Home.
The thought electrified him. All this time and I’ve been so close. He could have run so long ago. But time seemed to slow down and then speed up day after day, moment after moment. He’d lost perspective on how long he had been away. It had been eternity and yet only a single moment. The urgency ebbed and flowed as desperation and fear struggled with one other.
Have they waited for me? Are they still waiting for me?
As George drove, he focused his eyes on the broken yellow lines he passed. The road was clear ahead, and at the end of it was home.
***
IF YOU DIED TODAY, WHERE WOULD YOU SPEND ETERNITY?
The headlights flashed over the words on the billboard outside the tiny little township that George thought was named Slugo or something like that. Sligo? Slaygo? Slaygo—now wouldn’t that be perfect? Whatever signs had served to tell travelers the name of the town were all gone—demolished or flattened to the ground amongst rusting iron sentinels on the side of the road. Not just cars and pickups anymore; there were a couple of tractors to add variety to the mix. George wondered if someone had the bright idea of trying to flee on a tractor. One was toppled, lying on its side like a dead elephant, its shattered bones and flattened tires looking sad and pathetic while the other, farther up the road, was still upright and parked at an angle next to the road. It was a lonely sentinel guarding a whole lot of nothing.
HELL IS REAL!
George nodded at the next billboard, printed in the same white block letters as the previous one.
“It sure is.”
He remembered seeing them all over the place, up and down the highways, as ubiquitous as the God Speaks billboards a few years ago, with their catchy little phrases like “Don’t make me come down there.” He tried not to laugh as he thought about it. God had come down. God came down and dealt out retribution with no discrimination between who was good and who was evil. Almost everyone had been consumed in the conflagration. Almost.
George’s eyes drooped, and as the car gradually moved toward the edge of the road, he jumped in his seat, straightening the wheel. It had been happening more and more over the past hour. He had no idea what time it was, but the wreck, if that was the correct term for the massive pileup a few miles back, had forced him to take a three-hour detour. It had reminded him that there were still plenty of slugs out there, buried in the backwoods and on every dirt road. For a time, the gravel kicking up and hitting every part of the undercarriage kept him awake. That and the winding path he had been forced to take and on which he had promptly gotten lost. Every time he thought he was about to jump back on the main road, it ended up leading him on another wild goose chase, farther away from his goal. Finally, after fearing that he was never going to get back on track, he recognized a minor landmark. It was a convenience store he remembered from previous trips through the area. It stood alone on a remote crossroad with a dead yellow light up above as its only company. That and the cornfields that ran in all directions. He knew where he was: a mere two miles farther down the road than he had been when he was forced to take his extended detour.
The air conditioner didn’t work. Not that George was surprised, but he hoped a continuous blast of cold air would help keep him awake. Avoiding a few infected that got close to the car when he was on the dirt roads kept him alert for a time. Now, back on the smooth asphalt, there was little to keep his attention.
He rolled down the windows, but he could not speed up enough to get much of a breeze going. The road would be clear and then, out of nowhere, another obstacle would materialize: a car, a dead animal, or just a rotten hunk of meat covered in flies. There had been no attempts at an ambush. No sightings of another living soul, in fact. If there was anyone still left in this area, they were staying out of sight and off the road.
At least if he were forced to deal with someone else, it might help keep him awake.
*
“Wake up, you idiot!”
George slapped himself in the face. Two quick raps that stung for a moment, though the pain dulled far too quickly. He was weaving all over the road, exhausted. He was not sure where he was, or what he was doing. As he shook his head and widened his eyes, he roared in frustration. Hitting the brakes, he slammed his head against the steering wheel.
“You are on your way back home. Your name is George Montgomery. Your wife and kids are waiting for you, you stupid son of a bitch! Get your shit together before you kill yourself!”
The anger produced a spurt of adrenaline, enough to make George hyperaware of his surroundings for a few moments. He was on the road leading to Willowsburg, only a few miles away from what might be the most dangerous part of his trip.
He scanned the road. There had been a few businesses along the way, but the road was mostly flanked with houses, set back in the distance. There were a lot of trees that offered a limited view of most of the properties on both sides. Entire groves in some instances.
George slid the car off to the side of the road. Maybe a short rest will do the trick. Just a few minutes. Something to jumpstart me. He pulled up under a rather impressive poplar that towered over the car. A nice quiet spot. For just a few minutes.
Resting his hand on the key, he turned it and let the car die. He waited, listening, wondering when they would start moving in his direction. They were out there. They were a part of the fabric of everything these days, so they had to be out there. He locked the doors and rolled up the windows, making sure they were not open even a crack. He felt more awake in that moment than he had for several hours. It made no sense, but he accepted it like he accepted almost everything else. There was nothing he could control any longer, not even his own eyelids.
George put his hands on the steering wheel. He had seen no movement. He was sure the car had been heard, though perhaps the dead had no way of pinpointing the source of the noise. With the windows closed, they might not be able to smell him either. The living, on the other hand … well, if someone was out there, hiding, waiting to pounce on him, there was little he could do about it. He could not drive any farther. Getting closer to the town without his nerves as sharp as they needed to be would spell certain doom, especially in the dark.
