by Dirk Patton
Rachel nodded and I didn’t so much see it as feel her hair move against my face. I turned on the flashlight and aimed the beam at the floor. The light seemed brilliant after the tomb-like darkness, but I kept the beam on the dark colored carpet which absorbed much of the light and didn’t create any reflections.
I pointed at the duffel bag next to the coffee table and Rachel slowly dug through it until she found pants, shirt, socks and the pair of boots I’d guessed at on size. She held the clothes up to herself and nodded when they looked like a pretty good fit. I was surprised when she didn’t hesitate to strip naked right there in front of me, then remembered her state of dress when I’d found her.
A few minutes later she was dressed in the new clothes and both of us had our boots on. I retied her boot laces for her, showing her how to knot them so they didn’t come lose and let you lose a boot at an inconvenient time.
I dug through the other duffel and pulled out canvas web belts and holsters. Handing one to Rachel I put the other one on and holstered my pistol on my right hip. Rachel watched what I did and copied me. Next came tactical equipment vests for each of us.
Sitting down on the couch I motioned Rachel to sit next to me. I then spread the blanket I’d used for sleeping on the coffee table and placed the case of 30 round AR magazines on the blanket. From the duffel bag full of ammo I retrieved several cases of 5.56 mm and sat them on the table as well.
Indicating for Rachel to watch me I took a magazine and carefully and quietly started loading it. After a bit Rachel picked one up and helped. As each magazine was loaded I found a pouch for it on my vest until I was completely full, then started filling up Rachel’s vest. When we were done each of us was carrying 15 magazines for a total of 450 rounds each.
Finding and filling the spare magazines for my .45 and Rachel’s 9 MM pistols gave each of us another 100 rounds of spare pistol ammunition on our bodies. I had Rachel stand up slowly and I adjusted the vest for her so it fit well enough to not rattle when she moved. Anything that wouldn’t adjust got duct taped and silenced.
Finally I slung one of the M4 rifles over her head and adjusted the sling for a good fit for her size. With hand gestures and whispered explanations I showed her how to insert a magazine, charge the weapon, turn it off and on safe, change magazines and aim. In response to my whispered question of whether she’d ever fired an AR before she shook her head ‘No’.
I rummaged to the bottom of another duffel and pulled out two backpacks that had built in water bladders and drinking tubes. Showing these to Rachel I mimed that I wanted her to take them to the kitchen and fill the bladders with water. I wanted to check on the infected while she did that.
Moving slowly so as not to bang into anything and make a sound I crept up to the bedroom window and peeked through the curtains. The sky was lightening up and visibility had improved greatly, but I didn’t need the extra light to see that there was still a sea of infected moving up the street.
I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to how many there were. They were moving so slow and were packed so tightly together that I had to concentrate to pick out individuals. Closing the curtains I went back to the living room where Rachel was carefully placing the backpacks on the coffee table.
We spent some time distributing spare clothing and food into the back packs. I put all of the remaining 300 rounds of 9 mm ammo in Rachel’s, loading mine up with .45 and 5.56. I debated shotgun ammo, but decided to stick with the AR rather than the 12 gauge. If we lost the truck, we’d lose the shotgun with it.
Preparations made we settled onto the couch. I had a map and my flashlight and Rachel scooted next to me to get a look. I traced my finger across the map following I-575 until I came to the interchange where we’d turned around yesterday. Tracing backwards I spotted where I thought we were, or at least the right neighborhood.
A few minutes of searching found an overpass that crossed I-575 a few miles to the northwest of us. This looked on the map to just be a bridge over the interstate without any entrance or exit ramps. My assumption was that this would not be jammed up by people fleeing the city.
I memorized as much of the route as I could and worked on mapping our way further west. A large lake lay west of 575 that we would have to make our way around, then we’d have to deal with I-75 which ran up to Tennessee to the north and back to downtown Atlanta to the south. I expected 75 to be completely impassable.
Looking for a route around the lake I didn’t like our options. Going south to skirt the water would take us a good distance back toward Atlanta, but if we went north and around it looked like there was only one small highway that cut through some rugged country.
I whispered my concerns into Rachel’s ear and traced the routes on the map with my finger to demonstrate. She peered intently at the map for a few minutes then using her index finger traced a route due north from our location up into the north Georgia hills. We’d still have to cross 575 but the route she was proposing would take us through some sparsely populated areas.
I nodded my agreement, irritated with myself that I was so focused on westerly travel that I had overlooked the obvious. I was concerned for my wife and all I wanted to do was to get to Arizona and make sure she was safe. She’s tough as nails and probably smarter than I am, but there’s a reason men ruled the world until very recent history and the world was quickly devolving back to that mode. At least she was well armed and knew how to shoot.
Putting Katie out of my mind, as much as I could, I spent some time studying the map and fixing roads and travel directions in my head. Not that Rachel couldn’t read the map for me while I was driving, but it was always better to have an idea of which way we were going and how we were going to get there.
