected man land face down in the inch of snow then flail about like a toddler in a tantrum.

  “Sorry guys,” I called back when I heard the collective gasps. “I had to find a way around the roadblock. We’re moving again.”

  Chapter 21 – Safe Zone

  522 again proved her worth with a tight turning radius as I weaved her around the Jersey barrier blockade. Each piece of the roadblock was positioned in a way that would have made speeding through impossible. Anyone who approached would have to clear the State Troopers first, and I witnessed how that turned out. I had to slow to the point of nearly being stopped in order to snake through the wall.

  On the other side we had clear sailing. It was actually surprising to see how much of a difference there was between the crippling traffic congestion leading up to the forced detour and the empty roads afterwards. South Boston Road quickly changed to the aptly named River Street, which followed the Dan River through Danville city limits. Danville was practically a ghost town along River Street.

  So much of the route we’d taken had clear indications of past chaos. Burned cars, smoldering frames of houses, whole and partial bodies, still corpses and hungry ones; it reaffirmed that the world went to hell so fast that no one had time to act. River Street wasn’t like the other areas we’d been. It felt like Danville residents tried to prepare, tried to combat what was coming. My attention was split between the road in front of us and anything else that might unravel this mystery.

  A storefront caught my eye. It was boarded up so thoroughly that any signage was blocked so I couldn’t even tell what kind of store it was. Neon green spray painted graffiti sprawled across the wooden storefront. I let up on the accelerator enough to read what it said: “GONE TO SAFE SIDE”.

  “Safe side?” I muttered curiously to myself.

  About a mile later I knew what happened in Danville at the onset of the thirty-third mutation. We approached a large intersection with North Main Street. I stopped the truck to look at the landscape and Sarah came out of the back.

  “Alright, is something wrong this time? You scared the hell out of the kids a little while ago so start talking, mist…” she stopped mid-sentence after seeing the view ahead.

  To our right North Main Street continued to be as empty as River Street had been. However, our left side was another story. I saw the remains of a major parallel bridge crossing the Dan River. It was completely emptied of cars, which told me the bridge collapse must have been intentional. A few feet past the intersection on the right facing the river was a long rectangular sign that presumably had the name of the bridge posted. Whatever it was I couldn’t see past the painted sheet that was draped over it. Its dripping lettered message said, “CLOSED PER SAFE ZONE ORDER.”

  “They tried to cut off access to the city,” Sarah said, obviously attempting to absorb the same shock I was feeling.

  “Do you think that means we’re in the ‘safe zone’?”

  She pointed across the river. “Look on the other side.”

  So much of the Dan River had been hidden from view before this point because of trees or structures. This was the first truly open area we’d been where I had a clear view of the other side. I stared across the rough waters trying to focus on the details beyond them. When I saw what my wife pointed at I instantly wished I had kept driving instead of appeasing my curiosity.

  A veritable kaleidoscope of the undead coated the barren sections of the far southern bank. The dusting of white had turned blotched in its coverage from the persistence of shambling feet. They toppled whatever barriers had been setup on the bridge and wandered straight to the edge. In the minute I stared towards them I witnessed a dozen dribble off the crumbled bridge into the rapids below. We quietly took in every possible detail for a few silent minutes.

  “I get it now,” she said.

  “Get what?” My words sounded as if I fought imposed hypnosis.

  “All of this. What happened here. I understand.” She paused to control her volume. “We’re not in the safe zone - they are.”

  Either I was too distracted to let the pieces fall into place or I just didn’t get it. “How do you figure?”

  My jaw dropped when I saw the fattest zombie I’d ever seen push through the crowded bridge end. Like an amorphous globule, it stuck out from the rest giving us a clear line of sight. It stood at the edge for a second; even from our distance I could see that wretched jaw snapping at the air sending ripples through its vile girth. Then I think it saw us, it spun to take a step that sent it over the edge. Past the threshold something hooked it, maybe a stray piece of re-bar, splitting it like a rotting sandbag. Vomit filled the back of my throat before I looked away.

