by Colley, Ryan
Keith chose his words carefully, each one picked with consideration. He told us how he feared what he would do every time he touched a gun. He said how he’d killed before, and regretted every time he had to. Yet he knew he’d have to kill again – his eyes weren’t focused on us, but on that of something far away. A memory. The person who he’d strangled in the store perhaps? Then he returned to us and smiled sadly. He was done, saying all that he could.
Kirsty mirrored what had been said before her. She was scared to hold a gun, but that fear was only outweighed by not having one on her at all times. She couldn’t sleep unless she had a weapon nearby. Not just because of the undead, but because of what the living could do to her … what they had done to her. But picking up a gun wasn’t about killing, it was about her survival, and she knew that was at the expense of others should it come to that. And it would come to that.
Stephanie refused to speak. No matter how much we tried to coax the words out of her, or offered support, she refused to talk. She came close several times, almost giving in and letting a tidal wave of emotion out. But her mind kept her words at bay, holding them in like a poison. She sat there, tight-lipped and angry, almost against her will. And then we fell into silence, the same way the meeting started, no one willing to talk and disturb the beautiful quiet.
Several hours went by in silence and we enjoyed it all. Well, as much as we could anyway. No one could truly and completely relax knowing the threat of the undead was always present. We could sit and pretend we were enjoying ourselves – pretend we were distracted and not constantly alert for any sign of movement – but nothing could hide our furtive glances. Eyes flicking in the direction of every noise we heard. I’m sure everyone was as tightly coiled as I was, ready to move at a moment’s notice. It would never be how it used to be – something we were all beginning to accept. Then, almost on cue, something changed.
It began with a few flies as they moved in and hovered around us, zipping above our heads. Big, fat, juicy flies. I tried to swat them out of the air, but they moved too quickly and avoided my hand. Then more appeared. A dozen more. Suddenly, we had hundreds of flies swarming us. I’d never seen so many and looked on in disgusted horror as the air around us became black with them.
“What!” Keith choked out, trying to swat the flurry from his face. He was brave, opening his mouth like that. I would have been amazed if a few didn’t slip in. But I didn’t have time to focus on that as I made the same swatting motions. None of which did any good with the sheer quantity. I felt them crawling on my skin. On my face! I brushed them away but more followed. They were in my hair. Near my ears. One tried to go up my nose, it’s tiny legs ticking my nasal hair. I couldn’t deal with it. I gave in and made a quick dash to the van – everything was swarmed with the black pests.
I knew what I was looking for as I pulled open the door and grabbed what I needed – a small netted ball. I unravelled it and put it over my head. It was a mosquito net designed for hiking, and it worked perfectly for the situation. I was able to breathe without fear of inhaling insects! But that didn’t stop them landing on my arms and legs. I turned back around and saw my little group making their way to the van, following my lead.
“Run!” I shouted with a laugh, disgust being replaced with mirth as I realised the ridiculousness of the situation. We were running from flies! It was crazy. Yet there were so many. I could have swiped a knife through the air and easily killed a dozen without any effort. But something about the situation didn’t feel right, despite how silly as it seemed. Had the lack of human intervention let the fly population grow? What had changed? The spider population should have boomed with the abundance of flies and it would have evened out.
While I pondered the wonders of the ecosystem, I smelled something familiar and my body sagged. A putrescent fetor was in the air. The undead, yet it was so much more than that. Something heavy in the air. Fifteen or twenty zombies wandered into view, made almost impossible to see by the shrouded veil of flies they wore – like some sort of ethereal void walker in an undulating cloak of unlife. They wore a suit of the twitching and crawling creatures! They must have been feasting on the dead. That was more than I was content to deal with. I climbed into the van and slammed the door in an attempt to keep the smell out. Several more doors slammed as the rest of our group climbed in.
“What was that all about?” Stephanie coughed and sputtered, wiping her face. She kept scratching and slapping at her face, hitting away the flies that had followed into our vehicle.
