by Kirk Withrow
John was already in the driver’s seat and turning the ignition as Reams climbed in. The SUV rocketed out of the garage as several revs returned to investigate the sound of the gunshot and the vehicle – slamming into the driver’s side window. John spun the steering wheel hard left clipping one rev, narrowly missing another, and completely plowing through a third before they were back on Hood Street and speeding away from John’s house.
As the chaos of their escape died down, John asked excitedly, “How bad are you hit?”
“What?” Reams said, a little confused.
“I shot you, how bad is it?” clarified John.
“You didn’t shoot me! I dove forward so you wouldn’t shoot me. I’m good, man,” said Reams.
Relieved, though still somewhat shaken by nearly shooting his friend, John said, “Well, I’m sorry for almost shooting you back there…I—”
“Sorry?” Reams interjected, “You saved my ass! That little pint-sized shithead would have probably had his baby teeth buried in my big-ass leg before I even saw his little ass if you hadn’t taken him down, so don’t be sorry for anything. I’ll take a moderate chance of being shot by you over a high chance of becoming one of them any day.”
Though he had just shot what remained of a young boy in the throat effectively ending whatever existence it had left, and they were discussing it like it was last night’s football game, John felt better after hearing Reams’ words. They continued to make their way toward Al’s house, weaving around the occasional abandoned vehicle. On Waco Street both lanes were completely blocked for a distance, forcing John to drive through several adjacent yards, as well as through a three-foot tall white picket fence in order to get around the obstruction.
As they approached the intersection of Waco and Millhouse, they saw a group of revs shambling around the remnants of a roadblock or checkpoint of some kind. Amazingly, a sign flashed red letters proclaiming ‘WARN…’ Either the sign was malfunctioning or someone stopped halfway through inputting its message.
“I guess the sign is keeping them here. How the hell is that thing still working?” said John as he slowly and cautiously eased the SUV forward. The answer to his question became apparent as two small solar panels mounted atop the portable sign came into view.
They counted around twenty infected on their side of the barricade with another half dozen or so on the far side. The roadblock itself consisted of a couple of Jersey barriers placed on each side to funnel traffic to the center, and a few wooden, sawhorse-style barriers farther back in the middle. There was also a squad car and what looked like a pickup truck with a camper that had ‘S.W.A.T.’ stenciled on its side. “S.W.A.T.?” said John rather incredulously.
“How are we going to get around this?” asked Reams, “Is there another route?”
John thought for a moment before replying. The only other route to Al’s would require them to backtrack nearly all the way to his house, and then send them about thirty minutes out of the way through a more densely populated area. “No, I think this is the best way. It doesn’t look like the vehicles are completely blocking the way through the barricade. I think we should go straight through,” said John in a serious tone.
Reams was now certain his friend had indeed lost his mind. “You want to just go straight through? I wonder how long the wait will be? It looks like things are kind of backed up here. I don’t think I’ve seen that line of infected move one rev since we got here!” said Reams sarcastically.
“Seriously, I think it’s the best option. If we keep moving we should be able to push through the crowd, and I think the truck will fit through the opening in the middle of the barricade,” said John.
“You think, huh? And if it doesn’t?” asked Reams still dubious of John’s proposed plan.
“I guess we figure that one out if it happens. Now, let’s make a path,” concluded John as he reversed the SUV, moving about twenty-five yards back from the barricade before laying down on the horn.
It had the desired effect as the group of infected turned toward the sound. They started their slow death march toward the truck and the two survivors within. Once they got about midway between the barricade and the SUV, John gunned the engine sending the truck rocketing forward once again. Pleased that his little distraction worked, he saw only one rev still standing in the way. It was an old lady who John thought probably didn’t look much different before the infection. He thought it likely that she just wasn’t able to keep pace with the others due to her physical condition at the time she became infected. John made no attempt to go around her, as the grill of the SUV smashed into her, sucking her under the two-ton truck like a dust bunny into a vacuum cleaner. Reams winced but noticed no change whatsoever in John’s expression; it might as well have been an insect hitting the windshield for all the concern he showed.
As John predicted, the SUV did fit through the opening between the Jersey barriers, clipping the trailer attached to the flashing sign as they pushed through. After clearing the barricade, something in the brake lights caught John’s attention. They were about twenty yards beyond the closest infected thing, and it was that particular thing John was interested in. The rev had been a police officer and was still dressed head to toe in S.W.A.T. riot gear, including soft armor pads on its chest and extremities. It was the extremity pads specifically that caught his attention, as he thought they would provide excellent protection against bites.
The rev closest to the S.W.A.T. rev was about ten yards farther away, which John thought would give him plenty of time to dispatch the infected thing, but not likely enough time to remove the gear from the corpse. Turning to scan the vehicle’s interior for ideas, his knee bumped his wife’s keys in the ignition. He looked down at the carabiner attached to the keys and suddenly had an idea. He reached for his sling bag and retrieved a length of 550 paracord. Tying a figure eight knot in one end of the cord, he clipped the carabiner to the rope. As he put the SUV in park he opened his door to get out. “Reams, come around and be ready to drive. I’ll be right back,” said John.
