by Gary Chesla
“Jamie, where are you?” Linda called out.
Jamie’s head appeared over the opening, “Mommy, I like the attic. It’s better than playing under the porch.”
“Just stay there, I’m going to hand up George,” Linda said.
Then Linda ran over to the bed and scooped up George and took him over to the closet and handed him up to Jamie.
“Stay there,” Linda said. “I’m going to hand you some more stuff.”
“OK,” Jamie smiled.
Linda ran back out to the bedroom and looked around as she grabbed the pillows and blanket off the bed.
If she was going to be in the attic, she thought the pillows and blanket would come in handy.
Linda ran back to the closet and tossed the pillows up into the attic then handed up the blanket to Jamie.
“Don’t forget the cookies,” Jamie said after she pulled the blanket up into the attic.
Linda retrieved the cookies and tossed them up to Jamie.
Linda turned nervously to look at the door as something crashing into the door sent a loud crack echoing through the bedroom.
The dresser shook and the brush that was sitting on the top of the dresser tumbled to the floor and slide half way across the room.
Linda began to worry as she noticed what appeared to be a crack in the wood, running down the middle of the door.
She had no idea how many were now out in the hallway. But the number had to be rapidly growing.
Images from all the zombie movies she had seen began to flood her mind. The images from the movies, seemed tame and fake compared to what she had seen yesterday.
But the zombies, or whatever they were, the ones she had seen brutally kill and mutilate the Ramseys, were now just right outside her door.
Linda pulled the closet door closed behind her and climbed up on the chair.
“Get back away from the opening, I’m coming up,” Linda said.
Jamie, now chewing on a giraffe cookie, crawled back away from the hole as Linda’s hands grabbed the side of the hole and she began to pull herself upwards.
Pull ups were always Linda’s Achilles Heel in gym class and apparently not much had changed as she got older.
In fact, she obviously had regressed.
Linda strained to pull herself up as far as she could and found herself stalled, unable to go any further, with her head barely through the opening.
When the plasterboard she was grasping with her right hand crumbled and broke away, Linda dropped back down into the closet.
Her feet fortunately landed solid on the chair, barely enabling her to catch her balance and keep from falling to the closet floor.
“Shit,” Linda said as she stood, trembling from her failed attempt to climb up to Jamie.
“How the hell can I get up there without breaking my neck?” Linda thought as she fought back a feeling of panic.
Linda looked up through the opening to see Jamie and George staring down at her.
As she tried to think about how she could get up in the attic, she remembered her dresser.
“If I put a dresser drawer on the chair, it might just be enough.” Linda thought. “It might be a little shaky and I’ll probably fall and break my neck, then I won’t have to worry about zombies anymore.”
“Funny Linda,” she thought as she opened the closet door and looked back out into the bedroom.
As she looked out into the bedroom, another loud crack sounded from the bedroom door.
A large splinter of wood flew from the center of the door and bounced off the top of the dresser.
An eye pushed up into the space left by the splintered wood. A milky colored clouded eye stared in through the opening for a second, before the zombie began to pound its head against the door, causing the wood around the opening to crack further and start to break away from the door.
Linda quickly closed the door and dropped down on the chair as she tried to control her trembling body.
The sound coming from out in the bedroom grew louder.
When Linda heard her dresser falling over on the bedroom floor, she jumped back up on the chair.
She grabbed the sides of the opening and began to pull herself up.
When her frantically flailing feet found the top of the back of the chair, she positioned both feet across the top, and pushed herself up high through the opening.
Using her elbows and with Jamie pulling on her shirt, Linda finally managed to pull the rest of her body up into the attic.
Linda rolled onto her back, shaking and breathing hard.
When she heard the first body crash into the closet door, she jumped up and slid the piece of plasterboard back over the opening.
Chapter 23
Monday, May 10th on Route 219
Mike slammed the phone against the side of his leg.
“Damn it,” Mike growled, “Linda’s phone went dead this time.”
“It sounded like they are both still OK,” Tony said.
“Yeah, for now. She said the zombies were able to get into the upstairs. She and Jamie are barricaded in our bedroom,” Mike replied. “Linda’s worried that they are going to break into the bedroom next.”
“I heard you telling Linda to go up to the attic,” Tony said. “If they do that, I think they will be OK until we get back. Those ugly bastards trip and fall over stones and tree roots, I don’t think they can climb up to the attic.”
“I hope so, but we have to get home,” Mike sighed, “They can’t stay in that attic for more than a day or two. They have to be starving by now. Women can get real mean when they are hungry.”
“I’ve heard that,” Tony chuckled, “I’m glad I was too ugly to get married.”
Mike smiled at Tony’s ugly comment.
“Just relax, it sounds like Linda has everything under control, they’ll be OK until we get back,” Tony added. “Why don’t you try to find the radio again.”