“The undead,” I replied simply. I thought for a moment before adding, “Rotting meat heating up in the summer sun. Getting real toasty. A nice little fleshy burrito. Flies love it. They’re walking incubators for disease and pests. I bet, if we cut one open, they would be mostly maggots – Pestilence would be proud.”
Stephanie retched at my explanation, or maybe it was the smell seeping through and into the van.
“If that is the case,” Keith began. I looked at him in the mirror, seeing a greener version of him than I was used to. “We need to be more careful. If the flies are feeding off the dead and they bite us, they could make us seriously ill. Think of mosquitos and malaria. That isn’t good.”
“Something new to fear,” I sighed sadly, crushing a fly that had landed on the dashboard. “Why can’t summer bring ice cream or something? Why disease?”
“Can we just go?” Stephanie snapped, still retching. Realising that I’d found my way into the driver’s seat again, I started up the van, put my foot on the pedal and sped away. We passed the undead embodiment of pestilence – the fifteen or so plague walkers – and just kept going.
Flies were still occasionally being crushed as they revealed themselves. Yet, that wasn’t my main concern. I could feel eyes on me, my companions were still wary of me and my mental state.
“Seriously, I’m okay,” I announced when I caught Kirsty looking at me for the third time. It was a lie. I wasn’t okay. How could I be?
“Are you sure?” Kirsty asked sympathetically.
“Yes,” I said, forcing a grin. Internally, I screamed for help.
Would I be fine? I didn’t know. I still felt sick – mentally and physically – and not just because of the flies. But I had to be okay for the group. I had to be okay for Alice. So I would grin and bear it. I would force myself to wake up in the morning and survive. I would do that every day until I was no longer needed. Survival wasn’t for my benefit anymore and I had to keep reminding myself of that. I had others that I needed to think about – that would be enough to keep me going.
“Well, are you okay to be driving?” Keith asked cautiously, forcing the subject I tried to avoid. “Less than twenty-four hours ago, you’d come round from heat exhaustion. A few hours after that you were almost catatonic. So, are you sure? Not just for your sake, but I don’t want to end up wrapped around a tree.”
“I’ll be fine,” I reiterated. I held my hand out behind me and said, “Just keep me hydrated.”
Within seconds, I had water laced with a hydration pack in my hands and I guzzled it down. My body knew what it needed and I drank greedily.
“I think we should all take a daily vitamin with our breakfast,” Keith announced out of nowhere. I nodded in agreement. We could all do with a little boost to our immune system – especially with the fly swarm we’d seen. And that was that. I knew I was already taking one but, if the others took one, then it could help stop my companions picking up something and, in turn, passing it to me.
“We should visit some cool places,” Kirsty said after another stretch of silence, apparently forgetting the detour that ended with a plane crash. “How about some storage lockers? Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“I would love to nose through peoples things!” Stephanie agreed, clapping her hands excitedly.
“Yeah, that does sound cool,” I nodded in agreement. “Maybe we might find some guns or something in there … something of use.”
“Doubt many people k
eep guns in their storage lockers … unless they’re war antiques. Now that would be awesome,” Keith also agreed. “Not everything has to be useful, we can do stuff for fun as well.”
I ignored his secondary comment, I wasn’t prepared to think that way just yet. With that minor flight of fantasy and piece of trivial excitement out of the way, we returned to silence again.
Who would have thought the apocalypse could have been so boring?
CHAPTER 21
We couldn’t force any more conversation. The van had sapped that from us. We’d spoke about our lives. Our likes and dislikes. First partners and bad breakups. Sports teams and hobbies. And so much more. The idea of getting to know someone over a lifetime sounded fine, but learning about someone’s lifetime over a few weeks was soul-destroying. We covered it all, and then some. We even played thought-provoking games.
“Would you rather fight a dozen chicken-sized horses, or a single horse-sized chicken?” I asked. Blank stares – not of confusion, but in deep thought.
“Horse-sized chicken,” Stephanie replied with a confident nod. “It’s only one. I can take it.”
“That chicken would peck your head off in one go,” Keith scoffed, shaking his head. “Chicken sized-horses is the only right answer here.”
