A Good Distance From Dying

by David Carroll

  There was no doubt that the ungodly speeds these people were traveling at led to the Winnebago zigging when they should have been zagging. That, in turn, led to them trying to stuff their RV into a space under a semi-truck that was way too small for an RV. As the two trucks wrapped around each other in a dance of ripping metal and breaking bones the other cars had nowhere to go. I would imagine the first three or four cars never even knew what hit them. They were crammed into the wreckage and squashed before they could even yell out their favorite expletive.

  The rest of the cars would have slammed on their brakes hoping they would be able to stop in time. They were kidding themselves. Nobody was making it off this bridge alive.

  From my perch I could see that there was no way to climb on top of the RV. It had been crammed and twisted beneath the trailer of the eighteen-wheeler. The trailer was actually sitting at an angle on top of the remains of the RV. The toughness of this camper was impressive. Whichever company made this vehicle should have been building tanks for the army. After the impact and all the stresses that would have been associated with it, this camper was still somewhat whole and in one piece. It would have been sitting on all four tires except for the fact that the weight of the tractor trailer was pulling the left side wheels up off the road. The side door of the camper, which was sitting maybe three feet above the asphalt, was the only way we had into the camper and hopefully, onto the top of the wreckage that blocked the entire middle of the bridge.

  “These cars must have been doing well over seventy when the wreck happened,” Sass said in a tone that was a cross between awe and sadness.

  “Yeah, I’m fairly sure that all the cars right here near the middle didn’t even have time to react before they were squashed.”

  “Doesn’t look like it. This is also bad news for us. No reaction time means nobody turned, everything just stacked up and the metal of the frames and outer shells of these cars just started sheering apart.”

  I looked out to the cars in front of us and could see what Sass was talking about. The metal of the wreckage in front of us was jagged, bowed up in places and flared outwards in others. And whether the metal bent inwards or outwards the edges of the pieces looked like steak knives.

  “Climbing across those cars is going to be rough. Every handhold we find is going to be like holding onto a saw blade.”

  I knew Sass was right. We really needed to take our time here and look for the best approach. It wouldn’t be any easier dropping down and walking either. The wreckage provided only very narrow paths to travel. Those paths had vehicular steak knives sticking out at all angles.

  “I don’t see any good way to do this Sass.”

  “Yeah, but if we can make it about fifteen feet we can jump down to the bridge and walk to the camper.”

  He was right. As the camper had connected with the trailer its back end must have swung around knocking some of the cars away from it. This left a small gap in the wreckage right in front of where the door to the camper was. All we had to do was survive fifteen or so feet of the saw blade forest and then we would have a clearing to risk our lives in when we opened the camper door.

  “Well, let’s just take as straight a path as we can to get there.” I said.

  Sass nodded and began looking at the remains of a Civic which now resembled an accordion. I realized that on this bridge we were fighting against two enemies; zombies and sheet metal. Lack of attention could not only get me eaten, but it could also get me cut. Cuts were just as dangerous as zombies in this new world of ours. Cuts could get infected. That infection could kill you. Cuts also meant blood. Zombies could smell blood and track you down. Blood is the gravy that we are smothered in as we wait on the plate to be devoured.

  “Ready?” Sass asked.

  “Ready.”

  Sass grabbed the door frame of the Civic and did a Spider-Man like leap onto the back of some form of a sedan that looked like an Acme ten-ton anvil had landed on it. The whole maneuver looked like something from an action movie and I immediately knew there was no way I was going to be able to pull it off. I walked over to the edge of the truck and looked to where Sass stood.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “What?”

  “Sass, have I ever told you about the years I spent training for the Olympics as a gymnast?”

  “No, I’ve never heard those stories.”

  “That’s because it never happened. You expect me to do that jump? Let me tell you how fat boy gymnastics work. First you jump, and then you land on your face. It’s all fairly simple.”

  “First off, you’re not some big fat guy. You can make this jump. Secondly, you’re a wuss. Make the jump.”

  “Sass you better watch your mouth. I’ll climb you like a mountain.”

  Sass smiled. I knew this smile. It was a smile that said, you just walked into my trap.

  “You’re going to have to make that jump before you can do anything.”

  There it was, you want to talk trash? Fine, but you got to make the jump to back it up. There was nothing I could say. It was step up or shut up time. I leaned way out and grabbed the Civic’s door and attempted to move it. It had been frozen into the open position through the force of impact. It would provide a lot more support than I had originally thought. I put my right leg up on the side of the truck, threw all my weight onto the hand that was grasping the car door, and kicked off the truck bed as hard as I could.

  I was airborne for a few seconds before I realized that I was about to fatally prove Sass wrong. As I had gone over the side of the truck I needed to twist my body and let go of the door so my momentum would carry me to the right and onto the Sedan. I had done both of those things, but not well enough. I was going to miss the landing by about two feet and I was heading directly for the remains of a motorcycle that had been turned into something resembling a metal cactus. I was trying to twist myself away from the wreckage when I felt two hands grab me by my right arm and fling me sideways. I crashed down onto the sedan beside Sass who was looking a bit pale. He knelt down beside me to make sure I was okay and, after the initial check proved that I was, his smile returned.

