by Howard, Bob
By the time the sun was past the middle of the sky they had found a road that led straight west. The sun sat above the middle of the road as if it was a street sign that had WEST printed on it. The road was also paved, so they were able to run much faster than they had before, and before the sun had reached the treetops to the west, they saw a red, white, and blue sign that said they were approaching I-26.
There was an overpass ahead that could only be crossing the interstate, so they knew they had made it, and as they approached it they saw there were several men along the right side of the overpass. They appeared to be heavily armed, but they were keeping their heads low beneath the concrete wall that ran the length of the overpass. One of them had binoculars to his eyes and was looking down the interstate in the direction of Columbia.
Caution made the Hopkins survivors hesitant about yelling to the men even though the guns would give them a measure of safety. Maybe it was the way the day had begun, but right now it seemed that the best way to stay alive was to be inconspicuous, and they could afford to be cautious.
They moved to the left side of the road into a ditch that ran along the shoulder. The men would probably be able to see them if they got much closer, so their newly elected mayor motioned for everyone to sit on the ground and get some rest. He climbed back up to the road and laid down in the grass where he could see the overpass. After a few moments, some of the other men crawled up and laid down next to him.
It was a good thing for the others not to see. The men on the overpass had company, and they didn’t know it yet. On the far side of the overpass a group of about twenty infected dead had begun to cross the road. They were at the middle when they saw the living, breathing men hiding along the wall. They didn’t need any further invitation, and they shambled in their direction.
Before the infected had even reached the overpass, they were joined by at least another twenty, and there was no way the men would be able to escape in that direction. One of the men spotted them. He alerted the others and started backing away at the same time.
From their hiding place the Hopkins survivors watched in horror as the men backed in their direction, but it wasn’t the sight of the infected dead on the other side of the overpass that had them so startled. It was the large group of infected that emerged from the trees on the other side of the road directly in front of them.
They weren’t exposed yet, but they would be in only a few minutes as the infected began to come up from the shoulder of the road only two lanes from where they were hiding. They couldn’t even yell a warning to the men on the overpass without giving away their position.
A gunshot rang out from the overpass, and one of the infected across the interstate fell over. One of the men had panicked and opened fire. The infected were only one lane away from the Hopkins survivors when they turned in the direction of the gunshot. When the second shot was fired, it might as well have been a dinner bell. The infected in the road were joined by dozens more that were already in the ditch on the other side of the road, and they turned as one toward the men.
Down on the overpass the armed men hadn’t seen the group in front of the Hopkins survivors. They had lined up across the road and were carefully taking aim at the infected that were coming from the other side. They were being efficient, but it soon became obvious to them that this wasn’t just a little horde blocking the road, and they decided to retreat. That was when they saw what was behind them.
As the infected in front of them turned and walked toward the overpass, the men eased back into the ditch with their fellow survivors. No explanation was needed as they reversed their direction and followed the ditch back the way they had come. They made it to the first crest in the road, and when they looked up ahead, they knew they could run, but they also knew they wouldn’t get very far. For miles down the road they had already traveled, the infected were crossing the centerline, and as the shots continued to ring out behind them, hundreds of them turned to face their way.
******
When the people of Hopkins jumped from their floating town onto dry land and ran for their lives, they assumed everyone came with them, but there were a few who believed they couldn’t outrun a horde no matter how slow the infected were. Their best bet was to hide and wait for the infected to pass.
From the insides of their homes they watched through gaps in the boards as thousands of the infected walked by on the shoulders of the lake, and what seemed like just as many crowded into the water. Of course they couldn’t swim, but they couldn’t drown, either. They splashed, they pushed, they pulled, and they even walked on the backs of others, but they somehow managed to reach the shore and walk up onto dry land.
The infected that had been in the lake ranged from soaking wet all the way to full of water. The ones that were just wet were quick to resume the chase, and they followed the trail left behind by the horde. Those that were full of water were too heavy to chase anything. As a matter of fact, they were too heavy to walk. Some managed to crawl, and as they did, water of all different colors leaked from the openings in their bodies.
The survivors hiding in the former town of Hopkins on The Lake were forced to tie strips of cloth around their faces because of the smell. One cough would be a death sentence to all of them.
They heard gunshots later in the day, but then there was nothing but the sounds of the infected as the sun lowered toward the trees to the west. The constant groaning, splashing, and slapping of wet bodies against the water and the shore was deafening, but the gunshots seemed to almost invigorate the dead. They were determined to reach their prey before, and now they appeared to pick up speed. It was likely to be nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of the frightened people, but if the infected were moving faster, it meant they wouldn’t have to wait much longer.
