He hadn’t needed much convincing. Without a second thought he’d slipped the little plastic disc in his pocket, grabbed his pack and hopped into the back of one of the dirty green military trucks that had just dropped off a fresh load of unsuspecting refugees to their new cabins. He was already prepared to go at the drop of a hat – he’d been looking for an excuse to flee since the moment he saw the old man, Edgar Klaczko, hit the ground – but the doctor gave him the excuse he needed to run without feeling like quite so much of a coward. She made him feel like he was running towards something, and not just away.
He’d been surprised at just how easy it had been to leave the camp. Nobody bothered to check the back of the truck on the way out, but just in case he’d hunkered down low behind the fluttering canvas flap, pressing his cheek against the cold steel floor thick with the dried mud from hundreds of boots, until he could no longer see the tails of the planes poking out over the buildings.
He’d started to count as soon as the final plane vanished from sight, and when he reached one thousand he hopped off the back and sprinted for the roadside as the truck slowed to pass a pile of mangled wrecks on the highway. There he hid, crouched behind a pile of twisted steel that had once been a Cadillac, until the sound of the engine dwindled in the distance.
It had only taken an hour or so before he found a Civic with the keys still in the ignition. Full tank, half a pallet of bottled water in the trunk and a Tom Petty CD in the stereo. Score. All he had to do was pull the beaten body of its former owner from the driver’s seat and roll down the windows until the smell started to fade. The steering wheel was tacky with dried blood and the inside of the windshield was stained with pink flecks of spray that wouldn’t rub off beneath a fingernail, but apart from that the car was pretty much still in showroom condition.
Nobody had come looking for him. To be honest he felt a little slighted by the fact that there hadn’t been so much as a moment’s radio chatter mentioning his disappearance, even after he didn’t show up for two guard shifts in a row. It was a weird feeling. The last couple of weeks had been the defining experience of his life, but nobody seemed to notice or care that he’d deserted. It was all a little... well, anti-climactic, to tell the truth. He’d half expected them to mount a manhunt and drag him back to the camp. In fact, he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they’d put him in one of the cabins he’d been guarding. At least it would have been justice of a sort.
Still, he’s not complaining. With nobody chasing there’s no need to keep such a close eye on the rear view, and instead he can focus on reaching the address scrawled in the notebook tucked in his pocket. It’ll be a long and dangerous journey, and even if he makes it in one piece there’s no way of knowing if there’ll be anyone waiting for him when he arrives. It really seems hard to believe the facility will still be up and running by the time he gets there. The mycologist assured him he’d find a staff of dozens still working when he reaches his destination, but really? After all that’s happened? It just seems a little unbelievable. Everything’s fallen apart just a little too fast. It feels like the brake lines have been cut on the whole country, and there’s nobody left up at the top to fix them before they reach the edge of the cliff.
That’s the really strange thing about all of this. Just a few weeks ago Lewis – like everyone else – spent his mornings with the newspaper shaking his head in dismay at the state of the US government. Out of control obstructionism. Multi-million dollar vote buying boondoggles. Insults and lies thrown back and forth across the aisle. Politicians more interested in stoking the fires of the latest scandal than actually getting shit done, and a media that seemed eager to encourage them for the sake of clicks and ratings rather than step in and try to referee the shouting matches. Lewis had been as frustrated with the state of politics as anyone. He thought things couldn’t get much worse, but now? Jesus. Now he’d happily cast his vote and hand out fliers for every one of those infuriating assholes, Republican and Democrat, if they’d just come back and right the ship.
He’d still want to slap them all silly, of course, but he wanted them back all the same. He’d never realized just how important they were, even when they were wasting time sponsoring bills to make the rainbow trout the state fish of Vermont, or boasting at the top of their voices about how much they support the troops while quietly voting down a funding bill for veteran healthcare.
See, it turns out all the politicians really needed to do was be there. Just... just fucking show up, claim their fancy lunches on their generous expense accounts and do their little song and dance on C-SPAN. Who would have thought that was the most important thing? Who would have thought that the illusion was what mattered?
