by TW Gallier
"Your pickup is parked out front," another man said. "The tank is full, but we thought you'd stay the night. It's obvious you've had a tough day."
"Thank you," I said. "I only need it to get me a couple hundred more miles. The sooner we start, the sooner I reach my family."
Unfortunately, Mike and Charlie didn't agree. They wanted to stay the night. I understood why Mike wanted to stay. Charlie was eyeing the blonde nurse, but she didn't seem to notice his interest. She probably had someone.
Before I could muster an argument, my body's exhaustion exerted itself. Weariness flowed through my bones. The doctor argued that we'd been running on adrenaline too long. We needed a proper night's rest. I reluctantly agreed, though I didn't think I'd rest well knowing how much danger my family was facing.
Chapter 37
I got my best night of sleep in two weeks. I slept in an actual queen-sized bed. With sheets. Even the mosquitoes seemed to leave me alone for once, even though the unscreened window was open. It was hot without AC or a fan, but I'd kind of gotten used to that.
We had scrambled eggs for breakfast. The hens were still laying. No bacon or any other kind of meat, so it wasn't my perfect breakfast. The eggs were delicious, and they even made some toast by browning one side in a pan of butter. Amazing.
"Does it bother anyone else that the bread isn't going bad?" I asked. "Back not so long ago, a loaf of bread would get moldy after a week or so. Nowadays, it lasts for weeks."
Everyone looked at me, and then at the bread.
"Really? No one else noticed?"
"I did," Dr. DiMassi relied. "That's just another reason for me to avoid eating bread."
"Yet you feed it to us?" I said.
"I'm a good hostess," she said, grinning. "Enjoy."
"You are an amazing hostess," Mike said. "Best toast ever. I'll have to remember how you did that."
I had to agree. All my life family and friends had "toasted" hamburger buns in the skillet, but it never occurred to me to do it with regular toast.
"I knew," Charlie said. "My mother used to make toad in a hole, where she cut a hole in the bread and fried an egg in the middle of it. She usually cooked it in butter."
"Your mother sounds like a saint," I said. "My mother showed me where the milk and cereal was kept."
Charlie and Mike were in especially good spirits. I knew Mike spent the night with the redhead, whose name was Sylvia. But both Sylvia and the blonde, Reba Jo, spent the night and joined us for breakfast. Reba Jo was sitting awful close to Charlie in nothing but an oversized t-shirt, and they smiled at each other a lot. And I do mean a lot.
Lucky bastards.
"Finish those eggs off," I said. "I want to be on the road before sunrise."
The truck was loaded and ready to go. They'd given us more peanut butter and jelly, and four loaves of forever bread. Plus, in their gratitude, we were given a Coleman stove and fuel, to cook all of the canned soup, stew, raviolis, and other canned goods they gave us. Mike seemed more excited by the five bags of Cheetos, and Charlie by a large bag of M&Ms.
I was more excited by the full tank of gas. That should be more than enough to get me home. The best I could figure, we were about two hundred miles from the end of our adventure. Two hundred miles from Jenny and the boys.
I dreamed about them all night. For once zombies and savage survivors didn't invade my dreams, turning them into nightmares. Everything was sweet memories of summers past. Nothing but happiness.
Then I woke up with an all consuming need to get home now.
Charlie and Mike kept me waiting with long, drawn out huggy-kissy good-byes. I expected them to ask if their new girlfriends could come with us. I wouldn't have said no, but that would really complicate things. Thankfully, neither Sylvia nor Reba Jo had the stomach for adventure.
I took the wheel. Mike rode shotgun, and Charlie stretched out in the back seat. The food was all on the floorboard behind the front passenger seat. The packs with our ammo were in the backseat with Charlie, too. Other gear was in the bed or the tool box.
Some residents came out to wave good-bye when we hit the road. Though I was grateful and thankful for all they'd done for us, I had a bad sense of dread for their futures. The Hell's Soldiers gang killed or chased off all of the fighters in town. Even after all we told them the night before, I wasn't certain they would listen and leave.
