by Maxey, Phil
When it was just a few feet away, it collapsed to the ground. Joel realized he had been given precious space to escape as the next horde of vamps were still some way off.
He looked down at the non-human thing, its body blackened and fragmented. Its part face looked downwards, showing sinew and skull.
“Who are you?” said Joel.
“He’s… looking for you, Joel…”
What?
“Jim?”
“I had to… you had to know… you are spec—”
The thing that was the former sheriff fell face forward into the concrete. Joel heard the thing’s heart stop and not restart, but he kneeled next to the body anyway.
“What do you mean, looking for me? Who’s looking for me?” He turned over what used to be his friend and looked into his black eyes, which were lifeless.
“Jim, how… I don’t understand…”
The night air filled with the sound of more guttural high-pitched roars, and he looked up at the swarm that was almost upon him. He quickly slid his fingers into his back pocket and pulled out the sheriff badge Hardin had given him and laid it on Jim’s chest. He then got to his feet, turned and fled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Most around Joel were asleep as the sun started to rise behind the distant mountains. Luckily, they managed to leave most of the vamps behind at the school, but they had forgotten about the barricade across the road to Wyton. It took a further twenty minutes of dragging and heaving to create a route past the abandoned vehicles and farm equipment before they were free and clear of the town of Bellweather.
Beyond, was just desert with the occasional forgotten shack, and those that weren’t driving took the opportunity to get some rest.
To Joel’s right was Marina with Jess, and Flint in the rear seats. Behind was Claire’s pickup, with herself driving, Kelly, Gabe, Dawn, and Mary, and further back, Evan, Bill, Anna, and Hardin. Each vehicle had at least one person with a radio.
He played the final moments at the school over and over in his mind, trying to make sense of the words that came from the creature that was once the sheriff.
He’s looking for me? Who is ‘he?’ How did Jim know any of that?
The only conclusion that worked was whatever happened to Jim made him crazy and, somehow, he survived the explosion in the mine, and instinctively made his way to the school.
Yeah, that must be it.
It wasn’t an idea he liked, Jim deserved better. For now, he knew he needed to focus on one thing. Keeping the occupants of the three vehicles alive. But he had no idea if the world they were moving into would be any safer than the one they just escaped from.
He shook his head.
One day at a time.
A sign appeared ahead. ‘You are now entering the town of Wyatt. Population 3581.’
He slowed as he moved around a truck that was abandoned across both lanes. Its doors were open, but the cabin was empty. They kept going, and soon motels, plazas, and restaurants appeared at the side of the four-lane road.
Static came from his radio, followed by Claire’s voice. “Maybe we should stop at one of these stores, get some more stuff? Over.”
Joel looked at the shadows that existed beyond the darkened glass of the stores, and even though he couldn’t directly sense anything, he still felt uneasy. He clicked on his radio. “I say we keep moving on for—” He noticed in his rear mirror that Claire’s pickup had turned off into a parking lot.
Swearing under his breath, he slowed then turned the pickup around in the next turning and drove onto the same lot. Evan did the same, pulling up behind.
Marina lifted her head. “What’s happening?” she said sleepily.
“Just looking for some supplies. Keep an eye on the vehicle, I’m going to check things out.”
She nodded, sitting more upright in her chair, and he got out. About a hundred yards to his left sat a large monolithic white building, with ‘Greens Pharmacy’ scrawled across the wall.
Joel ran to catch up with Claire and her granddaughter that were walking quickly, guns leading the way, towards the large glass doors of the store. “You need to let me go first.”
Claire frowned. “I don’t need you to do anything, other than stay out of our way.”
Kelly looked down as Joel looked at her, trying to keep up with her grandmother.
They all arrived at the entrance with clear doors that were twice their height. One of them was devoid of glass, which instead lay in thousands of tiny pieces across the floor.
Despite the sun now providing enough light to dispel most shadows, the interior of the pharmacy was hidden in gloom, and even Joel could only see to the start of the aisles beyond the checkout counters. Claire went to move forward, but Joel was quicker and slipped inside. The floor was a sea of plastic hair product bottles, and small cardboard boxes, most of which appeared to be different types of vitamins and baby food. Joel stepped over them, and cautiously walked into the store.
Claire and Kelly walked past him.
“Hey, we don’t know if it’s safe!” said Joel.
They both ignored him and disappeared down one of the aisles.
A crunch noise came from the entrance and Evan appeared, looking happier than he should.
“It’s not illegal to take stuff, right?” he said as he approached Joel.
Joel looked at the checkouts, and open empty tills. “Take what you need.”
Evan walked past and straight to the chips and soda aisle.
Joel had a quick look back to the pickups. Everything seemed quiet, but he couldn’t shake the memory of Jim telling him about the former sheriff that came to Wyatt and never returned.
Well, while I’m here, might as well see—
The metallic smell of blood hit Joel’s senses at the same time as Kelly’s scream. He sprung forward, looking between the aisles for where they were, until he was able to make out open double doors at the far end of the store. He sprinted towards them, through the opening, then skidded to a stop.
