A Long Walk

by Traverse Davies

  In the end they lost three. Robert wasn’t sure what it was, maybe pneumonia, hell, maybe TB for all he knew. Tom was one of the three, so their medical capability was minimal. Robert wondered why he didn’t care, but that was something he’d become used to, so he didn’t give it a whole lot of thought. Ironically Steve, the first one to fall, also managed to recover and was riding with them. He was weak though, and needed frequent breaks. It felt like they were losing all the time they had managed to gain with the horses.

  They hit the ocean a few days later. The north shore of the mainland. It was desolate. They started heading west, hugging the coast.

  One of the horses died. Robert had been riding hard for days and one night when he stopped one of the horses just lay down, dead. Robert looked at the horses and realized that he could see their ribs, all of them. The men were ragged and thin, Mona looked like one of the corpses. All of them had dark circles under their eyes and hollowed out cheeks. It was a combination of exhaustion, dehydration, and starvation. His drive told him to keep going, but the pragmatic side of him said that they would need to find food, maybe rest for a few days. He thought they were somewhere around the New Brunswick border. There was a small wooden house, dilapidated even before things fell apart. Now it was barely more than a shell. The door was slightly ajar. Robert walked in, baton in hand. There was a zombie, an old man, probably a hermit from the look of the place. He smashed it in the head with his baton over and over again. Finally, its skull collapsed. "All clear." Robert called out to the men. They came inside. Mona followed, timid and meek.

  The place was a mess. There was a stench to any space that had held a zombie for any length of time, but this place was worse than that. It was obvious that the former owner was a hoarder. Robert started tidying as soon as he got the men inside. It wouldn’t do. That kind of disorder would negatively affect discipline. If they were going to stay there for a few days they would need to get it straightened up.

  He worked for seven hours straight, his energy never flagging. There was a large store of canned food, mostly home preserves. The place was in rough shape, and there were some bizarre finds among the piles of detritus, including at least one dead cat. It appeared to have been dead for a long time, years probably.

  He got the place sorted though, even uncovered a real bed for him and Mona to share. The men made do with the sagging sofa or a patch of floor. It was better than they had had for a very long time. Real walls, windows that closed. The door was swollen, so it didn’t quite shut, but they pushed and then pushed more, and in the end it almost closed. They used chord to make sure it was held shut.

  There was a large patch of grass for the horses, and not another house in sight, they hadn’t passed one in days either.

  Robert wasn’t certain exactly where they were. Somewhere in the backwoods between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. He had a map, but it was hard to reconcile the landscape he encountered with the one on the map. Not that he wasn’t experienced at navigation, but having to avoid population at every turn meant that they missed a lot of landmarks. He had learned, through bitter experience that the main roads were usually not worth it. They had tried sticking to the highway for a while, but kept having to lose zombie clusters. These back roads sometimes had signs, other times not so much. All of them were in terrible condition.

  Robert settled in to rest and recover. The men were grateful for the respite, and it was clear this place hadn’t had electricity before the apocalypse, so not much had changed for it. There was a tub, a well that used a bucket to haul water, a wood stove, and an outhouse. On the second day Robert cleaned the tub and then boiled water so he could have a hot bath. It was a luxury beyond belief. He invited Mona to join him.

  The men and the horses started to look better after three days. He gave them two more. The horses were more the impetus than the men. After that they had exhausted all the food in the house, probably a winters worth for the original owner. They got on the move again, heading north.

  Robert hit the bridge to PEI late in the day. It was a cold day, with clear blue skies. The few clouds were light, high wisps. The air smelled crisp and clear, the way only a fall day can. The bridge was barricaded with a bunch of vehicles, far too many to clear. Somebody had tried to fortify it, successfully from the look of things. It was going to require them to climb to get across, not something the horses were going to be able to do. Robert set up camp under the bridge putting off the decision as to what to do with the horses as long as possible.

  There was a nature trail with a little visitors centre right next to them. Nothing much, just a small building with a gift shop and some displays. It had several vending machines that were untouched. Robert decided that the vending machines were free now, so he smashed in their front panels.

  Most of the stuff was stale, but the pop was cold at least. Nothing worse than warm pop.

  Robert set a watch on the approach to the bridge. Jasper had to come this way. Robert still wanted to punish him. The men had been disrespectful ever since Jasper left, clearly they didn’t respect his authority fully with Jasper still running around defiant. It was worth waiting a little bit before making the crossing. He also sent a man to scout the bridge itself. It was a full days’ journey across, and the same coming back.

  They hunkered in to wait for something else to happen.

  The scout on the bridge finally came back. "The bridge is clear past the barricade, no zombies, no people. Somebody set it up pretty good though."

  "How so? What can we use?"

  "There's a kind of fort in the middle. Two rows of cars, more stacked on top, a bus with a wood stove in the middle of them. Looks like it's meant for a garrison, but nobody there now. Far end's blocked too."

  Robert decided that the bridge was an even better ambush point. It would give Jasper nowhere to run. He killed the horses, slitting their throats, wouldn't do to let anyone else get them, and he started across. The climb over the initial barrier was impossible for a zombie, but fairly easy for a human.

