by Thomas Baker
"You sure are lucky son, to have survived this long all by yourself. What's your name there, slick?" Gus asked.
"Tyrone."
"Tyrone, huh? Well Tyrone I'm Gus and I'm mighty damn glad to meet ya. How long you been hiding in the bus wreck Tyrone?"
"Feels like forever sir," Tyrone said, weariness seeping into this voice. "I don't even know how long I was knocked out."
"Save those sirs for Dusty. He's the hot headed GI Joe on the roof."
Tyrone cracked a smile at Gus. "Can I ask you something, sir?"
"Again it's Gus, not sir," Gus chuckled. The kid had manners, even in such a horrific environment. His mom should be proud.
"Sorry. Gus, can I ask you something?" Tyrone said, his smile fading away.
"You bet, ask away."
"Where do you think my mom and little brother are?" Tyrone was talking so low now, Gus could barely hear him. "Do you think they're still alive?"
"Well sure I do Tyrone," Gus said, with as much conviction as he could muster. "I'll admit though, my ex wife always did call me an eternal optimist."
They were silent for a while.
"By the way kid, when's the last time you had anything to eat?" Gus asked.
"Yesterday, I think," Tyrone said. "I ate the last of the fruit snacks and Pringles I found on the bus. Mostly my throat hurts though, I'm real thirsty. No way I was leaving the bus."
"Well, let ole Gus see what he's got in his old bag of tricks here."
Gus pulled out a bottle of water and some granola bars and tossed them to Tyrone. Tyrone brightened up at the sight of them. He quickly devoured the treats and guzzled down the water.
"So what exactly happened sir? I mean Gus?" Tyrone asked, sounding more energized now.
Gus felt himself drifting off. He shifted around, trying to get comfortable in the small bus seat.
"There will be plenty of time for questions later," Gus said, yawning. "Let's get some rest while we can. One thing you can count on now Tyrone, you never know what tomorrow might bring."
"No stop signs, speed limits." Alan laughed at himself as he sang the words aloud. It felt like years had passed since this all started. Or had it been weeks? To him it might as well have been a lifetime ago. Where he had once been happy, now his world had turned to shit. That's the understatement of the year.
Anyway, what did it matter that time had gotten fuzzy now? It's not like he had to punch a clock or be anywhere important anymore. That life, that normal life he shared with his wife, his two sweet daughters, and his baby boy was now lost. He wasn't coming home to their beautiful smiling faces anymore.
The song was over and out of instinct he pushed the button that switched the radio back over to FM. Then he remembered he had given up on the radio awhile ago. All it ever gave him now was static. He switched back over to the CD, which he had been listening to over and over again. He had to have some kind of distraction. When it was just silence, his mind couldn't help but think back to his family, to what had happened. He couldn't let himself go there, or it would be all over for him too. Why he bothered continuing on, since they were gone, he didn't know. Wouldn't it be easier for him to just floor it? Crash into the next wall of jumbled up wreckage and go up in a ball of flames.
The cars and trucks had clogged the roads so bad, he had to leave his truck behind. He walked for miles through a world of human wreckage. Along the miles he had fended off numerous zombie attacks. When the mass of cars and bodies had thinned out, he took the first vehicle he could start, which was the blue SUV thathe was currentlydriving. The distraction of the three music CD's he had found in the middle console was starting to wear off. Not for the first time he kicked himself for not grabbing his iPod out of the truck before he had to ditch it. At least he hadn't left behind his weapons, a crowbar and a meat cleaver.
He continued to sing at the top of his voice, willing himself to distraction. He had gone at least a few hundred miles since last seeing anyone. The last human contact he had was with a group of bikers that had passed him way back on Highway 10. They had waved for him to follow, but he just saluted them off. He didn't think he was ready to join up with anyone yet. If he was going to be honest, he wasn't even sure he wanted to keep living yet. Right now he thought it was all just pure animal instinct keeping him alive.