That’s what the government was, at the end of the day: an illusion. Hell, it had always been an illusion. All around the world society only keeps ticking over when the people at the bottom believe the folks at the top are keeping a close eye on them. It’s the only reason people pay their taxes and take out the trash before they go to bed on a Sunday. People don’t do any of that shit because they’re civic minded. They don’t do it just because they want to be good citizens. They do it because they know that if they don’t pay their taxes they’ll be screwed without lube by the IRS. They do it because if they don’t take out the trash on the right day they’ll find a citation in their mailbox from the county. Society runs on fear.
Things went to shit pretty damned quickly when people started to realize that mom and dad weren’t watching any more; when people saw D.C. razed to the ground, and when they watched what was left of the government scurry away like frightened children to their underground bunker at Raven Rock. That was the moment when, beyond the panic about the infected running through the streets, people started to throw up their hands and ask why the fuck am I still recycling? It’s tough to give a shit about rinsing out your tin cans when the people in charge are hiding safely underground and the water doesn’t run from your faucets any more.
These are the thoughts that run through Lewis’ mind as he tucks his notepad into his jacket pocket, takes a quick glance at the fuel gauge – the needle hovers around a quarter tank – and starts up the car. It’s not really the infected he’s afraid of. He has his pistol, a healthy stock of ammo and enough boot camp drilling to keep an eye on his six. The infected make a lot of noise when they come running, and their movements aren’t exactly difficult to predict, so the only reason to be afraid of them is if you’re too dumb to drive away or clumsy enough to run yourself into a corner. And frankly, if you find yourself trapped by a creature blessed with the coordination of Stephen Hawking and the intelligence of a Black Friday midnight shopper you almost deserve to die.
No, what really scares him is the lawlessness. That’s the real threat, and it’s what people should really be worried about as they’re fleeing the infected. Lewis is kept awake at night by the thought of the countless crazy fuckers between here and Nevada who’ve been quick to realize that all the old rules don’t need to apply to them any more. Sociopaths. Rapists. Murderers. All those folks who were only ever kept in line by the worry that society would punish them for their sins, who’ve now learned that they can let their freak flag fly without fear. They can take what they want, do what they want and fuck who they want, and the only people who can hope to stop them are those with more firepower and a better aim.
It seems crazy to think that he can possibly find his way through this madhouse all the way to Vegas. He was sheltered from the worst of it back at the Camp, but even there he heard reports about vast tracts of the quarantine zone suddenly going dark without explanation. Well armed units would enter a region to look for survivors and never return, and nor did any search parties sent in to retrieve them. They couldn’t spare the manpower to investigate further, but the theory was that gangs of survivors had begun to carve out their own little fiefdoms all across the east, guarding their territory jealously and attacking anyone who dared breach their perimeter. If the reports were true the
quarantine zone has become the wild west, and nobody who roams blindly through the region is safe from attack.
In this terrifying lawless reality Nevada might as well be somewhere beyond the moon. Lewis can’t imagine how he’ll ever make it in one piece, but he has to at least give it his best shot. If Tish and Jack are still alive somewhere out there he owes it to them to try. He owes it to everyone. If everything goes to plan he could bring an end to this nightmare, and maybe one day he’ll even be able to forgive himself for leaving those poor folks behind at the Camp.
He rubs his eyes, cracks open the window and pulls slowly off the gravel shoulder and back onto the winding highway. He’s about two hours beyond exhausted and there’s still a long way to go before he’ll allow himself to take a rest, but for now he’s enjoying the freedom of the open road.