Before Reams could protest John was out of the SUV and slamming the door. He ran around to the back of the truck and secured the other end of the paracord to the hitch receiver with a buntline hitch. Reams moved over to the driver’s seat and watched John in the rearview mirror. John walked straight up to the S.W.A.T. rev, drew his handgun, and shot the thing point blank in the head. Having already made enough noise to ‘wake up the dead,’ he was not too worried about the sound created by the discharge of his sidearm. Holstering his weapon, he proceeded to clip the carabiner to the thing’s service belt before jogging back to the SUV.
“Drive!” exclaimed John as he jumped into the passenger seat.
Reams stared at John briefly with a concerned look of horror etched across his face.
“Drive, dammit!” added John.
Reams shifted the SUV into drive, feeling a slight jerk as the slack was taken out of the paracord, and the corpse began to drag behind them. They could feel another thud as the S.W.A.T. rev plowed through one of the wooden roadblocks, sending it crashing down behind him. After about fifty yards their surroundings looked clear, and John said, “Stop here.” Reams did so and John jumped out of the truck.
Reams gazed into the rearview mirror and saw John doing something to the corpse they just dragged behind the SUV, though what exactly he wasn’t sure. He was seriously beginning to question his friend’s sanity when John hopped back into the SUV, carrying what Reams thought might have been one or more of the rev’s extremities.
“Drive! Follow this road for a couple of miles, and I’ll tell you when the turn is coming up,” said John.
Reams stared at him blankly as images of Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now flashed through his mind. He was still unable to bring himself to really inspect the load John brought back to the truck. “John, what the hell was that?” asked Reams.
Perplexed, John proudly hefted a piece of the soft armor into the air before adding,
“Riot gear. I thought it would offer great protection against bites if we had to take on any more revs hand-to-hand, why?”
Reams flinched slightly at the sight of what he knew was going to be a severed arm being raised into the air before letting out a slightly embarrassed chuckle. He shifted the SUV into drive saying, “Nothing, man. Just seemed a little crazy, that’s all.”
“It’s a crazy world, my friend…a bat-shit crazy world,” added John with an air of finality.
Chapter 18
October 6, 2015
Albert Forrester was a close friend of John's who lived on the outskirts of town. He was a survivalist and, accordingly, somewhat of a hermit. John had known Al for about five years, and the two had become good friends over the last few years, in particular. John, who fairly loathed proper social gatherings, first met Al at a party he was forced to attend with his wife. Al stood out to John as he looked like the only person in attendance that seemed more uncomfortable and out of place than he himself felt. Later, John learned that Al’s attendance at the party was solely due to the fact that his longtime obsession, Sylvia, was going to be there. John decided to strike up a conversation with Al at the party, and their friendship grew from there.
Despite the fact that Al never even talked to Sylvia that night at the party, the two were married a few years later. Al had obsessed over Sylvia for so long that it was almost as though she was a part of him even before they were married. Though individually their personalities were diametrically opposed, taken together they merged seamlessly like true soul mates.
Al was extremely intelligent which was about the only commonality he shared with his wife, Sylvia. John often wondered if Al might be too smart. He worked as a computer programmer, a job that allowed him to work from home for the last five years. This arrangement was absolutely perfect for Al, as his other strong characteristics, namely paranoia and OCD almost to the point of agoraphobia, made holding a 9-5 office job challenging for him at best. In the time John had known Al, he learned very little about exactly what he did with computers, knowing only that his primary contracts in the last few years were with the Defense Department. The irony that Al did a fair amount of work for one of the organizations often at the heart of Al’s myriad conspiracy theories was not lost on John.
When his pessimism and cynicism were added to the mix and he was in full swing, Al could easily be mistaken for a crazed doomsday preacher, except for the fact that he almost never left his home to proclaim his theories to anyone, and he was certainly far from crazy. John thought there was likely some truth behind most of Al’s wild theories, and that he likely just knew too much as is often the case in history when someone is labeled crazy because of his or her ‘unusual’ world view. Maybe he just thought about everything too much. On more than one occasion John joked with Al saying that he should consider changing his name to Noah after the biblical doomsday preacher.
All of that, coupled with the ample free time and money that his work afforded him, allowed Al Forrester to make preparations. For what exactly, John was never entirely sure. In fact, John wasn’t sure if Al even knew exactly what he was getting ready for anymore, but the preparations that came from his OCD mind would have made an accomplished Eagle Scout feel like a Girl Scout on her first cookie sale. Al literally thought of everything. His primary residence was a moderate-sized two-bedroom house, but he constructed a more lavish though slightly smaller residence underground behind the house. It could be accessed through the basement of his home or through a hidden hatch in the barn farther back behind the main house. His paranoia about even workers learning about the shelter led him to learn the skills necessary to build the structure himself. He fabricated various cover stories such as remodeling his primary residence to explain the need for the supplies in the event that anyone ever questioned what he was doing. Additionally, he worked on the underground shelter almost exclusively at night. Though such extreme measures were far from necessary, Al stressed that such a structure was only as good as the secrecy surrounding it. He set up two 300-gallon water reserve tanks with means for collecting, filtering, and purifying rainwater. When he worried this was insufficient, he supplemented their capacity with a well equipped with a pump powered by a generator capable of using diesel or solar power.
