At the landing just off the highway, three folks had to keep shooting almost the entire time we tore up the crossing. We decided we didn’t need to bother with the one closest to the river, since anything could cross the highway bridge. We figured we might need to blow that eventually. Fifty deaders got tossed in the river that day. We washed off in the canal, upstream from the spot where we threw them in. I didn’t want to leave much in the way of clues for any other Zeds to follow.
I visited Jennifer after every run. She hated sitting around in the classroom we kept her in. Just hated to be locked up, I guess. Couldn’t blame her, but talking to her took my mind off the missions and helped me unwind. We talked about nothing, mostly. Just two people getting to know one another. Her husband, Rick, was a lot older. He’d been a teacher at the college she attended. She was twenty-five, same as me. Rick was forty. After they got together, he left teaching and started his own software company. That’s why he was gone all the time.
Me? I lived in Snareville because it was cheap. I could buy a house there cheaper than I could rent in Princeton. I told Jennifer I had some school, but not much. It helped at work. I was off the floor—or had been—and I didn’t have to fill orders all day. Broke up with my girlfriend a few months ago, and since I was on third shift, it was hard to meet anyone new. Easier to just go to a strip joint and get a look than it was to find someone for keeps.
I put off the trip to Geneseo for five days. Then they let Jennifer out of quarantine.
“I want to go with you,” she said.
We walked down Main Street toward the trucking company, where a rig idled, ready to go.
“Why?” I asked.
“I’ve been cooped up here for a week. Before that, I was cooped up at home for a couple weeks. I want to get out, Dan.”
I looked at her. “Can you shoot?”
She glanced away. “A little. Not much with a rifle like yours.”
“Okay. We’ll get you a shotgun and a box of shells.”
She smiled at me, and I guess I must have lit up pretty good.
“I don’t want to have to babysit you,” I said. “Make sure you do as you’re told and pull your weight.”
She saluted and gave me a mock-serious look. “Yes, sir.”
We rolled past the barricade north of town. Once we were over the creek, we were on our own. The road we needed lay right at the base of the canal. The guys on guard duty at the canal bridge waved at us as we made the turn and headed into the countryside. A mile up the road, we came to the second creek roadblock. Manning all these barricades really sucked, but we didn’t want to blow them unless it was our last resort.
I checked the rearview and caught a glimpse of the back edge of a white truckbed behind the trailer. I keyed the two-way radio.
“You boys keep tight on us. We’re not stopping until we get to the plant.”
“Hey, you don’t just have boys on your crew, Boss.”
In the cab of the semi, we grinned. “Yeah, Chrissi. I got one of you girls up here, too. Don’t get your hair tangled up in your gun.”
“Funny.”
“Just watch the taillights for turns and brakes. We don’t want to get stranded.”
“No shit.”
That was Bill. Jeff Rissati drove the rig. We had Bill and the rest of my team in a crew-cab pickup behind us. We didn’t know what we’d run into, but we wanted to be ready. Guns were stoked. Magazines were loaded. Everyone had a rifle, except for Jennifer. She sat in the sleeper behind me, the butt of a shotgun planted between her feet. One of the guys in town had volunteered his turkey gun. It was shorter than the other bird guns and fit her better. We’d dumped the plug out and stoked her up with six buckshot shells. After those six, she’d be down to birdshot. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
We buzzed down the back roads with no problem. We passed silent farms. No one moved in the farmyards, as far as I could see. No one stood between the barns; no tractors worked the fields. We slowed a couple times to let cattle or hogs cross the road in front of us. Didn’t know if they got out on their own or if someone let them out. It was eerie.
In Buda, we saw the first signs of the insanity that still swept across the country. Several cars protruded from the sides of buildings. A few had caught fire and burned both the cars and the structures. We eased through the two-block business district. Corpses dangled from windows, skulls shattered. The deaders went for the tasty parts. A couple bodies sprawled in the road. Looked like someone ran them over on the way out of town. The dead thumped under our wheels as we mashed them down a little flatter.