What time was it? It had to be four in the morning, perhaps later. When would the first light of dawn peek over the horizon? He was facing the right direction, almost due east. If he closed his eyes, the sun would serve as a natural alarm clock … as long as something else didn’t wake him before that. If it did, he would be ready. A quick move of his hand, and the car would be moving again. George found it hard to believe that enough stiffs could sneak up on him to make a quick getaway too difficult.
Just a few minutes. As the reassuring thought made one last pass through his brain, his eyes fluttered and his head slid back onto the headrest.
*
There were bells. It was a strange noise, because George had been dreaming of the church in which he had been stuck for so long. This was not the sound of church bells, though. Nothing as grand as that. It was simpler, someone clanging some cheap copper rig, its ringer sloppily banging against the side.
When he opened his eyes, he almost screamed. A long, sad face was staring at him from outside the window. He was awake in an instant, though he had no idea what was going on. He grabbed for the key, knowing somehow that was what he was supposed to do. As he fumbled for it, the large Holstein staring in at him rubbed the window with its big, wet nose.
George peered out at the cow and let his heart settle in his chest. The big bell around its neck clanked out its off-key little tune as the beast licked the window and then moved away. Good gravy, George, you almost got eaten by a cow. The thought of an undead cow brought a smile to his lips as he stretched in his seat. His back was stiff, but he felt good, awake and coherent for the first time in days. The latest layer of sweat that drenched his clothes didn’t bother him, even though, with the windows closed, he felt as if someone were warming him up like leftovers.
Sun
light streamed into the car. As George looked out over the quiet landscape, he was surprised to see that the area in which he’d stopped was not marred by the damage and wreckage that were so commonplace everywhere else he’d been. He rolled down his window and stuck his head out. He had slept well past dawn. The sun was not at its zenith, but it was creeping toward it, away from the east.
He considered the cow. It looked unscathed and fairly content as it munched on some grass. Not sick or wounded. In fact, it looked fat and healthy. Given the infecteds’ indiscriminant desire to attack any living thing, the cow was an anomaly.
Willowsburg was just a few miles down the road. Its infected population would have burst free from the city limits long ago and poured through the countryside, tearing through every last bit of livestock. George wiped the sleep out of his eyes. He had slept several hours longer than he had planned and still had a ways to go before he was home. This mystery would just have to go unsolved. He had to keep moving.
As he started the car back up, the cow sauntered farther away, its bell clanking its lonely call. The cow might be still alive, but it was alone. Probably just been lucky so far. The rest of the herd is probably already dead. “Sorry, Bessie, I wish I could help you out.” As he pulled back out onto the road, the cow raised its head from the grass it was munching and lowed at him as if to respond to his sentiment.
George took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel. He would have to find a way through Willowsburg. The car was not in the best shape, but it didn’t seem likely to give out on him just yet. There was still more than half a tank of gas left in it, even after his little side trip the night before.
As he drove along, he saw a wide-open expanse off to his right. From the corner of his eye, it looked like any other open field, covered with black loamy dirt. But as the car passed by, thousands of birds took off, startled by the vehicle. The black mass was far larger than any flock he’d ever seen. They had covered every square inch of the flat space that spread away from the road at least a quarter of a mile. He watched in awe as the flock cast a massive shadow over the car on its way north, away from the disruption that had upset it. He could hear the beating of wings as the birds cawed, angry with him. The field they left behind was drab, brown, and barren of life.
He was still thinking about the great flock of birds as he moved closer to Willowsburg. Thinking about the cow and what other animals might still be nearby, somehow escaping the threat of the undead. As he neared the town, he understood why things seemed so peaceful.
Willowsburg had burned to the ground.
He didn’t know whether he should be relieved or saddened by the complete destruction of the town of over twelve thousand. It appeared as if no structure had gone untouched. Even the houses that lined the road a couple miles from town were burnt down to their foundations. As he moved in closer, driving through the downtown area, he was overwhelmed by the charred remains. The fire, or fires, had been thorough, wiping the slate clean. The weather had been dry as a bone over the past couple of months. Once the fires had started, there was nothing to stop them until they’d burned themselves out.
As George left the last of the cooked structures behind, he felt sad. No one would ever know what had happened here. There was no one left to tell the story. The town was dead, cremated. In time, it would be as if it never existed.
Sorrow overwhelmed the slight relief he felt that one of the places he had feared the most in his journey had become nothing more than an unmarked grave. This was someplace close to home, the place where he had lived for years. He knew no one who’d lived in Willowsburg, but he had passed through the town many times over the years. There was a hollow, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach as he thought about how many places this might have occurred … and that it might have happened in his own town. The thought of his wife and baby girls trapped as fire raged all around them was unbearable. George pushed down harder on the gas pedal, spurring the car onward.
