by M. D. Massey
His heart raced at the thought of what he might find inside. He briefly questioned his own sanity. Why had he left the safety of the ranch to come into town for bags of potato chips and candy bars? He had a freezer full of meat in the basement. The hens were still laying, and he had plenty of eggs. He gripped the handle of the door into the supermarket and pushed. It swung open and the smell of rotting meat assaulted his nose. Movement caught his eye from behind the counter and he aimed his rifle instinctively in that direction.
Mr. Higginbotham, the owner of the grocery store, growled at him from behind the counter, clawing in the air and snapping his teeth. Cody aimed his rifle and shot him through the skull. The monster fell with a crack on the glass and went still.
Cody grabbed a grocery cart and started walking down the aisle, filling it with all the canned food in the store. He knew eventually his supplies would run out, and he would need more. He passed the meat counter and the smell assaulted his nose. Bile rose in his throat. He gagged and swallowed it down, covering his face with his bandana. He continued down the aisle, throwing in every nonperishable item in the store. When he made it to the vegetable section, things weren't any better than the meat section. The smell of rotten broccoli hung in the air and permeated through the mask of his bandana and hand. He quickly pushed his cart away and left it by the front door where he grabbed another. He filled the second cart with junk food and liquor, even though he knew his momma wouldn’t approve. He pushed the carts out the front door and began to load them into the truck.
He moved his supplies from the carts into the back of the truck and left the carts on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store. When he was done, he drove down to the gas station and pulled his gas cans out of the back of the truck. The electricity had been off for days, but he knew how to get the gas from underground. He just had to find the key to the manhole cover.
He walked into the gas station, carefully inspecting the room for zombies. When he was satisfied it was zombie free, he walked behind the counter and started looking for the keys. As he crouched behind the counter, he heard a scrape from inside the room. He shot to his feet, gripping his rifle, but there was nothing there, so he squatted back down and continued searching. After ten minutes of groping around under the counter, and around the cigarettes and girly magazines, he finally noticed a locked wooden cabinet. He bashed it in with the butt of his rifle, breaking the thin wood effortlessly. Inside, he found several keys. One of them was marked “manhole cover,” and he shoved it in his back pocket. When he turned around a girl’s face was inches away from him.
Mandy Carson jumped on top of him, snarling and snapping. He fell on his back, his rifle knocked from his hands. Mandy's face was only inches from him as he held her back by her neck with his forearm. Blood soaked her mouth. Her eyes were stark white and empty. He'd had a massive crush on Mandy for years, but she had never paid him any attention. Now she seemed to want to devour him.
The creature, who had once been the prettiest girl in school, was strong and full of energy. He couldn't push her off him. Her snapping teeth grew closer as his strength waned. He kicked at her and that only angered her further. With a huge rush of effort, he pushed Mandy off him, grabbed his rifle, and smashed her head in with the butt. Blood splattered across the floor and walls, coating the covers of the girly magazines with gooey, black liquid.
Her pretty face was smashed in, and bits of skull and brains oozed out around her once beautiful mouth. He stood up and vomited uncontrollably on the floor. The yellow bile and the remnants of his breakfast mixed with the slime that oozed from inside the corpse. He groaned and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Gripping his gun, Cody staggered from behind the counter and escaped from the gas station into the light of day.
He retched again when he made it to the truck, his head woozy and his mind reeling. Maybe he couldn't go on. Maybe he should just aim his rifle at his own brain and end it right now. If the Mandys of the world had all gone to hell, what was the point? Then he thought of Felix roaming the barns at home. The thought of his farm cat was just enough to give him the strength he needed to go on. The voice of his mother spoke in his head, calming him with her gentle kindness and common sense; morality.
"You're a good boy, Cody Hawkins. You would never hurt anyone."
He took a deep breath and staggered to the manhole cover, bending down to unlock the heavy padlock on the ground. He used a wrench from the back of the truck to open it the rest of the way and then pulled it off with what remained of his strength. The smell of gasoline hit his nose as he slid the cover off. There was plenty of gas down in the tank. He just had to find a way to get it up. Luckily, he had a small pump with him that he used to drain water during the rainy season.
He grabbed it from the truck bed and sent the tube down into the tank, pushing the other tube into one of his cans. He sat on his knees in the heat of the day, gripping his rifle, as the pump pulled gasoline from the underground tank into his red gas cans. After he had filled all three of his cans, he shut off the pump and replace the manhole cover, locking it so he could come back and get more later. On his way back to the truck, he noticed a group of five or six zombies, ambling down the street at the intersection. He put his cans in the truck bed and threw the rifle into the cab.
Cody couldn't kill any more zombies today. Even if he knew his life depended on it. He had succeeded in his looting mission and now it was time to go home and wash his hands of the blood that he knew he would never truly get off.
17
Babs felt worn out and tired, having spent the entire day maneuvering her RV slowly through the tightly packed streets and highways of southern Arizona. She'd come a long way, but still had so far to go. The sun was going down, and she knew she'd need to find a place to stop for the night to rest. Cars littered the road and the undead were everywhere she looked. It wasn't safe to stop. She kept her pistol in her lap as she drove. Her old heart slammed in her chest, threatening to seize up and stop at any moment. She’d lived a long life, for what? To watch the world fall down around her ears and transform into a living nightmare?