Jeff turned us out onto the state road. Buda is a tiny town. The only thing keeping it alive is the main connecting road between Peoria and points north. The town’s got a little tavern, a library, and a convenience store with gas pumps. Just a bunch of houses otherwise. It wasn’t much before. Now it’s nothing.
Bill’s voice came over the radio. “Hey, Dan?”
“Yeah, Bill?”
“You boys might want to get moving. We got a group of deaders comin’ up behind us.”
I looked in the rearview. A block back, a small swarm of Zeds followed the trucks. I glanced over at Jeff.
“I’m on it,” Jeff said. He put his foot on the throttle. The rig growled forward as the diesel came to life. Within a quarter mile, we left the Zeds behind.
At the main intersection of two state roads, we came upon a mess. Cars were piled up at the intersection, three crashed and a dozen others backed up. No one remained in the cars, except for a couple of ripe corpses belted into their wrecks. Looked like folks must have left on foot.
We checked the vehicles, all of which had keys in the ignitions. Jeff and Bill stayed behind their wheels as the rest of us started backing the other vehicles off the road. Pretty soon, we had them all lined up in the ditch. I decided to leave them there, where we could get to them easy. Most held a half tank of gas or better; one of the pickups was full. I debated about taking it, but I decided we didn’t need to get any more strung out just yet.
The three wrecked vehicles in the intersection were a problem. One car sat with a body hanging halfway out. Older lady. Apparently, she blew the intersection and T-boned a pickup. Someone had pulled open her car door, and she’d fallen partway out. The deaders must have gotten to her then. She had a lot of meat missing.
We dropped the smashed pickup into neutral and shoved it into the ditch. The old lady’s car was locked in gear. We fired up one of the beater cars, swung it out of the ditch, and shoved the wreck out of the way with it. We left the lady where she rested.
I saw Jennifer walk up to the third car, which was hung up on a busted stop sign. A woman still sat behind the wheel. This one was younger. She looked to be in her twenties. Jennifer held the shotgun in her hands.
“Dan, this one’s still alive.” I could hear the tears in her voice. “We have to help.”
I walked up beside her. The woman in the car was beating her head against the glass. Her eyes gleamed white and opaque. No soul in there.
It was an older car. Must have had a bumper jack in the back window. When the younger woman slammed into the back of the old lady’s car and went spinning, the jack flew free and impaled her through her seat. No telling if she was infected before or after the wreck, but she was a deader now.
“We have to move that car,” I said. “We can’t do it with her tryin’ to get at us.”
“Can’t we just leave her in it?”
“Not like that,” Chrissi said. “We have to get to the wheel.”
Jennifer raised the shotgun. The young woman in the car snapped her bloody jaws like a mad dog. With a little sob, Jennifer pulled the trigger. Buckshot blasted through the window and filled the car with black mist. The deader flopped aside.
As I reached in through the shattered glass for the shifter, I glanced into the back seat.
“Shit,” I whispered. I dropped the car in neutral.
“What?” Jennifer asked.
<
br /> “Nothing.” I straightened and signaled for Tom to push the car out of the way. I turned to Jennifer. “Don’t look in the back.”
“Why?”
The image of the dead toddler stuttered around in my head. At least his death had been quick. The tire iron brained him before it ended up in the car seat with him. I closed my eyes and saw the flies crawling across his little face.
“You don’t want to know,” I told Jennifer.
“Oh.”
She turned and mounted the step to the semi when Jeff brought it up. We all climbed into our vehicles and moved through the intersection. Another mile, and we rolled onto Interstate 80.
Forty-five miles from Snareville to Geneseo. We were more than halfway there, heading west. I’d never seen that road so quiet. We were the only ones mobile. We passed a car now and then in the ditch. Others stagnated in the median where some idiot or another tried to turn around. We saw a yellow-and-white state trooper squad plastered to the supports of an overpass. Intentional or not, he’d been headed east pretty fast. I didn’t look inside as we passed. The trooper was either zombie chow or a greasy spot on the column. Either way, I didn’t want to see.
