by Morris, SJ
Dana pulled her feet back from over the edge of the bridge like I would have pulled my feet in from over the side of a bed. She looked around with wide eyes, and Kamil just sat there, frozen. It was like my words were the pause button on his own personal body remote, even though he was in mid-chew, which almost made me laugh, since he had his eyes closed, giving an awkward look to his face.
“I hear it too,” Kamil finally whispered. “It’s coming from under the bridge.”
I stood up slowly and leaned over the bridge as far as I could, allowing me to see the very back of what looked to be a station wagon. It was covered in mud and debris, but then, I saw our saving grace, and I almost yelled hooray! There were four bicycles on the roof rack of the vehicle that appeared to be stuck in the muddy stream the bridge was covering.
They glistened in the sun like they were calling out to us to rescue them. I looked back at the car and saw the origin of the noises we heard. It was a small child that appeared to still be belted into his booster seat. He was infected and was now trying to reach out the slightly open window, to get out. I guess it heard us talking and probably smelled us too. It didn’t see us yet, so it didn’t let out any moans, alerting other infected that might be in the area but who knew how long that was going to last.
What was it with me finding infected kids in this mess? Didn’t I already say if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all?
This time, though, it was going to have to be me. I was going to have to do this. I was going to have to destroy a child that couldn’t have been more than six or seven, by the size of him.
I felt responsible for Cooper, but I had not actually done the deed, so this was going to be difficult, to say the least.
I told Kamil and Dana to stay up on the bridge, and that I would go down and take care of the infected in the car. I figured if the infected didn’t care about me, it would be easier for me to dispatch it quietly. I didn’t want to give it the chance to moan and warn others in the area.
Kamil begrudgingly agreed. He didn’t seem to like letting me do most of the dirty work, but he understood my reasons. We needed to keep each other safe, and I was our best bet right now.
I climbed down the side of the bridge. The grass was so overgrown it reached my shoulders. I had my trusty stake in-hand, ready to take care of the threat in the car. I washed it off, but the blood of the infected from the barn had seeped into the wood forever staining it black, and it smelled absolutely appalling.
Yet, with having around it so much, I actually started to get used to the smell. That single realization was almost as scary as the undead themselves. The thought of eventually getting used to the odor and everything else that was going on around us, I just shook my head in disbelief at what the world, and I along with it, had become.
The mud got thicker, the further down I got, and I finally fell on my ass, sliding the rest of the way down the small hill in the mud. The noise from my fall was heard by the infected in the car, and I heard a loud moan for my troubles.
I jumped up as quickly as possible and ran for the car. I tried the door handle, but it was locked. There wasn’t enough room for me to stake the infected through the window, so I was going to have to find a way to get in.
I got lucky. The front door was unlocked.
I opened the door, and the infected started thrashing wildly. It was reaching out to the sound of the door, not to me. Its eyes were completely clouded over with decay. The more it thrashed, the more skin and muscle tissue was pulled away from its little body by the seatbelt that was restraining it, making it look more grotesque with each jarring movement.
I held my breath and climbed in the front seat, with my stake raised, ready to strike. What used to be a little boy was now moaning loudly and reaching toward the outside of the vehicle. With every movement he made, black blood oozed from his body, making the smell in the car that much more rancidly pungent.
I had to make it quick, so I just closed my eyes and stabbed. I felt the stake hit something and heard the crushing sounds of what I knew to be the skull crumpling. The moaning stopped instantly, so without opening my eyes, I yanked the stake back and climbed out of the car, closing the door as quietly as I could.
The boys moaning probably had every infected in a two-mile radius heading in our direction, so I yelled for Kamil and Dana to come down and help get the bikes off the roof of the car. They came down in the same careful fashion as I did, on their asses, in the mud.
Once they got up, they were rushing to help me get the bikes down. They both heard the moans from the infected I had just dispatched and understood it meant more were bound to show up shortly. Also, the look on my face sealed the deal that we needed to get what we came for and get the hell out of here as quickly as possible.
There were two adult bikes and two kids’ bikes. I gave Kamil and Dana the adult bikes, while I took the purple Huffy since I was only 5’5. Kamil and Dana were both taller than me. The smallest bicycle, which had training wheels attached, was going to remain behind with its original owner.
Kamil insisted that we check the trunk for anything we might need, and I agreed but said he could do the honors. I had enough of being in that car for one lifetime.
Kamil smiled over the open back door, “Hey, guys, I found one of those child buggy, carriage things that you hook to the back of the bike. Help me get it out and we can put all of our gear inside. It’ll be much easier to ride without all these packs.”
I think that was the first time I saw him actually smile.
“You two get it out and hooked up. I’ll take a walk around, to be sure no infected come up on us,” I replied.
I still wanted nothing to do with that car, but with all of the moaning the little one did, I was sure we were going to have visitors. I just didn’t know how soon we’d have them, and I wanted to be sure I saw them before they saw us.
