A Good Distance From Dying

by David Carroll

  “Yeah, right. Can we go now?”

  The fur on Big Lou’s back stood on end, and he stepped in front of us growling. A zombie stepped out from behind a dump truck on the side of the road. The dog advanced on the zombie growling a warning that would have stopped any living person in their tracks. The zombie just looked at him like he was nothing more than a big furry speed bump sitting between him and his next meal.

  Our new dead friend only shambled three steps towards us before we heard another gunshot. The zombie’s head blew apart and he pitched forward into the road never to moan again.

  This gunshot was much closer than the other ones. This meant our guardian angel was near and it also meant we may have just gone from the frying pan and into the fire. From behind the dump truck stepped a woman with a pistol drawn in each hand. She looked first at the dog, who had quit growling and was starting to wag his tail at his new friend. From the dog her eyes moved to Sass then settled on me.

  Keeping both pistols pointed at us she said with a smile, “Hello boys.”

  C H A P T E R T W E L V E

  Angelina Jolie freaks me out. The big puffy lips that she seems to love have always reminded me of some psychotic clown or nightmare creature who could suck your soul from your body simply by kissing you. This is not to say that I didn’t think she had a body that would stop traffic, it’s just the lips.

  I have seen both Tomb Raider movies many, many times. Laura Croft is burnt into the back of my eyes. I had always said if I ever met a woman who was Laura Croftish, I was marrying her. Today was that day. Amanda Asare stood in front of us, a pistol in each hand. Slung over her back was the sniper rifle. Strapped to her legs were another two handguns and a couple of knives. She was wearing army boots, camo pants and a brown leather jacket overtop of a white t-shirt. She had sunglasses, but they had been moved to sit on the top of her head. Her hair was black and braided into two ponytails which hung down her back. She stood at least six feet tall and to say that she was solid muscle would have been a safe bet. This is the kind of girl that beats up the World’s Strongest Man as a hobby.

  I have no doubt that this was who Laura Croft was based on. I will swear this to anyone who will hold a Bible and let me place my hand on it. Looking at her, I was at a loss for words and that NEVER happens. I simply stood there waiting for her to say something else.

  She slid both of her pistols back into the holsters and knelt down to pet Big Lou.

  “Your dog?”

  “He is now. His name is Big Lou.”

  Amanda looked at the dog as he rolled over so she could scratch his belly. “I like it. He looks like a Big Lou.”

  “See Sass. I told you it was a good name.”

  My future better half stood up and held out her hand to Sass and then me, “My name’s Amanda Asare. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “I’m Charlie and this here is Sasquatch…”

  “He means to say my name is John.”

  “Everyone calls him Sass.”

  “Maybe I should tell her what everyone calls you.” Sass said with his evil smile.

  “The fact that you say it does not constitute everyone.”

  Amanda laughed at the two of us, “So, you’re the funny one then?”

  “What do you mean funny? Funny how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you?”

  Sass smacked me on the back of the head, “Play nice Pecsi.”

  Amanda gave me a quick smile as I rubbed the back of my head.

  David -M- Carroll

  “It’s not that I mind you saving us back on the bridge but, what the hell are you doing out here geared up like Rambo?”

  Amanda looked down at herself as if noticing all the guns and knives for the first time.

  “I was hunting.”

  “Were you hunting Aliens or Predators?” I asked.

  Amanda gave me a big “don’t mess with me” smile and answered, “Both, to an extent.”

  Big Lou stood up looking towards the right side of the road and began to growl. He planted each front paw onto the asphalt and lowered his head towards the ground as the fur on his back began to rise. I really liked this dog.

  “Big Lou says it’s time to go.”

  Sass looked around at the cars. “Want to take one of these?”

  “Hells yeah, I say we take that dump truck. We can just run over anything that gets in our way.” I said.

  Amanda was standing right beside the dump truck and she gave it a once over. “That’s not a bad plan."

  Sass had wandered over to the truck as Amanda gave her opinion. He opened the door and found that the keys were still in it. The dump truck had not been part of the wreck so it was still in good shape. It had just been parked on the side of the road. No clue what fate had befallen the lone county worker, but his truck was now ours.

  “Not much gas in here.” Sass said.

  “That’s not a problem. There’s a gas station just down the road where the old JC highway crosses at Gray. I’m pretty sure they have Diesel as well. My only question is, can you drive this thing?” I asked.

  “Yeah, as long as it has an engine and at least two tires I can drive it.”

  Big Lou let out a loud “Do not mess with me” bark.

  “Let’s go.” I said as I swung around to the passenger’s side of the truck. I made two kissing noises for Big Lou who immediately turned around and came to me. “Let’s go Louie, we can’t kill ‘em all today.”

  “I’m going to ride up in the back. I might be able to solve any problems we run into from there.” Amanda was already up and over the tailgate before I could say okay. I patted the seat and Big Lou took the hint, jumping up into the truck. I slid in beside him and gave Sass a look, “There is something scary about that girl.” I said.

  Sass laughed at me, “Noticed that did you?”

