by Chesla, Gary
When they had finished the two Slim Jim’s, Fran decided it was time to go.
She had everything, except for Snoop, ready to go.
Fran picked up the starter rope that she had cut off her dad’s lawnmower.
She tied the end of the rope around the collar she had made for Snoop from one of her sister’s old belts. The collar would have been better suited for a female Beagle, Fran’s sister always had a thing for bright pink things, but since Snoop was color blind he didn’t protest when Fran put the collar around his neck.
Fran then grabbed the rubber handle, and smiled at how secure it felt as she wrapped her fingers around it.
She figured the handle would make it easier to hang on to Snoop if he decided to take off suddenly to chase something.
She took one last look around the inside of her house.
Fran had expected that she would have felt sad to leave, but rather than sadness, Fran felt relieved to be leaving.
This had been her home for most of her life, the only place she had really known.
But it was also the place where she had seen her dad die and turn into a zombie, then try to kill her.
She had seen her sister become a zombie and chase her around the yard.
The house was where she had to hide from the zombie workers from the sawmill when they staggered down the road, going to who knows where.
This was the place where those two creeps came and trashed the house and took the truck and the battery she had used to power the CB radio.
The house was also the place where she had felt so alone over the last two months, starving and fearing for her life.
Fran did feel a brief tinge of sadness, but that quickly left her.
The feeling was replaced by the desire to be with John and Flash, once again to be among people, to no longer be alone.
She didn’t try to lie to herself that life would soon be so much better, because Fran knew where ever she went, it would be a struggle to survive.
Without people, grocery stores, TV and all the things she had come to rely on, life was never going to be easy again.
But if things worked out, she would soon have others to share her life with.
If nothing else, however hard life would be, it would be comforting to know that she wouldn’t have to go through it alone.
Fran knew it was time to move on, or die.
After one last look, Fran grabbed the handle on the bookbag, tugged on Snoop’s lease and walked out the back door.
They walked across the yard and turned left onto the blacktop road.
It felt strange to be walking in this direction, but it also felt good.
Fran looked down at Snoop who was trotting along beside her, his four short legs and tail moving in rhythm.
“I wonder where Snoop thinks he’s going?” Fran thought to herself. “He seems so happy and excited.”
Fran smiled and thought, “He’s excited because he is going wherever I am going. I wonder if he would be as happy if he knew that I don’t know where I’m going? Yeah, he probably would.”
Fran and Snoop had walked for at least an hour, judging by how far the sun had risen in the sky.
Sawmill Run Road was a small paved two-lane road that skirted north of the city of Twin Falls.
It wound around in the hills, surrounded by nothing but trees and hillsides.
One stretch of road looked like the next and Fran wasn’t sure how far she had gone until she came to Route 93. That was the route where her school bus always turned to go into Twin Falls where she had gone to school.
Fran had gone past Route 93 once with her dad in the truck and she knew in another mile or two she would come to Route 84.
Once she got to Route 84 she would only have about another fifty miles to go on Route 84 to reach Stone, John and Flash.
Fran looked down at Snoop in time to see him watering a rock at the side of the road.
Snoop looked up and started wagging his tail.
For some reason that sight made Fran laugh and relax.
They started to walk again.
Thirty minutes later the scenery began to change as Sawmill Run Road came down out of the hills and passed under Route 84.
Fran stood and stared for a moment as she looked out at the interstate highway.
Route 84 was crowded with cars for as far as she could see.
Cars, trucks and buses were scattered across the roadway, some down over the side of the road in drainage ditches.
Many of the cars appeared as if they had collided with other vehicles on the road.
Despite all the vehicles out on the highway, nothing moved and there was an eerie quiet that hung over the valley.
It was as if you could hear a pin drop.
John had told her about this in one of their many conversations on the CB.
In her conversations with John, he had told her about the packed highways and cities, traffic stalled and zombies swarming among the cars and down the city streets.
He had told her about seeing zombies pulling people out through broken car windows, killing and eating them right on the streets.
John had warned her to not even think about going into or around Twin Falls because it would be suicide.
Fran had only half believed him, thinking he was exaggerating about what he had seen.
After all, she had seen zombies stagger down the road past her house. That was scary, but it wasn’t as bad as what John had talked about seeing.
It was a horrible sight, but still, the way John had described things it just felt like he was trying to scare her or was bragging about how he was brave enough to go out into it all and survive.
As Fran and Snoop climbed up over the embankment and went up on Route 84, Fran began to think that John had held a lot back and hadn’t told her the worst of what he had seen.
The cars that were scattered over the interstate in front of her were a bloody mess.
Most of the windows and windshields were broken and dried blood covered the sharp jagged edges of glass.
Some of the doors were hanging open and Fran could see the blood covered interiors.
