“Please, Jesse. I can’t make it a few miles. Maybe we can just take one of the smaller SUVs and no one will notice,” Robert pleaded with him.
“Grow the fuck up, Robert,” our teenager told the older man. “They’ll see us trying to steal their shit and shoot us just like they did everyone else. These are not nice people—hell, none of us are nice people anymore.”
I finally voiced my opinion. “The only thing I’m certain of is that these people will shoot first and not bother to ask any questions if they see a group of people running across the field away from the city. I think they’re right,” I gestured towards Jesse and Sam. “We need to get away from here before we draw any attention to ourselves.”
Robert looked back and forth between us and finally nodded. “Okay, I’ll try to make it a little further.”
“Alright! That’s the spirit, man,” Jesse whispered while he pulled out his battered Road Atlas. He examined it for a few moments and said, “Given the situation in the field, they must know that we came from the south along I-55…the lake will stop us from going straight south across country, so either we take our chances on the I-55 bridge or go farther west to this Iron Bridge Road.” His finger rested on a road that ran straight south.
“What’s that?” I asked as I pointed to what looked like a small back road with a bridge.
“Hmm,” he followed the very small lane north until he found the name. “It’s the Interurban Trail,” he replied.
“Oh, I used to mountain bike along that before…all of this,” Sam said excitedly. “It’s a totally awesome nature trail that runs over the lake and takes you to the next town over.”
“If it’s a nature trail, I bet there’s a lot of trees and underbrush that could provide us good cover to get out of the city. According to the map, the Iron Bridge Road is the only other major bridge to the south. They’ve probably already got the big bridges locked down, but they might not have a little foot bridge closed off,” I reasoned with our small group.
Jesse thought about it and examined the map some more. “You’re probably right,” he said. “Let’s head west and take the nature trail south over the lake. Then we’ll figure out what we need to do to get to Virden.” It was clear that he had resumed the role as our leader in this tactical situation. I didn’t mind one bit, the first—and only—mission that I led was a total rout with an untold number of casualties.
We edged our way back to the city side of the bushes and walked as normally as we could. There was really nowhere we could hide on the south side of the city, so we tried to act like the residents would. When I thought about it though, it was kind of silly because the residents who weren’t part of the fighting were huddled in their homes trying to survive another day, not out walking in the radioactive snow. But we made do with the situation that we were presented with.
It turned out alright. If there were snipers watching us through hunting scopes, then we must have passed their test and been allowed to survive. We reached the point where the trail went underneath the I-72 overpass and turned left onto the trail. It was pretty open right around the highway, but quickly became a tree-lined lane leading the way to safety.
We traveled extremely slowly for four or five miles down the trail and across the lake because of Robert’s foot. We needed to find a spot to either rest or get a functional vehicle of some kind that hadn’t already been cannibalized for parts. Our route brought us into the town of Chatham, but there was nothing left of it. Sure, there were some skeletal structures still standing, but it was clear that the entire town had been torched weeks ago. We picked our way carefully and ran from shadow to shadow in the murky light. As in Springfield, there were massive amounts of dead bodies, except these were different.
In Springfield, we’d seen tons of bodies just lying around or piled up off of the streets, but in Chatham, we saw proof of torture. Bodies were tied to trees and covered in wounds. Arms and legs had been ripped off, probably by tying them to a vehicle and pulling. Remains of people could be seen hanging from second story windows of homes that hadn’t completely collapsed. Men and women were impaled on iron fences around the churches. There were areas where small mounds of children looked like they’d huddled together for warmth and slowly frozen to death.
The carnage was almost impossible to take in. Hundreds of people had met their ends horribly. “Who could have done this?” Jesse asked rhetorically as we leaned against a low brick wall.
Even though he didn’t expect an answer, I said, “It must have been the people from Springfield. You heard Greg. He said that the crazies were running the asylum.”
“One of the reasons I left,” Sam interjected.
