A Small World

by R. S. Merritt

  “You know it’s weird, but I still have a really hard time littering. Nothing at all on the radio.” Kyler said while he sipped on his own warm bottle of water.

  “Did you try AM and FM or just the FM channels?” Mike was leaning back in the seat now trying to focus on not puking up the water he’d just downed. Kyler leaned forward to look at the radio dials thoughtfully.

  “I thought I did but not so sure now. This truck has like five different ways to look at different radio channels.” He screwed around with the radio again to figure out how to scan the AM channels. This time when he started scanning through the frequencies they hit on a broadcast. Kyler squealed like a six-year-old catching their first glimpse of Mickey Mouse on a Disney trip. Mike gave him a weird look before focusing on the broadcast. A man with an Australian sounding accent was speaking.

  “…the virus has spread. It’s global and unstoppable. We’ve setup this loop to broadcast daily for as long as the solar holds out. We’ve left to try and locate our families. No one’s contacted our station with any additional details since the outbreak. We’ll leave this repeating the advice we were asked to pass along.

  Do not engage anyone who seems sick or disoriented. Find a safe place with food and water and remain there. If you have a weapon be prepared to use it to defend yourself and your loved ones. Help one another as much as you can. May god have mercy on us all.

  Melinda, James, Madison and Ashley. If any of you are listening to this know that your dad is coming for you. I love you.”

  This message will repeat again immediately. I’m sorry we don’t have more information to provide.

  “Well that’s not super encouraging is it?” Mike said after they listened to the message all the way through twice.

  Kyler said nothing. He pretty much agreed with Mike that the message was about as useful as finding nothing. Maybe less useful since it seemed to suck the hope out of him. If the virus was global then there wasn’t the chance of being able to start a new life in Australia or Europe or Antarctica or wherever. It meant they were stuck. It meant they were going to have to fight like mad just to find other survivors then hope those survivors didn’t shoot them in the head after all that effort.

  Mike cranked the truck up after resting his eyes for an additional fifteen minutes. They pulled silently out of the little area they’d spent the night in and got back on the road. Now that it was light outside, they could tell they were getting into a more populated area. Abandoned cars on the sides of the road were becoming much more common. They were passing more and more homes. They picked one of the houses and pulled in for gas.

  Having learned from their experience they pulled in and moved quick. Mike kept a lookout from the truck while Kyler went around to the side of the house and found a garden hose to cut up. He slashed off a good six-foot piece and ran back around the house with it. He looked up at Mike who nodded at him to let him know he was still good. Kyler then ran over to the first of the two cars parked in front of the house and tried the gas cap. It was one you had to trigger from inside the car, so he tried the cap on the next one. The older looking SUVs gas cap cover popped out when he pressed in on it.

  It took him a minute of screwing around with the mechanism to get the hose shoved down into the gas tank. Once he had it, he signaled to Mike to bring their truck closer. Once the truck was close enough for him to connect the hose, he took a deep breath and let it out. He sucked on the hose he’d shoved in the other cars gas tank until the gas started to flow. He caught most of it in his mouth and spit it out. He always ended up swallowing a decent amount of it before getting it out of his mouth and into their vehicle. If he lived long enough, he’d probably end up with cancer or whatever disease you got by swallowing gasoline. Right now, he just wished he had some scope or something. Gas mouth was absolutely going on his list of things that sucked about the apocalypse.

  They drove. They saw the occasional Zombie stumbling about. At one point an entire pack of them came running off a crossroad and straight at them. Mike just slowed down enough to not hurt the truck and bullied his way along the road past them. Being careful not to get stuck. In singles the Zombies were easy to avoid. Especially in a truck. Kyler knew it’d be a different story if they’d still been on foot. Then even the slow Zombies could eventually catch up to you. You couldn’t stop walking and take a break or you’d run face first into the old rabbit and turtle fable. Except this time, it was a demonic warped insane cannibal intent on ripping your skin off the bones while you squirmed that would catch you instead of a cute little turtle that’d just quietly hobble past you to win the race while you snoozed in a hammock.

  Other than the pack of Zombies that tried to intercept them they weren’t seeing much of anything as they drove. The pack had been made up of about ten to fifteen Zombies. They hadn’t seen any signs of living people anywhere. Plenty of decayed bodies lying beside the roads and stuck in cars and rotting away in houses but that was par for the course now a days.

  “Where do you think they all are?” Kyler asked Mike.

  “I don’t know. Are you asking about the normals or the crazies?”

  “Either one really. I assumed you wouldn’t find them both in the same area but figured if you were lacking in one then the other would be plentiful in that area if that makes sense.”

  “Been thinking about that.” Mike responded after a few minutes of driving in silence. “I’m thinking you’re completely wrong. I’d think you’ll find the crazies where the normals are. Same as you find bears by streams and sharks following schools of fish. Normals are what the crazies eat.”

  “I don’t know. What about the horses back at the barn? Looked like the Zombies. Ok. Crazies. Got into them pretty good. There were a ton of them sleeping in that barn too and not a human in sight as far as I could tell.”

