by Kate Morris
“You got a text,” Connor relayed and continued, “It’s from Jane. A group text. It says ‘this is it, stay alert’. Whatever that means.”
“Nothing, buddy. Just remember what I told you. If anything bad happens, get on the floor of the truck okay?”
“Yep,” he answered and stared out the front window.
“Head down. Don’t look out the windows, ‘kay?”
“Ten-four,” he joked, making Roman grin.
Roman met Stephanie’s eyes over his brother’s head, and she nodded. She looked coked out of her mind or baked, one or the other. Her pupils were huge. He hadn’t wanted to bring her. If it weren’t for Jane, he didn’t think he could’ve taken pity on her, not after what she’d put Jane through for four years. Jane just wasn’t like that, though. She wanted to help her because that was just the kind of person she was.
They’d covered the beds full of supplies with blue tarps he’d found in the garage and strapped them down to conceal the contents. It probably wouldn’t fool people, though. They drove through an area full of industrial corporations, a steel mill, and old warehouses. Words like ‘zombie,’ ‘infected,’ and ‘night crawlers’ were scrawled in black and white paint on their brick facades. Other messages like ‘get out’ and ‘we’re all dead’ were spray painted, as well as the damn, fateful word, “Apokalypsis’.
An ambulance and firetruck sped around them, heedless of traffic in the other lane, which forced some drivers off the road. Two fighter jets swooped low overhead and kept going. The sound of heavy gunfire like a tank or howitzer or something similar boomed behind them, probably no more than ten blocks away. In front of him, her father must’ve picked up the pace because Brian did so, as well.
They turned left, and two people flagged him down to stop. One had a gun.
“Roman!” Steph screamed and leaned far into Connor in the middle seat.
Roman floored it and blew the stop sign altogether. A huge cargo plane flew over the tops of the tall buildings, rattling the truck’s windows. Roman kept going. He didn’t want to get separated from her father or Jane.
They were in the danger zone now, but her father did not slow his pace. Smoke billowed out of a skyrise as they closed in on a vast housing development and neighborhood in the bad area.
“Oh, shit,” Steph swore quietly. Then added, “Roman.”
“I see them,” he said, looking at the same group of young men loitering near a liquor store that had clearly already been looted many times.
“Roman!” she warned again as they began approaching the trucks. The traffic was slowing down for some reason, and they were moving at a snail’s pace. He wanted to scream at the people in front of her father’s truck that this was no time to be rubber-necking.
Gunfire in front of them alerted Roman that they were in danger. He couldn’t pass Brian to see what was going on. He pressed the walkie-talkie feature on his phone and dialed Brian’s number in. No signal. He had nothing.
“Damn it!”
In front of him, Brian jumped out of the truck and ran toward the lead truck. The second he did so, the men from the curb sprinted toward Brian’s truck with the intention of either taking it, the women, or their supplies or all three.
“Stay here! Steph, shoot anyone that approaches and don’t hesitate,” he yelled, knowing she had one of her step-father’s .45’s and knew how to use, or so she’d said. He hadn’t asked, but he figured it was safe to assume that she’d killed her step-father.
“Go!”
He got out and fired off a round toward the men approaching Destiny and her mother. They scattered quickly and ran down an alleyway. Then Roman sprinted past the truck where the girls were hugging one another in fear. He kept going to the lead truck. Jane’s father was squatted behind the open driver’s side door firing off rounds into a crowd of people in front of them who were blocking their way and shooting at them. Without even thinking, Roman leaped onto the rear bumper and into the bed, climbing on the boxes until he made it to the cab. There he stood and fired into the same crowd. If they were going to be a threat to Jane, he wanted to be a more significant threat. After four rounds from the shotgun, and a healthy supply from Brian and her father, the crowd dispersed and took off. Another air raid siren went off, closer this time. Then heavy artillery boomed so hard it shook the ground beneath him.
“Night crawlers!” a woman from the crowd they’d just been shooting at screamed in fear. She was pointing past Roman, behind him.
“Connor,” he whispered to himself and jumped over the side of the truck’s bed.
“Back to your trucks! Move! Move! Move!” her father bellowed like a drill sergeant.
As he ran toward his own vehicle in what seemed like slow motion, Roman could see them. They weren’t afraid of the daylight. It was broad daylight. They were functioning just fine, or sort of. They did not move with the fluidity of a normal, fully cognizant human being or the speed he’d seen at night but that of someone with a deteriorating loss of motor skills. Then he noticed that many of them were shielding their eyes from the sun and shuffling and even running into one another. They were intent on reaching the trucks, the hoard of people in the street, and anything that got in their way. A few of them had knives, hatchets, or sharp pieces of lumber. He heard cries of terror and pain as they took down one person after the other in the former bad end of town, which was soon to be the void-of-the-human-race end of town when they were done moving through. Perhaps they were slower during the day, but they were still out. And the sounds they made were worse than any horror flick production ever could’ve come up with.