Some of the cars still had bodies in them, dried rotted skeletons with dark leathery skin stretched across their bones.
As Fran and Snoop maneuvered in between the cars, it was then that she began to see the bones and rotting bodies lying on the road ever so often between the vehicles.
“All of these people were probably trying to escape the zombies,” Fran thought as she looked down the roadway. “They were trying to get their families out of Twin Falls, to somewhere safe and ended up stuck here.”
Remembering John’s stories, Fran could imagine what had happened here. Cars stuck in a nightmare traffic jam and before they knew what they had gotten themselves into, there was no way to move forward and there was no way to go back.
They were sitting ducks when the zombies attacked.
“Some of the people probably tried to get out and make a run for it,” Fran thought. “Instead of finding a way out, they ended up jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
Fran didn’t know what she would have done if she had been trapped here in one of these cars.
Fran looked at the broken car windows.
She had doubted John when he said that zombies could break through car windows in nothing flat.
Fran had run into her dad’s truck and hit her head on the passenger’s side window one day while playing tag with her sister.
The only thing that had been broken was her head, or at least it had felt that way at the time.
But the story all the bloody broken car windows was telling her, Fran knew John was right.
She didn’t know how those dead rotting corpses could break through car windows, but it was obvious that they didn’t seem to have any problem.
“Maybe it was because they didn’t feel any pain and just kept pounding their heads against the windows until the windows broke,” Fran thought. Sh
e didn’t think they were smart enough to pick up a rock and just throw it through the glass and do it the easy way. Zombies also didn’t seem coordinated enough to be able to throw a rock.
“I thought I had it tough at home,” Fran said to herself, “Out on this highway it had to have been a nightmare when this all first started. I only had a few zombies to deal with, these people had to feel like it was feeding time at the zoo and they were the food.”
Fran tugged on Snoop’s leash and they started walking again, careful to stay as far away as she could from any of the abandoned cars.
It was quiet and there wasn’t anything moving, but she didn’t want to take any chances of something grabbing her as she walked by a car.
Fran also knew that the way Snoop had to inspect everything, she had better keep an eye on him so he didn’t try to eat any dead zombies.
If Snoop could eat bloody dead snakes, Fran was sure he wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to try some zombie jerky or a tempting zombie bone.
Fran led Snoop south on Route 84 and they began to walk.
It would have been a lot easier if they could just walk down the middle of the interstate, but walking in a straight line was impossible.
Route 84 was like walking an obstacle course, first around one car with its door hanging open, then around a three-car pile-up, over and over again.
The side of the road wasn’t any better.
Fran and Snoop walked until the sun was directly overhead.
Fran’s clothes were soaked from perspiration and she knew as she got closer to the desert there wasn’t going to be any escape from the heat.
It was only going to get hotter.
John did suggest that she only travel in the early morning hours and then late in the day when it began to cool down.
Fran decided that she would do that when she reached the desert, but today she wanted to go as far as she could.
It was going to be a long walk and she wanted to meet up with John and Flash by tomorrow if she could, but the going was slow and frustrating.
Fran didn’t want to spend any more time on this haunted interstate than she had to.
She was tempted to make the rest of the trip wearing only her underwear to beat the heat, but somehow, she just couldn’t do it.
“I’d feel like a pervert running around in my underwear in front of all these creepy dead zombies, Snoop,” Fran chuckled as she looked down at Snoop, “Besides it feels like these zombies are watching us.”
Snoop wagged his tail happily as he looked up at Fran, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he panted from the heat.
“But I think we need a break,” Fran said as she stared at the chaos on the highway ahead of them. “I see an eighteen-wheeler a half mile ahead, we should be able to get out of the sun there. Big trucks have big shadows.”
Snoop wagged his tail like he understood.
They started to walk again, even though it felt more like they were dragging their tired bodies with every weary step they took.
It took twenty minutes to reach the big truck.
When they approached the truck, Fran just wanted to run and fall down in the shade at the side of the truck.
The way Snoop was tugging at his leash, Fran was pretty certain that he had the same idea.
But Fran fought off the impulse and decided a cautious approach would be the best thing to do.
“Big trucks have big shadows, but they also have a lot of places for something to hide,” Fran thought.
She and Snoop slowly walked around the truck twice, looking into the shadows and any other place where it looked like danger could be waiting before Fran felt comfortable enough to get any closer to the big rig.
But before finding a comfortable spot in the truck’s shadow to rest and have her first drink of water, Fran decided to crawl up on the cab and see if there was anyone inside.
She took Snoop’s leash and twisted the rope around the front bumper.
“You stay here,” Fran said looking at Snoop.
Fran didn’t tie his leash in a knot, she just wrapped it around to make Snoop think he couldn’t go anywhere.