Upon reaching Al’s driveway, John considered the best way to approach the house. As he was unable to call and alert his friend to their arrival, he wanted to ensure that Al knew it was him and not someone with otherwise nefarious intent. Since he had driven the 4Runner to Al’s on more than one occasion, he thought it would be easier for Al to confirm his identity if he approached in the truck than on foot. John thought it would be best if Reams stayed hidden in the back initially, if that was possible, as Al would not necessarily be expecting John to be traveling with an enormous black man whom he had never met. Al was suspicious and a little jumpy on a good day, so there was no telling what the events of the last couple of days had done to his nerves. As this thought crossed John’s mind, he could never have imagined just how bad the last couple of days had been for Al Forrester.
Al’s house was located sufficiently far back on his property that the house could not be seen from the road. He had a driveway alarm that John thought would likely be connected to one of Al’s various backup power sources. Before pulling onto the driveway, the two men rearranged the items in the back of the SUV, and folded the seats flat so Reams could lay hidden from view until John could inform Al he was with him. John worried what Al might think if he saw Reams back there before he had a chance to tell him the big man was a friend but decided that was a chance he would have to take. He was not aware of any booby traps deployed along the driveway but he thought it would be safest to assume there might be some given the degree of Al’s paranoia and preparedness.
With Reams hidden about as well as an elephant lying in an open field, John slowly pulled onto the driveway, and proceeded cautiously toward the house. The driveway was about three quarters of a mile long, and John tried to think of anything that would facilitate recognition as he drove. Midway up the driveway John noticed several areas where Al had been digging recently. John surmised these areas were likely for booby traps and was thankful that whatever they were intended for didn’t appear to be complete yet. John still saw no sign of Al though it appeared he had been working there quite recently. A shovel, gloves, and a half empty water bottle with the lid off lay next to one of the holes as though they were just laid down to allow the worker a brief respite.
Upon reaching the house, things seemed as expected initially, but soon John sensed that something was wrong. He stopped the SUV in front of the house and was more than a little unnerved that he had not yet seen any sign of Al or Sylvia. He was certain they would be home, and he doubted his approach would have gone unnoticed. He wondered if they had seen him coming and failed to recognize him. This caused him to scan his surroundings watchfully while trying to conceal his rising sense of panic. John glanced at the trees and myriad areas of possible concealment among the scrub and foliage looking for movement, reflection, or anything that would warn of a potential muzzle pointed in his direction. He dismissed this idea thinking that he would likely have been greeted with a shower of lead long before he got this close to the house had Al been lying in wait. With this, his concern that something may have happened to his friends continued to mount. Like a ventriloquist, John mouthed for Reams to stay put as he slowly stepped out of the SUV.
John’s concern for Al and Sylvia further increased as he approached the house. He called for them softly at first, then louder after hearing no response of any kind. Sylvia's truck was parked haphazardly with the driver’s side door open as if the driver had just ran back inside to grab something that had been forgotten. He paused momentarily to see if this was indeed the case, but no one emerged from the house; he noticed no movement at all. The same eerie silence that now seemed omnipresent in this new world was there as well. Even the typical sounds of the wind and animals seeme
d suspiciously absent. In fact, the silence enshrouding everything around John was so profound he considered whether he might have suffered from sudden hearing loss until the sound of his own boots and breath assaulted his ears – deafeningly loud in comparison to the absolute sonic void.
As he stepped onto the porch, John tried to peer through the windows, but found that they had been blacked out. The front door was slightly ajar, but he could not see any details inside through the miniscule crack. Everything remained absolutely silent and completely still.
John’s mind raced as he tried to imagine what might be going on and what to do next. He envisioned opening the door only to be greeted with a hail of bullets as he startled Al and Sylvia. He promptly dismissed this realizing they would have certainly heard his voice.
The hastily parked truck, the unlocked door slightly ajar, the apparent booby traps left unarmed in mid-preparation by someone in a hurry—all of these things led to a nauseating feeling that something bad had happened to his friends. John knew Al typically locked his door even when he took out the trash, and he was not one to leave a project like that half-finished. Bracing himself for whatever greeted him inside his friend’s home, John stepped forward and pushed the front door open.
What he saw within defied comprehension; a hail of bullets would have been less painful than gazing at the two lifeless forms on the floor before him. That so much death could have occurred in such a short time seemed impossible, and seeing his friends – the two people he would have declared most likely to weather such a brutal storm – dead before him was equally impossible. If they had succumbed, what chance do I or anyone else have for that matter? Paralyzed by the grisly scene before him, John sank back against the doorframe, a forlorn expression of bewildered desolation adorning his face. He shed no tears, though he very much wanted to cry out in rage. He simply stared blankly and imagined himself, and indeed everyone he ever knew, being snuffed out just as Al and Sylvia were. When will that be me? When will that be me?