  “Okay, I was wrong. You’re a bigger wuss than I had given you credit for.”

  “Dammit Sass, not all of us grew up in the forest swinging from trees. Cut me a little slack. All I’ve ever done is play baseball in middle school.”

  “I never knew that. Were you any good?”

  “Well, let’s see. I was like twelve years old and I was playing very deep center.”

  “What’s wrong with playing the outfield?”

  “I was deeper than anyone could hit. I chased the balls down if they got past all the other guys.”

  Sass winced, “Ouch!”

  “Yeah, keep that in mind as you plan any more simian aerial maneuvers in the future.”

  Sass looked down to hide his laughter as he said the only word I wanted to hear, “Deal.”

  From the sedan we were only about two cars from the middle of the bridge. Sass was studying the cars in an attempt to find the safest path to the clearing. He would look for a few seconds then look over at me, shake his head, and say, “Nah, that will never work.” After watching him do this three times, I was ready to smack him in the head with something heavy and hard. Lucky for me I still had a hammer.

  “Sass, I am going to hit you with my hammer.”

  This seemed to bring Sass out of his trance like state.

  “Okay, here’s the thing. If we start running from here we can jump onto the next car and let our momentum carry us towards the last car. We jump over the back end of that car and we will land in the clearing. Do you think you can make those two jumps?”

  Sass had quit trying to make fun of me and was now honestly asking if I thought I could do what he was saying. I looked at the two jumps and I really thought I could pull it off, that is if I didn’t slip during the sprint across the first car. “Let’s do this thing.”

  Sass nodded, turne
d, and ran at the first car. His leap was perfect and he landed on the trunk of the first car. He ran across the top of the car and then angled himself across the hood as he jumped over the trunk of the second car and landed in the clearing. The whole thing took maybe five seconds and looked absolutely effortless. He turned around and looked at me.

  “Careful, coming down the windshield of that first car. If you’re not paying attention you might lose your balance.”

  That was great news. Sass had just given me reason to fear the only thing that I was worried about to start with. I’m not accident prone. I won’t lose my balance and fall when I’m running to catch a football. My balance isn’t that bad. However, walking a balance beam is hard for me, I really have to take my time or I will fall. Now I’m being asked to run across and leap from a pointy, sharp, metal balance beam. This was not going to be fun or easy.

  I readied myself and ran as fast as I could towards the first car. My jump carried me a bit further than I had wanted, and I landed halfway up the back window. I ran up the top of the car and thought things were going well. That’s when it all went to pieces. My foot slid as it landed on the windshield. The foot that slipped was my plant foot that I had all my weight resting on as I had planned to use the other foot to angle myself towards the second car. As I slid I knew I had two options. I could try to stop, but the momentum I had was going to drag me off the hood of the car cutting me up in the process and eventually deposit me onto the bridge broken and bloody. The other option was to say damn the torpedoes, and try the jump anyways. This could end well or I could break my leg.

  All in all, both options were not good. I chose to try the jump anyway, and as I felt myself sliding down the windshield, I brought my other foot down at an angle and shifted all my weight onto it. Using that foot, I kicked off the hood of the first car. The trouble was that I didn’t have anywhere near the control or acceleration that I needed to make it over the trunk of the second car. I had adjusted to try to land one foot on the trunk and launch myself again. The big concern with this plan was the reason we were trying to leap all the way over the trunk to start with. We had no way of knowing how stable the trunk was going to be. Even if it was stable there was no way that it was going to be level so I was risking turning or snapping my ankle just by landing on it. The chance of things going badly for me was growing higher by the second.

  As it turns out the trunk was neither level or stable. As I landed I could feel the trunk sink down with my body weight. As the trunk collided with the frame of the car I pushed off again sending me over the rest of the car and out of control towards the clearing. Landing on my feet had stopped being an option quite some time ago so I simply tried to use my feet to slow me down a bit as I crashed into the asphalt of the bridge. I rolled to a stop right at the edge of the RV.

  Sass was looking at me as I got to my feet. I threw my arms out in a nice Frankenstein impersonation and began saying in a low gravely tone.

  “bbrraaiinnssss…bbrraaiinnssss…”

  Sass laughed at me and showed me that he still had his tire iron with him.

  “That was a nice recovery, Crackhead. I thought you were a goner.”

  “That would make two of us. And quit calling me Crackhead.”

  We had reached the middle of the bridge, where the first wreck had happened. So far, we had yet to see any zombies that were free of their cars. But now was the real test. The Winnebago was setting just in front of us slanting a bit away from the road. The impact had pushed the semi almost over onto its side. The driver had corrected trying to keep himself from being pushed off the bridge and had caused the truck to jack knife. The two had then begun to wrap around each other. Climbing this would be akin to climbing a straight rock face like they show in those TV commercials for the Marines. I looked at myself and had to admit I wasn’t one of the few, the proud. I was one of the overweight and self conscious.

