by Sam Sisavath
After an hour of walking, the highway didn’t look any closer. Will hadn’t been able to see where he was going last night as he fled the ghoul horde; he had only known where he was heading—the bright, white-painted water tower.
“Where are we going anyway?” Zoe asked after a while.
“The highway.”
“And after that?’
“Lafayette.”
“That’s far away.”
“Yup.”
“Can we really walk all the way to Lafayette in one day?”
“Sure we can.”
She gave him a doubtful look.
“It’s only thirty-eight kilometers,” Will said. “Give or take.”
“Kilometers?” she smirked. “What are you, European all of a sudden? What’s that in miles?”
He sighed. “Twenty-three miles ish.”
“Better.”
“See? Not too far.”
“How long in terms of walking?”
“Three miles an hour at regular walking speed. That’s—”
“Over seven hours, Will. Without stopping for food or water.”
“We can always pick up our speed.”
She gave him another doubtful look.
“Or I can put you on my back and carry you,” he said.
She managed a smile. “Now you’re talking.”
“I was kidding.”
“Oh,” she said.
*
THEY STOPPED AT a Shell gas station and raided the shelves for food, warm bottles of water, and anything else they could eat or drink. Will stuffed the pack with supplies, then grabbed a pair of cheap T-shirts off a rack and swapped one of them with his blood-soaked one. He poured water over his head and shook off as much leftover ghoul remains as possible without being able to see what he was doing, then slipped on a yellow and purple cap. He grabbed an extra one for Zoe and waited for her outside on the curb.
Zoe came out looking refreshed. She was apparently better at cleaning herself than he was. She had gotten some of the dead blood and skin on her last night, but had been spared most of the flying gunk. Zoe had also swapped shirts, and her long drying blonde locks fell across her face and shoulders.
“Did you even wash?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at him.
“I did the best I could.”
“Your best sucks. I could have given you a hand.”
“Maybe next time.” He handed her the spare baseball cap. “For the sun.”
“Thanks.”
She slipped it between her legs, then grabbed her hair in a big bundle and somehow got it into a bun, tying it in place with a rubber band. Lara could do that too, and for the life of him he could never quite figure out how they managed something so complicated so effortlessly.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Famished,” she said, and took a spicy Jack Link’s beef jerky that he had pulled out of his pack. “So, Lafayette?”
“Lafayette. Then Song Island after that.”
“And hot showers.”
“And hot showers,” he nodded.
*
AFTER ABOUT AN hour of searching every store that stood between them and the highway, he finally located a small hunting outlet called Renny’s in a strip mall. He swapped his blood-stained pants, well-worn combat boots, and socks for new ones off the rack. He also found plenty of ammo under the counters. Will grabbed as many 9mm and 5.56x45mm rounds as he could find and reloaded his weapons, then shoved as much as he could carry into the pack.
He left Renny’s feeling better about his chances of getting back to the island than he had all day, and went looking for Zoe.
She had spent most of her time going through the cars in the parking lot. When he caught up to her, she gave him an approving look. “You still smell like something died, but it’s an improvement. Hell, from a distance I might even mistake you for handsome, Will.”
“I’m sure there was a compliment in there somewhere. Any luck?”
“I didn’t find a working car, but I did find something that might be even better.”
She led him across the parking lot to a Jeep Wrangler squeezed in between a red Taurus and a black minivan. It wasn’t the Jeep she wanted to show him, but two mountain bikes clinging to its back. One was bright yellow, the other white, and both were held in place by looping steel chains with separate padlocks.
Zoe looked back at him, then at the knife in its sheath. “Can that thing cut through steel?”
“No.”
“Damn. Any ideas how to get the bikes free, then?”
“Did you search for the keys?”
“You think they’re around here?”
“Usually people keep their keys in one big bundle. Like on a key ring.”
“Good point.” She hurried over to the Jeep’s front door, opened it, and leaned in, then came back out a few seconds later with a large key ring. “It was in the ignition. I turned it, but the car didn’t start, so I just assumed it was worthless.”
She tossed it to him. Will flipped through the dozen or so keys, found two identical small ones, and tried them on the locks, opening both.
“Awesome,” Zoe said with a big smile. “All those years of riding the stationary bike at the hospital gym will finally come in handy.”
*
THANKS TO THE bikes, they were able to reach the highway much faster, and before long they were heading south on the I-49 highway back toward Lafayette. There was little traffic this far out from the city, so they were able to bicycle anywhere on the road for long stretches.
Will estimated they did eleven kilometers in the first hour, about only half as much as he was hoping for. Despite her supposed long history of bicycling, it had been exactly eleven months since Zoe had actually climbed onto a bike, so she had to rebuild some of her lost stamina. That slowed them down, though he didn’t mention it. They stopped twice to drink and eat to keep up their strength.
He was happier with their progress in the second hour when they managed fifteen kilometers. Soon, they were moving along the shoulder as traffic began to thicken and more cars started to appear ahead of them.