I looked up when Rachel lightly touched my arm and followed her gaze to where Dog was laying in the middle of the living room floor. He had been alert and tense from the moment he had wakened me, eyes fixed on the front windows, but now he was lying down and even though his ears were straight up his eyes were closed.
I watched him for a minute then looked at Rachel and motioned to the bedroom. She followed me and we peeked out the curtained windows at what looked like was going to be a crystal clear day. What made it even better was that no infected were in sight.
Mailboxes were broken over, bushes and lawns trampled into mud, smears of something I assumed was blood were on all the parked cars, but that was the only sign of the infected. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and heard Rachel do the same.
“What the hell was that?” She asked in a very quiet voice.
“I don’t know. At first I thought maybe they’d heard something in that direction, but I think the females would have been out in front of the pack if that was the case.”
We stood looking out the window for a few more moments until I carefully put the curtains back in place.
“The bad thing is they were all heading the same direction we just decided to go and I don’t think we’d survive an encounter with a group that large. Even in the truck. They could batter their way in or even turn us over if they have any ability to work together.”
Rachel stared back at me and I could see in her eyes that she didn’t know what to say to that.
“Maybe we should go back to the westerly route and find a way around the lake,” I suggested.
She was thoughtful for a moment then nodded her head slowly as if in partial agreement. “We don’t seem to have much choice. The last thing I want is to run into that crowd, or any others for that matter.”
The street we were on ran roughly southwest to northeast and if I was looking at the correct street on the map it continued to curve north of us until it was an eastbound road. Assuming the crowd- herd??- followed the path of least resistance the road would take them away from our immediate direction of travel. Not far enough that I was comfortable going due north, but it looked like we could make our way northwest then over the 575.
After getting across the intersta
te I decided we would take the route around the north end of the lake. That way looked much less populated and I was nervous about getting cornered and overwhelmed by a mass of infected.
Rachel leaned back on the couch, breathed deeply then let out a long, slow sigh. “How long can this last?” She asked.
I looked away from the map, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, how long can this last? The infected people. Humans can’t go long without water. A couple of weeks maybe without food, but no more than three days without water when they’re out there wandering around all day in the heat.”
“They’re probably drinking and eating, but I can’t imagine what they’re eating. Well, at least the males. They don’t seem coordinated enough to scavenge for food. The females seem quite capable.”
Rachel continued to stare straight ahead at a dark plasma TV screen. “I’m trying to wrap my head around this. I can certainly understand bio toxins, even bacterial or viral infections that would cause hyper-aggression, but any I’m aware of burn the host out in a few hours to a day. There’s not any sign so far of that happening here.”
“That you’re aware of.”
Rachel looked at me and smiled a sad smile, “What I mean is, you’d think there was hope that the infected people would have already started dying off. But we’ve not seen any sign of that. The scary thought here is that everyone that is infected – and I’m not sure that’s an entirely accurate term – is finding water and food and will continue to remain a threat to the rest of us.
“I’m also confused about the crowd or herd behavior we just saw. That’s not consistent with any disease or toxin I can think of that would cause the aggressive behavior. These people should be just as aggressive towards each other as they are towards us.” She turned her head and looked me in the eye.
“I understand what you’re saying, but does it matter?”
“It does if we can find a way to counter act their aggression towards us.”
“You have an idea?”
Rachel let out a short, sardonic laugh, “Yeah. I’m a fourth year med student paying the bills by shaking my tits and ass in men’s faces. If I was a seasoned researcher with a lab and the right equipment then maybe…”
I thought about what she said, but couldn’t think of anything to say in response. After a bit I headed to the kitchen to make us some food before we got back on the road.
18
The truck started easily on the first try, the diesel engine loud in the closed garage. All our gear and Dog was already loaded in the back seat and Rachel was behind the wheel ready to go when I raised the garage door. Moments later we were out of the garage, out of the driveway and headed southwest on the street in front of the house.
I intended to go south a short distance then start working our way northwest through the neighborhoods. My hope was to completely avoid the herd that had passed in front of the house. A block south I made a right, keeping the speed down which also kept the volume of the engine down. I had fallen in love with the big Ford truck, but at times I wished for a nice, quiet gasoline engine.
We slowly made it through the surrounding neighborhoods, turning off to keep heading in a generally northwest direction. By now my memorization of the map had failed and Rachel was navigating for me with the map spread out on her lap. Dog was sitting on the rear floor with his head resting on the center console between us, appearing to be alertly watching the road ahead of us.
We passed through neighborhood after neighborhood with no sign of any life, survivor or infected. There was also no sign of any animal life other than birds. Ghost town came to mind as we passed house after house that was dark and silent. I idly wondered if any of them held survivors like Rachel and I.
We turned onto a narrower street that was completely shaded by a long row of oaks and elms and I hit the brakes when three figures walked into the road a few houses in front of us. In the deep shade of the tree cover I couldn’t tell if they were infected or not, but they seemed to move with a degree of coordination that the infected could not achieve.
