by T. W. Brown
“Nice, Cary. That’ll make him want to talk to us,” Mike scolded, but only half-heartedly. Truth be told, Kevin was being a total lame.
Silence.
Oh well, Mike thought, if he follows, fine. If not, he could go off on his own and get himself killed. There was nothing to be done about it. They were all adults. Mostly. Nobody was the boss here. That was probably what Kevin was pissed about. He’d been giving orders and acting like he was their leader. Until Pittsburgh, nobody had said anything. But after that ordeal, it was as if, suddenly, nobody listened to a word the guy said. Then there was the ribbing. Cary was really good at it.
The turnoff for Clearview came and Mike veered. Well, they would know in a moment if Kevin was with them. Cary and the U-Haul appeared in the rearview as he came down the off- ramp. Next, Darrin and his Geo Metro. A few seconds later, Kevin’s Escort Wagon came down to join the others.
Mike scanned the area. It was no different than the thousands of other gas oases along the highways and interstates of the country. There were three locations to choose from: a Mobil that had some sort of diner attached; a Chevron with two islands of pumps and a three-bay garage; and a huge truck stop.
“Truck stop.”
“Truck stop,” Cary seconded.
“Truck stop,” Darrin chimed.
Silence.
Three votes truck stop. One silent, abstaining asshole. Mike veered left, heading directly across the four-way intersection. The caravan followed. With the precision of having done this before, all four vehicles pulled up to the side of the main building. Mike and Darrin jumped out of their vehicles with rifle in hand and a pistol on each hip. The T-handle of a sword stuck up over each man’s right shoulder.
Both moved fast in opposite directions, scanning the area while searching the ground. Mike suddenly froze and snapped his fingers. Cary swung the U-Haul around towards where Mike stood waiting. He came to a stop where Mike pointed and hopped out of the cab with the pump and hose set-up, along with bolt-cutters and a large wrench. He quickly went to work on the locked cover that led to a gas storage tank. In seconds, he was snaking the hose down and then running the second hose to the gas tank of his truck.
As Mike began working the manual pump, Cary jogged back to Darrin’s car. He noticed that their operation was already drawing attention. From literally every direction, they were coming. Singles. Doubles. Small groups. But they were coming. He guessed the numbers to be about thirty.
A glance over at Kevin only caused his blood pressure to raise another notch. He was simply sitting there, hands on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead at nothing in particular. A look over at Darrin snapped Cary back to task. Drawing the sword, Darrin was moving over to what looked to be a policeman or soldier. With one well-placed swing, the top third of the zombie’s crewcut-sporting head came off, landing a few feet away. Cary still couldn’t get over how the zombies just disconnected. It was instant.
He hustled over as Mike was pulling the hose from the U-Haul’s tank. Next would be Mike’s El Camino. A pair of gunshots sounded causing both Mike and Cary to spin around.
“What the fuck is Kevin doing?” Mike spat.
“Not a damn thing.” Cary shrugged.
“Yeah, well, get my car over here. We fill it and leave. If Kevin wants gas he can do it his own self,” Darrin said as Cary ran for the El Camino.
Darrin now held his pistol, a Navy-issue Colt .45 and sought another target. Cary drew his; any chance at a quiet fill-up was gone. Now it would be time to take out the closest targets. Coming out from between two semi-trailers were a pair of particularly horrifying zombies. One was a hugely obese woman. She was totally nude and there was no doubt that her death had been gruesome. Her entire abdominal cavity had been torn out. She was hunched over due to her obscenely large sagging breasts. The other, still wearing the remnants of a pair of blue coveralls, was a tall, gaunt, wisp of a man. Clumps of long, greasy, brown hair hung well past the shoulders. A large bite on his throat had long since blackened and dried to the jagged-edged hole that provided a near medical school view of the larynx and tendons that connected head to shoulders.
Cary’s first shot put a neat hole in the center of the wo-man’s forehead. He steadied his aim on the roof of the El Camino, lining up on the man next. The shot went wide, punching a hole in one of the many trailers lined up in the trucker parking lot. The thing continued towards him, oblivious of any possible danger, seeking to quench its desire to feed on a living being. The second shot at the coverall-clad fiend entered the head through the left eye-socket. It toppled back, a stream of dark jelly running down its cheek.
Three more rounded the nearby corner of the main building. Cary winced as a man missing his entire right arm led what looked to be his twin sons across the smooth blacktop of the now seemingly crowded truckstop.
“Needing some help here,” Cary called as he took aim at the one-armed father.
“Camino is almost full. Break for Darrin’s car,” Mike answered.
“We are running out of time at this spot.”
“Only going to be worse closer to the city,” Mike reminded
“And Kevin?” Cary asked.
Mike glanced over where Kevin sat in his car observing. He did not believe the guy would simply watch as they filled up cars while fighting off this oncoming horde. “Fuck him.”