“Same thing is happening in Virden. Allan’s lost his freaking mind. What the hell were we thinking attacking this city with only three thousand troops?” Jesse asked.
I could visualize the wheels turning in Jesse’s head as he surveyed the scene. “They did this to their neighbors. They know we came from Virden. They’re going to attack Virden and do the same thing.” He surged to his feet and shouted, “We’ve got to get back there and warn everyone!”
“Robert needs to rest, he can’t make it much farther,” I said quietly.
Jesse’s eyes blazed in his mask as he glared back at Robert. I could tell he was thinking about leaving him again. “We need to stick together, Jesse,” I reaffirmed.
“Five minutes, then we leave,” he replied and stalked off around the corner of the building.
I watched him go and stared at his footprints in the snow after he’d gone. Robert tapped me on the shoulder and pointed across the street. Fuck! A zombie was slowly pushing its way through the shin-deep snow. It must have heard Jesse’s outburst and came out from wherever it had been gorging itself on the flesh of the dead. Sam’s eyes were as wide as saucers because she knew the rules about gunfire in the open. We tried to take care of things as quietly as possible because gunfire just brought more of them.
The creature let out a soft moan, unsure if it had heard someone or not. I turned my head slowly, we were pretty well camouflaged against the wall, but I couldn’t risk it seeing us and attacking Robert. I unbuttoned the snap holding my KA-BAR knife and drew it out from the sheath on my belt. The damn creature snapped its head around and I swear it looked right at me. Then it turned its head to the side and took up a perfectly human stance of listening intently. I eased my back off the wall so I could spring up and fight if I needed to.
Then all three of us heard Jesse stomping his way through the snow around the corner at the same time. The mutant started struggling against the snow to reach the sounds and I jumped to my feet and took an angle so I’d be able to intercept it. My foot shot down into a particularly deep drift of snow and I fell to the side in a momentary delay.
“Jesse, look out! Zombie!” I yelled.
The creature stopped and turned. No doubt about it, the thing saw me this time. I was a dark splotch of moving human against the dirty snow. It turned and made a beeline right for me. I pushed myself up again and took a fighting stance with my knife held low. I wished that I had some thicker padding on my forearm, but I couldn’t help it now.
The creature stumbled and fell in the snow, but it righted itself and continued forward towards me. I’d probably faced more than twenty zombies on my own over the past couple of months so I was pretty confident that I’d be alright, but I was worried about my footing in this damn snow. Then, one of the worst things possible happened: three more mutants came from the same direction. One of them was a little further behind because it was dragging a useless leg behind it, but it was still a threat.
Shit. My heart began to race. How the fuck was I going to fight four of these things at the same time with a knife? I glanced over my shoulder to where Robert sat. Propped beside him was my rifle. Did we risk drawing more of them to our area or should I try to use the knife and stay quiet?
The first one got within reach so I slashed out with my knife and sliced through
the tendons in the arm that reached for me. Its hand flopped downward uselessly, but it didn’t even phase the damn thing that it couldn’t open and close that hand anymore. It simply bumped against my raised arm with the useless appendage. I stepped to the side and it stumbled into the same hole that I’d fallen into a minute earlier.
It fell forward and caught itself on hands and knees but before it could push itself back up, I jumped on its back and jammed my knife into the base of its skull. It must have separated the spinal cord because the creature’s entire body collapsed and fell forward with its face buried in the snow. Even though it couldn’t turn its head, the damn thing continued to open and close its mouth as it tried to bite me.
“Look out!” Sam hissed and swung a piece of wood like a bat over my head and into the body of another creature that lurched towards me. It was knocked off balance enough to stagger backwards and decided to go after Sam instead of me. I struggled to pull myself out of the hole so I could help her out. Suddenly, Jesse rushed out from behind a burned-out convertible. The big man swung a metal rod into the head of the creature that had been intent on attacking Sam after she hit it. I flinched as I heard bones snap and the rod indented the top of its head a good three or four inches.
