by Jaron McFall
Ross did the math in his head and realized he had been out for about fifteen hours. Sue handed him a raw potato and a knife, “Enjoy your breakfast. It's all we have. I went inside and the gas is off, so no cooking.”
“Thanks,” Ross said cutting a hunk of potato off. “What do we do now?”
“I think we should stay put until tomorrow. I don’t want to get this late of a start, and we need to recover a little. When you get done eating, let me take a look at your head.”
About a half an hour later, Sue and Ross had gone back inside the house to look around some more. Ross found the bathroom and inside of it, some medical supplies that they didn’t have. Sue washed Ross’s gash on his head with peroxide and put a clean bandage on it.
“Thanks again,” Ross said as he looked at it in the mirror. He turned the knob in the shower but no water came out. His question from the day before about the water source was answered. “Not even a cold shower. Want to look around the house some and see what else we can find?”
Sue nodded and they went out of the bathroom, golf clubs in hand. When their tour of the house was completed they had found three bottles of wine, a bag of Hershey’s Kisses, and a flashlight. They also gathered some tools from the garage and Ross spent the remainder of the day carving on a piece of wood he had found while Sue read a book she found.
When the sun had set outside, Sue said, “We should go to sleep. We have an early start in the morning.”
Ross was sound asleep dreaming about being on top of the bay in the stockroom. In his dream, the infected were below shouting at him in gravely voices to come down because they were hungry. Sue was with him and she began to climb down. When Ross had tried to stop her she said that it was okay because they were vegetarians. In her attempt to get Ross to let go of her arm, Ross fell off of the bay toward the ground. He woke up and jumped in his seat in the car. He was covered in a cold sweat.
Ross looked around. It was still dark out but he could see moonlight coming in the garage window. A face appeared in the window. It looked directly at him and he heard it moan. The man began to smack the window and another face appeared also smacking at the window and wall. He knew it was the infected.
Ross heard the door leading into the house shudder and someone began to beat on it. He shook Sue awake. She looked to where the sound was coming from and gasped.
Sue raised her seat as she started the car. She was reaching for the garage door opener when Ross grabbed her hand. “Wait,” he breathed. “They can’t get to us right now.”
Sue lowered her hand but then heard a breaking noise come from the door that blocked the entrance to the house. The barrier they had made broke and a man came stumbling into the garage.
“I’m not infected,” the man shouted. He was around thirty and was going bald. He had a goatee and was slightly overweight.
Before Sue could hit the door opener to drive off Ross leaped out of the car. He held his golf club high and said, “Have you been bitten? If you lie, you could kill us too.”
“No,” the man replied. “I escaped them but my car ran out of gas. I saw this house and decided to see if there was a car. The one outside is out of gas.” Ross remembered that he had never turned the car off when he had started it up.
Ross could see that the man looked like he was fine. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and Ross couldn’t see any marks on him. “Lift up your shirt so I can see you aren’t bitten,” Ross demanded.
He heard Sue’s voice shout from inside the car, “Ross, we don’t have time for this. Get in!”
Ross ignored her, “Lift your shirt.”
The man took his shirt off and turned in a circle with his arms outstretched. “See. I’m clean. Can I go with you?” Ross detected a slight British or Australian accent.
Ross opened the door to the backseat and motioned for the man to get in the front seat as he sat down in the back. As soon as both doors were shut, Sue hit the button to open the door and put the car in drive.
As the door was opening Ross could see feet moving just outside the door. “As soon as we can clear this door, drive,” Ross demanded.
Sue nodded and said, “That’s my plan exactly.” She waited another few seconds and the infected started running into the garage as she slammed the accelerator down and the car shot off.
Ross could see the people she hit go across the windshield of the car and twirl as the mirrors hit them. Within thirty seconds, they were on the street driving, the car covered in thick blood.
“Thanks,” the man said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Ross replied. “If you are infected, I will bring this golf club down on your head.”
The man turned in his seat and smiled. “I don’t have to worry then,” he said and turned to face the front again. “So, thanks.”
Chapter Seven:
A GOOD PLAN
Sue drove the car down the street at five thirty a.m. “I don’t want to try to make it to Sneedville in the dark,” she said looking in her rearview mirror at Ross.
The man they had picked up, who had said his name was Danny, rubbed his forehead with his fingertips and asked, “Why do you want to go there?”
“I think that will be the safest place right now. It has a low population,” Sue replied.
“Do you have somewhere to go?” he asked.
“No. But I’m sure we can find somewhere.”
“No,” Danny replied. “There’s nothing there but the infected and fire. Someone started setting houses on fire thinking that it would scare the infected away like animals. It didn’t.”
Sue looked puzzled at him and asked, “How do you know that?”
“Because I live,” Danny started to say and paused. “I lived there until yesterday. I lived there until someone set my house on fire.”
Ross leaned forward so his head was between the two front seats and looked at Danny, “Where do you suggest we go then?”
“I don’t know. I was just trying to find some more sane people. I think there may be safety in numbers, though. So, we should stick together,” Danny replied.