  The dump truck roared to life and Sass began the process of spinning it around to go the other way. Within a few minutes we were once again heading towards Johnson City.

  C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

  Once we were moving again, all conversation stopped. The vision of the world around us had a way of sucking the air out of the conversation. As we left the bridge the road began to slope uphill and to the left. The houses that we could see painted a very nasty picture. It would seem all the dead motorists from the bridge had made their way to the surrounding homes. I caught a chill thinking of those unwelcome door to door salesmen descending upon the unsuspecting neighborhoods.

  The sight chilled me. This was our world now. This is what we faced if we were to survive. Like locust the dead would descend upon an area and devour all the living, leaving behind death and devastation but no bodies. Everywhere they went would be picked clean and their numbers would grow larger and larger. If they all stayed together and formed packs, they would be all but unstoppable. An ever growing attack force constantly marching on the enemy and crushing their way through any defenses they found. The attack would never stop, even if it took them a month to beat their way into a stronghold. They would simply continue to pound away until, like Jericho, the walls fell.

  “You okay?” Sass asked.

  “Yeah, just wondering where all the people are.” As we crested the hill Sass brought the tuck to a stop. “I

  think we found them.”

  Just down the road from where we sat was a house under siege. The zombies were stacked up, jockeying for position to beat down the front door. It looked like a mosh pit at a metal concert.

  Not far from where we sat, a car had attempted to hug a telephone pole. I looked at the road directly behind the car. Two tiny hints of burnt rubber at the edge of the road and two drag paths across the dirt and rocks. The driver had tried to stop the car, but the effort came much too late.

  Both car doors were still hanging open. It was a fair guess that the people had fled the car and ran to the house. They had barricaded themselves inside the nearest structure and had hoped that the dead pursuers would eventually give up on them and g
o find greener pastures. So far that part of their plan hadn’t happened.

  “Well, we finally get to save somebody. How are you planning on doing it?” I asked.

  Sass stared at the house for a moment longer.

  “I guess we just run over them.”

  I hadn’t expected this to be his answer and it caught me so off guard that I burst out laughing. Sass turned and looked at me trying to figure out if I was being mean or not. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea so I simply held up a hand as I composed myself.

  “I guess that would do it.” I said as I started laughing again.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “No. I’m not making fun of you. I just wasn’t expecting that. I think it’s brilliant.”

  Sass seemed to be set at ease and he looked back out towards the house.

  “If we only knew where they were.” Sass said.

  As if the people inside could hear him. A bedside table exploded out the window directly over the front porch in an attempt to fly away to the safety of some penthouse apartment. Its attempt to defy the laws of gravity was short lived. The table barely cleared the overhang before it began to plunge earthward crashing into the group of zombies that were fighting for front row seats to the slaughter.

  “Well, I think that answers your question. They are in the upstairs bedroom. Pull this bad boy up to the porch and they can walk across the overhang and get into the bed of the truck.”

  Sass nodded his head in agreement, “We can do this.” He said, now extremely focused on the job at hand.

  “Hold up before you charge in with engines racing. I’m going to hop into the back with Amanda. I may be able to help.”

  I opened the door and patted Big Lou on the head.

  “Stay put Louie, I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  As I was shutting the door I could hear Sass say to Lou, “Yeah, he wants to hop in the back with the hot chick to help the poor trapped people. You believe that line of crap Lou? No, I don’t either.”

  Sass wasn’t entirely wrong. I thought I may be able to help, but I also wanted some alone time with our sexy new companion. I walked around to the back of the truck and climbed up and over the tailgate.

  “Hello, Miss Asare. How does the back of this sucker ride?”

  She had already taken note of the house and she had her rifle out.

  “I assume we are going to save those people.”

  I flashed the beautiful Miss Asare my million dollar smile and did my best Han Solo impression as I said, “That’s the plan.”

  She didn’t seem very impressed with Mister Solo.

  “That is a very good word you just used so let’s look at it. Do you actually have a plan?”

  “Well here’s how it’s going to work, Sass is going to run over those dead guys by the front porch and then he’s going to back the truck up and let the people inside walk across the overhang and then jump in here with us.”

  Amanda considered this for about half a second before she answered, “That’s actually not too bad of a plan.”

  Her tone struck me funny and I couldn’t help but laugh at her.

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised.” I said.

  The smile that was forming on her face was interrupted by a loud cracking sound as the front door finally lost its fight against the zombie horde and splintered apart.

  I ran to the front of the dump truck when I heard the crack, arriving just in time to see the front three or four rows of zombies fall into the house. The other zombies didn’t seem to be very up on manners or politeness because they immediately began walking across their fallen comrades.

  Sass began to blare the horn and revved the diesel motor to life, partly as a warning for us to hold on, and partly to try and get the zombies attention away from the now open door way. The idea was solid, but the zombies were in feeding frenzy mode and ignored us. The truck lurched to life and began to rapidly pick up speed. We were charging into the chaos with engines roaring and horns blaring. Not one single zombie turned our way or attempted to flee our wrath. They just kept moving towards the door in an attempt to feed on the chewy center of the Tootsie Roll Pop.