I hit the gas once on Route 64 east. Soon we were speeding down the road at 80 MPH. No more being patient. I needed to see and touch my family to make sure they were okay.
It took all of thirty minutes to reach Waynesboro. The city was small, with a population around twenty-five hundred. That was just a little bigger than Adamsville. The map showed we'd bypass their downtown, and pass through the northern part of town. I didn't expect trouble, but Mike and Charlie took up their weapons and got ready for a fight just in case.
A mile outside of town I had to swerve to avoid five zombies shuffling across the highway. There were suddenly a lot of zombies in the surrounding fields, and down the side roads. I didn't know if they were being invaded by a horde, or those were the residents of Waynesboro.
"I haven't seen this many since Union City," Charlie said. "Is there a road around Waynesboro?"
Mike opened up the map. I kept going, but a lot slower. Hitting a zombie at 80 MPH would kill us all.
"Watch out!" Mike cried when a small group of them on the side of the road suddenly lunged at us. They thumped loudly against the side of the pickup, but bounced off. I couldn't imagine that didn't kill them. "They are fucking crazy."
"You think?" I replied. "Y'all might have to start shooting the ones closest to the road, just try to conserve ammo."
"Yada yada yada," Mike said.
"He's right," Charlie said. "I just checked the packs. We only have two belts left for the SAW, and most of the rest is 9mm for the pistols."
"I know. We're almost out of ammo," I said.
I didn't even want to think about what we'd do when we ran out. Maybe we could find a sporting goods store or gun shop that wasn't looted. They might have ammo for AR15s, which was the same NATO 5.56mm our M-4s used. At least we still had half of the 40mm grenades left.
Mike and Charlie used their pistols after that. They might've missed a little more, but at that speed they weren't going to hit much with rifles, either. I used the truck a lot more to clear a path, and some of those hits rattled it pretty bad. But we made it through Waynesboro to find the highway clear.
The road between Waynesboro and Chattanooga was peppered with small towns and cities. Most were abandoned. A couple, like Lawrenceburg, were infested with zombies. There were lots of abandoned cars and trucks along the way, but we didn't stop for gas until after turning onto I-64 South and just before we reached a long bridge over Nickajack Lake.
"We're only a few miles from the Georgia border," I said while Mike siphoned gas out of a pair of crashed sedans. There were a lot of zombies in the area, and every one of them was coming toward us, but all were far enough away to be of no concern. We'd be gone before they reached us. Charlie stood guard standing atop the truck's tool box just in case. "We might be around a hundred miles from my cabin."
"Less than two hours," Charlie said. "Hurry up. Some of the Z-folk are starting to run."
"Z-folk?"
"I'm getting tired of calling them zombies."
"What about z-bees?" Mike said. He was emptying the last of the gas into the truck. The red plastic gas can was almost empty. "It's easier to say."
"Z-bees it is," Charlie replied. "Time's up."
The gas can was closed and tossed in the bed. Mike returned to the front passenger seat, and Charlie to the back seat. And the truck didn't start. Not even a click.
"What the fuck, man!"
I cursed myself for turning off the engine. My eyes ran over the dash, ignition, gear shifter on the steering column. What could be wrong?
Zombies reached us. The wailed and pounded on the truck. They were
fighting to be the one to pound on our side windows. They were striking the glass harder and harder.
Heart racing at a million miles an hour, I tried the gear shifter. It was an automatic. I felt it move just slightly up when I pushed it from below. It even clicked. The pickup started when I tried again. I put it in gear and floored it.
"Oh, man, I think you ran over about ten of the z-fuckers," Mike said.
I was shaking like a leaf. My hands ached, knuckles white, as I tightened my grip on the steering wheel even more.
"You can stop accelerating now," Charlie shouted.
"Okay. Okay," I said. "I'm good. I'm okay."
"That remains to be seen," he replied.