When the moon was high over the place where the town had once stood on pilings it gradually became quiet. A few of them dared to move quietly from room to room and whispered in voices hardly louder than breathing. They passed the word that there were still some infected in the water, but they weren’t moving. When crickets and frogs began their nightly rituals, they knew it was safe to come out of hiding.
A woman who had been hiding in a place facing the forest behind them said she hadn’t seen an infected come out of the woods for hours, and it had been at least that long since she had seen any movement in the water.
They passed around containers of fresh water they had been carefully protecting from contamination, as well as the few pieces of dried deer meat that had been cured and wrapped in preparation for this day. Someone produced a loaf of bread that was passed around with gratitude.
The main topic of discussion was why the others had jumped and ran from the town. The plan all along had been to stay on the rooftops unless you could get into a building and hide inside one of the many safe rooms they had made. Jumping and running wasn’t part of the plan. Then again neither was breaking free of the supports that held the town in the middle of the lake and floating to the opposite shore.
Word was spread that they should stay in hiding for the whole night. It was uncomfortable, and it was hard to sleep curled up in a corner made of rough wood, but it was better than being chased through the woods at night. No one had any faith that the gunshots or the sounds made as their friends ran through the woods were signs of anything good. With a horde that size, nothing short of the sound of continuous automatic weapons fire would be reassuring.
Their decision to sit tight proved to be the right one on several occasions throughout the long night. The crickets would go silent, and everyone held their breath. The unmistakable slow march of an infected dead would drag on for the better part of an hour and then fade into the distance. The crickets and frogs would begin making noise again, and everyone relaxed…until the next time.
They thought they were discovered when a child whined to her mother that she didn’t feel good. Her voice was followed by a moan somewhere outside, everyone stayed still for
so long that it seemed like the infected would hear their muscles begin to creak. An infected approached the dark, primitive buildings that had been skillfully placed on top of the poles in the middle of the lake. It couldn’t possibly know that people had lived inside, but if it had heard the child, it wouldn’t leave until it found them.
With the moonlight behind it, they could see its monstrous features peering between broken boards. At least six people were within its field of vision if they moved, and the strain was taking its toll. The thing outside took a few more steps, and everyone realized it had managed to navigate the water and mud to somehow get onto the main platform that supported their homes. It was within inches of falling into the lake, but it was even closer to the door that would open easily if it was pushed.
When the town had slid off of the wooden supports that held it above the water, it had twisted and turned. Nails had popped loose. Boards had shattered. Even worse, doors had sprung free from their frames. There was nothing holding the door shut except for the gravity due to the slight down angle of the room.
The infected dead found a larger gap between some boards and reached through with an arm that was missing most of its skin. It didn’t know the difference between a door and a hole in the wall, and that was a good thing because it was only a few feet from the door.
The hand groped in the dark only inches from the hair that hung from the back of the little girl who had whined. She was holding her breath, and her mother shuddered as she watched the hand come closer each time the infected dead pushed a little harder to get through the gap in the boards.
When the hand stopped groping, it just seemed as if the fingers were pointing at the child. It didn’t move closer, it just pointed. Then it backed steadily away until it went out through the hole.
“Mommy?”
“Shhhh.”
The sound telling her to be quiet didn’t come from her mother. It came from the hole in the wall. A face that was framed by moonlight appeared at the hole, and a finger was pressed over its lips.
“How may people in this building?” asked the voice in a hushed tone.
The people inside could only go by what they knew before the sun went down, and one of them whispered back that there were six of them.
“Get some sleep,” said the face outside the hole. “We’ll move out at sunrise when we can see where we’re going.”
******
Iris and her companions had gained on the horde that was following I-26. They were amazed by the devastation left behind by so many of the infected. There was no way to imagine how many thousands of them were already on the interstate, but the noise they made was drawing more from the trees that bordered the interstate on both sides.
They discovered a fire tower in the middle of the forest, and despite their fear of becoming trapped, they wanted to see how big the horde really was. It was risky to go up when there were so many infected dead in the area because they would never go away if they saw a live person above them. The infected were mindless, and their singular purpose made them stay wherever they had last seen a living person. If you could last longer than them, you would see that they would rot before they would leave.
Iris and the others hurried up the tall flights of stairs to the top of the tower and surveyed the green trees that stretched away in all directions. Great swaths were cut through the forests where the infected had traveled in large groups, and smaller trails marred the landscape where the infected had followed each other in single file. Alone or together they all had the same goal, and that was to join the massive horde that moved like flowing lava down I-26 toward Charleston.
“Someone remind me why we have to follow the biggest zombie horde in the country,” said George.
Iris didn’t exactly give him a withering stare. It was more like an icy glance. She had explained it to all four of them, but it had been meant for George in particular. He had managed to hang onto his sense of humor despite the way life had turned out, but sometimes he didn’t know when to quit. Iris told him not to test the Chief when it came to the topic of zombies.