“There isn’t one,” Mike replied.
“Are you sure, that looks like a radio,” Tony said and pointed to a spot on the dashboard.
“It looks like one but it’s fake. That’s just the place where a radio would go,” Mike answered. “Radios are standard equipment now, but when this old Buick was made, radios were considered a luxury and were optional. When the old guy bought this thing, he probably didn’t think a radio was necessary.”
“I think he was just a cheap bastard,” Tony laughed, “just like he didn’t want to spring for an automatic transmission or power steering. These stick shifts are a pain in the ass to drive.”
“It’s better than walking,” Mike replied.
They continued to drive down Route 219 for another ten minutes.
As they got near Ebensburg, Tony slowed down as he looked at the highway in the distance ahead of them.
“What the hell happened up ahead?” Tony asked. “It looks like there was an accident or something. Traffic is backed up for miles.”
Mike studied the chaotic scene off in the distance, and said, “It looks like they were having a demolition derby. There are cars everywhere. This doesn’t look like they were just waiting out a traffic jam or an accident.”
Tony slowed down and finally stopped the car in the middle of Route 219 as they came to the end of the line of stopped vehicles.
Tony looked at the gas gauge, “I better turn off the engine to save gas until we see what happened here.”
Tony turned off the key and an eerie silence filled the car.
“Let’s get out and walk up the line and see what we can find out,” Tony said.
“This makes me feel uneasy,” Mike said. “I’ve never seen a mess like this before. It just doesn’t look natural. It looks like a major case of road rage gone bad.”
“There isn’t anything natural about accidents and traffic jams. In fact, it tends to piss off most people. It could be what happened here.” Tony replied. “If we want to get home today, let’s go see what the hell happened here. We might have to thin
k about taking a different route back.”
“You mean take the long route home,” Mike said.
“Yeah, it will be like going a hundred miles to get twenty-five miles away,” Tony replied. “Unless we can get through this mess somehow.”
They got out of the car and cautiously began to walk alongside the cars stopped on the highway.
After they had walked by dozens of stopped cars for a few hundred feet from the end of the line, they just looked at each other.
Most all the cars sat empty with the doors hanging open, their owners nowhere to be seen.
“Where did everyone go?” Mike asked. “It looks like everyone got tired of sitting in traffic and just abandoned their cars and walked away.”
“This sure is strange,” Tony answered. “I’d never leave my car like this. If nothing else, I’d just turn around and go some other way.”
“Maybe they didn’t have a choice,” Mike said.
“Maybe, with all the crap that’s happened the last couple of days, I guess we can’t rule out anything,” Tony answered.
Mike looked down the line of cars up ahead.
“It looks different up ahead,” Mike said. “Let’s go a little further.”
Tony turned and looked back at the old Buick, “I just don’t want to get too far away from our car. After all we went through to get it, I’d hate for someone to steal it. Let’s make this fast. If we have to go home another way, we should get started soon.”
They walked another hundred feet before the cars in line no longer had their doors hanging open.
“I think I see someone up ahead in that blue Dodge,” Tony said. “Finally, now maybe we can find out what happened.”
Mike and Tony quickened their pace as they approached the Dodge.
When they reached the Dodge, Tony shielded his eyes with his hand and leaned his face against the driver’s window to look inside the car.
Tony jumped back and began to swear as a bloody face hit the inside of the window, then began to slam into the window over and over, smearing the window with blood as broken teeth slid down the window in the bloody slim.
“God damn, that scared the shit out of me,” Tony said as he continued to stare at the zombie inside the car that was frantically trying to come through the window.
As they stared, they began to hear the same sounds coming from the cars around them.
Their eyes scanned the cars nearby then looked further down the line of cars in front of them.
Bloody smears were spreading over the windows in all the cars around them.
They began to panic when they heard the sound of the first window shattering.
The sound came first from the car on their right, then from behind them, and then the sound of breaking glass seemed to be coming from everywhere.
When Mike saw the first body climbing out through the broken jagged glass in the car in front of them, he yelled, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Mike and Tony turned and ran towards their car.
The moans coming from behind them were louder than what they had heard when they had been trapped inside the cabin.
They were out of breath when they reached the Buick.
They turned and fell back against the hood of the car to catch their breath and to get a look behind them.
What they saw made their blood run cold.
“We stirred up a hornet’s nest,” Tony gasped.
“I don’t understand this,” Mike said breathing hard. “What we saw up at the cabin was one thing, but this? It’s like the whole world has been turned into zombies. What the hell did this. It has to be more than something in the water or a crazed squirrel. Something big must have gone down somewhere.”
“We need to find a radio somewhere.” Tony added. “We need to find out what happened. All we seem to be doing is running into more and more of these things.”