In case something happened to her, Fran didn’t want Snoop to be trapped. If he tugged at the rope a few times he would at least be able to get away and have a chance.
Knowing Snoop and how he had tried to attack the zombies back at the sawmill, he would probably end up getting himself killed, but at least he wouldn’t be helpless.
If he was going to be stupid Fran couldn’t help that, but she wanted him to at least have a chance to get away.
She thought about giving Snoop instructions on what to do in the event something happened to her, but she knew that would be like talking to a rock at the side of the road.
So Fran settled for just saying “Stay” one more time before climbing up on the trucks door.
Fran reached up and griped the mirror and pulled herself up to the driver’s window.
She took a quick look in through the window, ready to jump down to the ground and run if case there was something inside that would try to grab her.
Before she could relax she wanted to make sure the truck was not harboring any zombies before she let her guard down.
She gave out a sigh of relief to find the truck cab was empty.
Fran was about to climb back down off the truck when she spotted a silver lunch bucket on the seat.
She heard her stomach growl at the idea of finding something to eat.
The Slim Jim was a nice surprise this morning, it helped some, but she was still hungry.
She took another look inside the truck then slowly reached in through the open window, grabbed the lunch bucket, then jumped back to the ground.
Fran excitedly undid Snoop’s leash and lead him to the shady side of the truck.
They crawled under the trailer where the sun was no longer beating down on them.
Fran felt a nice cool feeling spread over her as a warm desert breeze blew under the trailer.
Fran enjoyed the feeling for a moment then turned her attention back to the shiny lunch bucket.
She tucked the handle of Snoop’s leash under her leg, then stared at the lunch bucket while Snoop sniffed at the metal lunch bucket.
“What do you think, Snoop?” Fran asked. “Do you smell anything good inside?”
Snoop sniffed at the box then he sneezed.
“That bad,” Fran laughed. “I guess I shouldn’t get my hopes up but I’m starving. I guess we won’t know what’s inside until I open it.”
Fran undid the two latches on the front and slowly pulled up the lid.
The smell hit her before she had the lid opened more than a crack.
Fran ignored the smell and leaned over and looked into the lunch bucket.
By the smell the lunch bucket wasn’t empty, but would there be anything inside that she could eat?
Whatever was inside had been sitting in the hot sun now for over a month, it was either well done or it had spoiled from the heat.
After the last month, the smell didn’t bother her too much, she had endured worse smelling things than what sat in front of her.
As the lid opened and revealed the contents, Fran began to examine what was inside.
The first thing she spotted inside the lunch bucket was a banana that was now completely black and shriveled.
Fran pulled back the black peelings and scooped up a handful of the dark mushy banana then held it up to her nose.
It didn’t make her gag, so she put it in her mouth.
The taste of the over sweet banana filled her mouth.
It felt like she was eating banana pudding.
It wasn’t the worst tasting banana she had ever had but it was close.
She forced down two more scoops, the third scoop she held down for Snoop who quickly lapped it up.
“Better than sour berries,” Fran said to Snoop then smiled as she watched him lick the last of the goo off her fingers. “I knew you would like it since y
ou will eat just about anything that doesn’t eat you first.”
Fran looked back in the bucket at the last two items.
The spoiled remains of what had been a ham sandwich, now a maggot infested sandwich bag that reminded her of a science experiment that she had seen at school in science class.
Fran pushed the sandwich bag to the side and pulled out the third item, a sealed lunchbox sized cherry pie.
She held it up and looked at the wrapper and felt the warm pie in her hands.
“It might be a little overdone by now, but it should still taste better than that banana, right Snoop?” Fran said.
Snoop just danced around in place, waiting for Fran to give him something else to eat.
Fran quickly tore open the package and took a bite of cherry pie.
“God, this is good,” Fran said as she let the sweet taste of the cherry pie linger in her mouth. “I knew this would be good, there are so many preservatives in these things that they can last forever.”
Fran smiled when she looked at the use by date, it was September 2040.
She saved the last bite for Snoop.
After he was done, he directed his attention at the open lunch bucket.
Fran closed the lid.
“We’re not eating maggots,” Fran sighed. “At least not yet. The banana and cherry pie should hold us until we can find something else.”
Fran sat back and enjoyed the shade under the trailer.
She looked out at the surrounding countryside.
Fran didn’t know where she was or how far she had traveled today, she wasn’t familiar with what was out this way.
Fran’s life had been at the house in the mountains with a daily bus ride to school on the outskirts of Twin Falls.
Her dad never took Fran and her sister to very many places.
They had never gone on a vacation so being out here like this was a new feeling.
It was a weird and scary feeling.
As Fran looked at the abandoned vehicles around the truck, she began to look at the license plates.