They were attacking people along the street. They were thirty yards from his truck. Two made it to the horse trailer and were trying to open it. The horses inside kicked and screamed and cried out in pure fear of the mindless humans. He knew horses could sense danger, and they were sensing it right now. So was he. The crawlers probably saw the horses as a source of food, and the horses intuited their precarious situation.
He heard Stephanie scream and picked up the pace. He ran to the other side of the truck and shot one. He wasn’t sure if it was one, but the man was trying to open the truck door. Whether it was a man or a former man, he went down hard and did not get back up. They were also running toward his driver’s side door. No time to get to it, he climbed over Stephanie and Connor. He slammed it into gear and glanced in the rearview mirror. They were all over Noah’s truck and within feet from his own.
“Lock it!” he yelled at her, to which she promptly pushed the locking mechanism on the door panel. More artillery fire blasted behind them. The military must’ve been trying to get the situation under control. They were going to get bombed, too, if they didn’t get out of this neighborhood.
In front of them, Brian peeled out. Roman took a deep breath and quickly accelerated away from the scene, too. Her father was getting off the path slightly by skirting around and taking different side roads, but Roman trusted that he knew what he was doing.
“Is Noah behind us?” he barked. When Steph didn’t answer, he said it more forcefully. “Is he?”
“No, he’s…wait, yes, there he is!” she shouted.
He dialed Jane, and she picked up, “Are you okay? Are you both okay?”
“Yes, we’re okay. Are you guys? Is Noah back there? We can’t see anything. It’s getting smoky up here. We’re going into the war zone. My dad’s trying to get us around it, though.”
“Yeah, we’re cool. He’s with us. Just keep going. Don’t stop.”
“We didn’t. People ran out and swarmed the truck. Dad hit a few of them, but they just kept coming. They were trying to rob us.”
“The freeways looked even worse,” he said.
“Yeah, Dad said they were the other night. We’ve only got ten more miles till we get outta this.”
“Stay safe,” he said.
“You, too, Roman,” she answered. “I…”
The phone went dead. “Jane? Jane? Damn.”
/> Beside him, his little brother was weeping quietly.
“It’s okay, little buddy,” he said and put one arm around him. “We’re almost out of it. Hang in there with me.”
“What’s wrong with those people, Roman?” he questioned as only a child would. He forgot Connor hadn’t seen one yet.
He sighed, “They’re just sick, kiddo.”
“Like Mom?”
His gaze shot to Steph’s over his head, and he offered a subtle shake of his head.
“No, different kind. Just try to relax, bud,” he told his little brother. “Close your eyes. Take a nap, okay? We’ll be there soon.”
Connor nodded and sniffed. Roman wished that Stephanie would take care of his little brother, but she was not the maternal type. She never was. Perhaps, after now knowing what he did of her- things she’d never told him, not even when they were dating- she didn’t have any love left in her for anything or anyone.
They sped down an alley and took a hard left at the end of it. Roman could see the road they needed to connect with in the distance. They kept pushing forward. Another infected man threw himself at their truck, and Roman ran him over. They even bounced in their seats. He could tell for sure that one was sick. He had blood running down his mouth and a crazed look about him. Roman didn’t care. Anyone else who approached the truck would be handled the same way. Infected or otherwise. Twenty yards to their east, a brick building took a direct mortar shell and rocked the truck in its frame. Connor cried out.
“We’re okay. Hang on,” he said as another smaller group of people or night crawlers ran at their truck. “Connor, close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Do it!”
Brian didn’t stop, either. They both took the group head on and kept going. The sickening sound of their bodies hitting the front and sides of the truck and bouncing off was the stuff of nightmares. Twenty minutes later and they were out of the danger zone and leaving the sounds of bombing behind them.
“Holy shit,” Steph exclaimed as she looked in the large mirror outside her window. “Oh, my God.”
Roman mimicked her and looked in the rearview and then out his driver’s mirror. He was stunned, as well. It looked like the whole city was on fire. The military was, indeed, dropping bombs. The bombs, though, were something extremely incendiary as her father had eluded to. Another boom made the ground rattle under the truck like an earthquake, causing orange and green flames to lick the early morning sky and engulf entire city blocks behind them. It was a horrific sight to behold. That could’ve been them if they were still down in that part of the city right now. Roman had to remain calm.
“What is it, Roman?” Connor asked and attempted to twist in his seat.
“Nothing, bud,” he said and forced him to turn back around. “Don’t look. Just stay in your seatbelt. We’re out now. We’re just going on a little trip with Jane and her dad, okay? We’re going on an adventure out to the forest.”
Connor nodded and snuggled closer as if he were afraid. Stephanie sat staring at the carnage in the mirrors as if in a daze. She even turned in her seat and took pictures with her phone. Roman couldn’t afford to. He had to keep his eyes on the trucks in front of him. He’d never been to the area where her father lived so deep in the hills of Appalachian country. It was generally considered to be a depressed, poor region, but for some reason, her father liked it there.
They drove straight through, ran into a few more problems when they had to come to stoplights that her father mostly ran and expected them to do the same. Then they came to a military checkpoint where her father convinced the guards with a wad of cash and a twenty-four pack of beer to let them through. All four trucks were waved through. Jane called him and told him that the cell service would end soon and that the area her father lived also didn’t get great service. He disconnected and wished again that she was in the cab of the truck with him.