“How does he think he’s gonna get gas?” Cary put both sons to rest within feet of the dad and climbed in Darrin’s tiny car. The gas tank was still half full! That meant they’d be on the road in just a few minutes. He drove over so that the vehicles now made an uneven U around Mike. Bumper-to-bumper as they had done since leaving Norfolk helped minimize any wandering creatures’ approach to whoever was pump-man.
Darrin was backing towards them, firing only at the closest threats. Their idea was never to try and take down everything in sight, just anything close enough to bite.
Cary stepped around to the front of his U-Haul, five were closing in from across the street, but none were any immediate threat. He glanced back at Mike. “We aren’t leaving the pump, right?”
“Not a chance, Kev’s got one in his car. He can pump with that,” Mike snapped. “The best I’ll do is leave the cap off. If he’s really lucky, we’ll wait for him at the on-ramp for a couple minutes.”
“How the hell is he supposed to pull off a fill-up here with all these things? And no way does he have enough gas for a long run.”
“He should have thought that through before pulling this little bitch-fit,” Darrin said as he backpedaled to his car and grabbed the hose waiting for the last couple of gallons so he could seal it, pull it, and toss it to Mike.
“I’m not sure I can just leave Kevin.” Cary turned where Mike was coiling the hoses to the siphon pump.
“He’s just sittin’ in the car not helping do shit!” Mike snapped. “We’re out here with our asses on the line. I ain’t risking my life to gas that sonovabitch while he pouts because his feelings are hurt.”
“We did agree to his idea,” Cary reminded.
“Because we’ve been trusting his so-called leadership. Well I’m not wanting a leader anymore. That little adventure damn near got us killed. This ain’t the movies, man,” Mike reminded them of Kevin’s own tired mantra. “You get bit and you’re screwed. We’ve all heard and seen it. Reports give no more than seventy hours tops before a bite turns you.”
“But to leave him behind?” Cary asked.
“His choice.”
“How is it—”
“Cary, watch out!” Darrin screamed as he turned from replacing his gas cap.
Stepping out from around the front bumper was what had once been a young girl no more than thirteen or fourteen. Her throat was torn out and her left arm was missing just below the elbow. Long, stringy blonde hair remained in clumps, but large patches had obviously been torn out leaving huge sections of raw scalp peeled back in spots to reveal exposed skull. A once white, but now obscenely torn and
dirty, Christina Aguilera shirt had several bullet holes in it where somebody had taken shots at her. A pair of low-rider jeans were dangerously close to slipping off her emaciated frame.
Cary spun to face the creature as it moved towards him with mouth open wide. The one good arm reached out, opening and closing like a crab’s claw. The other arm twitched menacingly, waving its jagged stump. His first shot went wide, pinging off the fender of the U-Haul.
“Watch the tires!” Mike yelled.
The one hand grasped Cary’s free arm. He jerked back as blood-blackened teeth chomped on empty air with a loud click. He fired again. This round caught it in the face, shattering the left cheek and leaving a powder burned hole just below the eye. Oblivious of its new injury it lunged forward as Cary back-pedaled, free arm pin-wheeling to help him keep his balance. Its gnashing teeth caught hold of his thumb just above the knuckle.
Cary screamed in fear and pain as blood welled up around teeth that sought to grind through bone. He jerked back, strips of flesh peeling away from the digit. He fired twice more; both shots entered the forehead, blowing the back off its skull. It collapsed at Cary’s feet, a trickle of his blood still on its chin.
There was a flurry of activity as Mike and Darrin took out a handful of the ever approaching undead. This was not for the sake of protecting a perimeter. This was straight vengeance. In the onslaught, nobody was forced to deal with the reality that one of them had been bitten. In those few agonizing seconds while Cary tore at his shirt and wrapped his bleeding thumb, not a word needed to be said about the fact that he was basically a dead man.
The click of a magazine being released from a pistol seemed loud in the sudden silence that followed the shooting frenzy. Louder still was the new one slamming in and the slide being released to ready the weapon once more.
“Is he bitten?”
It was Kevin. At some point he had decided to come out of his car. He stood at the junction where the El Camino and the U-Haul were bumper to tailgate. He remained on the opposite side, away from Cary, as if afraid he’d already turned and might try to attack. His hands flexed nervously as he grasped and re-grasped the pistol-gripped shotgun he held across his chest.
“Get the fuck back in your car,” Mike said, his eyes unable to look away from the already blood-soaked rag on Cary’s thumb.
“We gotta get rollin’ outta here!” Darrin was turning a slow three-sixty, and things were starting to get really crowded looking; like a huge circle with them at the bullseye.
“Did Cary get bit?”
“I’m not going to tell you again to get in your car!” Mike tore his eyes away to meet Kevin’s.
“I’ve got a bottle of alcohol in my car. Cary come with me, we’ll grab it and get out of here.”
“You want to help now!” Mike was incredulous.