  Sarah saw the portly beast get hooked too. “Think about the road block, the clogged road beneath the overpass, the empty streets and that demolished bridge,” she said. “Don’t you see how it all connects?” I raised an eyebrow indicating that I wasn’t seeing things as clearly as she was. She rolled her eyes. “The safe zone is across the river! We’re on the side they were trying to get away from.”

  It connected then. She was disturbingly correct. Clues of Danville’s downfall had been abundant; I just saw them through the wrong lens. “They must have thought it was safer to draw the line between north and south using the river. Moving everything to the south side of the Dan River cleared the north side, where we are, all the while they caused it to go to hell over there.”

  She shuddered. “Can we keep driving now? No zombies mean we can go faster, right?”

  “You’d think,” I said while I rubbed her back. “We can only go so fast with the snow on the ground though. There isn’t much but it is enough to make for some slippery spots. Go ahead to the back, babe. We’ll be out of Danville soon then around Martinsville hopefully by lunch.”

  We continued slowly on River Street. The evacuated zone wasn’t free of the undead, but they were few and far in between. Footprints, odd markings left by unsteady feet in the thin snow, were more common than seeing the monsters themselves. This was a ghost town on the border of Hell and I couldn’t wait to leave it behind.

  We passed more demolished bridge crossings. I never slowed to investigate their failed stories because they all told the same one. Before long River Street stopped its parallel track with the Dan River as the waters gradually shifted to the south. Activity on the road went back to the way it had been before nearing Danville, slow weaving through abandoned cars and maneuvering around the hungry advance of rotting bodies abandoned by their souls.

  1020 hours:

  The sign advising that Route 58 had become the Martinsville Highway was an encouraging sight to see. It meant that we were closer to the end. This painfully prolonged trip had a final destination in sight at last and it was an uplifting thought to embrace.

  One thing I learned from our family journey was how easily perception of distance could become skewed. I felt eager once I saw the first Martinsville Highway sign, eager to get past the anxiety-inducing region because I was terrified by what Randall had told me of it. Several slow miles later into the renamed stretch I grew frustrated by the required pace which felt ten times slower than the previous day.

  Every turn, hill, or bend that we passed I looked around for signs of the school crossing that I was told would mark the beginning of our detour. Almost an hour after reaching the Martinsville Highway I saw that it turned back into A L Philpott Road.

  “Really?” Two versions of Philpott? You gotta be shitting me.” Then I saw the dual twenty-five miles per hour speed limit signs that marked the start of our detour.

  “Hey, Hun,” I called back. “I see the school zone. We’re about to turn on Randall’s Martinsville detour
. There won’t be any stopping near the city so if anyone has to use the potty now is the time.”

  I heard her quietly gauge the need with the kids. Then she replied, “Not a bad idea. We can all use a stretch.”

  By now we’d perfected the rapid bathroom break. This time could have been a family record, however, I insisted we not rush. The snow thinned in spots but it was enough to have been obvious if something had shuffled into the place we’d stopped. With an untouched sheen of white around us I knew we were safe to do what was needed. The girls went first. I waited next to the driver’s side door with Maddox pointlessly scanning the empty area for threats. When Sarah and Calise returned Maddox and I took our turn.

  Maddox cracked himself up with jokes about yellow snow and zombies. I took him off guard by writing “EAT ME” in the snow using the tool unique to our reason for stopping. We both laughed louder than we had in weeks, easily since before the pandemic. Moments like that reminded me that even after nightmarish sights and actions, we really were still alive. There wasn’t any point to being quiet. Whatever ghouls were attracted to our raucous enjoyment would only find tire tracks and a crude yellow message in the snow.

  Axton Road was the start of Randall’s detour. It was a narrow road compared to the multi-lane route we had travelled on up to then. One lane in each direction with limited shoulders wouldn’t provide much room for maneuvering. I took solace in the fact that the area was practically dead, no pun intended. It didn’t strike me as having been the busiest area prior to the virus. The resident undead hopefully had moved towards the resident infected hot spot in Martinsville.

  The cylinder of a water tower rose above the plain landscape. It was a dinky little thing compared to other water towers I’d seen. If it wasn’t for the stark contrast between melting snow and the rusty red paint on the elevated object then I might have missed it altogether. The small town atmosphere was a nice change in the trip, especially after driving through the tragedy of Danville.