That zombie crumpled like a rag doll and Jesse hit the second one in the shoulder with his bar. It was enough force to knock it over and I shuffled forward in the snow and jumped on top of its back. I grabbed the thing by the forehead and pulled its chin away from its chest. My knife slid across the mutant’s throat and I was rewarded with a rush of putrid air and a satisfying fountain of blood in the snow.
I heard Jesse grunt as he beat the last creature’s head to a pulp. He gave me a thumbs-up and sauntered over to the first creature that he’d hit and used another overhand swing to bring the bar down onto the back of its head. He swung again and again until a bloody pink mass oozed out of the zombie’s ears.
I nodded to him and went to the first mutant that I’d paralyzed and flipped it over with my foot. Its mouth continued to open and snap shut while the eyes looked around wildly. I bent down beside it and drove my KA-BAR through its eye socket into its brain. The thing died with its mouth open, still waiting to bite an unfortunate passerby.
We made our way back to where Robert sat. He regarded each of us and asked, “Did any of you get bitten?”
“I’m fine. What about you, Chuck? Looked like you were in another up-close fight with that first one.”
“I’m good, he never got close enough to bite me,” I replied. “Thank you for saving my ass, Sam. It’s a good thing that you came along when you did, Jesse. I don’t know if we could have handled all four of them.”
“No problem, bro. You’d have done the same for me,” Jesse said with a pat on my shoulder.
Robert’s shoulders began to heave up and down softly. Jesse placed his hands on his hips and asked, “What the hell is wrong now, Robert?”
I looked back and forth between the two. It was evident that Jesse either didn’t like Robert or didn’t like being held back by an injured member of our group. Robert let out a little sob and blubbered, “I’m useless. Abso-fuckinglutely useless to you guys. I would have been attacked by those things and there’s not much I could have done to defend myself without using a gun.” He jabbed at his facemask to wipe the tears. “Fuck!” he hissed in frustration at the plastic goggles and pulled his mask away from his face to dry the tears.
Jesse cocked his head to the side and stared at the injured man. “Look, Robert, I’m sorry that you’re injured, but you’re still part of the team. I’ve been acting like a dick because I’m worried about my wife and want to get back to Virden as soon as possible.” His shoulders slumped a little bit and he said, “I’m sorry, man. Let’s get going so we can find a car and you can get some rest on the way back.”
Jesse reached out his hand. Robert took it and he pulled the wounded man to his feet. Once he was standing, Jesse shook his hand. “I’ll do my best to get you back safely, alright?”
“Yeah, man. Thanks,” Robert replied.
“Aww, how sweet,” Sam inserted herself into the conversation in a way that only a teenager could do. “You guys need some more time? Maybe a room?”
“Shut up, kid,” Jesse said as he placed a big, meaty hand on the top of her head. “If you weren’t so darn cute, I’d leave you out here for the zombies to eat.”
“Geez, get your paw off of me!” she said as she squirmed away. “Even through this mask I can smell your armpits when you raise your arm. It’s called soap. There’s more than enough of it around now that most of the people are dead, so use it!”
Jesse raised his arm again and pretended to sniff his pits. “We’ve gotta get you a new mask, I can’t smell anything.”
“Good. Glad to see that everyone’s made up. Let’s get the fuck away from here before ten more of those things show up,” I muttered while I gestured towards the four mutants that we’d just killed.
Where there was one zombie, there was usually another not too far away. That was one thing that we could all agree on. I slid my KA-BAR back into the sheath and made a mental note to not forget my baseball bat sitting beside the front door when I picked up Rebecca and our backpacks. The knife was great, but the blunt baseball bat was better and I should have known better than to leave it at home.