Will glanced at his watch as they pushed further into Lafayette. They had crawled down from the water tower at 7:35 in the morning, and it took them another two hours before they found the bikes. They were pushing one in the afternoon by the time they finally spotted Lafayette in the distance, along with the sea of vehicles shimmering across the highway in front of them.
Zoe pulled up alongside him. “You think we can bicycle all the way down to Beaufont Lake before nightfall?”
“Not a chance,” Will said without hesitation.
“Damn. I was so hoping for one those hot showers you promised, clean some more of this…whatever this is off me.”
By 2:30 P.M., Will could see the pretzel-like Marabond Throughway, where I-49 reconnected with Interstate 10. The sight of the large blocks of concrete, like the heads of a hydra, made him briefly think about Jen’s helicopter. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing pieces of it still scattered along the length of the highway when they finally reached that part of the city.
There was a brief rush of wind as Zoe raced past him.
“Zoe, slow down,” he said after her.
She threw a mischievous grin back at him. “I told you I was good at this. Ten years of biking at the gym, remember?”
“Pull back, I don’t want you getting too far ahead.”
“Oh come on, the big tough Ranger can’t keep up?”
“Zoe, pull back.”
She ignored him and pushed forward when the gunshot shattered the air, like lightning striking the ground an inch from his ear.
In front of him, Zoe was falling sideways off her bike. Her head landed so hard on the concrete that he was afraid she might have split it open. The bike spilled under her legs, front reflectors cracking against the highway.
Will was already jumping off his own bike, pushing it away from him, even before the gunshot finished it
s echo across the skyline. He reached for his rifle with one hand and grabbed Zoe with the other, dragging her noncompliant body all the way behind the back bumper of a beat-up Ford Bronco.
Gunshots rained down on them instantly, shattering windshields and tearing into the highway around them like missiles.
He didn’t stop moving until he had her completely behind the truck and propped up against the bumper, just as the rear windshield collapsed under the onslaught. He unslung the pack and held it over his and Zoe’s head as glass fell down on them.
Zoe stared back at him, lips quivering, eyes wide with terror. He couldn’t tell if she was panicking, dying, or both. She flinched each time she heard a bullet ping! off a vehicle.
He grabbed her and looked behind her, saw a hole in her shirt and blood flowing out the back. The bullet had gone through her, which was a good sign, even if the sheer amount of blood pouring out onto the highway suggested otherwise. A through and through was a good thing. He was proof of that.
“I have to stop the bleeding,” Will said.
She nodded back, then gasped audibly when a bullet chipped the concrete a few feet from her. Will opened his pack and pulled out a spare T-shirt and a roll of duct tape.
“This is going to hurt,” he said.
“Do it,” she said, barely getting the words out through clenched teeth.
He mouthed a countdown from three to one, and when he got to one, she removed her hands and he shoved the T-shirt against her side. She let out a loud squeal of pain, thrashing involuntarily against him. Will stretched the shirt around her body along one side, covering up both bullet holes. She did her part, pressing both bloodied hands back down over the shirt, while he ran the duct tape around her once, twice, taping the shirt to her body.
The gunfire from up the highway hadn’t stopped, though it had lessened. He guessed their ambushers were trying to gauge if they had hit anything. A final bullet zipped above their heads, passing through where the back windshield used to be, and vanished into the hood of a blue Hyundai.
Zoe was trying to control her ragged breathing, sweat pouring down her face. He couldn’t tell if she or the pain was winning.
“You’re doing good,” he said.
He reached into the pack again, pulled out a bottle of pills, and deposited it into her shaking palm.
“Don’t take too many, you might get addicted,” he said, smiling at her.
She somehow managed to grin back. “You’re such an asshole.”
She popped open the bottle and upended it against her lips, swallowing without chewing.
Will slipped toward the edge of the back bumper and pulled the nylon pouch with the baton and mirror out of the pack. He snapped the baton out to its full sixteen inches and connected the mirror to the end before easing the rod out from behind the Bronco and using it to scan the highway.
At first he saw only parked vehicles—a glut of them, crammed from one end of the I-49’s southbound lane to the other—but then he began to pick up movement.
There was definitely more than one, peering out from behind cars, fifty—maybe sixty—meters ahead. Which convinced him whoever had fired that first shot had jumped the gun. He would have kept going, oblivious to what awaited him up the highway if the man hadn’t shot early. That was one of the first things you learned in a war zone—patience and calm in the face of an approaching enemy. That, and you never spoil a perfectly good ambush by firing too early.
He spotted four men, each one wearing a hazmat suit, though none were wearing their gas mask. He was almost sure there were more than four of them from just the sheer volume of gunfire. At least five, with a possibility of six, maybe even seven if he was really, really unlucky.
He watched one of the men moving across the length of an old ’80s station wagon with wood paneling. The car was parked across the lanes, probably after spinning out of control. The man was shuffling away from the front passenger-side window where he had been crouched earlier. He moved laterally toward the hood, where he rested a hunting rifle and fired off a shot.
The mirror attached to the baton exploded, showering Will with glass fragments. He dropped the baton with a curse, then reached down and pulled out a thin shard of glass sticking out of his right arm. He flicked it away, ignoring the little trickle of blood.