In front of him, piled half as high as he was tall, was a mound of human body parts. The odor was intoxicating, and he had to fight the impulse to gorge on what was making everyone else feel queasy.
He cleared his throat. “This is where they have been feeding. We should leave.”
Claire looked at him with distain. “I used to shop here! These were good people!”
Her words scraped the inside of his mind.
“We… should… leave…”
Claire went to speak again, but Kelly grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the main part of the store.
Joel reached out for the wall.
I don’t need to feed. I can go a few more days…
He forced himself to turn away, and closed the double doors behind him. The smell still clung to his nostrils, so he started to breathe through his mouth.
“What’s in there?” said Evan, walking towards him, a bag of scavenged goods in one hand.
“Nothing. You got what you need?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, grab more of those bags, there’s more we’ll need.”
After a short while, Joel and Evan were leaving the store with multiple bags full of mostly bottled water, medical supplies, and batteries. Claire and Kelly were already sitting in their pickup.
Joel’s pickup was the only one with enough space, so the bags were dumped in the rear area behind the back seats. Joel pulled out a street map of Arizona and New Mexico from one of the bags and opened it up. He caught up everyone else in the other vehicles of the route, then walked to the passenger’s side of his pickup. “Any chance you could do some driving, I’m feeling pretty drained,” he said to Marina.
She nodded, and slid across to the driver’s side while he took her place. As the sun’s beams broke across the distant peaks Joel closed his eyes, being swallowed by sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Joel quickly looked back at Rick. Blood was pouring from lacerations across
his colleague’s arms and face. He was still alert though, which was more than could be said for the CDC agent slumped on the backseat next to him.
“Water…oo,” mumbled the CDC agent under his breath, as his eyes flickered shut.
Ricked leaned closer to him, wincing in pain as he did. “Yeah, we’re almost at the water!” Ricks expression hardened, and he placed his fingers on the mans neck. “I can’t feel a pulse!”
Both scientists dead…
Stanton, the other CDC agent, had died shortly after leaving the store thirty minutes before, when he was taken down by a horde of vamps that were on the roof of the building and descended upon them before they had a chance to react. The rest of them just about made it to the vehicle they were in now.
Joel swerved the silver sedan to one side, weaving between a dead body on the road and a waste disposal truck, and continued down the long, straight road which entered the Marina Del Ray area of LA.
Rick went to beat on the man’s chest, but instead his hand fell to his side. He leaned back against the seat, his breathing labored.
“Stay with me, buddy, we’re almost there. Just half a mile,” said Joel.
Rick didn’t respond. Joel looked back at his friend who’s eyes were closed. He threw his hand back and shook Rick’s leg. Rick’s eyes sprang back open.
“Yeah, I’m good,” said Rick, then coughed. “Just tired.”
A wall of abandoned cars and trucks appeared in front of them, and Joel drove onto the sidewalk, then bumped over a small curb, across a grass verge and onto a parking lot. Vamps emerged from the nearby stores and started running towards them. He slammed into one, while veering back onto the road and roaring across a junction.
The masts and cabins of luxury yachts and boats came into view.
Joel glanced at his watch and the timer he had set a few hours earlier. It displayed two minutes, forty-five seconds.
He pushed down on the gas, while steering left and right around vehicles, large and small, their owners either dead inside or nearby on the road.
“Have to get to the right basin…” said Rick, his words barely audible.
Joel pulled the car into a large parking lot and drove across the ground, skidding to a halt near the water’s edge.
He whipped around to face the back seats. “We made—” Flinging his safety belt off he half climbed between the front seats, and shook Rick, who didn’t respond. “No… no… Come on, Rick.” Climbing further into the backseat, he felt his friend’s neck, but there was no pulse. He started chest compressions, while trying to clear Rick’s airway of blood.
His watch let out a high-pitch beep, which kept repeating.
“Fuck!”
He looked at the dead CDC agent to his right, and the suitcase still handcuffed to the man’s hand.
Climbing over him he kicked the rear door open, got out, then dragged the body with the case and lifted him up across his shoulders. Struggling to carry the weight, he jogged across the remaining ground to the water’s edge and looked out across the bay for any sign of a coastguard boat.
Then he saw it. A small rigid-hulled boat, its stern being the only part visible, bobbing up and down amongst the waves, twenty yards from him. Alongside, were bodies wearing orange jackets.
He slumped to his knees, letting the body and the suitcase fall to the ground behind him, and blinked at the sun glittering off the waves. In the distance, smoke rose above north LA and, behind him, the sound of screams and things hungry to feed filled the air.
“Joel!”
Uh… What…
“Joel, wake up!”
He opened his eyes and dragged his head upwards, looking across at Marina, who looked afraid. “What’s wrong?”
A subdued growling came from Flint.
“Look!” she exclaimed to him, looking outside.
As his eyes focused on the green and beige hues made up of bushes, sand, and dirt around the three vehicles, other things started to come into view. Humanoid shapes, most flat to the dusty ground, but others standing in awkward positions sat every few yards as far as he could see. He swung his head around, looking out of the side, and then the rear windows, and the scene was the same. They were driving through a sea of motionless figures.
