Not far down the road from the intersection the creepers thinned and almost disappeared. The road was mostly clear of other vehicles as well. Sonya could see Chase visibly relax. Marilyn, who had just as anxiously been watching as Sonya, went back to studying the map. “Seems to me,” Marilyn said, “that the east-west roads are clearer. Makes sense. People were fleeing north. And the creepers seem to be heading mostly north, too.”
“They probably are,” Chase said. “I mean, if what the Chief said was true. The creepers are about self-preservation. If they go north, it’s cooler. Bodies last longer.”
“So how do we get south to Ocala without getting on roads going south?” Sonya asked.
“We’re going to have to stick to small roads going south. If they dead-end on big roads running east-west, we should be okay until we can get to another little southbound road. But we have to avoid big north-south roads at all costs. I-75 has got to be a nightmare. And even the big east-west roads are probably going to be pretty bad.”
Sonya sat back in the seat. Her feeling of doubt didn’t leave her, but she felt a little better. Chase and Marilyn were capable. They were smart enough to know what they were getting into. They wanted to be here. She knew it. But still she worried something would happen to them, and it would be her fault.
I-10 was bad. Worse even that Chase had said it might be. They found a small, southbound two-lane, and when they first started down it, it was pretty decent. There were creepers, but few abandoned cars. The creepers were scattered enough to be easily avoided, and Chase was able to keep the Hummer at a decent speed of around thirty miles an hour, sometimes getting up to forty. Then they passed through a little town named Lee. Creepers formed into groups again, clusters of five or even ten in spots. Chase tried to avoid them. He even left the road when he could. But sometimes there was no option. There were steep banks on the road, or water filled ditches. And he just plowed through the groups with the heavy vehicle. This didn’t seem to be doing any harm to the Hummer, but Sonya knew it was doing something to the people riding inside. She was bruised in several spots and her muscles ached from bracing herself, but it was more than physical.
Sonya had been the last to make peace with the idea it was okay to destroy the creepers, the last to accept they were no longer human, that they were just animated by a fungus and killing them was no worse than plucking a mushroom or cleaning the black stuff from the grout in a tile shower. Her brain was okay with it. But to her eyes, they looked human. Her muscles ached from tensing every time they hit one. Her jaw ached. She had a headache that started at the base of her neck and felt like a vise clamping down just behind her ears. And poor Honey was in even worse shape than she was. The dog was trembling.
It got worse. Chase was forced to slow to twenty, and then even slower. He would stomp on the accelerator when forced to hit creepers, but they never really picked up speed. The constant stench did not help Sonya’s headache.
“If it gets much worse, we’re going to have to figure something else out,” Chase said. And then it did.
They came around a slight bend in the road and just ahead of them the highway divided. Sonya saw the I-10 sign to her right and thought things were going to be okay, but when she looked up ahead, she knew they wouldn’t. She could see I-10. She could see the overpass where the interstate crossed over the road they were on less than a half-mile ahead. But between them and the interstate stretched an open area filled with creepers. Thousands. Maybe ten thousand. They filled the roadway, spilled out into the areas at the sides, and covered the parking lot of a gas station just ahead. To the left had been a fenced-in field, but the sheer weight of the dead pressing against the fence had pushed it down and creepers staggered about in the field.
The mass of creepers ahead of them was overwhelming, but even worse was the movement of the crowd. It was like a giant organism, like a jellyfish or one of those bacteria colonies she’d studied in biology. There were pressures against the creepers on the outside edges of the mass, a force moving against them from within, pushing them outward into the area around the roadway, extending whole groups of them like tentacles. Chase brought the Hummer to a stop. The nearest creepers began pounding at the windows and sides of the vehicle. Creepers in the crowd ahead seemed to sense the vehicle and turned toward them. Soon they would be surrounded, overwhelmed.
Chase cursed and stepped on the accelerator. He began a turn, but the creepers under the tires prevented him from turning. They were heading into the approaching crowd.
“Back up! Back up!” Sonya found herself yelling. Chase didn’t respond, just grimly continued plowing forward. The front tires found a bit of pavement and caught, throwing the front of the vehicle to the left, toward the gas station and the parking lot full of creepers. Chase bore resolutely down on the accelerator, and the Humvee picked up speed.
“Chase, there’s a road up here to the left on the other side of the gas station if you can get to it. It goes to the east and north,” Marilyn said. Sonya looked at her. Marilyn was pale and her eyes were huge, but she was calm. Creepers pressed up against all the windows except the front. Chase continued cutting the wheel to the left. A slight open area, free of creepers, appeared between the gas station and the aboveground tanks behind it. Chase floored the accelerator pedal and they charged across the open space, plunging back into the crowd on the other side of the station. Cutting the wheel to the right had no effect at first, but Chase held on.