As they drove past the military base, which he was pretty sure didn’t exist until about three weeks ago, Roman was thankful that his little brother had fallen asleep against his arm. They had people sectioned off in there. Some buildings were marked ‘quarantine’ and others, many more others were marked ‘infected.’ The screaming coming from those buildings as they drove past was so bad, he had to turn on the radio so as not to awaken Connor. The broadcast on the radio, however, wasn’t much better. The channels were all set to the same emergency messages of doom and gloom. They were all the same: report to a safe zone, do not go out unless you have to, stay inside, get to an established military zone, watch for signs of infection with neighbors, loved ones and family, do not go on the roads, do not go to the airports because they were closed indefinitely as well as all public transportation. None of it was an uplifting message. There was no hope left in their broadcast. Nobody was trying to put a positive spin on it. This was it. This was how the end began.
Their surroundings became less familiar and a lot more hilly and green. The green wasn’t from designated green spaces and public parks and sprayed chemicals like in his neighborhood. There were farms, miles of fencing, and the houses became few and far between. It was hilly, too. Not like where he lived where it was mostly flat. The hills were tall, and the road twisted and turned sharply and rose and dipped back down steeply. When they finally turned off, the blacktop ended and the gravel started. Then even the farms disappeared and the deep forests began. Every once in a while, Roman would spot a house or shack or small barn or even a trailer. He didn’t see any people, though, which wasn’t a bad thing in this case. They turned again, headed south for another ten miles or so and then made another right. This road was not only gravel, it was rutted, and they had to slow their pace considerably. The lead truck pulled over after about a mile. Then it swerved slightly and almost went in the ditch. He wasn’t sure what her father was doing. They just sat there idling.
Then Jane came running toward him crying out his name. Her hands were covered in blood.
“What the hell?” Roman cursed and got out. “What is it? What happened?” he called out as he closed the gap.
“My father! He was shot! He didn’t tell me! He fell over just now.”
“Shit,” Roman said and ran to the cab of their truck and opened the door.
Her father was, indeed, slumped over on the seat. She must’ve hit the brake and put it in park because he was either dead or passed out. There was blood on his side, and it had run down the driver’s door and onto the floor. He must’ve been hiding it from Jane. Roman didn’t want to scare her any worse than she already was, so he tried to remain calm. He pressed a finger to his neck and got a pulse.
He shouted back to Brian, who was standing beside his truck. “Tell Steph to drive my truck. Follow us.” His friend immediately turned and ran to relay the message. Roman slid in beside her father. “Jane, get in.”
She ran around the other side and got in, propping her father’s head on her lap. “We’re close, Roman. It’s just at the top of this ridge.”
He drove on, and the others followed. “Take off your hoodie and apply heavy pressure to that wound, Jane.”
She did as he said, although Roman wasn’t sure what else they should do. He knew almost nothing about medical care other than going to a hospital. Unfortunately, the nearest hospital was in the city they just left an hour ago. He had to get them stopped and see what his wound looked like. This was going to have to be something they dealt with on their own, having already been through it with his own father. There weren’t life flights anymore. The message on the radio repeatedly said to report into an Army-run medical site and not to go to hospitals anymore. None of it had helped his father or his mother or anyone he knew who was now dead.
“Stop!” she yelled. “This is it. Don’t pass it.”
“Where?” he asked.
“Right there. See it? That’s the driveway.”
She was pointing to a narrow dirt path between two trees.
“Put it in 4x4,” Jane said, to which he
followed orders.
He turned off and drove a few hundred yards straight through the thick forest. Then it became an incline that became a hill that became a steep mountain in which the tires spun out a few times trying to climb. He hoped the others were doing okay with it. He couldn’t worry about that right now. He had to get her dad out of this damn truck and take a look at his wound.
The terrain finally leveled off and opened up, and Roman could see for what seemed like miles. Then the trip became just as treacherous as they wound back down the mountain at sharp curves and steep drop-offs outside the windows. It finally evened out and flattened slightly. Trees were cut back, and there was a small yard and brick patio near the house. A shed off to the left held firewood and a tractor. The log home was small but cozy with a big front porch. Roman didn’t have time to take it all in, though. He pulled right up to the house and got out. The others were trailing behind him and slowly pulling in.
“Get Brian, please. And Destiny’s mom!” he shouted to Jane.
A dog in a kennel barked at them and wagged its tail.
“Brutus,” she told him before rushing away.
His friend helped him carry Gyles into the house that Jane first unlocked and held open the storm door for them.
“Over here!” she said and rushed around them to the sofa.
“Put something down on it first, or we’re going to have blood everywhere,” Brian ordered her. “A blanket or something.”
She pulled two throw blankets from the back of the sofa and spread them out. Then they gently eased him down.
“Get his shirt off,” Roman said as he ran back out to the third truck to grab his backpack. Then he climbed into the bed and located one of the storage tubs they’d labeled ‘medical supplies.’