I walked around the front of the car and stood quietly. I tried to listen as hard as I could through the trees, as I looked for anything moving in the dense vegetation surrounding the creek-bed. I didn’t see or hear anything, except Kamil cursing that it was such a pain in the ass to hook the stupid buggy up.
It was comforting to listen to Kamil and Dana bicker about putting something together. I remembered doing that with Jack every time we bought a new piece of furniture or toys for the kids that needed to be put together.
He always laid out every piece that was in the kit. Each screw or nail had its particular pile so he could make sure we had all the parts required, as per the instructions. I was always more of a, give me the picture on the box and I’ll make it look like that, kind of girl. This drove Jack absolutely nuts.
I was fondly remembering when we got the crib for Lance and fought about putting it together, when I heard a noise coming from the woods. I looked up and scanned the area but saw nothing. I continued to hear movement, though.
“We really need to hurry up and get out of here, guys. It sounds like we’re going to have company any minute,” I said quietly as I grabbed my pack and mounted my pretty, new, purple, bicycle.
“I’ve almost got it on. One last screw should do it. Dana, why don’t you put yours and my bag in the carrier and get the other bike, so as soon as I am done, we can leave.”
Dana nodded in agreement as she grabbed the bags and tossed them in the carrier. She looked around and then at me, with worried eyes.
“Do you see any of them yet?” She asked.
“No, not yet, but I hear them in the woods ahead of us. We still have to get the bikes back up the hill to get back on the road, so we need to get moving. If I can hear them, that means they’re pretty close.”
Dana whispered, “I have a really bad feeling about this, guys. We haven’t seen that many zeds all day, but that scares me more than it makes me happy.”
“I know what you mean, believe me. Kam, you ready to go?” I asked in a whisper.
“Yep, let’s move out!” He said a little too loudly as he started push
ing the bike towards the hill we had come down.
Then, we heard it, loud moans coming from the trees that were now behind us. A lot of groans, from a lot of infected. Without turning around, I knew we were in a shit-load of trouble.
Dana stifled a scream by covering her mouth with her hand while pushing as hard as she could to get her bike to the path we had previously slid down. I made sure to stay in the back, so I could fight if needed and give Kamil and Dana some additional time to get away.
It was a lot easier coming down than it was going back up. Dana and Kamil each took a knee in the mud a few times, to not fall completely down the mud-slick hill. They were almost to the top when I finally decided to turn around to see how many infected were coming for us.
What I saw made my heart stop.
There must have been hundreds of them, breaking the tree line, coming for us. Luckily, the bridge’s overpass created somewhat of a bottleneck that would keep the numbers of infected closest to us down a little, but still, there were far more than I was expecting. It was worse than what I saw with Chris, Tom, and the others when we were stopped on the road trying to get to Jake. This time, I didn’t have the safety of the Jeep, or the marksmanship of Chris and Tom, to take them out though.
We needed to get away as quickly as possible. Having this many infected trailing behind us was not going to be good at all.
“We need to pick up the pace, guys. Don’t turn and look, just take my word for it and go, now!” I yelled.
Dana knew better than to turn and look. Kamil, however, couldn’t restrain his curiosity. He turned, and when he saw them, he froze. He looked at me and back at them with the mark of sheer terror in his eyes.
“Go, Kamil!” was all I could manage to yell at that moment.
We had hundreds of ravenous infected headed straight for us. We needed to get to the road and put as much distance between them and us as possible. Fortunately, my words shook him from his fear, because he turned back to the hill and dug in deep. He made it past Dana and to the top of the hill in seconds. He leaned his bike against the bridge’s guardrail and helped Dana up, before assisting me.
We looked around and I saw the infected underneath us were having more trouble than we were, trying to get up the muddy hill. Fortunately, most of the infected that were pawing to get to us had not yet figured out that they could go around the other side of the bridge to get up to the road. We took that small advantage, jumped on our newly acquired bikes, and pedaled away as quickly as we could.
There was a 90-degree bend in the road that turned left, in the same direction the infected had come from, which made me leery about following it, but we needed to get away, so I sped up to try and scout ahead a little.
Dana was trying to stay on pace with Kamil since he had more weight to pull and was slower. It also didn’t help that he kept turning his head every few seconds to see if the infected had made it over the bridge yet.
Just before I hit the bend, I slowed to a crawl and listened. What I heard both frightened and angered me.
The noises were distant, but they were definitely coming from in front of me. It sounded like Madison Square Garden had just let out after the Rangers won the Stanley Cup. There must have been thousands of them.
Kamil and Dana caught up to me and stopped. Once they saw the look on my face and heard what I did, Dana started to cry softly. Kamil reached out to her and whispered something to her that I couldn’t make out, but whatever it was, it managed to put a smile on her face, and in that moment, that’s what counted.
“So, what do we do?” Kamil asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
“The only thing we can do really. Backtrack to before the bridge and take the first right.”
“But, won’t that take us away from Route 206?”
“Yes, it will, but as of right now, it sounds like every person that was on or near 206 at the time of the outbreak is headed in our direction. And they aren’t coming to say hello. In order to stay alive, we’ve got to get away from this horde. We have to find a place to hide out until they pass through.”