All that kept her going was the hope that her daughter and her husband were alive and well in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She hadn't seen another living person since she left Henry dead on the front lawn. The moon rose up overhead. In the darkness without electric lights, it cast an eerie glow across the concrete.
The road signs said sixty miles to Flagstaff, but she pulled off the road into the Grand Canyon National Park. Babs needed a place to rest for the night and this was as good a place as any. She found her way onto an abandoned side road, where she parked the RV and turned the engine off for the night. She made herself spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, happy that she'd stocked up the RV before everything went to hell.
She sat at the table and watched an old movie on DVD while she ate her dinner. When she was done, she washed her dishes and put them away, her mind blank and unwilling to fully recognize what had happened. As long as she could have these familiar routines, cooking, eating, cleaning up, then maybe she could stay sane.
She changed into her nightgown before slipping under the covers with a novel. When her eyes wouldn't stay open a second longer, she put down the novel on her bedside table and turned off the lamp. She lay awake for a long time, her mind racing and unwilling to shut off. She stroked her pistol under the pillow beside her where Henry should have been, and finally, after several long hours, drifted into a fitful sleep.
The sound of banging woke her up, and she shot out of bed with her pistol in her hand. Walking through the RV in her long blue nightgown, the air cold in the desert night, she peered out the window on the door, expecting to find the face of a monster. Instead, she saw a person. An older man with white hair and a white beard, wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirts and cargo shorts. She flung open the door, relieved to see a living human.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, ma'am," he said, lifting his hands in surrender. She continued to point he
r pistol at him as she cocked her head to the side.
"What do you want?" she asked, the events of the last day making her extremely wary.
"I noticed the lights a few hours ago, so I came over here to check it out. Haven't seen any other people since it started."
"Neither have I,” she said, lowering the pistol. "Come on in."
He climbed into the RV, and she looked around outside, checking for zombies. When she didn't see any, she closed the door and locked it.
"I'm Rich Thomas," he said, tucking his fingers into his belt loops.
"I'm Barbara Hollister," she said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Everyone calls me Babs.”
They looked each other in the eye as they shook hands. Something about him threw her off, but she needed company, and she had a weakness for the Rolling Stones. She motioned to the seat in the dining area, opposite her, and they both sat at the table. She put her pistol on the table behind her hands and folded them in front of her.
"What brings you to the Grand Canyon?" he asked.
"I left Phoenix earlier today. It was a headache to drive the RV through the crowded road. I didn’t make very good time, I’m afraid, but I'm traveling north to Wyoming to find my daughter."
"Oh, I see," he said skeptically.
"I know there's a slim chance she’s alive. But I have to know," she said, tears threatening to roll down her face.
"I completely understand, ma'am," he said. "If I was you, I’d do the same thing. But I don't have any children that I know of. It's just me."
"Are you hiding out in the park too?"
"In a manner of speaking," he said. “I'm a traveler, myself. So I was already living in the park when things went down. Lucky for me, I know how to run and hide."
"Those seem like valuable skills now," she said, trying to gauge his trustworthiness.
"I'd say so.”
"You've got a nice rig here," he said looking around.
"My husband Henry and I just took out a loan on it," she said. "But I guess things like interest rates don't matter much anymore. We were going to spend the summer in Wyoming with our daughter."
"Where's Henry now?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I shot him in the head," Babs said, stroking her pistol.
"Oh," he said, taken aback.
"After I killed my dog. They both turned into one of those things.”
"Haven't had a chance to kill any of them yet," he said. "I've just been hiding."
"I've killed three in the last twelve hours," she said, her guts clenching up.
"Sorry to hear that. You and I should team up," he said. “With your rig and gun skills, and my experience on the road, we’d make a great team.”
"I could see that," she said, thinking of Henry; his blood seeping onto the desert landscaping.
"You seem pretty well-stocked. You sure you don't want to stay here?”
"I need to go to Wyoming," she said. "I need to find my daughter.”
"Mind if I travel with you?" he asked.
Babs let out a long sigh. She wasn’t used to being alone. “Two heads are always better than one, they say."
"That settles it then. I'll get my things and bring them over. We can head out in the morning."
"All right," she said, fatigue weaving its fingers over her brain.
He stood up and left the RV with a wave and a look back over his shoulder. She closed the door and locked it, the uneasy feeling in her gut growing stronger. Why had she agreed to go with this man she’d just met?
Her loneliness was getting the best of her, and that old part of her that still believed she couldn’t get by without a man was still present even after all that she had accomplished. She'd have to remember to reread her copy of the Feminine Mystique. She groaned at herself as she climbed back under the covers.
Maybe it would be better to have his help than to go it alone, she kept telling herself. When she woke the next morning, she found Rich had parked an old Volkswagen bus with patched up windows next to her RV. He was packing up his things in water damaged cardboard boxes. When she walked out in the morning sunshine with a cup of coffee, she offered it to him as she inspected his rig and his belongings.