“Kirsty, you’re the tiebreaker,” I chimed in, taking my eyes off the empty road to look at her.
“You’re an idiot,” Kirsty said, rolling her eyes. I sighed, about to call her boring, but she wasn’t done. With a wicked smile, she said, “Gotta agree with Keith. That giant chicken would ruin you.”
“Brilliant!” I laughed, wracking my brains to think of another. “How many toddlers could you fight, if they came at you in groups of five with a minute break between rounds?”
I was then met with several responses telling me I’d gone too far and no one wanted to play anymore. And that was that game ruined. Maybe we’d try the license plate game next …
The van was everything I despised about long car journeys in my youth. It was hot and sticky, smelly, with people who were slowly grating on me. Sure it was our salvation and sanctuary, but I detested it. Those things wouldn’t have been so bad on their own, but the boredom amplified it. Barriers were slowly being knocked down between us, some for the better and others not so much. Barriers that each of us had put up for so long.
Then there was the unbearable heat – we were cautious about having the windows open. Even though we’d worked to keep us protected from the undead with a few vehicle modifications, it didn’t protect us from the mile-long fly swarms we kept encountering. The first time we ploughed into one of the swarms, the cabin filled with flies. So, once we passed through to the other side of said swarms, we ended up driving with the doors open just to clear the van. So, we were back to keeping the windows sealed which made the atmosphere even more uncomfortable. However, all was not lost as Stephanie changed the tone with one sentence.
“We still have that CD player!” she announced, almost jumping out of her seat.
“Oh God, yes!” I shouted, voice close to ecstasy. We finally had a distraction! Kirsty fumbled with the player, hooking it up to the cigarette lighter.
“Keith, you choose the CD!” I called to him, haphazardly tossing him the CD wallet, which he then thumbed through until something caught his eye. He handed Kirsty a CD with the words ‘Metal Mix 2’ hastily scrawled onto it in black marker. I grinned – ‘metal’ automatically topped anything labelled ‘pop’ as far as I was concerned. Kirsty dropped the CD into the player and turned it on.
“Unless it’s in the charts, I don’t care about it,” Stephanie huffed. I shrugged – you couldn’t please everyone.
The previous owner of the van had an awesome taste in music. Extremely varied, but no concept of what metal was. There were bands from across the decades – ranging from the Beatles and all the way up to Muse. Reiterating again, none of which were metal. However, we were treated to Metallica and Iron Maiden. And it was the cherry on top of the apocalyptic road trip. Cruising along open roads. No one in sight. Music blasting out. It was every iconic scene out of every end of the world film ever produced. And we couldn’t help but rock out.
Three songs made our journey. The first was Highway to Hell by AC/DC. That impactful opening with the awesome vocals. That was the song which truly symbolised what we were doing and where we were. We felt free. Free from everything. Living wasn’t exactly easy – as claimed by the song – but I certainly felt free. I couldn’t help but feel that we were on one long trip – not just on the road, but through our lives. It just pumped us up – made us feel invincible. Then that chorus kicked in and I couldn’t help but thump on the steering wheel in rhythm while nodding my head in tune.
I looked around the van at my companions, people who I would even consider friends, and I felt the corners of my mouth lift into a smile. I’d considered them my wards, even burdens, but it was the first time I truly thought of them as friends – whether we all accepted it or not, but we were riding together through the apocalypse and we–
“This song sucks,” Stephanie muttered while the rest of us were in various stages of rocking out.
“Well, what would you prefer?” I asked over the awesome guitar riff.
“Something I’ve heard of for one,” Stephanie replied, folding her arms.
“Wait,” I said, taking my eyes off the road and staring at her.
“Road!” Kirsty shouted in reply, as she grabbed the wheel and straightened it. I whipped my head back and saw we had narrowly missed the lone zombie on the road – which definitely appeared out of nowhere.
“Seriously though, you’ve never heard of this song?” I asked Stephanie in disbelief.
“I haven’t even heard of the group!” Stephanie replied. I heard Keith gasp behind me.