The creepers fell beneath them as they plowed forward. Ahead of them another open area appeared, another fenced in lot that hadn’t been breached. Chase took out the fence and was in the open, but the ground was rough. He plowed ahead, narrowly missing a rusting piece of old farm equipment, then jounced back onto another roadway paralleling the original highway. Creepers were thick here, but not as bad. The new road took them within a few hundred yards of the interstate, and Sonya could see that it was packed with creepers all facing west, all trying to move forward around the lines of abandoned vehicles. Then the road round bent around to the east, and a strip of trees blocked the view of the interstate. Ahead of them, the creepers thinned until they became separate bunches and thinned again to the occasional straggler.
Chase drove on until he came to a farmhouse on the left, then pulled into the driveway and back behind the house into an open lot surrounded by scattered outbuildings. He took the Hummer out of gear and slumped over the steering wheel. Sonya watched as Chase shuddered, tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed. At last he sat up.
“If that never happens again, I’ll be glad.” He was pale. Sonya reached forward and rubbed his shoulder.
“Don’t you think all I-10 is like that?” Marilyn asked.
Chase shook his head. “Probably. Maybe even worse in places. I think…I think we need to find a road that crosses I-10 without joining it. Just goes under, or over. There’ll still be creepers, but not as many. They’re looking for ways to get north. If there’s no access to the northbound road, they’ll probably bypass it.”
“Do you think…do think it’ll get worse? The further south we go?” Sonya asked.
“We have to get ready for that, I think,” Chase replied. “Can I see the map, Marilyn?” She handed it to him, and he pointed to where they were, then traced downward. “I think once we get south of I10 it won’t be as bad. There’s a stretch on the map that looks pretty well empty, or as empty as Florida gets. If we can stay between I75 and this road here,” he said, pointing at a north-south road closer to the western coast, “we should get around a lot of them. I still think it’ll be worse than anything we’ve seen. We’ll need to find places to stop that protect us. Speaking of which,” he said, pointing out the window. Three creepers came staggering around the side of the farmhouse, heading for the idling Humvee. “Time to go.”
He drove a big circle in the open area behind the house and, avoiding the creepers, returned to the roadway heading east. The road didn’t continue east for long, but started to the north
.
They passed an unpaved road to the left, but Marilyn said the map didn’t show it. Chase asked if they felt lucky, if they thought it was worthwhile to get off the asphalt and try the backroads. Sonya, despite her desire to get south, was quick to agree to trying those roads. The creepers would be thinner out there. Marilyn shrugged and closed the map.
Chase took the next road to the right, an unpaved road that seemed to be made of mostly sand over hardpan dirt. After a few minutes of travel, Marilyn felt herself relax. They weren’t making good time on this road, but there were no abandoned cars, no creepers. There were open fields and rows of planted pines along the road. After a few deadends and turnarounds, they found themselves following the driveway for a larger farm. Marilyn pointed out an elevated fuel tank and Chase filled the Humvee’s tank while Marilyn and Sonya made lunch. They ate in silence, each buried in their own thoughts. Honey was the only one who seemed to be truly happy, romping around, sniffing everything. When it was time to go, Chase pointed to a dirt track from the back of the farm.
“I think we should take it cross country. Just head east from here. The map shows a road crossing the interstate just east of here, but no roads to cross this area. We head east on these little farm tracks, cut fences if we have to.” Marilyn and Sonya agreed. The short time spent on the back-road had been heaven compared to the nightmare of the bigger roads.
They crossed the country side on dirt tracks that skirted large fields of crops going to waste, past fields of pine trees, and once around a large turkey farm. The odor of the rotting carcasses of the turkeys was worse than the creepers, but they were soon past it. At last they came to a marked road, the road Chase had seen on the map that went south and crossed the interstate.
“Well,” Chase said, “Once more into the battle.” He turned onto the road, and soon they saw the first creeper. Shortly they saw a second. Then the road started up a slight incline, and they were over the Interstate. Chase stopped. From the elevated position they could see a long way in each direction down the interstate. The creepers were almost a solid mass moving to the west, filling all four lanes and the median as well. Sonya tried to feel something besides fear and disgust, but it was just too big, too much. How could anyone begin to try to feel anything for a disaster, a nightmare of this proportion? The Humvee on the bridge overhead caused some of them to attempt to stop, but it wasn’t long before the pressure of the others coming behind moved those along. As each succeeding wave noticed them, the one behind pushed them past. A word came to Sonya’s mind: inexorable. She couldn’t remember where she’d heard the word, or even exactly what it meant, but it fit. The inexorable tide. She leaned forward. “Please, Chase. Just go.” The Humvee rolled forward, and soon Sonya could no longer see the interstate and what it held. At least not with her eyes.
Chapter 4 – Chase
They camped inside the fence of a power substation. Even knowing there was no power, Chase was bothered by the signs warning them to stay out, warning them of the hazards of entering, warning them of the possibility of prosecution even as he cut the lock. It was a heavy lock and took several tries. He realized there was no danger, that the authorities wouldn’t come running to arrest them (please put me in a nice safe jail cell, he thought). There was a lot of room inside, and they used it. They stopped well before dark even though they hadn’t seen any creepers on the small side road. Chase went about setting up camp, looking up from time to time to watch as Marilyn and Sonya gathered greens for dinner. Honey explored the field around the substation, running back and forth between Chase and the girls.