  Sass stood beside me, “This isn’t going to be easy. Maybe there is a way to go under it and then climb back up on the other side.”

  There was another option. I was remiss to even mention it. I knew that it was most likely either genius or insanity.

  “The door to the Winnebago is right in front of us. We could go through the wreckage and out the camper top or a window on the other side.”

  Sass looked at the door. He seemed to study it for a moment.

  “But we don’t know what’s in there.”

  “You have a point. There may be a group or there or may be none. We also don’t know if the other side of this thing is ripped open. If it is then any zombies inside may have already spilled out and could be wandering around the other side.”

  “You’re right, but let’s look at it this way, if we open that door and more than two zombies come spilling out then we’re screwed. There is nowhere we could run that would provide any kind of barrier between us and them.”

  “Well, going over this mountain of metal isn’t going to happen. We either have to go down and around or through. Your call Sass, I’ll do either.”

  I got a very evil look from the Sasquatch as I said this. “Oh no. You’re not putting this on me so you can blame me when we get eaten. You pick, so I can yell at you when we get munched on.”

  I smiled at Sass. He knew I was getting what I wanted and he smiled back.

  “I say we go through. I would rather fight zombies here in this clearing than in the confined spaces under this wreck.”

  I could tell that Sass didn’t agree whole heartedly, but he did see my point about having room to fight in.

  “Okay, we’ll do it your way. Do you want me to open the door?”

  The lean of the RV put the door at a slant that started about three feet off the ground. Sass being an unusually tall individual would find it much easier to get to the doorknob than I would. I nodded to him and I pulled the hammer out of my belt loop.

  Sass climbed up onto the bottom step and grabbed hold of the doorknob. He gave me one last look.

  I nodded at Sass.

  The door swung open.

  C H A P T E R E L E V E N

  Sass looked into the open doorway. A minute went by and nothing. Two minutes, still nothing.

  “What’s the deal? We get all worked up and then nothing happens?” I said.

  Sass gave me a weird look, “I know you’re not complaining about there being no zombies in there.”

  “Well no, but…” I couldn’t think of what to say so instead I walked towards the RV. “I’ll go in first. That way you can catch me when I fall off the steps.”

  Climbing up, I pulled my flashlight from my pocket so I could examine the world of recreational wreckage.

  The first sweep of my flashlight showed no movement inside the camper. I turned left and discovered why. The driver and the passenger were slumped over in their chairs while part of the semi’s trailer loomed over them through the windshield. Sass looked over my shoulder and saw the two corpses.

  “Poor bastards. Doubt they even knew what happened.”

  “Yeah, they were lucky I guess.”

  Looking the other way, I saw that there was a hole ripped in the back of the vehicle allowing us to see the bridge below. If there had been anyone in here they had most likely left by now. Looking up I saw a way out through the top of the camper. It was a sunroof, or a camper top, or whatever term they had named the hole in the roof so salesmen could act like it was a major upgrade. I climbed up on the sink and popped it open. Poking my head above the roofline of the RV I could see that this would lead us over to the other side of the wreck. I climbed up and through the portal to the outside world. Sass had just climbed onto the sink when the banging began.

  “What the hell?” I said. Spinning back around I could see that Sass was half way through the hole and was moving with some urgency. He yelled out that he had seen something under him. Flinging himself out of the RV, he rolled onto his belly and looked down into the camper.

  “Holy shit, there’s a kid in there. He
must have been hiding in the bathroom or something.”

  “Is he alive?”

  Sass sat up and shook his head, “Not by a long shot.”

  I laid down at the edge of the hole and looked into the camper. A child stood there looking up at us. He couldn’t have been much more than five or six years old. He was wearing his Batman pajamas and was barefoot. There was a cut running across his face and blood in his hair. What caught my attention though was how oddly he was behaving. We had seen quite a few zombies at this point and they all have this kind of involuntary moan that they make. This kid wasn’t making any noise. He was just standing there looking up at us. This was a miracle in and of itself. Zombies aren’t the kind of creatures that can stand at attention when the drill sergeant blows his whistle. Physically they just can’t do it. They shamble, they don’t win games of red light, green light.

  This kid was the exception. He just continued to stare up at us, statuesque in his bloody pjs.

  “Hey, Charlie, what do you think he’s doing?”

  The fact that I wasn’t called “Crackhead” this time wasn’t lost on me. “It looks like he’s trying to figure out how to get to us.”

  This idea seemed to spook Sass. He gave the kid another look. “No way. That would mean that he can think. Zombies can’t think, can they?”

  “No clue, never met one before today. Common belief, however, is that they wouldn’t be able to reason or do problem solving in any form.”