by Powell, Lora
Still hanging onto its arm, he jerked his head back and forth, shredding the muscle between his teeth. Hissing and spitting, the zombie had gone on the defensive and seemed to just want to escape the dog’s grasp. My aim was better the third time and the zombie stood little chance at getting out of my way while anchored by the dog.
I turned to run back to the van—we needed to get out of there before we found out if the noise had drawn unwanted attention—and almost ran into Shawn. Holding a tire iron, he skidded to a stop next to me. “We’ve got to go.”
Nodding, I started running with the others, back toward the van. Maya and Devon were standing guard nervously over Bill’s prone form. Their conspicuous lack of weapons reminded me just how bad our situation really was. “Let’s get Bill in the van and get out of here.”
It wasn’t an easy task moving the biggest member of the group. Trying our best not to jar Bill’s wounds any more than we had to, we somehow managed to lay him across the back seat. He was too tall, and we ended up letting his legs dangle off of the seat and resting his feet on the floor.
Maya squeezed herself into the remaining floor space in the back of the car, and Devon and Fallon climbed into the middle seat, which left Shawn and me in the front. I tried not to think about the sticky stains all over the seat and floor as I got in.
Rex insisted on climbing into my foot space despite the mess and the fact that he was too big to really fit there, but I didn’t want to waste time trying to convince the dog to move to the back. Some zombie gore and blood spattered all over his body from tangling with the zombies,
I saw Shawn dart his eyes at Rex, specifically at bloody teeth the dog exposed when it panted. I knew that he was wondering the same things I was. I was sure of it.
“It’s ok. He’s attacked a zombie before. This isn’t the first time this has happened.” I tried to reassure everyone.
Nodding, Shawn started the van, and we continued our flight south.
***
The van was running on fumes, but we didn’t dare stop and try to find more gas because the number of zombies we were seeing had dramatically increased.
The signs along the side of the road bore somewhat familiar names as we drove by. The towns that we had been passing for a while now were large enough for someone not from this area to have heard of them. It explained the rise in numbers of zombies, and it didn’t solve our problem.
It was only a matter of time before we would have to stop, or we would run out of gas completely.
I peered over my shoulder anxiously for what felt like the hundredth time, but the far back of the van was still silent. We had been driving for hours, but Bill hadn’t moved at all.
“I’m going to take the next exit that is reasonably empty of zombies.” Shawn glanced my way with worried eyes. “We are going to be stopping soon, no matter what, and I don’t want to run out of gas while we’re surrounded with nowhere to go.” His voice sounded rough like his throat had been sandblasted.
Nodding, I looked back at the pair in the middle seats. My friends were going on two days now without rest, food, or even any water.
We needed to find a place with water.
Licking my own sunburned and chapped lips, I answered, “There has to be a place we can hide that hasn’t been cleaned out yet.”
Barely a mile later, an exit appeared. We dodged the couple of zombies that were in our way. One of them bounced off of my door as it tried to get inside, but I didn’t even flinch. Zombie collisions had become an all too common occurrence in the last hour. It was almost funny when I thought back to the very first zombie that had tried to get through a car window at me, back at the start. I had been terrified.
I sat up straight in my seat as we coasted down the ramp and turned toward a small city.
We had begun to pass the city a few miles ago. From the highway, I had been able to see the large burned out section where a fire had obviously raged uncontrollably. The buildings had been reduced to charred skeletons where the only thing moving were the zombies.
Now, a few miles later, we had traveled past where the fire had consumed everything. But the view of the city from the higher ground of the highway had still been desolate. The roads became harder to navigate as we skirted around the edges of town and there were zombies—a lot of them. No one was going to lose sleep over running the creatures over, but the van wasn’t exactly an all-terrain vehicle. If too many of them piled up under the wheels, it may be enough to get us stuck.
I saw cars everywhere: parked along the curb, standing abandoned in the middle of the streets, and I even saw one buried up to the hind wheels in the side of the house that it had driven into. Add to the chaos the general trash that was lying around, and more than one partially eaten body, and this city could hardly be mistaken for any kind of haven.
I was watching out the window with growing dread, the atmosphere in the van was becoming bleaker by the minute, if that was even possible. It was obvious to anyone who cared to look that the city belonged to the dead now. In fact, a growing horde of them was falling in line behind our vehicle. With the van dangerously low on fuel, the situation was a disaster in the making.
When my frayed nerves couldn’t take any more, I opened my mouth to give my opinion that we should get back on the highway and get as far away as we could before we ran out of gas. But a sign caught my eye. A sign that—as long as some of the supplies inside remained—could mean the difference between life and death.
“There!” I pointed. “There’s an Urgent Care building ahead. We need to go there.”
When no one agreed with me right away, I knew that I was going to have to convince them. Twisting sideways in my seat, I did my best to do just that.