A vintage RV, huge and rusty, that was half on half off the highway, came into view. Alan slowed the SUV to a crawl. The whole scene looked like something out of a Friday The Thirteenth movie. Blood was splattered on the side of it, a couple dead bodies laid on the ground right outside the door.
He sat, not moving for a moment, debating with himself whether it was worth the risk to check the RV for anything useful.
"Screw it," he said aloud as he put the SUV in park. He grabbed the crowbar sitting in the passenger seat. He reached for the keys then decided to keep the engine running. As he stepped out of the car, he felt a crunch under his feet. He lifted his foot the way you would if you had just stepped in dog crap to find what was left of a pinky and ring finger attached to a small chunk of what used to be someone's hand.
Maybe running into a maniac in a hockey mask wouldn't be such a bad thing compared to this. Alan found himself laughing at his own stupid thought.
Alan grimaced as he scraped his feet on the pavement, trying to get the skin off his shoes. Slowly he approached the open door of the abandoned RV. It looked to Alan that it had already been ransacked by someone. On the wall above one of the windows in bright orange spray paint were the words SAFE HAVEN CLOSE, with an arrow pointing west. Alan thought this situation was getting stranger every second but decided to go inside, anyway. He was so focused now, every nerve on edge, that he didn't even realize he had stopped thinking about anything else but the situation that was happening right now.
It was dim, as the sunlight tried to penetrate through dirty windows. A sudden noise coming from the bedroom at the back of the RV nearly made him fall back out the door. Between him and the sound was one of those sliding curtain type doors.
It sounded like an angry dog locked inside a kennel. He tiptoed his way to the door and slowly slid it back. Laying tied to the bed with what looked like were her own clothes, was a naked woman. She sure didn't sound like a woman though and Alan wasn't sure what was wrong with her. It seemed as though she was trying to vomit, or she was having a seizure. Maybe it was both. He took a step closer to look, even though he felt a little obscene doing so. What the hell had gone on here? He thought she looked okay, until he noticed the scratches and bite marks on her inner thighs. They oozed sickly yellow and orange pus, the skin up and down her legs had started to blacken. He looked up at her face and the eyes looking back at him were dead.
Alan didn't want to think who might have done such a thing. From his experience though, he had a prettybad feeling about what was going to happen to her next. Alan found some covers and gingerly threw them over her. He placed the pointed end of the crowbar against her covered face and took a deep breath. The reeking smell of rot assaulted him. He counted to three and slammed the crowbar down, driving it deep into her face. He struggled a bitto remove his weapon as the covers began to turn crimson. He wiped his crowbar clean on the blankets and slid the door closed on his way out. Alan went ahead andlooked around and was able to scavenge a couple protein bars and a bottle of PowerAde. Not like she would need them anymore. Before he climbed back into his SUV, he took one last look at the spray painted words SAFE HAVEN CLOSE. He shook his head, there was no such thing anymore.
Alan drove on for miles, lost in the thoughts of what he just saw. The sheets turning red, the bright orange words painted on the side of the RV glowed in his mind. Did he even care about being safe anymore? What's the point? He thought back to the woman again, which then led him to think about his wife. This consumed him for a while, her final moments replaying in his mind. The glint of the sun off the hood brought back memories of taking his daughters to the park. How the sun filtered through the trees and glinted o
ff the metal bars of the swings. Push me Daddy, higher. He could almost hear his little one calling to him.
"I let them down. This is all my fault!" he said aloud, slamming his foot down on the gas pedal in anger. He gripped the steering wheel, white knuckle tight, as the urge to crash the car into the next thing he saw consumed him.
All the muscles in his neck tightened at once and his breath became labored. The intensity in his stare grew as a group of undead came into view. They were circling a school bus in the middle of the road.
His lips curled into a snarl as he pictured smashing into the group and crushing them against the bus. Faster and faster he went. Any awareness of anything else except smashing the dead was gone. An eerie smile crept onto his face as he closed in like a missile on his target.