* * *
We made it through Chatham and found an old farmhouse along Highway 4 that had a truck parked in back. We hadn’t brought the gathering squad this far north along the highway because it was so close to Springfield and it seemed like they hadn’t come this far south yet, so the farmhouse was still intact.
I crept up onto the porch and stood to the side of the door in case the owners tried to shoot through it. Then I knocked. There wasn’t any answer so I knocked again, harder. Still no answer but I knocked a third time. I shook my head at Jesse and he went around the side of the house to peek in the windows.
He shuffled his way back around the other side after a few minutes. “There’s a couple of bodies inside, but I didn’t see anyone else,” he said.
I turned the handle and it wasn’t locked so I pushed the door open. “Hello?” I said as loudly as I dared for fear of attracting more zombies. There still wasn’t any answer so I pulled out my knife and went inside with Jesse right behind me.
The house was a total wreck. It appeared that the former residents had broken apart most of their furniture to use as firewood. The fireplace contained half-burned pieces of wood and fabric from clothing long since burnt out. I walked over to the old man and woman huddled together under mounds of blankets on a loveseat near the fireplace. They looked peaceful, almost like they were asleep.
I couldn’t resist myself, so I shook them to see if they were still alive, but they weren’t. We searched the house and found some food in the pantry and plenty of water, but not much else. Jesse went out to bring in Robert and Sam while I played medical examiner.
There was a hatchet on the floor beside the loveseat, but I determined that it was for chopping up pieces of furniture for the fire instead of a murder weapon. They’d piled all sorts of clothes, towels and curtains around the room to use as fuel. In the end, it seemed like nothing kept them warm enough and they froze to death.
Then I had an idea from an accident that had happened to neighbors when I was a kid. I bent down towards the fireplace and looked up the flue into the chimney. I was right. All the shit they’d been burning had coated the inside of the chimney with a thick tar-like substance that built up over time and almost completely blocked the smoke’s escape route at the top. The smoke and chemicals from the treated wood and fabric had nowhere to go but into the house. The poor bastards probably died in their sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning, not from freezing to death. I regarded the man and woman again and was glad that they died without knowing the horrors that awaited others in this world.
Jesse and Sam came in with their arms wrapped around Robert to support him. “Figured it
out,” I said.
“Figured what out?” Robert asked.
“These people,” I replied. “The chimney’s closed up, so they must have died from carbon monoxide poisoning when they were burning all this furniture and stuff.”
“Hmpf,” was all I got out of Jesse.
“And I found the truck keys,” I said as I tossed them to him.
“Now that’s important news!” Robert responded excitedly and high-fived Sam.
“I’m gonna go start ‘er up and make sure it runs,” Jesse said.
“Wait!” I said. “Let’s get what we can from here and then all go to the truck together. If it starts up, we can just go. I don’t like the idea of making more noise than we have to since those woods are right there beside the house. If we start it, then come back inside, there’s no telling what will creep out to see what’s going on.”
“Good point. I’ll see if they have any bags or anything that we can put the food from the kitchen into,” Jesse said as he nodded his head.
I looked around the room to see if there was anything else we could use while Robert hobbled to the bathroom to relieve himself. There wasn’t much, but I did find a couple of sweatshirts that hadn’t been sacrificed to the fire before the former occupants died.
Jesse came back from the kitchen carrying a plastic grocery bag full of canned goods and four bowls. He sat down on the floor and opened a family-sized can of pork & beans, which he then poured into the bowls evenly. The table was probably one of the first things that the old man chopped up, so we made do by leaning against the wall.
I kept my social commentary about the state of what we’d become comfortable with to myself. Here we were sitting ten feet from a pair of dead bodies and we didn’t care at all. I thought about my unborn child and wondered if things would still be this bad by the time he or she was old enough to understand what was happening around them. I hoped not. I hoped that we’d be able to make it past these dark days and reemerge as a peaceful society. I hoped, but after the last few days—months—of violence, I wasn’t optimistic.
Enduring Armageddon Page 13