“Look, I know we already agreed hospitals are too dangerous. They would have been full of people who died of the virus. But an Urgent Care building would have sent all of their worst cases to the ER. There may not be any zombies at all inside. And we need medical supplies.” I glanced back to where Maya was watching me over the seat in front of her. “Bill needs fluids to start building his blood back up. If he doesn’t wake up soon, an IV may be the only thing that can save him.”
Then I turned to Devon. “And you, I haven’t missed that you’re getting worse again. We need more antibiotics.”
Silence fell as they thought over my words. I looked over to Shawn. He disagreed with me, I could see it in the way he frowned slightly, and kept his eyes fixed ahead. Slumping back into my seat, I kept my mouth shut. This had to be a decision made by the group, not just me. If they didn’t want to try for the medical supplies, then that was that.
“Please.” Maya’s voice cracked from dehydration and her grief. “Please, if there is any chance, we have to try.”
FORTY-SIX
DAY 22
Our destination came into view. The front of the one-story building was made almost entirely of glass. Posters depicting white-coated doctors smiling brightly at their patients covered a lot of the windows, but not all. As far as I could tell from my admittedly compromised vantage point in the van, the seating area appeared to be empty.
A thud to the back of the van was followed by the sound of someone scrabbling at the window. One of the more mobile zombies had caught up to us while we idled out front of the building, and that brought up a good point. I stared at the glass windows.
The last time we had relied on a glass wall to keep zombies out, we had lost someone, and Shawn and I had barely managed to escape.
There was a growing sea of zombies trailing along behind us. Even if we did manage to move the entire group safely from the van into that building, it wouldn’t take long for the zombies to break through.
My heart sank. “We can’t stop there.”
“We’re going to have to stop somewhere really soon,” Shawn reminded me needlessly.
Everyone watched as we passed the building with somber expressions. Now that our need for medical care had been dragged out into the open, it was ha
rder to pretend that everything was going to be okay.
“Maybe we can find somewhere nearby to stop, and we can sneak back for the things we need once the zombies have cleared.” Fallon sounded hopeful.
Pressing my forehead to the side window, I sighed. If only it were that simple. There were a lot of zombies here. The odds of enough of them going somewhere else to make that play anything besides suicide were not high.
“The warning light has been on for a while. We need to make a decision.”
I knew what Shawn was saying. We either had to get as far away from this city as we could before the van died. Or we needed to find a place here to try to stop.
“We have to go,” it sounded like Maya was crying again. “There’s too many of them. We have to get out of here.”
When no one objected, Shawn nodded and began following signs back to the highway. We were going painfully slow as we tried to keep from becoming swarmed. I kept looking at the needle of the gas gauge. The little piece of white plastic rested firmly on E.
We finally spotted the way out, but it brought no relief. We still had our zombie entourage, and the van was still dangerously low on gas. When a clear path opened up in front of us, Shawn sped up to try to gain us some distance from the horde.
A box truck that had been abandoned half way up the on-ramp caught my eye, specifically, the writing that had been hastily spray painted across its back.
“Stop!”
Any message that had been important enough for someone to risk their lives to leave here was worth slowing down to read. I hoped.
The van halted abruptly. Shawn looked my way, alarmed by my sudden outburst. Murmurs from behind me let me know that none of the others had noticed the sign.
I pointed.
The writing had been sprayed quickly. Some areas had too much paint; others had too little. But it was still easy enough to make out.
Safe haven. South. 5 miles.
Another zombie bounced off of the back of the van causing Shawn to step on the gas again. But we had had enough time to read the words.
“What do you think?”
“Can we trust it?”
We were all thinking the same way. After our last interaction with strangers, we were reluctant to trust anymore. But looking around the van, I realized that all of the people present were strangers to me less than a month ago. I looked behind me, at Devon’s pale face, and then past him to the top of Maya’s head.
“What if they have a real doctor? And medicine? I think we should go. We can stay back and take a look around. If we don’t like what we see, we’ll get out of there.” I tried to justify my intention once again.
We were already traveling south along the highway. I looked at Shawn who looked thoughtful. As if feeling me looking at him, he turned to meet my stare.
“Yeah, ok.”
More answers on the affirmative made the decision unanimous.
“Ok,” Shawn said again. As the numbers of zombies dwindled, he was able to drive faster.
The landscape changed a bit over the next mile or two. We left the city behind, and the view from the highway became more rural. There were still occasional zombies wandering along the road but not enough to slow us down. We were driving past what used to be some sort of a farm when the engine began to sputter.
“Not now, come on.” Coaxing the van along, he was able to drive us another hundred yards down the road before the engine died ultimately.
The silence was deafening as we coasted to a stop in the middle of the road. We had known this was coming, but the reality of the situation was much worse. Bill was still unconscious, and there was no way we would be carrying him very far.
Then a zombie crashed into the side of the van. The only sounds from inside were harsh breathing as we all contemplated the newest hurdle in front of us. Outside, the zombie snarled as it clawed at the windows with bloodied fingers. The glass squeaked as it worked its way along the left-hand side of the van.
