by Ray Wallace
Stepping over the corpses, you head through the doorway.
Outside, a good half dozen zombies move toward the Walgreens, some of them already in the parking lot, walking amongst the cars there awaiting owners who will never return for them. Following the sidewalk in front of the store, you make your way past the ice machine then onward to the corner of the building, your eyes on the parking lot and the zombies gathered there. As you step past the corner of the building, something grabs you from behind, wraps its arms around your neck, uses its weight and the element of surprise to pull you off balance.
The gun flies from your hand as you fall to the ground. While struggling to free yourself from the zombie's grip, searing pain explodes in the back of your neck. You cry out as the undead creature bites into you again, tearing away another chunk of flesh with its teeth. Thrashing about, you finally free yourself from the creature, rise up onto your hands and knees just as another zombie crashes down on top of you. It isn't long before more zombies show up and enter the fray.
And so, because of a bottle of sunscreen, your journey ends.
CLICK HERE to start over.
You walk past the fire ravaged Taco Bell where a bullet riddled car sits parked outside the drive-thru window. Near the strip mall itself, you take the time to check out several vehicles but don't find the keys inside any of them.
Surprisingly, the glass doors at the entrance of the sporting goods store remain intact. One of them has been propped open with a chunk of cinderblock.
Inside, you immediately detect signs of looting and wonder about your chances of actually finding a bike.
Clothing racks lie toppled just beyond the checkout counters. Along one side of the cavernous store, empty shelves stand where baseball gloves, footballs, basketballs, and hockey sticks would have once been found. The biking section is located further back where the light streaming in through the doors and windows along the front of the building barely reaches.
A great place for a zombie to hide.
Although, as you've discovered in the days since the Outbreak, they're not all that good at hiding. Always with the moaning and the growling - noises that will give them away in the lifeless and quiet building around you.
Upon reaching the biking section, you discover - not all that unexpectedly - the displays have been picked clean. In the wan lighting, you find a mountain bike on the floor with a dark figure sprawled on top of it, unmoving. Ten feet or so from the bike, you set the duffel bag near your feet and slowly make your way forward, gun held out in front of you, ears straining for any sound that might alert you to the presence of the undead.
You hear nothing, however.
When you get close enough, you nudge the body with your foot and step back in case it decides to make a grab for you. It doesn't. Reaching down with your free hand, you take hold of it by the shirt and drag it away from the bike. Then you stand the bike on its wheels, happy to find the tires fully inflated.
After retrieving the duffel bag, you put the gun inside of it then hang it over the handle bars before hopping on the bike and pedaling over to the front of the store. Along the way, you find a Tampa Bay Rays baseball cap lying on the floor. And what do you know? It fits you just fine.
Feeling somewhat better about things than you did before entering the store, you head for the open doorway, coast through and into the bright sunshine once again.
You ride across the parking lot, past the Taco Bell and out to the road that brought you here. The sight of several zombies wandering around in front of the Walgreens catches your eye and you decide to hold off on the sunscreen, certain you'll be able to find a bottle somewhere less hazardous to your health.
The road opens to six lanes. A wide median runs down the middle where several cars have been abandoned - and with good reason. They've all sustained various levels of damage ranging from broken windows to crumpled doors, roofs, and hoods. Yes, at some point you're going to have to find a drivable vehicle if you want to reach the spaceport on time. But for now you figure you'll just keep pedaling along until the novelty of riding a bike for the first time in forever wears off - which will probably be around the time the seat makes you sore.
Ten minutes or so into your ride, the road before you rises up and over a wide stretch of interstate passing by underneath. Halfway up the hill, you start to huff and puff a bit as the lack of any real cardiovascular training over the past few months catches up with you.
I think I can... I think I can...
Nearing the top, you hear a screeching sound that helps motivate you to finish the climb.
At the side of the road, a particularly agile zombie pulls itself over the guardrail, staring straight at you with its one good eye, long hair hanging from its head in patches.
Berserker.
Faster, stronger, even more relentless - if such a thing is possible - than the majority of their undead brothers and sisters, these particular zombies were the ultimate terrors of the Outbreak, the things that haunted the nightmares of those who lived through it like nothing else.
With another scream, the mutant zombie gives chase.
You lean forward and pedal with everything you've got, pushing your way toward the top of the hill.
Too slow. Better pick up the pace.
Of course, you could always stop, grab the gun from the duffel bag and try to take the zombie out.
Not yet. Gotta conserve the ammo for when I might really need it.
And so you dig down and try to pedal even harder, all the while pursued by the zombie's footsteps as they get closer... closer...
Come on. You've got this.
After what seems an eternity of pedaling, the ground levels out beneath you. Gaining speed, you start down the far side of the hill just as you feel the zombie's fingers brush across your back.
Sorry. Not today.