As the Civic gains speed he smiles and takes a deep breath of the fresh air, a welcome relief after a couple of weeks of inhaling the thick, choking dust and smoke drifting over from the smoldering ruins of New York. Every breath of it caught in the back of his throat, filling his lungs until he woke each morning coughing like an old smoker, hacking up a wet, black plug of sticky phlegm from the depths of his throat. After breathing the dead, stale air of the city for so long he’d forgotten how incredible the countryside air smelled. So fresh and sweet, almost like–
“Oh, for the love of–” He hurries to roll up the window and slap closed the air vents as a putrid stink suddenly wafts into the car. It’s almost indescribable, like a butcher’s counter after a month long power cut during a heatwave. Lewis gags and holds his hand over his mouth and nose, and as he rounds the next bend in the road he sees through watering eyes the source of the fetid, rotting odor.
Beside the highway a broad green pasture stretches off into the distance, a beautiful hillside that puts him in mind of the old Windows background. At any other time he might have stopped and gazed at its beauty for a while, maybe regretting the fact that he wasn’t riding with his family in the car and a picnic basket in the trunk, but not today. Now the pristine rural idyll is ruined by the sight of countless hulking mounds packed so tightly together that the grass is almost invisible.
They’re cows. Hundreds of them, all dead. Eviscerated. Torn to pieces. Lewis slows to a crawl and gapes in amazement at the carnage. He can see thick clouds of black flies buzzing over the cadavers, and the closest mounds just a few dozen yards away on the other side of the wire fence seem to be writhing. It’s only when he pulls in for a closer look that he can see they’re swarming with maggots, millions of them feasting on the spilled, rotting entrails.
He shivers and steps firmly on the gas. It’s hard to imagine what could have brought so many of those massive creatures to their knees. Certainly not just a few infected. No, that kind of slaughter would take hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe, flooding the pasture in an unstoppable swarm, like locusts stripping a field to the roots.
He feels goosebumps prick at the skin of his arms as he pictures the sight. An endless mass of infected racing towards their ignorant, docile prey. The panic spreading through the herd as they realized what was happening. The hopelessness of their plight, penned in by impassible fences, helpless as the swarm reached them, biting and tearing through thick, rough hides to tug out the warm, slippery offal within. The terror of not understanding death; of not knowing if the agony would eventually end. The blackness must have come as a blessing after that horror.
For a moment Lewis eases off the gas as it occurs to him that the swarm might be ahead of him. They might be waiting around the next turn, blocking the highway. He might run right into them, and there’s no way in hell he could drive through a swarm of that size. They’d drag him from the car and tear him to pieces before he even had time to scream.
His mind is still awash with images of the immense swarm tearing into the herd when something catches his attention in the corner of his eye, indistinct against the setting sun obscuring the road ahead. It comes up fast, and he doesn’t have time to react before driving over it. The tires squeal and the car veers wildly to the left, and it’s only instinct that allows Lewis to straighten up before he plows into the concrete median barrier. By some miracle he manages to stay on the road, and after a few moments and a hundred yards of butt clenching deceleration he manages to bring the bucking, veering vehicle to a halt. For a moment he sits silently clutching the sticky steering wheel, the only sound the gentle ticking of the stalled, cooling engine.
He already knows what he’s going to find before he climbs from the car, but it doesn’t stop him from slamming the hood with a clenched fist when his suspicions are confirmed. Two flat tires, each of them still boasting a generous handful of the nails that punctured deep into the tread. He looks back at the road behind him, and in the fading light he can just about make out a wooden garden trellis extended across the carriageway, no doubt the source of the nails.
Lewis sighs and reaches for the pistol tucked into his hip holster. This was no accident. The trellis looks like a homemade Stinger, a row of caltrops designed to ruin the day of any driver dumb enough to pass over it, and unless he’s long dead the owner might still be nearby waiting to spring an ambush.
He moves slowly to the back of the car, warily scanning his surroundings as he pops the trunk and grabs his backpack. He knows he couldn’t possibly be in a weaker position. The highway winds through the surrounding fields in a broad recessed gully, penned in on both sides by high ground that offers excellent options for concealment. As far as the next turn in the road the ribbon of asphalt is lined with trees and thick hedges. A hundred men could be hunkered down in the undergrowth, and he wouldn’t know they were there until the moment they wanted to be seen.