“Okay, infected. Someone remind me why we’re following them.”
His wife gave him an elbow to get his attention. Her icy glance was a bit stronger than Iris’, and he realized they were being serious.
“Sorry, Iris. It’s just my way of coping with things. You’re worried about the Chief, aren’t you?”
Iris had been wondering which was crazier, following a horde or being in the path of a horde. At least someone in the path of a horde could honestly say they didn’t know they were coming, but the last time she saw the Chief he had a plane. That meant he knew about the horde. As a matter of fact, more than once she had looked at the sky thinking she might see his plane.
“Anybody want to make a guess about that?”
Yuni had her binoculars at her eyes, holding them with one hand. She was using her other to point at a gap in the trees.
Iris aimed her binoculars in the same direction. She could see the gap, but she assumed it was nothing more than a lake. Then she saw what Yuni had to be talking about. At one end of the gap she could just make out a crude steeple on a building. It was at an angle that meant the building had collapsed under it.
“Post apocalyptic,” she said. “Notice the gaps in the boards? None of the wood was milled. It looks like it was just shaped.”
“So someone took the time to build a house in the middle of a forest where thousands of infected dead happen to be,” said George.
“They could have done it back at the beginning,” said Sora. “ After the initial spread of the infected I seem to recall we saw more of them on roads than we did in the forests. People stayed on the roads, so the infected did the same. This is a very remote stretch through here, so they could have pulled it off.”
Sherry said, “I remember this place. It was some kind of recreational place owned by the Army. Their dependents could camp here, and I believe they had some decent cabins already. That could be part of a cabin.”
“How come you know about this place?” asked George.
His wife was always surprising him with useful trivia, but it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him. She was a travel agent before the dead started rising.
Sherry locked eyes with George.
“Wait for it,” said Yuni. “Wait for it.”
When it dawned on George, he really did offer up a good defense.
“Forgive me for forgetting that there were actually careers over five or six years ago.”
“We have company,” said Sora.
He indicated a downward direction where at least six infected were navigating the steps at the bottom.
All four of the others spread out in the tower and checked the sides.
“Anything walking around the perimeter?” asked Iris.
They reported all clear which meant they needed to handle it as quietly as possible. If they could dispose of this group without drawing attention, it would give them time to get out of the area.
“Okay, everyone. Let’s make this as fast as possible. They’re already making noise, so we have to put them down quick and then keep going.”
Iris was still their leader, and they liked the way she didn’t hesitate. She didn’t need to tell them it would be done without bullets. They all shouldered their rifles and pulled machetes from their belts.
“Which way when we get to the bottom?” asked Sherry.
“Towards your campground. We have to see what happened there, as if we don’t already know. Could be survivors, though.”
Iris gave Sora a nod since he was first in line at the top of the stairs. His wife followed, and Iris had to admit to herself that she was impressed with how quiet they were on the metal stairs. She knew that people used to think if you were Japanese then you knew martial arts, but she had never asked them. She just got to see for herself that they were light on their feet. George and Sherry were doing fine, too. She hoped she wasn’t being the loudes
t one.
When they reached the group of infected they had only made it up two sets of stairs. That gave them a good advantage because others didn’t have a chance to hear them. If they had gotten halfway or higher, they could have attracted others for miles around.
Sora cut the first one across the chest, missing his target, but it was enough to send them down like bowling pins. He followed them and slashed with more accuracy, but he was cursing at himself for giving them all the chance to groan one more time.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, husband. You made it easier on all of us.”
Five of them against six infected was pretty good odds, but they took the last set of stairs in leaps and charged into the woods.
Sora was sure they would run into more infected any moment because it was hard to be quiet in the dense brush. He ran fast but watched for a trail and the infected at the same time. There was plenty of evidence that they had come through the area in large numbers, but if he was reading their damage right, he and the others were crossing their trail instead of following it.
He took a chance and glanced back to ask the others if they were thinking the same thing, so he wasn’t watching when he reached the clearing around the old campsites. Without the dense brush to slow him down, he reminded the rest of his group of a baseball player sliding head first into second base. His momentum made him slide to a stop at the feet of several infected dead, and more began moving his way.
George had passed Yuni when they had cleared the area below the tower, and for all his jokes, Yuni would never have suspected the agility and speed he displayed to save her husband.
The first infected had practically fallen over onto Sora as he slid to a stop, and if he had been face down, he couldn’t have protected himself. There was only a split second, but it was all he needed to get his blade across his chest and aimed at the face. The blade went through the rotten teeth and split the jaw on both sides. He shoved upward and was amazed to see the top of the creature’s head disappear.