"I know it doesn't look like much, but it helps me get by," he said.
"We should be able to make it a few hundred miles today," she said. "Depending on the traffic."
"Traffic?" he asked.
"The roads are clogged with zombie-filled cars," she said. “Sometimes it takes a lot of maneuvering to get around them in the RV," she said. "It took me all day to get to the Grand Canyon from Phoenix. But I don’t want to leave it. It’s like a house and a vehicle all in one. I’ve got hot water, a fridge, and a cookstove. It’s worth the extra effort, I think.”
"I see," he said, throwing ratty tie-dyed T-shirts in his box.
Babs had dressed in a thick pair of elastic waistband jeans, tennis shoes and a sweatshirt for a long day of driving. She stood watching Rich pack his things as she sipped her own coffee. When he was done, he transferred his stuff into her RV, and she climbed in behind the driver’s seat to start another long day. He hopped into the passenger seat with his frenetic energy, looking all around him as she started the vehicle and pulled out of her parking space.
"This is gonna be a real-life zombie road trip," he said, patting the dashboard of the RV.
"I never thought of it that way," Babs muttered as she drove down the narrow highway toward the exit of the park.
When she pulled onto the major roads, they passed a road sign that said it was a hundred miles to the Colorado border.
"We are making good time," she said. There were far fewer cars in this part of the state since it was so rural and the off season for tourists. She turned on her CD of classic rock music and they sang along to the stereo as they drove across the Columbia River. She was beginning to like Rich more and more as the hours passed. He wasn't too bad a person, and they liked the same music, so the company was more than welcome. But every once in a while, she caught the strangest glimpse of a micro expression in his eyes, or in the turn of his lips, that made her uneasy. No matter what she did, she couldn't shake it.
She kept telling herself it was just because they were in the middle of an apocalypse and that was putting her on edge. Nevertheless, she kept her pistol in her lap and didn't let her guard down for more than a few seconds.
As they cross the border into Colorado, Barbara noticed the tank was growing empty.
"We're going to have to find gas soon," she said.
"I'll keep my eyes open.”
They continued up the highway for fifty miles and stopped by a stalled car. It was a newer model and the tank was locked. Rich pried it open, but when they began to siphon, they found the tank was nearly empty. The climbed back in the RV, disappointed, and continued up the road, scanning the roadside for promising place to siphon gas. Rich lifted his finger and pointed at a truck stop on the side of the road.
"There," he said.
"You think that’s safe?" she asked.
"Best place to find gas.”
She pulled off the road where he had pointed and drove up into the lots outside the truck stop. Trucks sat idling in the parking lot where their now zombified drivers had left them. Babs cringed when she saw the creatures bashing around inside the cabs of the big rigs. Half a dozen zombies milled around outside the diner and Babs shook her head.
"This isn’t a good place to stop," she said.
"Why don’t you lend me your gun, and I'll go take care of those zombies," he offered, reaching for her weapon.
"Not a chance. This gun is registered to me," she said, giving him a pointed look.
He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it, smiling at her. "Right. You got anything else I could use as a weapon?” he said. “Wait, I have a tire iron in my gear." He went to his boxes and grabbed it, hefting it to test the weight. "This might work.”
He stepped out of the RV, and Babs followed him, know
ing he could easily be swarmed by the horde of zombies. Her uneasiness grew every moment, and she tried to convince herself it was nothing. She needed a companion. Just the knowledge that somebody else was alive should be enough. But everything about Rich threw her off.
Was she just prejudiced because he was homeless? She didn't know. She didn't want to judge him like that. No, there was something else, something in his eyes, and the tone of his voice, the way that his mouth sometimes pulled back when she spoke. She couldn't place it. There was something just off about him. This was the kind of thing that Henry always told her she was overreacting about.
She followed Rich through the parking lot. As he approached the crowd of creatures, she lifted her pistol and held it in both hands as she slowly moved forward. Rich swung at the first creature that lunged at him, and Babs shot at the oncoming pack. She hit the first one in the shoulder. It growled and turned to her, charging in her direction.
She took a breath and let it out, focusing, aiming, and focusing again. She pulled the trigger and the bullet sliced through its skull. The zombie fell to the ground, slamming forward and landing on its face. Rich was surrounded by three others, having let himself get overwhelmed by the mass. Babs shot a zombie that was within range, careful not to hit Rich. She sprinted forward, ignoring the pain in her joints from sitting for two days and aimed again at closer range. The kickback from the pistol hurt her hand, but she held it steady and aimed again.
Pulling the trigger, the bullet sliced through the air and hit the zombie grabbing for Rich. Its jaw exploded. Fragments of bone flew through the air and stuck in Rich’s nappy beard. He managed to take down the first zombie with his tire iron and spun around to take down the next. It lunged at him and nearly knocked him over. He spun away and swung like a baseball player, smacking the tire iron into the creature's head with a loud thwack. It fell to the ground, a massive dent in its mangled skull.