Across the street was a gas station that looked deserted. Everything looked deserted in Yuma, more importantly it looked untouched. No smashed windows, no cars parked haphazardly around the pumps, no rotting bodies or undead. With still no sign from whoever left the flyer the gas station called to us in our boredom. Armed with our shields we walked across the street. Cities are quiet now, no ambient sounds of airplanes over head or cars driving. It’s just the wind, birds calling cheerfully and our footsteps as we reached the gas station. Dave tried the pumps but there was no power and we couldn’t think of a way to get any of the gas out. Instead of heading back empty handed we entered the gas station.
The old fashion bell on the door startled me. It would have attracted the attention of anyone inside. Startled by the ringing I backed up, bumping into Ron and Dave. I stood there pulling the door closed; using all my weight bracing for something to smash into it but nothing came.
There was no one inside. The place was untouched. We helped ourselves to the bottled water, a few liters of motor oil and first aid supplies. The necessities first but eventually our eyes turned to luxuries. Ron and I loaded up on the small section of canned food while Dave grabbed a case of Cherry Coke and Chex Mix. Ron’s eyes froze on the ATM a sly smile slowly spreading on his face. Dave nodded.
Dave’s argument is that money should be useless (it always should have been) but currency is useful if people still value it. We’ve been brought up to value money. We go to school in order to get a job; the better jobs are considered better because of the pay, not because you actually add anything to society. A library worker gets paid peanuts compared to someone in the oil field. To cast the value of money aside for many people would be hard if not impossible. It’s a concept that people can’t comprehend, everything they lived for now doesn’t matter. A lawyer was once a position of power and prestige means nothing now, a farmer or hunter has a more valuable skill set. So this money, as truly useless as it is could be valuable if we find someone who still values it. Watching all the looting on TV and the internet it’s not hard to image that we can find someone who still is driven by cash.
With no tools to open it up we load the ATM on a dolly and along with our loot we head outside.
Walking back we see one of the undead in our parking lot, rocking back and forth on his heels content with staring at our Jeep. I can’t blame him, it is a nice ride.
With only one zombie we quickly agree that this is a good time to test our shield wall.
Dave gave an interrupting cough. The zombie’s head snapped in our direction.
“Excuse me asshole, do we have a problem here?” Ron called out.
Grinning at us, its bottom lip dangling like a plump purple worm, sunken red hate filled eyes tracking our every move, it takes a step towards us. As we get closer it gets excited. Screaming at us, reaching out with its fingers, the flesh picked from the bones. From walking it began to lumber along, picking up speed. We jog towards it, this doesn’t faze it. It doesn’t care about three against one. If it thinks anything at all its, “Yeah, lunch is coming to me.” I’m in the middle of our little shield wall. It howls in excitement, and we scream a war cry in return as we plow into it. The creature is knocked backward, cart wheeling once before it skids to a stop. Ron and Dave dispatch it. Theory tested. We left it where it fell, in the middle of the parking lot.
Ron has been working on opening the ATM for hours. The constant banging is driving Dave nuts. At first he was slow and methodical, tongue stuck out in concentration trying to pick the lock. From there he started to pry the hinges with a screwdriver, then hitting the screw driver with a hammer and then an ax on what he thought were the machines weak spot. Now he is just banging the shit out of it with a hammer. Hitting it in any random place, denting it up but not cracking it open.
I have an idea.
It was a lot of work but we managed to get the ATM up on the roof. And over it goes. Hitting the asphalt it split open like a coconut. It’s the best piñata ever as cash littered the parking lot. We rushed down and gather it up. Chasing cash blown in the wind, pausing to look and listen for any undead every few seconds. I think we got most of it. The bills that blew onto the zombie stuck on the warm pool of sludge leaking out. We left those.
$4750 dollars. With the money from the surfers we have $4995. What it’s worth and what we can do with it are another thing altogether. Ron wants to get more cash going from store to store. We have enough. He tried to convince Dave that we should stop at every place with a machine.