“If they are in their right mind and not infected,” Sue corrected him.
Sue slowed the car down to thirty miles an hour but kept going forward. She was trying to think where there was to go. “We can head to Rogersville. That’s where my house is. Hopefully, my husband boarded the place up and it's safe. I didn’t want to go back yet just in case. But I can’t think of what else to do.”
“I think that’s our last option,” Ross agreed as he sat back in his seat and folded his arms behind his head.
Danny didn’t say anything else but laid his head against the cool glass of his window. Sue sped the car back up to sixty miles per hour and started her route home.
At one a.m., Charlie pushed his bedroom door open. He walked inside to see Cedric and Jack asleep on the floor. He nudged them both with his foot. “Wake up. It's your shift at the windows,” he said as they started pulling themselves up.
Cedric got up and slid his pipe in his belt. Denise still had his pistol. He had also given her the holster so she would stop setting it on the counter in reach of Julie and Adam. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the two kids with a gun, but he knew they couldn’t afford an accident because there wouldn’t be a hospital to take them to. He knew that if someone had gotten bit, that would be the first place they would try to go; therefore, it would be one of the first places to be overrun.
Cedric walked into the kitchen and got some granola bars from the cabinet and a Mountain Dew from the fridge. Cedric walked to the window and sat in the bar stool that Ben had been in. He looked over to see that Jack had done the same in the living room. After a few moments, Charlie and Ben went to get some sleep.
“They're still out there,” Cedric whispered. He glanced around the living room and noticed it was empty.
He must have looked puzzled because Jack then said, “If you're looking for your mother, she was in Charlie’s room. I saw her sne
ak in about ten last night. She was in his bed. I guess the boy is with the girls in the other room.”
“That makes sense,” Cedric said looking back to his window. “Keep them out of the danger area. Do you still see the infected over there?”
“Yeah. There’s a lot of them. I bet there’s more I can’t see too. There isn’t much moonlight on this side.”
Cedric nodded again. He knew that looking for them would be tough right now since the power was off and it was dark out. He still caught glimpses of them when they stayed out of the shadows. They sat in silence for most of the night; only saying a few words here and there to make sure the other was awake. This started after Jack had fallen asleep after the first two hours of watching the night. They also kept switching sides just to give them an excuse to get up and walk for a moment.
By the time daylight came, they were already tired. Denise and Eliza came into the kitchen around seven and started cooking breakfast. The previous month Charlie had hooked all the main appliances to a propane generator he kept in the garage. The generator had a two-hundred-fifty-gallon tank sitting outside that was brand new. He had it in case of a power outage in the snow or storms. Charlie also had gas lines for normal use. Nobody had planned on this long of a power outage. The power had shut off the day before, but they had kicked the generator on. For now, the gas lines seemed to be working and they weren’t using the tank yet.
“I bet you’re glad now that Charlie put the generator in, aren’t you?” Cedric asked turning to Denise.
“I was always glad he put it in,” Denise lied.
“That’s why you begged him not too? What was it you said again?” Cedric paused smiling, “Oh Yeah, Charlie, this is just stupid. Why do we need a generator?”
Denise smiled as she said, “I never said that.”
“You're right,” Cedric paused and tried to look dumbfounded but kept smiling, “and I didn’t hear you say it while I wasn’t sitting on your couch either. Right?”
Denise scowled at Cedric, “Shut up Ced. You're such a dork.”
Cedric smiled, “Oh well. I guess you’re just jealous that I have a better memory, or maybe that I’m not delusional. Which is it?”
Denise’s answer was her throwing a dishtowel at the back of Cedric’s head.
“I can’t say you didn’t deserve that,” Eliza said to her son.
At that moment, Charlie came into the kitchen. Cedric looked over to see Ben going to the living room. “Why don’t you and Jack load up all the camping gear into the back of the Ford?” Charlie said to Cedric as he took the stool next to the window. “Ben and I are going to take the watch.”
Cedric nodded as he said, “Do you think camping would be a good idea right now? I mean it would be one heck of a camping trip.”
“It's just a precaution. I hope we don’t have to camp, but just in case, I would rather have it. Know what I mean?”
Cedric laughed half-heartedly, “Yeah, I guess I do.” He went to the storage room and started gathering the camping gear from inside. Jack followed him in and they both started sorting the camping supplies out. They created two piles: things they wouldn’t really need and things they would. The essential camping supplies took up half the truck bed, but before they could load the nonessential supplies Charlie stopped them.
“Load up the generator,” Charlie said. “Go ahead and unhook it. We can find some propane somewhere to power it. Be sure to grab the box beside it.”
Cedric looked surprised as he said, “Won’t we need it in here?”
“We won't be here much longer, brother,” Charlie responded. “A day or two at the most.”
Cedric didn’t argue, he knew that more and more infected were piling into the trench. They didn’t have long left before they would be able to get inside.
It took Jack and Cedric almost two hours to unhook the generator since everything was bolted to concrete. The generator was not one of the small generators on wheels. The thing weighed close to three-hundred pounds and looked like an air conditioner unit.