  Kyler wasn’t sure why Mike wouldn’t let him call the Zombies ‘Zombies’. To his mind that was the best description of them. They matched his mental picture of what a Zombie looked like. A demonically possessed human with a lust for flesh and complete disregard for their own bodies. Mike came from an older generation though. He seemed to be basing his definition of Zombie more on the ‘Night of the Living Dead’ movie interpretation than the more recent ‘World War Z’ type Zombie. When Kyler had called him out on it, Mike had argued that the crazies were just sick people who weren’t going to ever get better. They weren’t dead people risen from their graves like Mike said a ‘real’ Zombie was.

  Kyler had dropped the argument when Mike started getting upset over it. He decided it was just semantics anyway and didn’t really matter. Besides, Mike did have a point about the Zombies being alive still. That was a good thing since ‘killing’ really dead undead would be a lot more difficult than killing seriously ill people. Although, based on the movies, dead people risen from the grave tended to move a lot slower than the Zombies they’d run into.

  They ran into a traffic jam of stalled cars at the intersection with I-95. Other than that, they kept up a pretty good pace. The drive under the interstate got little intense when Zombies started to appear under the bridge. They’d been sleeping or doing whatever Zombies do underneath the cars there. Mike just sped up and drove straight through to the other side. Once again, his calm during a terrifying ordeal got them through safely. Pretty much anyone else would’ve freaked out and made the wrong move. Mike just focused and kept going. He may be a raging alcoholic, but he was still a hell of a driver in extraordinary circumstances. You just had to watch him to make sure he didn’t pour too much extra into his water bottle.

  It was starting to get dark when they rolled past signs for the Spear Farm Estuary. Before they reached it, they saw another sign to turn off for the Royal River Boat Boatyard and Repair. Neither one of them was sure what a boatyard and repair place would be. They turned off anyway since it had the word boat used multiple times in the name of the place. Turning down the long, paved road they drove past piles of brush as the sun started going
down. The brush gave way to boat after boat sitting in trailers and on the ground in various stages of disrepair.

  They kept driving until they got to the end of the road. It ended in a large paved lot next to a small marina that had several boats tied up to it. There were several that’d been smashed against the docks by the storm and sunk to the bottom. There was also a whole mess of Zombies. The Zombies came running at them from out of nowhere while they were sitting in the truck admiring the boats. Seeing them coming Mike put the truck in reverse and spun them out of the parking lot. He drove back up the road and then down a long driveway about a mile away from the boatyard. It was getting dark now. Regardless of the lack of visibility, Mike flipped the lights off and drove by the scant moonlight down the driveway for a good half mile. When he’d driven what he deemed to be far enough, he stopped and announced they’d sleep there for the night then try the boatyard again in the morning.

  That sounded good to Kyler. They played a round of paper, rock scissors to see who had first watch. Kyler won and took the first watch after soliciting promises from Mike that he’d stay sober this time once it was his turn.

  Chapter 31: Making Gilligan Proud

  The driver they’d shanghaied didn’t waste any time in getting them over to Old Harbor. Old Harbor being the marina on the other side of the island. It was where Randy and Kelly had watched the ferry death roll to the bottom and the Coasties kill the resulting wave of Zombies coming ashore. There should be at least a few boats in the harbor. The question was going to be if there were any which were still seaworthy and if they could get them out past the wreckage of the floundered ferry.

  The driver pulled them into the parking lot. He parked over by the dock on the far side of the marina that formed a protected little cove for the small boats docked there. Randy ducked lower in the back of the truck as another van pulled into the parking lot and cruised over towards them. Randy raised his voice from the back to tell Kelly to duck down in the front seat until the van got closer. Randy told their driver to get out of the truck and talk to the guys in the van. He told him to act normal and get rid of the van as soon as possible and everything would be fine.

  The first part of the plan worked great. Their driver got out and walked towards the van which was now within thirty yards of them. If the van driver took a decent look, he was going to notice something was wrong. Their driver walked over to the van as it slowed to a stop. Kyler was peeking over the top of the truck bed to see what was going on. He had the M-16 in position and ready to rock.

  “Got a bad feeling about this.” Griffin muttered from up front. “Should’ve sent your wife over there in her underwear again.”

  Randy ignored him for now. Once they were on the mainland, he’d be able to give into his baser urges and beat the crap out of the guy for being such a scumbag. Right now, he needed to keep his cool if he wanted him and Kelly to make it off this island. Also, Griffin was right. Randy had a bad feeling about this too. He made sure the safety was off on the assault rifle and stage whispered for Kelly to get ready. He heard her start maneuvering herself around in the front of the truck to be ready to open fire.

  Then the side door of the van opened up and their driver jumped in as someone in the passenger side took some shots at their truck. The rounds shattered the passenger window and punched into the metal on the side of the truck, but Randy didn’t hear anyone screaming so he took that as a good sign. Filled with anger and fear for his wife he pulled back on the trigger of the M-16. The gun jumped and bounced around from the awkward position he was in. He did his best to keep it pointed in the general direction of the van.