None of the three were armed, nor did they make any aggressive or threatening moves. They just stood in the road a hundred yards in front of us. I scanned the houses up and down the street looking for anything out of place that would indicate an impending ambush, but everything looked as normal as it could under the circumstances.
“What do you think?” I asked Rachel while continuing to scan the street and houses. “Go around, or go see what they want?”
Rachel consulted the map before answering, “To go around we have to back track almost a mile then follow a frontage road along the 575. I don’t think that’s a good option.”
OK, then. Forward, I decided. Before stepping on the throttle I laid the 12 gauge across my lap, rested the pistol grip on the console in front of Dog’s nose and clicked the safety to the ‘fire’ position. Slowly feeding throttle I accelerated to ten MPH and rolled down the street towards the figures.
At fifty yards I could tell these were kids. At twenty yards I could tell they weren’t infected as they were nervously shuffling their feet and looking around like they were afraid of being attacked. At ten yards I braked to a halt and could tell they were actually teenagers, a boy and two girls. The boy was overweight with an acne ravaged face and long greasy hair that hung into his eyes. The two girls were painfully thin, both dressed in black with hair dyed the color of black shoe polish. One of them had piercings in her nose, lip, eyebrow and the full perimeter of each ear. The other had no piercings other than a large jewel glinting on her right cheek.
“Well, looks like the Addams Family survived,” I said.
Rachel looked at me like I was nuts, then tried to suppress a grin.
Rolling my window down I motioned them to my side of the truck and put my hand on the shotgun’s pistol grip, finger alongside the trigger guard. They exchanged glances then the girl with the single jewel in her cheek approached, the other two moving closer together in the middle of the road.
“Hi,” I said when she stopped a few feet from my window.
She looked back at me, and the eyes looked too intelligent for the outfit. Oh well. I’ve certainly got no business judging anyone.
“Hi,” She said.
“What are you doing out here?” Rachel raised her voice and asked.
“We thought you were our parents,” She said. “My dad has a truck that sounds just like this and when we heard it we thought you were them.”
“When’s the last time you saw your parents?” I asked.
She thought about that for a minute before answering, “Two days ago. The news on the TV was scary and they went out to the store to get supplies. Then the phones and TV stopped working and they haven’t come home.”
I let out a sigh. How do you tell a kid that her parents were probably either infected or had been killed by infected? I looked to Rachel for help, but she just shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. I turned back to the girl I had mentally labeled as Jewell.
“The news isn’t good. Thousands of people have been infected and they’re attacking anyone that’s not infected. Your parents may not be able to make it home anytime soon.” It was the best I could come up with.
“We’ve seen the infected,” She said. “I killed two of them that attacked my brother in the back yard.”
Rachel put her hand on my arm and I turned my head slightly towards her. Not so far that I couldn’t still see Jewell and her siblings, but far enough to hear her low whisper.
“Should we take them with us?”
I thought about that for a minute before turning fully back to the open window.
“What’s your name?”
“Gwen, and that’s Stacy and Kevin.” She motioned to the two kids in front of us I’d dubbed McFly and Morticia. When she moved her arm her jacket flapped and I could see the butt of a 1911 .45 pistol in her waistband. She reached for the jacket, but her hand was too close to the pistol for comfort.
>
“Don’t touch that pistol, Gwen. I’m a nice enough guy, but you don’t want to try anything foolish.”
She blushed, but held my gaze. “I’m not going to try anything. I just didn’t want you to see it and get the wrong idea.”
“OK,” I answered, making up my mind about Rachel’s whispered question. “We’re heading west, getting away from Atlanta. We have room, and we have food and water if you three want to come with us.”
Gwen stood quiet, as if sizing us up. I could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. I thought she was going to say yes.
“Fuck no, Gwen. No way. We wait right here just like Mom and Dad told us to. They’ll be back.”
This was Kevin, and I was reminded how much better kids hearing is than mine. I was struggling to hear Gwen over the idle of the truck, and he’d heard me almost thirty feet away with the clattering engine between us.
Gwen’s eyes shut down and she looked over at her brother and sister before turning back to me, “We’ll stay here. Our parents will be home soon.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? We saw a herd of thousands of infected move through a neighborhood just to the east early this morning.”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything else.
“Do you need anything?” Rachel called out. “Food, water… anything?”
Gwen stole another glance at her siblings then turned back to us with a glint of hope in her eye. “Food. We haven’t eaten in two days. That’s OK for Kevin, but Stacy and I need to eat.”
“Hey fuck you, Gwen.” Kevin shouted, raising both middle fingers to give her the double bird. Even during the apocalypse siblings will fight with each other.
“OK, Gwen. Step back in front of the truck. I’m going to get out and unload some food for you. Now before I do that, remember what I said about not doing anything foolish.”
I looked at her, hoping she had enough life experience to understand the message I was sending. Kids or not, if any of them drew a weapon I wouldn’t hesitate. A kid with a gun can kill you just as fast and just as dead as a trained soldier.