  The journey to the centre took longer than anticipated. It started raining after they had been on the bridge for an hour, and it kept raining most of the time they were traveling. The winds picked up as well, and there was no place to get out of it. By the time they reached the barricade it was full night and all of them were freezing. Mona collapsed just shy of their destination and Robert carried her the last little bit.

  They set up for the wait. The men built small fire in the wood stove that was in the bus. The windows were covered in blankets, and some enterprising soul had actually set up a mass heater. The thing wasn’t the warmest in the world, but so long as your butt was on the bench it was reasonably comfortable, and it was dry. Mona came to after a bit and Robert made sure she had some warm tea, one of the only things they had to drink other than water.

  Approaching Storm

  The weather was bad. Jasper and his group were moving slowly because of it. Every kilometre was a struggle. It had turned cold a few days ago, and then colder still. The pelting rain meant that all of them were soaked to the bone, bundles of sodden misery. The bridge was close though. They had spotted it from a high point a few hours back, before the rain got really, really bad. Now the visibility was terrible, limiting their world to a small sphere, the bridge far outside of it.

  Jasper was shivering, a deep bone chill setting in. It was sapping his strength, almost sapping his will to live. Days like that are awful when you have a place to go, shelter, warmth. When you have no respite, no hope of respite, it's so much worse. They were discovering the lessons every frontier person, every homeless person, has always know about how hard it can be when you are exhausted and chilled to your bones, you are hungry, tired, always so tired, dirty, at the edge of your resources. Jasper wanted to lie down. Wanted maybe wasn’t the right term. He looked at level patches of ground with longing, like a long lost lover, like the source of all hope and light and truth in the world.

  The finally hit the
point where the bridge was visible again. Very close, agonizingly close. There were a few zombies clustered around the entrance, but the entrance itself was blocked. For the thousandth time Jasper wished he had his sword back, or even better, Snow padding along silently next to him.

  "Hold up. We need to wait until the rain lifts, or morning, something. I can't take any zombies right now."

  "You got it bossman," Matt said, "Morning it is."

  They found a sheltered spot on the approach to the bridge where they could hole up for the night. It wasn’t much, a small overhang. The rain wasn't falling directly on them at least. They huddled together for warmth. They didn’t want to set up any kind of shelter because it would attract zombies, and they didn't have nearly the energy to fight them.

  They spent a miserable night huddled together. They were sheltered enough that they were getting warmer instead of colder, but barely. The next morning dawned still grey and empty. The zombies at the bridge had wandered off in the night, losing interest in whatever had kept them there.

  They got themselves ready. Setting a fire was challenging with the wet conditions, but Jasper had carved out some heartwood and some tinder on his way, and he had taken a lighter and some cotton balls and Vaseline from one of the farmhouses. The fire breathed new life into them. Sleep had been scarce for days. At least it looked like the barricade was keeping the bridge zombie free.

  They climbed over. Some of the scattered zombies headed back in their direction, but they were over long before the zombies could reach them.

  The bridge was long. It had high concrete walls along the entire length, meaning that most of the time you couldn’t really see the ocean if you were walking, although you could glimpse it a fair ways distant. The bridge also curved, fairly gently. It was clear of obstructions at first. After the barrier at the beginning there were no vehicles to contend with. They walked in silence.

  After a few hours of walking Jasper spotted a second barricade. A monstrous tower of vehicles in the middle of the bridge, three cars tall. A gunshot rang out, Matt dropped like a sack, blood spurting from his thigh. There was no cover at all, just the flat deck of the bridge. Jasper ran forward, zigzagging as best he could. The rest of the group followed.

  Shots kept ringing out, and Sasha fell. Then they hit the barricade. Jasper could see the rifle through a car window. He reached in and grabbed it, his heavy gloves sparing his hands from burning on the hot barrel. He pulled forward and the gun came out in his hands. There was yelling from the other side, and a second gun barrel came down over the top of the barricade. Candice, small and lithe, surged up and grabbed that gun as well. The gun came down with her, and the owner came down too. He hadn’t been braced properly. Jasper recognized Steve from the camp. Candice drew a hunting knife across his throat, blood spurting along the line of the blade.

  Fuck.

  It was Robert obviously, and whatever remained of his forces. Of course it was. As soon as Jasper stopped to think about it, it was obvious. They were headed to the same place, they were mounted, they made it sooner. Hell, he’d seen them pass. If only he hadn’t been so exhausted and overcome with hope at seeing the bridge he would have expected it, would have taken precautions. He should have been prepared, should have had weapons at the ready. He knew better, knew not to let his guard down. Now Sasha and Matt were wounded, maybe dying, maybe dead.

  He looked back, saw Matt crawling forward. Sasha wasn’t getting up. Naomi was at the barricade, down against the ground, using the barricade itself for what little cover it could provide.