Dana started to panic, “What if they don’t pass through? What if we’re hiding and they find us?”
“I’ve seen it before, Dana. When they’re in big groups like that, they just keep going, like follow the leader. Unless you give them a reason to hang around, that is. I guess, in big groups like that, it’s hard for them to track by smell or even sound. I think if we’re quiet and stay out of sight, they’ll just keep going. I won’t let them get us,” I replied with as much confidence in my voice as I could muster.
Kamil sighed, “Well, if that’s what we’re doing, we’d better hurry up, before that huge group gets up to the bridge, and we box ourselves in.”
With that, we turned around and headed back towards the bridge, and the hundreds of infected we knew where there. It might sound stupid, but I’d rather face the devil I know, especially in this situation.
We reached the bridge again, reasonably quickly, and the first of the infected was just making it to the top of the hill. It seemed as if they were only making it up by the sheer numbers of infected that were pushing from behind, or they would never have made it up the muddy embankment. The three of us, flying past on our bikes, put the undead in a frenzy. The moans grew louder and louder.
I yelled back at Kamil and Dana, “Don’t look back, just keep going and follow me!”
I turned down the first street I saw and pedaled as fast as I could. I turned back to be sure that Kamil and Dana were close behind me, and thankfully, they were. When we cleared the tree-covered road, I found us heading towards a vast, empty field with a lonely farmhouse nestled in the middle of it.
There was no way, if we got to the farmhouse, that it would be left standing after the infected stampeded through the open field, not with the numbers I anticipated were following behind us.
We had to keep going, so we did.
We rode for a long time without stopping or turning around to check if there was anything behind us, but eventually, we had to stop for a drink and to rest. Riding the bikes may have exerted more energy than walking, but it was so much quicker than running. We stopped and each got a healthy drink of water. I tossed back a few more painkillers to try and ease my throbbing ribs while I had the chance.
Then, we stood still to listen.
After a few minutes, I heard it again. The sounds of what could only be thousands of infected, making their way through the forest, on the road, through the mud, as well as any other place they could navigate, to get to us.
They were still coming, and we needed a place to hide, and fast. We needed somewhere stable and preferably on higher ground, but I’d take any old brick building at this point.
Kamil and Dana finally heard what I did and quickly put their water bottles away. Everyone present knew what dire straits we were in, and we all started pedaling, quicker than before, with the threat of the infected steadily closing in.
Chapter 22
We’d been riding so long that it was now starting to get dark. I knew, by this point, we’d put a good amount of distance between the infected and ourselves. Yet, I didn’t want to stop and listen again until we found a safe place to stay for the night.
I needed to make sure we had enough distance between us and the massive horde I knew was following behind us because we needed to be sure we had time to clear any building of zombies if we were to find one.
Then, just when it seemed like none of us could go any further without collapsing from exhaustion, I saw it. Chuck’s Feed Barn was our saving grace. It was a big, solid, one-story brick building.
There were only a few windows in front, which were fairly high, as far as windows went and could easily be secured. The only downfall I saw was the large metal garage door. That might be a problem. However, it didn’t take long for me to spot a huge dump truck next to the building. Somehow, we needed to get the dump truck parked in front of the bay doors. The big truck should be able to keep
the undead away from that vulnerable area.
I worked it all out in my head before pointing the building out to Kamil and Dana, who had never looked so relieved. Knowing we didn’t have a lot of time to clear the building and that we also had a lot of preparations to make in order to fortify Chuck’s before our guests arrived, I took us on the quickest route there to check for infected inside.
I pedaled as fast as I could. The warm early summer air felt like fire in my lungs as my ribs clenched in pain, but I shook it off. When we finally made it to the lot, I barely stopped my bike as I jumped off.
I ran up to the front door that had ‘Office’ painted in gold letters across the metal wire fortified glass and pounded on it, screaming nonsense. Kamil and Dana look stupefied at first, but they soon followed suit, banging on the garage and front doors with me.
After a few seconds of letting out some anger screams, we all stood silently, listening to anything we might have attracted, inside or out. I heard nothing but had a weird feeling about merely walking in.
Just as I was about to say, ‘fuck it’ and barge in, stake in hand, I heard the telltale click of a gun being chambered above my head.
“Who the hell are you people and what the hell are you doing, making all this racket out here? Are you trying to get every crazy in the area over here to eat us?” Barked a white-haired, old man, from the flat rooftop above, his gun pointed right at us.
“No, Sir. My name’s Abby, this is Kamil, and she’s Dana. We’re trying to find a place to hide out for the night and wanted to be quick about finding out if there were any infected inside... Sir,” I had to at least try and end it on a respectable note.
This old guy seemed like he meant business with his Colt 45. I may not know the name of every gun, but I certainly knew that cannon, especially when it was pointed directly at me.
“Well, I don’t have much in the way of food or water to share with ya’ll, but you don’t seem like crazy, marauding thieves. So, as long as you ask nicely, I’ll let you in.”