  The vans tires squealed as the driver floored the accelerator spinning them in a tight circle to get out of the parking lot. Too tight of a circle it turned out as the tires hit some sort of large metal clamp set in the lot right as a few of the bullets Randy and Kelly were firing hit the side of the van. The speed the driver had the van at in the tight circle coupled with the tire striking the large metal clamp caused inertia to kick in and take the top-heavy van over onto its side. It hit hard enough to almost roll completely over. Randy and Kelly were staring at the wreckage when movement in the corner of his eye caught Randy’s attention.

  “Get out of the truck!” He yelled at Kelly as he dropped the M-16 and pulled out his pistol. Kelly didn’t bother asking why. Based on his tone of voice she knew it was one of those things she needed to do now, or she was going to regret it later. She got out right as Griffins arm snaked through the air where her head would’ve been. He had a knife gleaming in his other hand. When he saw he’d missed her he extended his arm further out and managed to grab her by the hair. He pulled hard. Kelly shrieked in pain as she was pulled off her feet and back towards him.

  Randy put his hand through the sliding window in the back of the truck and with his pistol barrel on the back of Griffins head pulled the trigger twice. Kelly collapsed in a pile on the asphalt by the driver’s side door. Randy was breathing heavy as he jumped out of the truck bed and went around to check on Kelly. She looked up at him with wide eyes. Randy noticed there were piece of what looked like brains and skull fragments on her shoulder and in her hair. He decided to keep those tidbits of knowledge to himself. He pulled her to her feet and hugged her while surreptitiously trying to remove as much of the gunk from her hair and shoulders as possible.

  “What’s wrong? What’s in my hair?” A freaked-out Kelly asked as Randy realized he may not have been as slick about the brain and gut remnants removal as he’d thought.

  “Nothing. We need to get out of here.” Randy answered. Hoping he could just ignore her other question. Also, he hoped she wasn’t able to look in a mirror anytime soon.

  “You just killed the guy we had with us who knew how to sail a damned boat.” Kelly pointed out. Randy realized that was a fair criticism of his recent actions. Although, he had saved her life by doing it so maybe she should cut him some slack.

  “Maybe one of the guys in the van is still alive?” Randy wondered out loud. Knowing they probably had about five minutes before more people showed up, he hustled over to where the van was lying on its side. Smoke was pouring out from under the dented hood. The windows were shattered. The back doors had been squeezed hard enough that they’d popped open. The moans of someone in severe pain were coming from the back of the van.

  Randy shined a light in the back and asked if everyone was ok. Not getting any responses other than more moans he started working himself into the van. He was able to slide through the side of the van that used to be the top of the van pretty easily. He led with a small mag lite he’d taken out of the truck.

  “Who’s there?” He heard someone asking from up in the front seat area.

  “Can you get out? We got the guy who was shooting at you.” Randy answered loudly. He figured he might as well try and bluff his way through it. No way was he sticking his head up there to get blown off if the guy was still conscious. He’d found the man who was moaning. It was the guy they’d originally shanghaied to drive the truck over to the harbor for them. Based on how his face looked he’d gone through the window face first when the van rolled and gotten his nose stuck under the van. Something like that must’ve happened as he was missing a big swath of skin on his forehead and a significant chunk of his nose. He definitely had good reasons to be moaning in pain. Randy didn’t feel like dragging him out and trying to get him to help them steal a boat in the state he was in.

  If he could coax this other guy to come on out though that might do the trick. If he could coax the guy into coming out without the guy figuring out who he was and shooting at him that’d be even better.

  “Can you help me get him out of the van? We need to get him medical attention!” Randy said loudly in the direction of the front seat. If he could just convince the guy to get out to where they could get the drop on him, they’d be good to go.

  Three shots rang out. Randy was deafened by the loud sound of the pistol shots in the interior of the
van. Seeing the guy was in no mood to be fooled he turned and crawled quickly out the back of the van. Kelly waited for him to get past before firing a few rounds from her M-16 through the row of passenger seats into the van. The shots blew out the front windshield and made a ton of noise that was bound to be audible all around the harbor, but the guy stopped shooting at them.

  “You’re hit!” Kelly was staring at Randy’s arm.

  “Oh crap. You’re right.” Randy said. They both stared at the blood soaking the lower part of his shirt and leaking down his hand. With all the shooting and adrenaline, he hadn’t even noticed he’d been shot in the arm. Now that Kelly had pointed it out, he realized it hurt. It hurt quite a bit. It hurt like a son of a bitch. It hurt like getting your molars removed with no pain pills. If the dentist ripped them all out at once. It hurt enough that it made him feel woozy and he had to fight the urge to pass out.

  “Do not pass out. Sit down. Let me see it.” Randy did as he was told. Kelly took his shirt off, so she could see what was going on. Once she had his shirt off, she ripped it apart to make bandages. She figured out where the bullet hole was. It looked like it’d punched through the side of his forearm. There was a hole in and a hole out which meant she didn’t think she had to worry about digging the bullet out of him. She had nothing to clean the wound with and no time to look around, so she tied the shirt around the holes in his arm and told him to hold it as tight as he could to stop the bleeding.