“Now what?” Devon’s voice was troubling like he had given up.
“We stick to the plan.” I heard Shawn assert.
Surprised, I looked to my left.
“We can’t be more than two, maybe three miles from wherever that place is. Someone should still go check it out. If there really are people there who can help, they can help us get Bill to safety,” he continued.
He was right. We couldn’t just stay in the van indefinitely. “Ok.” I turned around to look behind me. “Shawn and I will go find this place and see if they can help us. Maya, Fallon, and Devon, you guys stay here and keep an eye on Bill.” I didn’t say that I doubted Devon could walk that far without stopping, and I didn’t want him to feel bad so I lumped him in with the other two as Bill’s protectors.
I handed the knife that Fallon had given me back earlier back to her. She looked solemn as she took it.
“Ready?” I gripped the machete and turned back around.
“Yeah, let me get rid of the zombie.” Shawn picked up the tire iron from where he had left it on the floor.
The zombie had worked its way around and was now growling at me through my window. Rex watched it alertly from his spot by my feet as the creature fixed its bloodshot eyes on me. Shawn’s door opened, and the zombie immediately switched its focus to the person who had just become an easier target.
The zombie was older, and it tottered around the front of the van unsteadily. As soon as my door was clear, I jumped out too, but Shawn had already taken care of the zombie with a hard whack to the head.
“We will be back as soon as we can.” I ducked my head back inside the van. Three pairs of eyes watched me. They all looked scared, and I couldn’t blame them. To be honest, I was terrified of walking miles through unfamiliar, zombie-infested territory, but I didn’t see any other options.
I shut the door firmly and met Shawn in front of the van. The only sound we made as we walked away, south along the highway, was the click of the dog’s nails on the pavement.
FORTY-SEVEN
DAY 23
Sticking my head around the corner, I stifled another groan. “They’re still out there.”
I ducked back out of sight. It felt like much longer than the approximately twelve hours that had passed since Shawn and I left our friends. But then, so much had happened in that time.
Making progress had been a lot harder than I’d anticipated. There were enough zombies around that we never made it far without running into another one. The first mile down the highway had been hard fought for both of us, and we ended up covered in zombie gore.
The machete was starting to feel more like a large chunk of lead in my tired hands by the time we saw the next sign.
Safe haven. 1 mile.
The words had been sprayed over the top of the sign for the exit to our right. A semi-circle of badly decayed zombies lay not far from the bottom of the sign. I hoped that whoever had painted the words had escaped without being bitten.
Trudging down the off-ramp, we noticed that an arrow pointing right had been painted on the stop sign. Looking that way showed what looked like a strip mall just visible in the growing darkness.
A zombie shuffled our way from the middle of the intersection. A growl rumbled through its torn out throat as it moved at a snail’s pace on mangled limbs. It was almost a relief to encounter one of them that was a minimal threat after the struggle of the last couple of hours.
When Shawn used the now filthy tire iron on it, the zombie’s head caved in like an overripe melon. Slinging the clinging bits of rot off of the weapon with a grimace, he joined Rex and I back under the stop sign.
According to the painted directions, we had to be near the ‘safe haven.’ The plan was to find the place, stay back, and watch for a while. If we got a creepy murderous cult vibe, we would leave and not come back.
That had been the plan, anyhow, but the best thought out plans sometimes failed. We had barely walked another hundred yards before someone shouted from within a small gro
up of trees, “Stop! You are entering a restricted area. Identify yourselves!”
I couldn’t find the source of the voice no matter how hard I stared at the trees. It was weird because they weren’t that thick. I should have been able to see whoever was speaking. Beside me, Shawn shifted from foot to foot, also unable to see the source of the voice. It made us both nervous.
Movement from higher up, probably ten feet off of the ground, was what finally gave the speaker away. There, perched on top of a small metal contraption fixed to one of the trees, stood a man. With a rifle casually trained in our direction.
Seeing the person whom the voice belonged to made me feel a little better, but the gun immediately negated those feelings. “Um, we followed the signs…”
The man stood watching us for a few seconds before he spoke again, “Is it just the two of you?”
I looked sideways at Shawn. I was reluctant to reveal our friends, especially in the compromised position they were in.
He took over. “Yeah, it’s just us.” I wasn’t the only one who felt the need to protect our friends.
“Either of you bitten?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
Looking at us, I wasn’t surprised that the guy felt like he needed to ask again. We were a mess. Even the dog’s hair was clumped and matted together with dried zombie blood. Good boy that he was, Rex hadn’t hesitated to tear his way through the zombies.
“We’re not bitten. I’m sure,” I raised my voice to be heard clearly. Darkness was falling rapidly now, and the man was becoming harder to see.
“Alright then. My shift here is about over. Just have to wait for Charlie to replace me. I’ll walk you in if you wait.”
The man swung over the side of his perch and began descending using a ladder that I had missed until that moment. He jumped to the ground and began walking toward us.