  Sass wasn’t lying when he said that he could drive anything on the planet. As we arrived at the house Sass slid the truck through the sea of rotting bodies, locking the brakes down and coming to a stop with just enough room to back the truck up to the overhang. The zombies that weren’t crushed or dismembered during the initial drive by began to beat on the body of the dump truck. Sass brought us closer to the overhang attempting to stop us right up against it. The problem was, no matter how well you can drive you’re still going to have a hard time judging docking distance while braking on dead bodies. Sass did his best, but in the end he slid to a stop and smashed into the overhang. I heard the wood of the structure splinter and watched as it bucked upwards against the hard metal of the dump truck bed.

  As soon as the truck came to a stop, two hands grabbed the window frame and a woman hauled herself up and out of the house. She planted both feet onto the overhang, and I could see how unstable it was. It shifted a bit under her weight. I held out my hands to her and yelled, “Come on! Jump!”

  She took two steps and launched herself with little to no regard as to how she was going to land. We ended up reenacting some bad comedy movie scene where the guy tries to catch the woman and ends up getting knocked onto his butt as she crashes into him.

  As I picked myself up I could see that a man had cleared the window and was trying to gain his balance on the overhang. I could hear more sounds of wood fracturing, but the guy just stood there.

  “Dude! Jump!”

  My yell seemed to snap him out of whatever place his mind had wandered to and he began to run for the edge of the overhang. After his first step the overhang let go of its mountings and began to fall towards the ground. His next step landed near the edge of the overhang and he flung himself towards us. His jump had enough power, but his balance had been compromised. He was going to fall short and all I could do was stand there frozen in place as I watched him soar towards us. He hit the tailgate of the dump truck with his belly and the force of the impact was going to rebound him to the ground below.

  Amanda was the first one to reach him. Grabbing one of his hands with both of hers she began pulling back as hard as she could. I reached him a second later grabbing the other hand. We ended up lying on our butts with him on top of us. I lay there looking at Amanda as the man began to move off us. He slid back against the tail gate and just sat there looking down at his hands for a moment.

  “Was it just the two of you?” Amanda asked them.

  The woman looked to the man for a moment then looked back to Amanda. She opened her mouth to say something but the man spoke instead.

  “Yes. Everyone else we know is dead. We’re all that’s left.”

  The look on the woman’s face gave it all away, all the pain, all the heartache, all the loss that she had experienced over the course of the day was suddenly washing over her and she could no longer contain it. Now that she knew she was safe her walls were coming down. The adrenaline was waning and the weakness that had been wanting to take control of her for the last few hours was finally succeeding. The man had still not looked up. I knew his eyes would be filled with the same hurt and pain that I could see on the woman’s face. I had already concluded that this was a husband and wife. I walked to the front of the truck bed and yelled down to Sass to take us somewhere safe. Our latest companions were going to need some time to get themselves back together and I thought it would be best for everyone considered if we took the time to sit down and talk some things out.

  Over the barking of Big Lou, I could hear Sass yell back, “I know just the place. We’ll go take five and figure out what’s next.”

  Turning back around to look at our newest additions all I could see was Amanda standing almost nose to nose with me. She looked irritated at this decision. She spoke slow and calm, but
her eyes gave away what she was feeling.

  “Do you really think that is a good idea? We are in a sea of zombies at the moment. When we leave, there will most likely be a good number of these things following us. If we stop and play meet and greet, they are going to catch up to us.”

  I lowered my voice to a whisper. I didn’t want the man or woman to hear what I was about to say.

  “Look at them Amanda. Look at their shoulders, their eyes. Tell me what you see when you really look at them.”

  Amanda turned an appraising eye on the two new members of our merry band of adventurers. “They look tired. They look scared and confused...and beaten.” She said.

  “Exactly, they are ready to give up.”

  “It’s nothing that can’t be handled on the road, Charlie. This is a waste of time.”

  “No, it’s not. If they are defeated and ready to give up then they won’t be thinking as we move forward. They’ll just be going through the motions and not understanding why they should be more cautious. This could lead to one of us or them getting infected which will put us in even more danger. We need to get them focused on the job at hand. We need to let them purge out whatever it is they have been through and tell them a bit about what we have been through so they can understand that we are all in this together and that we understand their pain. We need to get their heads right before we get out in the thick of it again.”

  “And you think this little break is going to do that?”

  “I had a teacher who used to say that once you reached the end of your rope the only option you had left was to drop back and punt.”

  “That’s your argument? A football euphemism?”

  “Like a smart man once said; if the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.” I said.

  “You are so….” I watched as she closed her eyes in an attempt to calm down. I decided to help her out of the daunting situation that she was finding herself in.

  “I know. I get that a lot actually. But ya know, what are ya gonna do?”

  Amanda opened her eyes, once again in complete control of herself, she smiled at me as she spoke, “I guess we drop back and punt.”