You smile as gravity pulls the bike forward. Glancing over your shoulder, you watch as the distance between you and the berserker widens, your speed increasing as you race toward the bottom of the hill. A wordless shout of exhilaration escapes you, torn away by the air rushing past you. In response, the zombie screams once again. This time, you're sure you hear a note of frustration in its voice.
Before long, you reach the bottom of the hill where you keep pedaling, wanting to put as much distance between yourself and the berserker as possible. After another minute or so you look back, see the zombie standing a good quarter of a mile behind you, apparently having given up the chase. The road curves around a thick patch of trees and, before long, you lose sight of the berserker entirely.
Just ahead, a convenience store with a trio of gas pumps stands at the corner of an intersection. Two cars take up parking spots near the front of the store with two more over by the pumps. After your close call with yet another berserker, you tell yourself it would be in your best interest to check out pretty much any vehicle you come across.
Only one way to find out.
As you get closer, a couple of zombies stumble into view from around the side of the building. If you keep going, you might find easier pickings down the road. Although, you like to think you can handle a couple of slow-moving corpses.
CLICK HERE if you decide to stop and take a look at the vehicles at the convenience store.
CLICK HERE if you tell yourself it isn't worth the risk, that it's best to keep going.
The first hour passes uneventfully. It's slow going, sure, due to the condition of the roads these days but at least you're able to move steadily toward your destination. Abandoned vehicles make up the majority of the obstacles impeding your progress. You're glad you have the truck with its high suspension, allowing you to leave the road with minimal difficulty when you have to. At this rate, you figure you'll reach the spaceport with plenty of time to spare.
"Yeah, at this rate," you say aloud, wanting to believe it will be nothing but smooth sailing all the way to Tampa. You have your doubts, though. Surely some bit of ugliness will have to rear its head
along the way.
"What did you say?" asks Lindsay from the seat beside you. She's giving you an odd look and you really can't blame her.
"Nothing," you tell her and offer a sheepish grin. "Just talking to myself. A habit I picked up over the past few months."
You've already told her about all the time spent hiding in the house, how you barricaded it and hoped the zombies would never mount a coordinated attack against the place. And they never did. You know you were lucky to have survived there as long as you did. All sorts of lucky.
"It must have been tough, spending all that time on your own like that." The look on Lindsay's face has morphed into one of compassion. "At least Garrett and I had each other."
She goes on to tell you that Garrett had been visiting from out of town, had flown down from Pittsburgh where he lived with their parents. Two days later, it was all over the news: the first city had been overrun by the living dead. According to the reports, the culprit was a black gas leaking from a building near the heart of the city, a building known to belong to a branch of the military. Apparently, anyone who inhaled the gas turned into some sort of rampaging lunatic - a "howler," as they'd been dubbed by the press - hell-bent on spreading the airborne disease by breathing it into the face of any potential host. After an hour or so of this behavior, the person would die then come back to life - or some semblance of it - a short while later as a zombie hungry for human flesh.
The city was nuked in an ill-fated effort to stop the infection from spreading beyond its boundaries. Radioactive winds carried the virus in all directions. At some point it mutated giving rise to a special type of undead creature which would become known as a "berserker." Quick and agile, they could run down those who managed to escape the slower moving zombies. Once the Outbreak was in full swing, the infection spread through heavily populated areas in practically no time at all. Within days formerly bustling metropolitan areas were reduced to ruins overrun by the relentless and ever growing zombie horde.
"We stopped for gas on our way out of town," Lindsay tells you, "had finally made our way to one of the pumps after a good twenty minute wait. Jack, my fianc‚, had just finished filling up the tank when..."
She pauses and wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"They came out of nowhere, twenty or thirty of them and a few berserkers. They grabbed Jack before he could get back in the car. I heard him screaming..."
Garrett reaches out from between the seats, gives her hand a squeeze.
"He never stood a chance," she continues. "Luckily for us, he'd left the keys in the ignition. I got behind the wheel, started the car and drove out of there. Had to run a few zombies over along the way."
According to Lindsay, she and Garrett moved around a lot after that. They'd find somewhere safe to stay for a while then have to find somewhere else when things got too dangerous, a strategy they implement to this day. They'd been scouting new locales when their minivan decided to give up the ghost.
"Then Garrett found you. And now here we are."
"Now here we are," you agree.
No one says anything for a few minutes until Lindsay points through the windshield and asks, "Wonder what that's all about?"
In the distance, a thick column of smoke rises into the sky. It would appear the road you're following leads directly toward it.
"Something's burning," you say. "Something big."
After another twenty minutes or so of careful driving, you stop the truck and take in the sight of the bridge in front of you along with all the thick, black smoke pouring up through it from whatever's burning underneath.
"A train car would be my guess," you tell your passengers. "Maybe several of them."
The thought of driving into that smoke, trying to cross the bridge without having any idea of what awaits you on the other side - or on the bridge itself - does not appeal to you in the least. And the fact that you're not the only one at risk here makes you even more hesitant to continue forward. If you want to find another way to Tampa, however, it's going to involve turning around and driving back several miles to the nearest intersection.