Marina nervously looked around them, keeping both hands on the steering wheel. “Are they vamps? Some are standing? Are they refugees? I can’t see…”
Joel knew what they were. He could smell the blood wafting from their mouths and drifting across the highway. “They’re vamps… Just drive slow and steady.”
He pulled the map out of the glove box and went to study it when his radio sparked into life making them all jump.
“We’re surrounded by friggin’ vamps!” shouted Claire.
Joel clicked on his radio. “Be calm. They’re hibernating, or just sluggish, if we keep a constant speed and don’t do anything stupid we can get through this. Over.”
No response came, so he looked back down at the map.
“We’re on the I-40. Went through a small town about thirty minutes ago,” said Marina.
“Are they sleeping?” said Jess.
“Yes. It will be fine. Just look at the road ahead, don’t look into the… shit,” said Marina.
Bodies lay on the highway ahead of them. The convoy slowed.
“Slow… real slow. Drive around them. Real smooth,” said Joel. He looked down at the map and traced his finger along the route they were on. “Next town is about an hour away. We just keep going.”
As Marina veered left and right around the vamps, their bodies blistered by the sun, and their faces distorted into more angular shapes, Joel’s radio came alive again.
“It looks like some kind of migration. You seen this before, Joel? Over,” said Anna.
“I’m not an expert on vamps, Doc. I don’t know what this is. Over.”
Marina nodded to the road in front. “It looks clear ahead, I think we’re nearly past—”
Before she could finish, a loud bang heralded one of the vamps being hit by Claire’s pickup. It spun around and started to fall. Before it had hit the dry hot concrete every one of the few thousand creatures sat up or flicked their heads towards the slow-moving vehicles.
“Mom?” said Jess, her voice trembling.
“Floor it!” shouted Joel, and Marina slammed her foot down on the gas and the pickup jolted forward as everyone was pushed backwards in their seats.
The two vehicles behind did the same, as a swarm of vamps scampered towards the source of what woke them. Like flies, the creatures slammed into the sides of the vehicles, making them veer left and right across the highway, but soon they were all looking back at the horde desperately pursuing them, but not making any progress.
Marina looked in her side mirror. “Are we clear?”
Joel took a breath, then nodded. “Yup.”
*****
“Do we think it’s a good idea going through this town,” said Marina in the passenger’s seat.
Block-like buildings with large parking lots out front nestled amongst the almost complete flatness of the desert.
Joel clicked on the radio. “Park out back of these stores on the left. Over.” He then swung the pickup across multiple lanes and pulled up a slight incline and parked outside a wall of bland white doors which presumedly led into the back of a row of stores. He turned to Marina. “We’re almost out of ammo, this is as good as any other place to try and find some, and I’m not sensing anything around here.”
The other pickups pulled in behind.
Joel looked to Jess in the rear seat. “Want to take Flint for a walk?”
“Is it safe?” said Jess.
“As long as you stay with us, and don’t wander off. It’s safe.”
She nodded. “Okay then.”
Joel looked at the panting dog. “Behave.” Joel briefly smiled at Marina then got out. He walked up to the others that were getting out of their vehicles and stretching. “I’m going to try and find some
extra ammo.”
“I need to take a leak,” said Evan.
Anna looked at Joel. “And you’re sure there are no vamps around here?”
“Haven’t sensed any for over seventy miles.”
Hardin looked at the other buildings in the distance. “I know this town, there’s lots of residential areas. They have to be here.”
Joel looked at Jess and Marina and they all headed towards the closest door. “Well if they are, I’m not sensing them.” He held up his radio. “Stay on comms everyone, and be back here in twenty minutes.”
Anna briefly looked at Bill, then followed Joel, while Gabe, Dawn, Claire, and the others stayed in their vehicles.
Joel walked down the gloomy corridor.
“I can’t see a thing,” said Anna.
“Oh right, sorry I forget you—”
“Us humans, you mean,” said the doctor.
Marina smiled.
“Well you can’t see like I can. Just keep going straight, and we’ll soon be at the doors to the stores. How you holding up back there, Jess.”
“I’m good.”
Joel pulled the handle down of the eventual door, and pushed it open to reveal another corridor, that was just as dark as the last.
“Screw this, I’m using a flashlight,” said Anna, pulling the small light from her pocket and switching it on. A number of doors appeared along the corridor, as well as signs above them. Joel walked to the one with ‘CASH FOR GOODS’ printed on it, and tried turning the handle, but it remained stubbornly locked. He took a step back and slammed his fist through the wood. The three watching tried to hide their reactions. He then reached around, unlocked, then opened the door and walked inside.
The others caught up quickly and peered around the corner to a large storage room of floor to ceiling shelves, each with numbers.
Joel was already searching through the contents. “Help me find any ammo that’s in here. Especially anything with ‘M855’ written on it, but just anything you can find.”
Jess enthusiastically looked through a pile of plastic toys, while Anna was looking intently at what looked to Marina like a mobile defibrillator.