The problem was the guy who had just fired that last shot. He remembered the man from the camp. The one with the bolt-action hunting rifle, equipped with the big scope. The guy just shot a mirror that was only three inches in diameter from fifty meters. Big riflescope or not, that was pretty damn impressive.
“Nice mirror!” a voice shouted. It was male, deep, and it sounded familiar. “Where’d you get that? Archers? Nice place to shop. We were gonna hit it later ourselves, stock up and whatnot.”
Will didn’t answer. Instead, he listened to the man’s booming voice rattle down the length of the highway, before it eventually died in the breeze.
“He sends his regards!” the man shouted. “Your old buddy! Josh!”
Josh?
“He wanted to be here himself,” the man continued, “but he had other business. He told me you’d be coming back in this direction sooner or later. Of course, we thought you’d be coming by car, not bicycles. That really threw us for a loop, let me tell you!”
He had heard that voice before, over the radio.
“Kellerson?” Will shouted.
“Bingo!” the man shouted back.
Sonofabitch.
He looked back at Zoe. Her face was pale, but she wasn’t trembling nearly quite as much as before. She stared back at him with sunken eyes and seemed to be breathing fine, though that might have just been a combination of adrenaline and pills.
“We’ll be fine,” Will said. “Trust me, okay?”
“Okay,” she nodded back.
He couldn’t tell if she actually believed the lie or if she was humoring him. It was impossible to read anything in her face at the moment. He wondered if he had looked that spaced out after getting shot a few days ago.
“Hey, you still alive back there?” Kellerson shouted. “It goes without saying, we can do this all day. Got supplies and more ammo than we know what to do with them. And night ain’t your friend, but then you probably already know that, don’t you?”
Will scooted back toward Zoe and felt her pulse. Weak, but it was still there.
“You’re doing good,” he smiled at her. “I’ll be back, okay?”
She didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure if she couldn’t, or if she didn’t want to. He could almost feel her drifting away, leaving her body.
“Hey, Will!” Kellerson shouted. “Josh told us you were a badass ex-Army Ranger. I gotta say, I’m unimpressed, man!”
Even before Kellerson finished the word “man,” Will was darting across the highway. There were only two meters between the Bronco and a large Suburban minivan in the next lane. It was a quick dash, with only the two mountain bikes in his way. Will had to leap over them, raising his profile higher than he wanted.
He heard a gunshot and a bullet zipped past his head, almost taking his ear off.
And he saw something else in the half-second he was in the air—a man in a hazmat suit on the other side of the concrete barrier that separated the south and northbound lanes. The man had apparently been making his trek down the highway for a while and was only ten meters from Will’s position when Will spotted him.
The man froze, looking like a kid caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Will landed behind the minivan and snapped off a quick shot in the man’s direction. He managed to hit the man in the right shoulder and watched him spin and drop, disappearing behind the concrete barrier.
Will ducked his head just as the minivan’s windshields exploded, and glass poured down on top of and around him. Bullets that didn’t pelt the Suburban’s sides—the ping ping ping! going into metal like chimes—dug lengthy grooves across the highway floor.
He leaned out from behind the Suburban an
d glanced at where he had last seen the man in the northbound lane. He saw a thick head of blond hair bobbing along the barrier, fleeing back up the highway. Will considered taking a shot to finish the man off, but that would have involved leaning almost completely out from behind the minivan, and he had a feeling the guy with the hunting rifle was waiting patiently back there at the station wagon for a shot. Throughout the torrent of gunfire, Will had heard the familiar rattles of M4 carbines, but not a single shot from a bolt-action rifle. The man was just waiting for him to make a mistake.
Then the gunfire stopped, and there was just the heavy silence of a dead city again.
That, too, didn’t last.
“Hey, Will!” Kellerson shouted. “You still alive back there?”
Will didn’t answer.
“Come on!” Kellerson continued. “Cat got your tongue? You know you’re not going anywhere. This is it, buddy! This is the end of the line! Make it easier on yourself and the blonde! Throw out your weapons and I’ll end it quick. Scout’s honor!”
Will glanced toward the highway barrier again, expecting another figure to rush up alongside it, having used Kellerson’s taunting as cover. The man was talking so much Will thought it had to be a trick, some kind of clever diversion.
But no, there was no one on the other side this time.
He’s just a loudmouth, after all.
“Will?” Kellerson shouted. “This is getting boring, man. I’m giving you till the count of five, then we’re coming. I got no time for this Alamo bullshit! You ready, buddy? Five!”
Will looked back across the lane at Zoe. Her eyes were closed, and she looked on the verge of sliding off the Bronco’s back bumper at any second. After three solid seconds of staring, he couldn’t tell if she was still breathing.
He thought about how she had come back to rescue him when she didn’t have to…
“Four!”
He flicked the fire selector on the M4A1 to full-auto. If they tried to bull rush him, he could probably take three, maybe four if he was really lucky.
Captain fucking Optimism.
Not that he had much of a choice. He and Zoe were dead if he stayed still.
“Three!”