I realized then we were already halfway across the bridge over Nickajack Lake. It went to a small island, then veered off across the rest of the lake at a more southwardly direction. Shortly after passing a small community called Whiteside I saw the intersection with I-59 ahead.
And we ran straight into the Horde of Hordes.
"There can't be that many people in Chattanooga!" Mike cried.
"Not anymore," I said. "They're all in that horde."
They were all over I-24 and I-59. Worse, there were far more zombies crowded on I-59 South than on I-24 going up into Chattanooga. I did not want to go into Chattanooga, but…
At 10 MPH that big F-250 plowed through the zombies. The ride was rough as we literally drove over them. They pounded on the truck as we passed. Some jumped in the bed and began clawing at and beating on the back window.
"Don't shoot them through the window!" I shouted when Charlie turned to the back, finger on the trigger. "You'll shattered the glass and make it easier to get to us."
I swerved and threw them off balance, but couldn't shake the zombies in the bed. Yet, we were making forward progress. Turning back was not an option. Then we reached the turn off to I-59.
"Don't do it, man," Charlie said. "Stay on this road. I can see it clearing up ahead."
Clear was a subjective term in that case. There was still a shit ton of zombies on I-24 going into Chattanooga. But I was able to accelerate to twenty miles an hour. The truck was rattling like crazy, jumping and sliding to the side as we drove over countless zombies. My hands were aching all the way to my elbows. I tried, but couldn't loosen my grip.
"This is the freakiest thing I've ever done," I said.
I glanced at Mike, who was unusually quite. He looked pale. Charlie was watching the back window warily. The rough ride was keeping zombies in back mostly off-balanced. I started to worry it was going to take forever to plow through that horde.
"If they surge toward us, I bet they could flip us over," Mike said.
"We didn't need to know that," I said.
"If you just jinxed us, I swear I'll shoot you in the head," Charlie growled.
The horde thinned almost completely out by the time we reached Chattanooga city limits. We raced along I-24 until it merged with I-75.
"Thank god the z-bees are all heading south," Mike said. I turned south on I-75. "What the hell!"
"No choice," I said. "We'll go down to Dalton, and turn east into the mountains."
"You're fucking out of your mind," Charlie cried.
"We're almost there," I said. More zombies appeared on the highway ahead. "Hang on!"
Chapter 38
The horde began getting thicker. The country around I-75 and east to the mountains was more open than along I-59. So there was room for a lot more zombies.
"How are we on gas?" Mike asked.
"Good."
"How are we on chances to survive this?"
"Not so good."
I was able to miss most of the zombies until we reached East Ridge. It wasn't even much of a town, but it looked like every zombie from Chattanooga was waiting for us atop the cloverleaf with US Route 41.
"Cross over to the southbound side," Mike said.
Turning the wheel sharply, I drove across the medium and onto the northbound side.
"We were already on the southbound side, idiot," I said. "But thanks."
Mike didn't respond. He had a white-knuckle grip on his weapon to rival mine on the steering wheel. The trip across the bumpy medium tossed a bunch of the zombies out of the truck's bed and sent the rest bouncing around back there.
"Man, they've cracked the window back here," Charlie said. His eyes turned away to look out the front windshield. "Are you going to try and plow through that? Are you mad?"
The mega horde on I-75 did look a lot thicker. Even though the northbound side looked thinner, Charlie might've been right. They were pressed together a lot more than on I-24.
"Crap," I said and veered to the left. "Let's see what US 41 looks like."
Didn't matter. I was committed. Knowing zombies chose the path of least resistance helped. At least at first there were a lot less of them on US 41.
"Did you see that?" Charlie asked. "When you turned off onto this road it looked like every z-bee headed after us."
"Like a school of fish?" I asked.
"Yes. Exactly."
There was enough gap between zombies to swerve around them in the new highway. I was able to pick up the speed to 40 MPH at times. After a few minutes the zombies in the bed sorted themselves out and returned to pounding on the back window again. One of them even crawled up atop the cab. I slammed on the brakes and he flew off. Then I drove over him before he could get up.