"What do you think?" you ask your passengers.
"It's too risky," says Lindsay, her hand resting on the curve of her stomach. "I think we should find another way."
It's obvious Garrett doesn't want to contradict his sister but he speaks his mind anyway.
"We're already here. And we'll be through the smoke in no time. I say we go for it."
CLICK HERE if you agree with Lindsay and think it's best to play it safe.
CLICK HERE if you side with Garrett instead.
Here goes nothing, you tell yourself as you approach the SUV, open the driver's side door, hop inside then close the door and lock it. You reach past the steering wheel, hoping to find the keys hanging there.
Of course not.
You check the sun visor, the glove compartment and the cup holders between the front seats with similar results. Leaning down, you check the floor under the seat just as the window next to you implodes, showering you with fragments of safety glass.
The berserker reaches in through the open window, the semblance of a permanent grin on its face due to the fact much of the skin around its mouth has rotted away.
After climbing into the passenger seat, away from the creature, you glance toward the floor on this side of the vehicle and see a set of keys lying on the mat. Grabbing them, you spend a moment looking for the correct one. When you find it, you stick it into the ignition and give it a turn. The zombie screams while the engine wheezes, trying to start. And then, somewhat miraculously, the engine roars into life - actually, the sound resembles more of a hacking cough. You put the automatic transmission into drive and the SUV rolls forward. Placing your left foot down in front of the driver's seat, you press the gas pedal, all the while trying to stay away from the berserker's grasping hands. The SUV jumps forward, nearly stalling before settling down and gaining speed. Grabbing the wheel, you steer the vehicle over toward the middle of the road just as the berserker lunges toward you, wrapping its fingers in the fabric of your shirt sleeve. The SUV half-carries, half-drags the creature down the street, screaming all the while.
A work truck sits in the road ahead, the words "Pest Removal" stenciled in yellow letters across the tailgate above a phone number with a local area code. You steer toward the truck, pass by it at nearly thirty miles per hour, seemingly close enough to peel the paint off the SUV's driver side door. It's the berserker that gets peeled off, however, pieces of your shirt torn away in the process - a small price to pay to be rid of the thing.
You let off the gas long enough to hop back into the driver's seat. After settling into place, you slow the vehicle to a steady twenty-five miles per hour while taking in long, deep breaths to calm your racing heart. The fuel gauge informs you the tank is nearly half full. You wonder if it's enough to get you where you need to go.
If I have to, I can always stop and do a little siphoning along the way.
Blood wells up from a deep scratch where the zombie grabbed you. Not a life threatening injury, no, but there's always the fear of infection. Although, as far as you know, the only way anybody ever became one of the undead was through exposure to the airborne virus.
It had all started when a gas containing the virus leaked from a military laboratory. Those who inhaled the gas became "howlers" for a short period of time, obsessed with spreading the infection residing within them by breathing it into the faces of anyone they encountered. The name was inspired by the way they howled like crazed, wounded animals as they went about their awful business. After an hour or so, they would die only to be resurrected by the virus as flesh hungry zombies. The situation got a whole lot worse when the decision was made to nuke the city where the lab was located. Yes, the blast did its job, ending the initial zombie uprising. But it also carried the infection up into the atmosphere where it drifted outward, the radiation causing mutations giving rise to the berserkers.
> Now, looking at your arm, you have to wonder if it's possible the disease has continued to mutate in the months since the Outbreak, if it could be spread another way.
Really no point in worrying about it.
If you've been infected you'll find out soon enough.
After the incident with the berserker, you find yourself in a bit of a zombie killing mood. As you approach the figures milling around in the street, you don't slow down or try to avoid them. The SUV shudders and three zombies go down, pummeled by the vehicle's grille and crushed beneath its wheels. Then there's nothing but mostly empty road ahead of you.
The stereo has a port where you could plug in a smart phone. You think how nice it would be to listen to some music while you drive. But you don't have a phone with you - they're not very useful and hard to keep charged these days - and so you drive along in silence as the road unfolds before you.
For a while, everything goes rather smoothly. Eventually, the road widens into three lanes along either side. You pass a Walgreens, a Sports Authority, and a fire gutted Taco Bell, all the while keeping the SUV right around twenty-five miles per hour - fast enough to get you to your destination on time but slow enough that you can react to any unexpected little surprises. After being forced to maneuver around a number of broken down and abandoned vehicles, you realize you might be better off following some back roads where there wouldn't have been as much traffic.
At the next intersection you come to, you hang a right then a left about a mile down, heading west again. And as you imagined, you find the road here more navigable than the one you left behind. Houses with big yards stand to either side of the street, the lawns overgrown much like the ones in your own neighborhood.
Along the way, you see your share of zombies but no large packs of them, mostly individuals or small groups wandering about aimlessly. You have to wonder how long they can go on now that most of their food supply has disappeared.