I’ve heard the rural areas of this country called the “American Outback.” It’s appropriate. What the urbanites never understand about the sticks is that you can travel for miles without coming across another town. More people move to the cities than those who choose to stay on the farm, so unless you get into an urban area, you’re not going to find a lot of folks. That's the main reason there’s never been a lot of traffic out here, even on a normal day. You always could buzz down I-80 pretty fast, until you got into Chicago or the Quad Cities.
Geneseo is a decent-sized little burg in between. Jeff geared down as we turned onto the ramp to go into town. Halfway down, he stopped.
“How many people lived here, Dan?”
“Little over four thousand. How many you think are still around?”
“Dead and chompin’ or alive and hidin’?”
“Both.”
“Don’t know, man, but we gotta do this. Is there any other way in?”
I thought about it. “Only if we go all the way around town and circle back. Adds about twenty miles. I’d like to save the fuel.”
“All right. Let’s do this.” Jeff gave me a weak smile.
“Just drive around what you can, and don’t stop for anything.”
Jeff took his foot off the brake, and we rolled forward. We didn’t bother to stop for signs. It was easy going at first. On the edge of town, businesses catered to the Interstate traffic. Eateries, gas stations, and video stores. No traffic, of course, and very few cars in the parking lots or along the road. We didn’t come across any choked roadways until we got into the residential area.
As we approached a clot of cars stuck in the road ahead, Jeff slowed. Another wreck. We stopped a few truck-lengths behind the mess. Looked like it was about a half-block long and involved all directions of a main intersection. Matter of fact, it was the intersection where we needed to turn left.
Damn. I keyed the radio. “Bill, you back there?”
“Yeah, Boss.”
“We gotta check this out. We’re gonna have to find a way around. You stay behind the wheel and keep it running. Jeff’s going to do the same up here. Chrissi, John, hop out and help cover.”
I checked all directions. So far, so good. No deaders. Maybe we got lucky and they all took off.
Right.
I popped the door on the rig. “Jeff, you keep this thing runnin’. Lock your door. We come back running, you be ready.”
Jeff nodded. I could feel the sweat rolling down my back, prickling like a million ants.
“Let’s go, Jennifer.”
She had hold of that shotgun hard enough to strangle it. We hopped out of the cab. John and Chrissi sidled up along the side of the trailer. I held my finger over my lips for silence, then I stepped around the front of the truck.
Rifles at half port, we quick-stepped through the yards. I didn’t want to get up against a house and have a door pop open with a surprise. My crew knew their jobs; Jennifer was our only unknown factor. Now I knew she could handle the shotgun, but she’d never been in a fight before. I didn’t want her to get killed, but she’d have to take care of herself.
We reached the last yard before the intersection. The ground felt solid. Hopefully, it was solid enough to support the semi. Maybe we should have brought a bunch of pickups instead. Less weight, but I wanted to load up as much as we could in one trip.
We stood in front of the house for a moment. I hadn’t rounded the corner yet. One last breath, then we stepped into the west yard. The pileup stretched almost the length of the block, but I saw enough room to get the rig back on the road. I started to relax, then Jennifer’s shotgun boomed.
I swiveled as Jennifer pumped the gun and fired another round. From the north came a swarm of Zeds. John started to light up his gun, then Chrissi fired to the east. Just like that, we were about to be surrounded. Fast movers, too.
I cranked up my rifle. I watched a head explode in my sights, then I moved on to the next.
“Back to the trucks!” I shouted.
We fell back in order, a small cluster of controlled fire. One of the deaders came running at us. A young guy in his teens, missing an arm. He got past the rifles. Jennifer dumped him at our feet with a shotgun blast.
“I’m out,” she said. A simple statement—no panic in her voice.
I turned to look at her. Her brown eyes darted around us. I wasn’t about to let her die.
“Go!” I barked.