  It occurred to Jasper that if this barricade was designed against zombies some of the doors might be unlocked. He found a car in the bottom row and tried the door. It didn’t open, so he tried another. The third one came open in his hands. The frame was bent and warped from the weight of the cars above it, but it opened! Jasper ducked in, holding the stolen rifle in his arm. Candice appeared to be doing the same thing, but through an open window in the second row of cars. He peered through the far window. The other side of the barricade had a bus, and five people. Mona was one of them, and Robert was another, deteriorated even further since the last time Jasper had seen him. The last three were guys he didn’t know very well, other than from when they had grabbed him at the camp. All three of them looked exhausted, although Mona looked worse than any of them. Her face was badly bruised and she was back to the weight she had been when he first met her, if not even thinner.

  He took aim at Robert, careful not to let the barrel stick out past the window. The angle was terrible. The roof of the car being as crushed as it was meant that he couldn’t really sit up, he had to half crouch to bring the rifle barrel around, and Robert was well off to the far side of the barrier. Finally, he had the shot lined up. He took it. Robert moved just as his finger squeezed the trigger, and the shot missed - by slightly less than it would have if Robert hadn’t moved. Jasper was inexperienced with guns and the shot was badly off target.

  After that things really went to hell. Robert moved in while his men opened fire. Jasper ducked down into the passenger side, as close to the floor as he could get. Bullets ripped through the side of the car, the roof, everywhere. He felt a stinging burn in his left shoulder. Finally, the bullets stopped. Jasper slowly moved up, peering through a large hole in the door. His adrenaline was coursing, making everything seem clearer, sharper. The pain in his shoulder was distant, almost a non-concern. Robert was standing, rifle aimed in his direction, clearly waiting for movement. He decided to wait it out, make them come to him. After a few minutes with nothing happening Robert said, "Go check it out. I think we got the motherfucker. Let's see you come back from that one asshole!"

  One of the men went to check on Jasper’s car. The man made his way up the barricade.

  Jasper drew his knife and waited. Hunched over the blade so his bloody shoulder showed, and the knife was hidden. He hoped he would look like a corpse until the man was too close to do anything.

  The door opened. “Hey, we got the fucker. He’s dead”.

  “Make sure,” Robert said.

  The soldier started poking Jasper with the barrel of his gun. Jasper stayed limp even though the hot metal burned him. The soldier moved the barrel aside and reached out with his left hand to check Jasper’s pulse. Jasper spun up and slammed the blade of his knife into the man’s windpipe while grabbing his rifle. He gurgled and foamy blood started to trickle down his throat. Jasper backed out of the car, taking the extra rifle with him. He was worried about Candice. He hadn’t seen or heard anything from her since she made her way into the car. Nothing he could do though.

  The barricade was a great defence against zombies, but poorly designed for human opponents. It didn’t exactly give Jasper and his group an advantage, but not a major disadvantage either. All the car bodies that became murder holes when dealing with the undead were just cover with openings on both sides when dealing with humans carrying guns.

  Jasper made his way along the surface to the same corner Matt had crawled to. Naomi had made it over to Matt as well. Sasha was still down, not moving.

  They heard movement from the other side of the barricade. Matt was breathing ragged and shallow, lending even more urgency to Jasper's mind. Jasper realized that he only had one play left. He needed another car with an open door and a gas tank on his side of the barrier. He found one after a few minutes. The door didn’t open, but the window didn’t exist and it was enough. He climbed in, silently and popped the gas tank. No idea how much gas was in the vehicle, but if there was anything it should work.

  He moved slowly, painfully slowly, to get out. He could hear climbing on the other side of the barricade, he knew he needed to be faster than them. He got out and called to Candice, “Get the fuck out of there. NOW!”

  She did as he asked, dropping to the bridge deck quickly. Jasper took out a lighter and piece of cotton ball he had coated with Vaseline. He lit it and dropped it into the gas tank. It sounded like whoever was climbing was almost
to the top.

  For a minute it seemed like nothing was going to happen, then he heard a whoomph and flames shot out of the tank. A second later they shot out of the hood, catching the fill material. The smell was horrible, an overwhelming odor of chemicals burning. The acrid smoke spread fast. Jasper grabbed Matt and started pulling him away. The flames spread fast. In minutes half the cars were on fire.

  There were a few small explosions, not big Hollywood ones, just little ones as gas heated and the pressure blew the tanks. A few cars fell on each side, still burning. The flames kept growing hotter and hotter, they had to back off. Once they reached Sasha Candice checked her pulse. Nothing. She was dead already. They left her there and backed off even further. Matt was shot in the leg, but he was bleeding heavily and showing symptoms of shock. Jasper did his best, put pressure on the wound, tried to wake him up enough to get some sugar into him. In a few minutes Matt’s breathing took on a different tone, then it stopped.

  There was no way they could get to the barricade. The flames were hundreds of feet high. There was also probably no way back. All the light would attract zombies, and while they probably couldn’t get through the barricade at the shore side of the bridge anytime soon, they would be clustered around it, in huge numbers. Eventually the barricade would fall by sheer weight of numbers, and they would need to be gone by then.

  The fire burned for hours. Jasper stayed close enough to be warmed by it. Luckily the wind was carrying the smoke away from them, over to Robert’s side of the bridge. That also meant that providing it burnt out before the zombies got to his group he should be able to make it across, Robert would have to back off if he survived the smoke and the firestorm. They waited, because there was nothing else they could do.