He had one more major barrier, one more place to pass. The highway crossed the road just a few miles away. Past that, there were more farms and trees but not much else. There was a little dimple in the road that no one would argue was a town, but that was it. After the interstate, he was home free.
*
The landscape changed as the burnt remains of Willowsburg became a dark smudge in the rearview mirror. The scorched earth was replaced with dry grass and old trees that had survived both the fire and the undead. George sucked in air between his teeth as he saw a highway overpass off in the distance. Even from almost a mile away, he could see the shapes of cars crowding onto it.
As he drew closer, there was a spill of cars on the exit ramps: people who had been trying to get off the highway while others were trying to get on. Many had died in their cars. He could see skeletal remains and fierce clouds of flies swarming the last few pieces of meat inside the vehicles. There were some skeletons, but many who died must have gotten back up and wandered off, attacking others who were stuck in the traffic stretching for miles in both directions.
George knew the exit had a couple of gas stations and a row of fast food joints that lined both sides of the road. You could pick your poison. The big hitters were all there: McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, KFC, Burger King, and a Bob Evans thrown in for good measure. George relaxed when he saw that the middle of the road was clear, granting him room to pass. There were cars everywhere: the side of the road, in the parking lots—a few were even flipped over on the median.
The area was quiet and had a vacated feel to it. Any of the living who had survived the initial assault that had conquered this little niche off the highway had fled long ago. With their food source gone, the flesh eaters must also have departed.
As George looked out over the fast food havens and daydreamed about the days long past when his girls would beg him to take them to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal, a woman walked out the front door of the Taco Bell. George did a double take, unsure if he had really seen her. The doors to the Mexican joint were far away, and he slowed the car down as he gawked in her direction. Squinting in the sunlight and blinking, he tried to focus on her.
She looked normal in the sunlight. George’s eyelids narrowed further. The movement was regular, her legs steady underneath her as she walked out into the parking lot. There was no blood and no discoloration to her skin. Her hair was long and dark, falling straight around her head. Her face looked unharmed: two eyes, a nose … no bones peeking through. It looked like she was scanning the cars that surrounded her. It appeared as if she hadn’t noticed the old Chevy moving down the road toward her just yet.
George looked over at the doors of the Taco Bell. Seeing inside was impossible with the glare bouncing off the large sheets of glass that wrapped the front of the building. None of the windows was shattered. There was no plywood up either, no makeshift barricades he could see. If that was where the woman had been hiding, she must not have been there very long. Looking back at her, he saw that she wasn’t carrying any weapons and was wearing shorts and a filthy t-shirt. Nothing that would protect her from any sort of attack.
Pressing the brake, George brought the car to a stop. He gripped the steering wheel as his foot twitched, ready to return to the gas pedal if necessary. Memories of the ambush from a couple of days earlier had him nervous. But even as he looked from restaurant to restaurant, waiting for some kind of trap to be sprung or someone to come rushing out to attack him, he let the car continue to idle.
Nothing moved. Even after he swore he saw a shadow twitch near the Wendy’s, there was nothing. His eyes went back to the woman. She was looking in his direction now, but he couldn’t see any reaction. Her age was hard to guess. Lank, greasy brown hair clung to her face and allowed two larger-than-normal ears to stick out.
Letting out a slow hiss of breath, George moved his foot off the gas pedal and let the car inch forward. As he did, he rolled down the window and stuck his head out to speak to the woman.
There w
as no smile on her face, no excitement at seeing him, but no fear either. He watched as she plucked at her shirt with her right hand repeatedly. The cotton had almost worn through where she touched it. George moved close enough to see her eyes and knew for certain. They were the same dull, watered-down brown as her hair. Uninspiring, but more importantly, uninfected. He put his foot back on the brake and stopped the car a few feet from her. He put on a smile that he hoped didn’t look threatening.
“Hello! I’m sure glad to see you!”
Any concerns he had about being deceived, or of getting trapped, evaporated. Instead, there was an almost overwhelming urge to connect with someone who was still alive. The pain at leaving Jason and the others felt like a rusty knife digging into his gut. Seeing this girl up close made George realize how desperate he still was for human contact.
She didn’t stop moving or react to the words. For a moment, George stiffened, and his foot screamed to be allowed off the brake. Roll up the window! Hit the gas! Get out of here now! But the feeling passed when, instead of moans, words escaped her lips.
“Mel? Where’s Mel?” The girl’s voice startled him as she leaned forward and looked in through George’s open window. The words were a squeak, barely audible, yet they blindsided him nonetheless. She continued to lean forward, her hands resting on the door as she ignored George. Without even thinking about it, he moved farther into the car, his body pulling away as her head popped through the window frame.
“Ma’am? Are you-”
“Mel! Quit hiding and get out here before I tan your hide!”
The increased volume rattled George even more than the aggressiveness with which the woman forced her head into the car. She looked like a ghost—thin, pale, and tall, with an almost boyish figure. She was young, with acne scars running across her cheeks like constellations. Her teeth were a dingy yellow, matching her jaundiced complexion. She smelled of dirt and grease.
The Dark Trilogy Page 51