“AC/DC … you’ve never heard of them? Honestly?” I said slowly, unable to comprehend what I was hearing. I kept saying it over and over in my head but it still didn’t make any sense to me. I always considered their existence to be general knowledge, like the fact the Earth rotated around the sun.
“Never,” Stephanie said, shaking her head.
“Metallica?” I replied questioningly. She shook her head. “Guns N Roses?”
“Def Leppard?” Kirsty asked when Stephanie shook to the negative.
“The Rolling Stones at least?” Keith called out. Once again, Stephanie shook her head.
“I feel like just driving this van into a ditch now,” I said, more so to myself, but in jest nonetheless. Everyone turned to look at me and I smiled, “A joke of course.”
“So what do you listen too?” Kirsty asked.
“Oh, good stuff. Not old stuff. Like I said, anything in the charts … you know, good stuff,” Stephanie replied, rolling her eyes. “We should listen to stuff like that!”
“All of those against that?” I asked my companions. Kirsty, Keith’s and my hand all went up. I laughed, “Looks like the group has spoken … we’re still a democracy after all. We’ll keep listening to this old stuff then.”
With that, I turned up the volume on the second song that made our journey memorable – John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads. I grinned at Stephanie.
I began drumming on the steering wheel, in tune with the song. Soft but quick taps. Suddenly, almost completely on time with the glorious vocals of John Denver, Kirsty sang the first line, crooning it even. Then Keith chimed in with his booming voice, adding the next line. I let them continue their awkward but carefree duet before I came in on my favourite part, singing the first line of the chorus obnoxiously loud at Stephanie. Then something beautiful happened. Without any planning, we all sang the next part together – even Stephanie. We all doubled over laughing.
“I thought you didn’t know old music,” I stated, giving Stephanie a sideways glance as I wiped tears away. It was amazing how music could make you feel. It could raise you up in the worst of times. And, for me, there was something special about that song – even if
I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it the universal longing to be somewhere familiar? The warmth of somewhere that feels like home? Of getting somewhere you’ve been heading towards for a long time? I didn’t know, but it warmed me inside.
“Everyone knows that song!” Stephanie replied with a grin. She then added, as if it was the justification for her sudden liking of the music, “Just because everyone knows of it, doesn’t make it good.”
“Of course not,” I said, winking at her. “You will learn to love this music eventually – you won’t have much choice.”
“Whatever,” Stephanie huffed, feigning annoyance.
So, that is what I did. I made an effort to indoctrinate Stephanie into the world of Rock and Metal. She needed to learn what decent music was and our road trip was the perfect chance to do that – mainly because she couldn’t get away. We blasted through a few other tracks and rocked out in the music studio that was our van. Keith was on air-guitar, I was on the steering wheel drums, and Kirsty occasionally sang into an invisible microphone. Stephanie awkwardly plucked at an invisible guitar when she thought no one was looking, although the way she held it made it look more like an air-banjo – she could be the air-bassist. Who couldn’t resist rocking out to the Rock of Ages or Wayward Son?
We rocked our way through twenty songs and we loved it. Then the CD moved to track twenty-one. Sure it was a homemade CD, and the next song would probably never have appeared in the order that it did. However, it did appear. That goddamn song …
I’d loved the song previously. It was interesting to listen to and told a fantastic story. However, every song that played I’d been linking to our entire journey and how it paralleled my post-apocalypse life. How could I not do the same with the next one? 1916 by Motorhead – the third song and the final one of the CD.
It was uncharacteristically slow for Motorhead, with a morose and mournful tone. The entire atmosphere in the van plunged into a quiet thoughtfulness. It just wasn’t right. None of us spoke. None of us pretended to play along. We just listened to the words. My mind plucked at random snippets of the song and they kept echoing around my mind. They resonated with me. The song spoke of hopelessness and how you shouldn’t expect anything different. Speaking of friends dying and how they were only kids. How they missed their mother. My chest tightened. Shit. I’d felt that feeling before. Back in the shop. And before that, back at the container site.