He noticed them a split second later. Three guys standing on an overturned bus. Alan slammed on the brakes and came to a screeching stop over the next several feet. The smell of burning rubber from the tires filled his nose. All the zombies in front of him turned their attention to the new arrival.
Alan didn't hesitate. He jumped from the SUV, weapon in hand. He swung the crowbar right into the eye socket of the nearest zombie. A second blow to the skull rendered it motionless as it slumped to the ground. Alan didn't even flinch as he stepped over it and struck down the first of three football jersey clad zombies.
The second footballer met his fate in one quick blow. Alan nearly knocked its forehead to the back of its skull.
"Runner!" Alan heard one of the men yell from the bus. What the hell was a runner?
He looked around and saw a young girl zombie in a track suit barreling towards him. Well that's new, a fast one. Alan drove the end of the crowbar into the third jersey wearer and just left the crowbar sticking out of its face as it fell to the ground.
He nonchalantly untied his makeshift shoe string harness holding his meat cleaver. He waited as the cheerleader neared and side stepped her. He swung and drove the blade three fourths of the way through her neck, leaving her head dangling forwards at a grotesque angle.
He barely had time to react as the last three undead were on top of him. He brought the cleaver down right between one of their eyes but had driven the blade too deep to pull back out. Alan, looking like something out of an eighties action movie, grabbed one of the remaining two monsters and shoved it into the other, causing them both to fall.
They thrashed at each other as they attempted to get back up. Alan kicked one of them right in the ass sending it face first back to the pavement. He stomped down on the others face until bones and brains gave way. Alan brought his foot back down for one more stomp as the last zombie struggled back to its feet.
He grabbed the final zombie from behind as it tried to turn and forced it over to the guardrail. He held it down in an execution style position, like in the old days when they would chop your head off with an axe. Alan stared off into the distance for a moment, as thoughts of his family flooded his mind and threaten to undo him. He shook his head to clear it. He looked down, scowling at the creature he was holding. He knew they were no longer human, so no reason for hesitation.
Alan hopped the guardrail and grabbed the zombie's head. Holding it he jumped up and brought it down with all the force he could gather. Its head severed the metal cutting through its rotting body. Alan watched the head roll to a stop amidst the glass and debris along the shoulder of the road.
Alan stepped back over, glaring at the three people, teeth bared. They stood, watching in complete silence. Turning, he went back and first retrieved his cleaver, then his crowbar. He checked his pocket and brought out his wallet. He looked at a picture of his family inside briefly, a snapshot of themat Disney World, faces smiling, before folding the wallet up and putting it back.
He struggled for a moment, what should he do next? He really didn't want to be around others, but he didn't think he could live with himself if he just left them stranded out here in the middle of nowhere. He could barely live with himself now. He looked at them and then back to the SUV several times. Finally he approached the bus and looked up at them.
"It's all good. I got them." Alan gave them an everything is A-OK hand gesture and an awkward smile.
The three of them slowly hopped down from atop the bus. One of them was an older guy, the other two had to help him down. He could tell they were feeling leery of the newcomer, they kept their distance for a moment. After what he looked like nowadays, he guessed he couldn't blame them. The older guy was the first to introduce himself.
"That was quite something friend," Gus said. "I have seen a lot of things in my life but I can honestly say I have never seen anything like that before. Name's Gus and my traveling partners here are Dusty and Tyrone."
The three of them stood there until he simplysaid, "Oh, I'm Alan." He stuffed his hands into the front pocket of his jeans.
"Thanks for the save but, are you okay there fella?" Gus said, concerned. "You need to sit down or something? We're staying inside one of the other buses. We took out wave one and woke up this morning to wave two. Should be safe now, at least for a while. You could follow us over."
Alan could tell Gus was reallyhesitant about offering shelter. He took one look at Dusty and could tell Dusty would rather he just keep on trucking. Tyrone stood like a lifeless robot.