“I think you’re right, we can’t keep running around blind like this,” Mike replied. “I bet one of these abandoned cars has a radio.”
“These zombies are getting too close for comfort,” Tony said as he watched the growing horde of the dead crawling out of the cars and stagger closer. “We don’t have time to sit around here and listen to the radio.”
“We can take one of these cars instead of the Buick,” Mike replied. “You don’t like the Buick anyhow.”
“I like that it runs and has gas,” Tony said. “I don’t think now is the time to abandon a perfectly good car just because it doesn’t have a radio. I say we just get out of here while we can, we can find a car with a radio somewhere else.”
“Give me a minute. Let me check out a few cars at the end of the line here and see if I can find one with a radio,” Mike said. “If I can get one to start, I’ll follow you out of here. We can take it and the Buick and decide later which one to keep. When we get far enough away from here, we can stop and try to find a news report or something.”
“OK, but a minute is pushing it,” Tony said nervously. “Just check out that last car and let’s get the hell out of here. I’ll start the Buick and turn it around. Go!”
Mike watched the approaching mob as he ran over to the closest car, a red Chevy Equinox SUV.
He jumped in through the open door and dropped into the driver’s seat.
He reached down for the keys that were still in the ignition and turned the key.
He was surprised to see that the key was already in the on position.
Mike glanced at the gauges on the dash and saw the battery light was dimly lit, indicating that the battery was almost dead.
Then he saw the gas gauge. The gauge showed that the tank was empty.
Mike jumped out of the car, eyed the approaching mob as it relentlessly staggered slowly towards him, and felt he could check out one more car before he had to run.
He ran up to the Honda Civic that sat in line in front of the Chevy and slid into the driver’s seat.
He glanced at the dashboard to see the check engine light glowing.
A quick glance at the gas gauge told him the Civic was also out of gas.
Mike jumped out of the Civic and ran for the Buick.
Tony already had the car started and turned around, ready to make a fast get away.
Mike jumped into the Buick and yelled, “Go!”
As Tony hit the gas, he looked over at Mike.
“The two cars I checked were out of gas,” Mike said. “I assume it would be the same with most of the other cars. The people in those cars either sat there waiting for traffic to start moving again and they ran out of gas, or based on the fact that all the doors were hanging open, I’d say they got out of their cars fast and ran for their lives.”
“I can guess what scared the hell out of them and made them just get out and run,” Tony added.
“Yeah,” Mike replied as Tony gunned the engine to put more distance between them and the dead. “But what happened to the people still in their cars? How did they become zombies and why didn’t they get out and run?”
“The hell if I know,” Tony said, “I can’t think of anything to explain anything I’ve seen. I can’t even begin to understand why we are still alive.”
“Well you know the old saying, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Mike said. “Right now, all I want to understand is how we can get home.”
They drove back the way they had just come, in stunned silence.
When they had traveled three miles, Tony turned off on to State Route 553.
“Where does this take us?” Mike asked.
“It will go for about four miles and drop us onto Route 271. 271 is a small two-lane road that goes straight down to Johnstown. It will take us a lot longer to get home, but I’m hoping since there shouldn’t have been as much traffic on 271, we won’t run into another mess like we did back on 219.”
“How’s the gas?” Mike asked.
“We should be fine,” Tony began to reply until he looked down at the gas gauge. “Shit, we’ve
used half a tank already.”
“These old Buicks weren’t known for their good gas mileage,” Mike said. “We might have to look for gas somewhere.”
“Maybe we should try and find another car,” Tony replied. “I think you had the right idea back there. We can find a car with a radio and it might be a good idea to find something with four-wheel drive. I hope I’m wrong, but something tells me we aren’t going to be able to just follow the highway and get home. I think we will have to go off road to bypass more of what we just saw. Keep an eye out for a truck or SUV.
If we find something that runs, we can transfer whatever gas this thing has left into the new vehicle.”
Mike thought for a minute then asked, “Does this route take us through any large towns or cities?”
“Nothing real large,” Tony replied, “Why?”
“I think we should be careful when we get around any towns,” Mike replied. “That big pile up back there was near Altoona, a good-sized town. More people could mean more zombies.”
“That makes sense,” Tony said.
“Yeah, it’s the only thing that has made any sense the last few days.” Mike sighed. “I never thought we would have so much trouble just trying to get home.”
Chapter 24
Monday, May 10th, Fallon Naval Air Station, Nevada
Rogers stood at the door, looking outside, watching and listening.
The base was as noisy as hell this afternoon, but it wasn’t from the sound of jets taking off and landing.
For some reason, the search and destroy missions had suddenly stopped after the planes returned from Reno this morning.
About an hour later, this loud noise began.
The sound reminded Rogers of one of his favorite World War II movies, where Rommel’s tanks roared through the North African desert.
This wasn’t the North African desert, but it was a desert.