Since we are just waiting around for the flyer person, I raise the issue of bats. Both Dave and Ron agree it’s a good idea. Something blunt that wouldn’t get stuck. When we go to check out the toy store the windows are blood smeared, hand prints drug along the glass at child level. The smears are from the inside. That settles it. No one wants to go in there.
Later that day.
Shit. It’s my fault. All my fault. My bright idea nearly got us killed. The noise of the ATM has attracted hundreds of them. It took them awhile to hone in on the sound but they eventually found us. Busy counting our money and enjoying coffee we didn’t notice them until we heard the rotten fists pounding on the glass. It echoed in the store like a big bass drum. We hadn’t heard from whoever dropped off the note it’s clear they are not coming back. Now they couldn’t come back even if they wanted to.
They have the front doors blocked. Twenty, thirty of them, I don’t know. I wasn’t going to spend the time counting. In any second the front windows could shatter under the weight of the crowd. If we wanted to escape in the Jeep, parked at the front, we needed a diversion. And fast. Their first pounding on the glass sounded like thunder. With every bang on the windows I flinch wondering if the next fist would shatter the glass, letting them in. We ran to the roof. If they got into the store while we were up there we would be trapped. On the roof we could see a larger crowd coming in the distance. Toss one ATM off the roof and every fricken undead in Yuma comes shambling along like I rang a dinner bell. If the group gets in here, there would be no way we’d be no escape. One chance and no time. We started tossing everything we could think of off the roof onto the parking lot to the side of the store. We tossed the chairs we brought up to read and relax in, a table, books, even handfuls of gravel. That brought a few around; they in turn made more noise which attracted the others from the front of the store. We rushed down and found only a few dedicated diehards still at the front. The windows smeared black and red distorting their faces. On the count of one, Ron pulled the chain free, and we pushed our way out. Clubbing, and pushing them away as we made it to the Jeep. There was nervous laughter as we drove out of the parking lot. It was close.
We weren’t out of Yuma when out of habit I stopped at a stop sign. Lucky I did as a motorcycle with a sidecar crossed in front of us. The driver was wearing a leather helmet and goggles like a world war one pilot; the passenger in the sidecar was wearing a feathered headdress. From her curves I could tell she was a girl. We were stunned for a few seconds before I signaled (habit again) and turned to follow.
I tried to catch up but their motorcycle could navigate the abandoned cars and debris easier then the Jeep. We closed the distance on a straight away, I honked my horn and flashed my lights but they kept going, the passenger tossed a handful of flyers into the air. Some landed on the windshield. Blinded I slowed. Ron leaned out to grab one, as I turned on the windshield wipers to get a few out of my field of vision.
Sure enough, it was the same flyer that was left on our windshield. We watched them pull away taking a corner so fast that the sidecar’s wheel left the road; tipping in the air, the passenger leaned, shifting her weight away from the driver. When the wheel once again hit asphalt they increased their distance. I saw the passenger in the side car swing a sword as they passed one of the undead. When I slowed to avoid the corpse, they easily lost us, disappearing into the city.
Instead of continuing our pursuit we headed north leaving Yuma behind.
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We tune the radio to 102.9 FM.
It’s a weak signal, mostly static but we caught the tail end of the broadcast.
“Bring what you can. We have space and supplies. Secure and safe. Best make your way to Albuquerque. Voice one signing off”
They ended the broadcast with some Johnny Cash.
We drove until it was too dark. At the first turn off we pulled over for the night.
The note said it all; Albuquerque.
January 20
Today was a lot of stopping and starting. Frustratingly slow with cars and wrecks everywhere. It seemed like every five minutes I was jumping out to push a car out of the way or to guide the truck through. Ron managed to maneuver through a nasty log jam of vehicles when he scrapped the side of the truck on a bumper of a piece of shit rusted ford. The high pitched sound of metal on metal was enough to make us groan and tell Ron sarcastically, “Good job, buddy.”