"Sure, that's nice of you," Alan answered.
He wasn't sure he was going to say yes until he did. Why he bothered to join them he didn't know. Alan got on the bus without a word, sat down, and pulled a power bar from his pocket. He gave the guys a salute with it before his first bite.
"That was some hungry work," he said.
Hours passed by. To Gus time sure seemed to drag even slower now than it did back before.
Gus was on the bus with Alan, who was sitting across from him. Dusty was outside, pouring over a map he had found in the bus. Tyrone was in the back, sleeping. That's pretty much all the kid did since they found him. Gus had made several attempts to engage Alan in an extended conversation. He mostly got silence in response.
Gus went out and motioned to Dusty, getting his attention, then jerked his head away from the bus. The two of them walked far enough away that Gus didn't think Alan could overhear them.
"I tell you what Sarge. I've had no luck getting two words out of that guy. I mean shit Dusty, I thought you were keeping watch. Why didn't you notice he was coming?"
"I was a little preoccupied keeping track of the zombies coming in. I'm good, but I can't do everything," Dusty said, annoyed. "If we are going to keep the kid and this guy around, they are going to have to start pulling some weight. After proving to methatthey're trustworthy. More than you have been old timer."
Gus ignored the old timer remark this time. "I really don't know what to say about him. Do you think we should keep him around? If he even wants to go with us?"
Gus waited as Dusty clearlymulled it around in his head. "He could be more trouble than any zombie," Dusty said. "Could be he's the first leg of an ambush. There could be a whole group waiting out for him to draw us in. He lulls us in with false security and later his friends jump us, kill us, and rob our dead bodies. Or, after what we saw him do, he could just be deranged. I may have to interrogate him to know for sure."
"You sure jump to some conclusions that are disturbing Sarge. I usually have a way with people, so maybe we don't have to go so far as torturing him. I tell you what though. My eyes were so wide open, I thought they might fall out when he first showed up. It looked like a wild man had stepped out of that SUV. What with the crazy beard and the ragged, bloody clothes hanging on him."
"I know. I was like what's this guy going to do? Take them all on by himself? Then he walks straight towards that group of zombies and that is just what he did," Dusty said, clearly impressed.
"With what he did back there, don't you think he could have taken us out like we were tissue paper already, if that's what he wanted to do?" Gus reallywanted to convince Dusty to bring them both along
. Dusty seemed to care about only his own survival but deep down he thought Dusty also cared about helping outwhere he could.
"You may have a point. He would have had more of a fight from me though. More than a pack twice that size could have given him. I tell you what, he could be useful. I could use someone else who at least seems like he's had experience in combat. Let's just stay alert around him."
That was good enough for Gus. He was sure he could get Alan talking and hopefully put some of Dusty's paranoid feelings to rest. He followed Dusty back onto the bus.
"Listen up people," Dusty stood at the front of the bus in parade rest. Gus squeezed by him and sat down next to Tyrone. "We're going to stay here one more day, then in the morning we'll bug out in the SUV. Let's gather up what we can, move the SUV right outside the door to the bus, and stow our gear in the back of it. At first light, we move out."
Gus spoke up. "Alan, are you going to be good with coming with us?"
"Sounds like Dusty has already recruited me and my car," Alan said. He was quiet for a moment. "Sure, sure let's all go together. One condition though. I'm driving."
"Now thatit's settled, let's get this done people," Dusty ordered.
"Aye, Aye Captain!" Gus cracked wise.
"That's Sarge. Don't ever insult me again," Dusty said, with the faintest crack of a smile.
Well son of a bitch, ole Dusty has a sense of humorafter all.
The night passed without incident. Gus wasn't sad at all to be leaving the bus wreckage. Alan calmly drove down the road, fingers drumming on the wheel. Classic rock music blared from the radio. Dusty sat in the passenger seat, looking as vigilant as ever. Gus and Tyrone sat in the back seat talking quietly amongst themselves.