We turned and ran for the trucks. In moments, I snagged the door on the rig, flung Jennifer inside, and jumped in behind her. I slammed the door and hammed the lock. Jeff looked at me, eyes wild. We’d stood down some small swarms before, but that was with the entire group.
“Around to the left,” I said. The Zeds were all around us now. “Go to the left, turn the corner, and hit the pavement.”
“What about these things?”
“What about ‘em? Drive over the top of ‘em. Just don’t let Bill get cut off.”
“Right.” Jeff pulled his foot off the brake and gave the beast some throttle. He eased across the street and thumped over the curb. I heard Jennifer behind me, sliding shells into the shotgun. She pumped the action and stuffed in another. Ready.
Jeff cussed as we rolled onto the grass. The truck started to sink, but he feathered the throttle, and we kept moving. I heard shots behind us and figured it was John and Chrissi clearing a path. Jeff just plowed right through the swarm. We could feel the thumps as the wheels rolled over the bodies.
Still, the Zeds started to climb onto our truck. They banged on the windows and grabbed at the mirrors. Jeff picked up as much speed as he could, and we rounded the corner of the yard. Some of the older, slower deaders splattered against the grill. Jeff smiled, shouted, and gave the truck more gas as he aimed for the open road. He cranked the wheel, and the Zed on his side lots its grip. It fell off, and Jeff ground it under the wheels of the rig.
We picked up more speed as Jeff steered us through the yards. We reached twenty miles an hour by the time he jumped over the curb and back onto the pavement. Then he really gave it some hell. One deader still dangled on my side of the rig, hanging on to the mirror and door handle.
“Get that fucker off us!” Jeff shouted.
The Zed licked the glass with its rotten tongue. It left a smear of black slime. It snarled at us.
“I don’t want to break the window. We’ll just let more in that way.”
The muzzle of Jennifer’s shotgun poked past my face. “You crank. I’ll shoot.”
“Right.”
I ducked down, grabbed the window crank, and lowered the glass. I made about four inches of opening, and the shotgun boomed. The Zed’s body went limp, then fell away.
“God, they stink,” I said as I rolled the window back up. Jeff turned on the air conditi
oner. That helped—a little.
In the mirror, I could see Bill’s pickup. We gained speed now. We weren’t the types to drive through town at sixty very often, but we did that day. A couple of Zeds still hung onto Bill’s truck. He whipped the wheel one direction, then the other. The deaders fell off and rolled like rag dolls along the pavement.
“That it?” Jeff asked, pointing at a building ahead. The sign out front displayed a shooter with his line of sight on a distant target. They made good guns there. Rifles and pistols both.
I saw an office window busted in. The front door hung ajar. Someone beat us to it.
“No, not this one. Keep going.”
Three miles farther, a small Mormon church stood on the corner of an unmarked city street. Down that way lay the main industrial area of Geneseo. We turned in there. A cluster of brown-and-gray buildings took up the second block. We pulled in, and Jeff started to back toward the dock.
“Wait,” I told him. I didn’t know yet which door we’d use.
Bill pulled in beside us as I surveyed the building. This one looked tight. I didn’t see any broken doors or windows. We waited a few beats. No deaders appeared.
I popped the door and stepped out. Jennifer followed.
“Back the truck in when you saw a dock door go up,” I told Jeff. “Don’t leave the truck, and keep your rifle handy.”
Chrissi met me beside the truck. I saw tears in her eyes as she handed me her rifle.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
Neither Bill nor John would answer as they walked up.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Then I looked at Chrissi—really looked at her—and saw the bite mark on her neck. They’d tried to stop the bleeding, but fresh-red blood still pumped from the wound.
“Deader broke out the back window, Boss. I blew its head off, but it got Chrissi first.”
“Chrissi…”
“Dan, I can’t be one of them. You have to do it.”
“I can’t do—Chrissi, don’t make me do this.”
I felt the tears start up. I’d known Chrissi nearly five years. We dated for a while when I first moved to town. We once made love wrapped up in a sleeping bag.
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