He stopped the truck. Dave started reading, nose in the book so Ron and I got out to investigate the damage.
“And I just made the last payment,” He joked and then stopped in his tracks. My heart was in my throat and my hand reached for my machete. I followed his eyes but didn’t see anything.
He was staring at a car half in the ditch just ahead.
“Holy crap. Alberta plates.”
I relaxed but now had to take a leak.
Ron started unbolting the license plates while I made sure the coast was clear. Something from home. This is the first car we’ve seen from our home province. I take it as a good omen.
The door was ajar and creaked as I opened it enough to get in. Like most of the vehicles we’ve come across there was no trace of the driver. We’ve come across blood stains on the interior and leading out the door, a few zombies trapped in their seat belts but more often the car is just empty, the occupant gone without a trace or clue to their fate. A dreamcatcher dangled from the rear view mirror. It made me think of my mom. One of those silly things you remember. I was six or seven and had nightmares. The same repeating dream. I used to like Abbot and Costello re-runs and somehow I thought the episode with the Mummy was scary. Every night, I’d be in some scary room, sarcophagus lying in the middle. I knew what was in it. The grinding sound of stone on stone as the lid slide pushed aside by the Mummy inside. Although Dream catchers were from the Anishinaabe in Ontario, and not of my nation, my mother bought one for me to help with my dreams. They got popular and many people, like this guy, hung them off their rear view mirrors. My dreams got worse; trapped with the Mummy, Frankenstein, and Dracula. For a kid it was scary, but the repeating part freaked me out just as much as the monsters.
The willow framed net was supposed to change a person’s dreams. The hoop, on which a web is woven, the dream catcher was then decorated with beads and gaudy purple feathers. I hung it over my bed but after a few nights my dreams didn’t get better, if anything they got more vivid, more frightening. In the morning after another restless night I was sitting on my bed. I remember looking at the dream catcher, examining the light as it reflected off the plastic beads in the web. Only good dreams would be allowed to filter through the bad dreams would get tangled in the net, disappearing with the first light of day. I turned the dream catcher over in my hand noticing a tag stuck near one of the feathers and found out why the dream catcher did not work; made in China. My mom still laughs when she tells that story. At least she did.
I left the dream catcher in that car and searched glove compartment. A car from home should have music from home. The radio is mostly dead air, static and for a while a short new bulletin on a loop. As I rooted thought the glove compartment, I thought of all the music I liked, bands from back home that would sell out stadiums and hockey rinks in Canada but play to only a handful of people if they made it to the states. I found the usual, registration, fast food napkins, a couple pens and an air pressure gauge. With Ron calling for me to hurry up I flipped the sun visor down. A CD case fell. Something from home, something to kill the hours on the road. I turned the case in my hand.
Nickelback.
I left the disk on the front seat for someone more desperate. A dreamcatcher hung on their rearview mirror and a Nickelback CD, even if they were from Alberta these people must have been dicks.
With the corner of his T-shirt Ron wiped the grime off the white license place, the red letters and numbers reflected the light, the provincial slogan at the bottom “wild rose country.” That’s where we are bound. Those light pink flowers dotting the prickly shrub grow everywhere back home, lining ditches, ravines, and the sides of fields. In just a few months they would grow everywhere, were I there to see them. Ron quickly put the plate on the front of the jeep.
January 21
Except for a dusty ranger’s truck, the parking lot was empty. We didn't pay the admission fee ($5.00) but we carefully entered the small tourist centre. I flip through the rack of postcard grabbing one. “Montezuma’s Castle” A safe place for the night. If the roads are better we should make it to the Gathering sometime tomorrow. Dave is still not impressed, voicing his displeasure with our choice to go. The rest of the centre was clear, not a soul and nothing useful other than a few rolls of toilet paper. A roll for each of us. Ron uses more than his fair share so I’m guarding mine. Wonder if he’d sell his for $100?