They had to eventually bust the concrete to get it out completely. With the generator loaded up in the truck, there was only a small area left in the bed, which Ben said to leave empty in case they found something else they needed to load up. The Jeep and the other two trucks were completely full of food, water, and the other essential items that they would need.
They realigned the vehicles so that it would be easy to drive straight over the bridge when their time came. They still didn’t have a plan of where to go, though. When Jack and Cedric went back into the house, they found everyone except Adam and Julie in the living room talking about what to do next.
“The best idea is to just leave now,” Charlie said, “Before anything gets out of hand here.”
“We don’t know what it's like out there, son,” Eliza responded.
“It will probably be worse once we get out there, but even more so if we wait,” added Denise.
“Charlie,” Ben said but paused, “I think the best thing is that we wait until we have a plan. As soon as we have one, we will go.” Ben got up and left.
This seemed to end the conversation that they had been having and Cedric went to eat some of the leftover breakfast since he hadn’t been hungry when everyone else had eaten.
A few hours later, Cedric and Jack took their watch back up. It had begun raining and this caused the trench and surrounding area to become muddy. More infected were falling in due to this. Cedric’s mind was too full with panic to properly think. He knew everyone else was tucked away in small groups trying to think of something when Adam came up to him.
“Cedric, what are we going to do? I’m scared. Ben said if we leave here we are going to get caught by the infected. Why are we leaving?”
“Adam,” Cedric said as he placed his hand on top of the boy’s head, “Nothing is going to happen to us, I promise.”
“You’re trying to think of somewhere safe, right?” Adam asked.
Cedric nodded and asked a question of his own, “Can you think of anywhere little man?”
“Well, my teacher said that nowhere is safer than a large group because there are so many of us there. So we should just find a big group.”
Something hit Cedric at that very moment. He leaned down to Adam’s face and said, “You just saved us little man. You gave me an idea. Can you go get Charlie for me?”
“Sure,” Adam said. A grin spread across his face as he turned around immediately to go find Charlie.
A few minutes later Charlie came walking into the kitchen rubbing his eyes, “What’s up man? I just got woken up by your new little brother. He said you needed me.”
“I have an idea,” Cedric said, “it might sound crazy at first, but I think we can get it to work.” Charlie didn’t say anything but yawned so Cedric continued, “We need somewhere large enough for us. Somewhere that has good thick walls that we could protect easily, right?”
“Well, yeah. But it also has to be somewhere that won’t have a lot of infected in it.”
“So, somewhere that was closed down when the infection hit?”
“Yeah, why? Do you know somewhere like that?” Charlie looked puzzled.
“Yeah. Listen to this,” Cedric said excited.
After a few hours of having people say he was crazy and that his plan wouldn’t work, Cedric finally had everyone except Ben and his mother convinced of his plan; but he knew they would have no choice but to go along with it. It was almost one a.m. but they had decided to act on their plan right now because the infected could fall into certain areas of the trench and not be killed. They were just clawing at the barbed wire. If they waited, some of the infected might get in and cause issues. It was too muddy in the yard to fight them.
Cedric saw Charlie go outside with a wooden sign and hammer it into the ground. He had an idea of what was on the sign but wasn’t positive. He was too busy with getting ready for what he was about to do.
At around one thirty a.m. everyo
ne had gotten inside the vehicles and were preparing to drive like hell. Their plan was to split up at first so they could drive more freely until they got onto the main highway. The largest truck, driven by Charlie, was in the front to help clear a path. The next largest, driven by Jack, second because it was going the opposite direction once it turned out of the driveway. The Ford F-150 was next. It was driven by Ben, with Cedric in the small space in the corner. They had put him in a wooden crate so that the infected wouldn’t be able to bite him as they were pulling out. He could see through the cracks some, though. The Jeep was last in the procession, driven by Eliza.
Denise stood next to the quick release for the drawbridge and looked at the trucks. She was bundled up in a raincoat and a poncho to keep her clothes dry. It was ineffective. She held up her hand and the drivers each blew their horn in order. This, she knew, meant that everyone was ready. The back cab door to her husband’s truck was hanging wide open. She stared intently at it, her heart pumping fiercely as she gripped the release tight in her hand.
Denise slowly pulled the bridge release back toward her holding the resistant pressure, waiting. She could hear her heartbeat inside her head: she was absolutely terrified. She could start to feel a warm liquid run down her cheeks that did not blend with the cold rain.
All at once, Denise let a small scream escape her lips as she let go of the release and she ran straight for the open truck door. As soon as she had let go of the release it swung down, away from her and smacked the ground with enough force to sling mud five feet into the air.
When the release was completely down, the sounds of clanking chains rang out: almost matching in time with the noise of Denise’s feet smacking hard on the wet ground. She could see the truck getting closer but everything in her mind seemed to stand still. Denise took that last long step and jumped into the truck. She felt hands grab her from inside the truck and pull her in. Behind her, she heard the truck door slam and the locks click shut.