Chase’s first task was to build a fire ring by piling gravel in a rough circle. Tonight they would have a fire. He felt they needed it. Then he pulled camp chairs from the trailer, set those up, and before moving on to the tents set up the propane stove, cooking pots, and water for the evening meal.
Setting up the tents caused him to think. They had two. A larger one for Marilyn and Sonya to share and a smaller one for him. He stopped to wonder why. Why not one large tent? Why not three small ones? Pulling out the sleeping bags made him stop again. They each had their own they had selected at a sporting goods store up near the camp in Alabama. His was blue, Sonya’s was red, and Marilyn’s was yellow. What if I put the blue one and the red one in the big tent and the yellow one in the small tent? he thought. Would they say anything? He didn’t think they would. Sonya might be glad. Since his return after the church tragedy, she had been acting differently toward him, and he thought his feelings toward her had changed, too. That didn’t mean anything had to happen, the two sleeping bags in together. Just a chance to spend time together alone. Maybe sort out what they did feel. Maybe talk after Marilyn had gone to sleep. Maybe…. He sighed, disgusted with himself. He put the red and the yellow sleeping bag in the large tent and the blue one in the small tent.
The girls returned with some greens, and Marilyn set about getting everything ready. Chase took the opportunity to find firewood. He considered taking the chainsaw he had only recently learned to use, but he thought that kind of sustained noise would be worse than a single gunshot. Besides, the fire would just have to last a short time. They didn’t need that much wood, so he grabbed a hatchet. He looked at Honey, wondering if she would go with him, but the dog seemed content to lie at Sonya’s feet as she sat in her camp chair.
The power substation was under a large power-line that stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see. The massive metal towers dominated the landscape, but the fact that they served no purpose now seemed ironic to Chase. He crossed the open area beneath the wires to a forested area. The trees were all pine. He walked back into the forest, gathering downed wood from the forest floor. The trees weren’t very large and were planted in even rows. They were young and there wasn’t much of any size. He continued deeper into them, pushing branches out of his way. Soon his hands were sticky with pine sap. At last he came to a clear division between the cultivated pine trees and a scrubby area with larger trees. There was a bigger possibility of finding wood there, but the undergrowth was thicker. Chase dove in, heading for a large tree near the edge. He was sure there would be some dead branches either beneath it or low enough to bring down with the hatchet.
He broke through the underbrush into a cleared area beneath the tree and froze. Ahead was a black furry mass with two smaller furry masses nearby. At first his mind couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing, and then he realized he had stumbled onto a family of bears. The cubs scurried back behind their mother who rose to her hind legs and faced Chase, while making a threatening moaning sound.
He tried to remember everything he had ever heard about what to do in this situation, but it all escaped him. He held his hatchet in his hand and knew he could use that to defend himself if necessary, but he hoped it wouldn’t be. The cubs scurried back into the brush, but the mother bear stood, still looking at him, sniffing the air. After a time, the mother bear dropped to all fours and followed the cubs through a break in the underbrush on the side of the clearing under the tree opposite Chase. Chase sighed with relief. He gathered large branches, and taking off his shirt, wrapped them into a neat bundle. As he made his way back to the camp, he thought about the encounter.
How would wildlife be affected? They didn’t seem to catch the disease, and the creepers left them alone. Unsuitable hosts, he guessed. They could make a comeback. All those species pushed to the edge of extinction might just make it back. Well, maybe not all. People had changed things too much, probably. But some of them could.
Dinner was almost ready when he returned. He told Sonya and Marilyn about seeing the bear and cubs. Sonya looked startled, but Marilyn was fascinated. “We had bears, but I never saw one for all the time I spent in the woods,” she said.
“Yeah, it was pretty cool after the bear left. Oh, and after I cleaned out my shorts.” Marilyn laughed. Sonya smiled and shook her head. Chase reprimanded Honey for not being there and protecting him, but she just wagged her tail.
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After dinner, Marilyn showed Chase the correct way to build the fire. Then they sat staring into it as it quickly consumed the small dry branches. They sat close together on an extra sleeping bag. Honey lay just behind them in the shadow they cast from the firelight. Sonya sat in the middle, and from time to time her leg or arm would rest against Chase’s. He thought she was doing it on purpose.
The night was warm and the fire completely unnecessary, but there was a feeling. Chase knew he felt something, and he thought Sonya and Marilyn did as well. He wanted to say something but was afraid anything that came out of his mouth would come off as snide or sarcastic. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling this much a part of something. He pulled his gaze from the fire and looked at Sonya, but she appeared to be engrossed in the flames, frowning slightly. She probably wouldn’t say anything, either. He looked at Marilyn. She seemed to be completely content. She was the only one of them who had been a part of something like this. She once had a complete family, a church. She was used to belonging, being on the inside of something. Even on the football team, he had never really had that. Marilyn looked up and caught him staring at her. She smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back. “How are you so at peace?” he surprised himself by asking.
“You don’t believe in God, Chase, I know that. But do you believe in fate?” Marilyn asked.
After Everything Else (Book 3): Creeper Revelation Page 3