There’s nothing for it. He knows full well that the only thing behind him for ten miles is the thick, cloying stink of countless maggot-ridden livestock. The last exit was miles back, and when he passed it all he’d seen in the distance was a small village full of burned out homes and an abandoned roadside diner with shattered windows, no doubt long ago picked clean by looters. Maybe the next off ramp will be more promising. Maybe there’ll be a car he could steal. Maybe there’ll even be somewhere he could sleep safely for the night. If the dimming orb of the setting sun is anything to go by he’ll be needing shelter soon, unless he wants to walk through the night and take his chances with the infected prowling unseen in the darkness.
He’s only taken a few steps from the crippled car when he hears the throaty roar of an approaching engine carried on the shifting breeze. His eyes dart to the grass verge on either side of the highway, but a quick glance tells him he won’t make it to cover before he’s spotted. The road bends to the left just a hundred yards ahead, and his instincts tell him the car must be just a few seconds from coming into view.
Moving with uncanny speed and grace Lewis bounds back to his car and slides beneath it on his belly just as the vehicle rounds the bend. He knows it’s far from ideal cover, but it’s better than nothing. If the approaching driver is particularly dumb he might be able to take him out with his pistol before he’s seen, if it comes to it. He awkwardly cranes his neck to look forward as the vehicle appears, and what he sees almost takes his breath away.
It isn’t a car. It doesn’t even come close. The vehicle slowly approaching is a fully kitted out Stryker armored vehicle, an eight wheeled monster plated in thick armor and equipped with all the latest offensive weaponry. Lewis has never even seen one on US soil before, and it looks massively out of place on this pleasant, tranquil stretch of Pennsylvania rural highway bathed in the warm orange glow of the setting sun.
The tactical vehicle slowly trundles towards him before pulling to a grumbling stop a couple of car lengths ahead. Lewis looks down at his standard issue Beretta M9 and rethinks his plan to try to take out the driver. The .50-cal M2 mounted on the roof of the Stryker could reduce him to a moist pink smear on the asphalt before he could get off more than a couple of shots, without the operator ever h
aving to show his face. As he watches the .50-cal swings around towards him, electronically controlled by the unseen operator safely ensconced behind the Stryker’s ceramic armor plating.
“Hold your fire!” he yells. “I’m coming out!”
He slowly, awkwardly slides out from beneath the car, holding his pistol by the slide to avoid any misunderstandings that might leave him with a few unwanted air vents in his body. When he’s clear of the car he stands, slowly holsters his weapon with exaggerated motions and dusts off his fatigues. For a moment he wonders if he should place the pistol on the ground and step back, but he figures it makes little difference whether or not he’s armed. Not with that M2 trained on him.
His heart races as the rear hatch of the Stryker creaks open and bounces against the body with a metallic clang, followed by the sound of boots hitting the asphalt. A man appears, walking slowly and casually from the back of the Stryker. Military dress, but unkempt. Some kind of absurdly overbuilt civilian assault rifle on a strap slung over his shoulder. A week of rough stubble on his chin and an unlit cigarette between his lips. A deserter? A survivalist? Does it even matter?
The new arrival reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a Zippo. For a moment he watches Lewis as if appraising him, and the only sound is the clink of the lighter lid and the strike of the flint. He takes a long pull on the cigarette and releases a thick cloud of smoke through pursed lips.
“Just you?” the man asks, peering around as if Lewis’ buddies might pop up from the bushes.
Lewis nods. “Yeah, I’m alone.”
He points to Lewis’ fatigues. “Deserter?”
Lewis nods again, reluctantly. “I guess so.”
The man approaches, and Lewis doesn’t resist when he takes the backpack from his hand. He unclips the strap and roots around, finding little more than ammo, bottled water and MREs. He doesn’t bother to check the outer pockets, so he doesn’t find Lewis’ precious cargo.
Last Man Standing Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 26