"Ouch. Bet that hurt," Mike said.
"Felt good to me."
We came up to a bridge over a river. It was acting as a funnel point. I slowed down.
"Mike, see if you can clear it with a few grenades. While he rolled down his window, I moved over to the right side of the road. "Tell me when you're ready and I'll turn left and give you a better angle."
Slowing to 10 MPH, I noticed the zombies ahead all turned around to face us. Charlie scooted over to the right side, rolled his window down, and opened up with the SAW in short bursts. Zombies started dropping, but most got back up.
It occurred to me that if they weren't mindless rage monsters, they could have made amazing soldiers. Protect their heads and hearts, and they'd be unstoppable.
"Ready," Mike said.
I turned left. Charlie kept the zombies away on that side. Mike managed to get two grenades off before I had to turn back towards the right side of the road. His grenades didn't reach the bridge, but knocked down a lot of them between us and it. The next round he got another two grenades off, and hit the bridge both times.
"Go!" Mike cried.
I turned toward the bridge and plowed through those little monsters. Mike and Charlie quickly rolled up their windows. The zombies started to pile up in front of the truck. They hadn't done that before. I worried we'd be forced to a stop, so started zigzagging across the bridge, which dislodged just enough of them. And as soon as I cleared the bridge, I stopped, backed up, and then continued forward around the pile.
"We have to get one of those snow plow trucks for the next z-pocalypse," Mike said.
"Stop making up new names," I said. "My head already hurts."
The number of zombies to either side of the road dropped dramatically. I was able to open it up for short stretches, though I did spend more time on the shoulders of the road than on it at times. The countryside was mixed forest, farmland, and residential. It was not as rural as I at first thought. Shit got hairy again when we reached Ringgold.
The highway went right through the middle of the city. As we approach a big grocery store on the right Mike got excited and pointed forward.
"Get off on a side road! Side road!"
I saw it then. The road ahead was packed tighter than a rock concert. Those bloody monsters were coming back toward us, too. So I turned on Old Alabama Road in front of the store. The open land to our left was packed with more zombies milling around. Hitting the gas, I sped across a small creek and to another cluster of structures. There I turned back to the left.
"Genius move, man,"
Mike said when that road curved around and back over the creek. Suddenly we were back in the thick of zombies. "Take the right just beyond the trees!"
There was wooded land to our right. I spotted the intersection ahead. It went off in all directions. I didn’t have the time to figure out how many streets met there, or where they led. I took a hard right at the intersection and hit the gas.
"Son of bitch!" I cried when a zombie went over the hood to smash into the windshield. His hard head caved it in almost to the point of not being able to see through it. "Shoot him, Mike!"
He fired three shots before the zombie tumbled off the side. By that time we cleared the woods on our right and blasted out into open country again. There was a large structure ahead of us. And a swimming pool. We rounded a bend in the road, and it dead-ended onto Depot Street. There were railroad tracks on the other side of the cross road.
"Which way?" I asked.
"Right," Mike said.
So I turned right. We didn't even get past the huge warehouse on the right before the way was blocked by too many zombies to force our way through. I skidded to a stop, looking in all directions. Just before I turned around, I noticed US 41 on the other side of the tracks.
"Do you think this truck will clear those tracks?"
"Worth a try," Mike said.
"You're both out of your minds," Charlie said. "But go for it."
I drove off the road, keeping a wary eye on the zombies rushing towards us. Since I wasn't sure about the clearance, I drove across the tracks at an angle, and then turned into the parking lot of another business. Within seconds we were back on US 41 heading south to Dalton. Shortly after that US 41 crossed I-75. I only needed one glance to see US 41 would be faster, so continued on.
Ringgold to Dalton couldn't have been more than twenty-five miles. Still, it took us over an hour to cover it. Most of the time I was driving less than ten miles an hour and plowing through groups of zombies.
"Can zombies starve to death?" I asked. "Because there cannot be enough for them all to eat."
"We can only hope," Mike said.