We approached the “castle”, the sign tells that it’s a ruin from the Sinagua people. Montezuma was never here and this isn’t a castle, the sign doesn’t say why they don’t rename it to honour the people who built it. Built high on a cliff face the five story twenty room brick and mortar structure rendered with mud. If you had enough food and water, there was probably no better place to escape the undead. From what we’ve seen they can climb stairs clumsily but not ladders. Just toss any garbage out the window, piss right on their undead heads, it wouldn’t make them smell any worse.
The weathered wooden ladder creaked as we climbed to the first floor. It was dim but not as dark as I thought it would be inside. Square windows designed to let ample light in. The first floor was clear. There was a ladder inside leading up.
Entering second floor I sensed the now familiar smell of death. A figure sat against the wall wearing the campaign hat sported by Park Rangers and Mounties, she was in her mid thirties. An empty canteen in her hand. Rough lines marking the days scratched into the wall beside her.
With my machete at the ready I cautiously approached the corpse. She didn’t move. Ready to jump back I nudged her foot with mine. The rocking movement caused her to slowly fall to her side so she now rested in the fetal position. I noticed her other foot was bent at an unnatural angle. Broken. She wasn't one of them, the undead. She was simply dead. Dehydration most likely, her foot hurt too bad to navigate the ladder down to get water from the info centre. Even if she could get down maybe they were waiting, arms stretched up reaching for her, lipless mouths biting the air in anticipation of a meal. Did they give up and scattered after all signs of life ended up here? Either way she is dead now. Above the days scratched in on the wall she wrote:
Lisa Webber, Tacoma WA
With no way to get her out (We aren’t going to toss her over the side like garbage), we decided to leave her where she was.
A search of the other rooms showed no signs of life, more importantly no zombies, just the lifeless park ranger three floors below. We can’t smell her up here. Other than the mental image of a corpse, she isn’t bothering anyone. She looked like she was sleeping, almost peaceful. When we leave, this place will be her tomb.
We huddled up in the top floor; peaking out the small window we can see the highway. Nothing happening outside. Inside there is a little clay oven that we light a fire in.
Looking at the flyer and think about the radio broadcast. Somewhere there are survivors doing more than just running, they are organizing, reforming communities and working together. It sounds good to me. Home is still dauntingly far away. Dave takes the flyer out of my hand, crumples it and tosses it in the cor
ner before heading down the ladder. Ron asked where he was going Dave said he wanted some time alone to read.
Ron and I talk about what we will find when we get to this gathering of nations. Ron is hoping lap dances. We do have the cash.
Before dusk Dave came back with a smile on his face and the keys to the ranger’s truck in his hand. He found the keys in Lisa’s pocket and checked out the truck. The tank is half full. He apologized for earlier, saying tomorrow we can siphon off the fuel and take anything we might need from the ranger’s truck. Five stories up on a cliff side we decided we were safe enough not to have someone on watch. It’s getting dark, too dark to write.
January 22
Dave is gone.
The bastard left sometime in the night. I'll give it to him during these last weeks he has learned to be silent. I didn’t hear him gather his stuff and climb down the creaky ladder. We searched the building thinking he may have just wanted some time alone, choosing to sleep in another part. When that turned up no sign we went to the truck. The ranger’s truck was gone and there was a note on the windshield of our jeep:
Sorry guys, there have been enough delays in getting home. If you change your mind I heading straight up highway 25, then to 90, then 15 to the Montana, Alberta border. Thanks for the map Jake. If it’s possible I will look in on your loved ones.
Good luck. Dave.
He could have screwed us over by taking everything while we slept but he took only his fair share. Ron is pissed that he left us “high and dry”, and is kicking up dirt and swearing up a storm. Here I didn’t think he liked Dave - maybe he had a sweet spot for the Cherry Coke drinking narcoleptic. To me, Dave has always been a good friend; in dire times people can and will turn on you if it helps them out, not Dave. He left us what was ours and didn't take an extra can of food or a weapon that wasn't his fair share (but he did take all the Cherry Coke).
Tomahawks & Zombies Page 8