“Let’s take up this issue later.” Cary pushed away from the car. His thumb hurt like a bitch, but no more than he would expect for an injury like the one he had. What would turning feel like? He’d seen people in various stages of turning, and it looked real unpleasant.
“Let’s grab that alcohol,” Kevin motioned for Cary to follow him. “You guys hit the road. We’ll be right behind ya.”
Darrin and Mike cast uncertain looks, but the quickly deteriorating scene made up their minds. Mike tossed the gas pump into the El Camino and got in. He cast one more curious glance at Kevin and Cary who was already running to catch up. Darrin’s car sped past honking twice. Not sure what else to do, he followed the weaving Geo Metro towards the on-ramp.
***
“That was a really stupid move.” Cary reached Kevin’s still-idling car.
“Which one?”
Cary had to think. At this point they were indeed starting to add up. He decided to pick one. “Sitting there in your car.”
“Yeah, I know. And believe it or not, I’m more sorry than I’ll ever be able to say,” Kevin paused, his shotgun boomed and the head of an approaching zombie exploded in a greyish-black mist. With one hand, he opened the driver’s side door. “It’s in the glove box. I’ll keep us covered, but hurry we have a lot of company.”
Cary leaned forward to crawl across the driver’s seat. He never saw the blow coming as Kevin smashed the hard grip of the shotgun into the back of his head.
Kevin quickly shoved the unconscious body into the passenger seat. Tears began to blur his vision, while over and over he repeated, “I’m so sorry.” He peeled out, zooming up beside the U-Haul. Taking time to grab the weapons and ammo from the back seat, he quickly threw everything into the cab of the big truck.
His last act was one he considered merciful. He placed a .357 in the front seat of the Escort. Turning off the car and snapping the key in the ignition, he looked to ensure all the doors were locked, and then closed the driver’s door. He tugged the handle once. Satisfied the car was secure as it could be, he walked to the front and fired at the grill protecting the radiator. Water gushed in a torrent, and steam wafted from the gaping hole.
Climbing into the U-Haul, Kevin pulled out from the parking lot. He watched in the side-view mirrors as the growing horde of undead circled the disabled vehicle. He ignored the urgent voices on the radio calling for him and Cary to answer.
“I’m so sorry, Cary,” was all he could say as he accelerated up the on-ramp to the highway that would lead to Wheeling and the turn west toward South Dakota.
***
Mike pulled up beside Darrin and motioned for him to come to a stop. A couple of stragglers in the distance were heading their way, but nothing too worrisome.
“Something don’t sit right,” Mike spoke over the sound of the idling vehicles.
“You mean about Kevin?”
“What else. And we just left Cary back there with a guy who had to know we weren’t about to sit around and wait for him to gas up.”
“You think he’s gonna do something?” Darrin asked.
“Worse than letting Cary get bit by one of those things?”
Both men looked back at the sound of an approaching engine. The familiar shape of the U-Haul rumbled out onto the highway from the on-ramp. They waited for the Escort to pop into view.
Darrin grabbed the hand-mic. “Cary? Kevin? You guys hear me okay?”
“Cary, where’s Kevin?” Mike had pulled his own handset from the clip, anxious for an update.
No reply came from the truck barreling towards them. Mike and Darrin tried again, concerned and just a bit confused by the normally talkative Cary’s silence. As the truck neared and began to slow, the reason became clear.
“Kevin!” Mike keyed his radio as he opened the door to his El Camino and stepped out onto the road, stretching the cord as he made room enough to draw his .45 from its holster. “What have you done?”
“Where the hell is Cary?” Darrin screamed, not bothering with his radio. He swung the rifle up to his shoulder while moving to the center of the two south-bound lanes.
The truck stopped about ten yards away. Kevin climbed out, his hands above his head. “You both know what was going to happen to him within a couple of days.”
“You killed him!” Darrin clicked the safety off, taking a couple of menacing steps forward. “You sonovabitch!”
“I did what neither of you would. I handled the situation,” Kevin said calmly.
“A situation that you caused.” Mike had walked up beside Darrin for support.
“Blame me if you want to, but that won’t change anything. I screwed up. Yes. But that situation more than anything shows that we need each other to stay alive. You shoot me if you think that will matter. But at some point you’ll regret it.”
Darrin’s finger tightened on the trigger as he glared at Kevin. “Mike and I can do just fine without you.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think you are ready to put a bullet in a living, breathing person.”
“You did,” Darrin snapped.
“He was infected. The bite would have done him in. You know it, Mike knows i
t. Yet, neither of you had the guts to deal with it back there. Just how long would you have waited? Till he crashed the truck with most of our supplies?”
“Was it quick?” Mike asked. He gently lowered the barrel of Darrin’s rifle.
“He never saw it coming.”
“If you come with us, this is a democracy from here on out,” Mike announced. “All decisions are voted on and majority rules.”
“If you and Darrin will have me, then that sounds fair.”
“Darrin?” Mike faced the man who stood visibly shaking at his side. There was a moment of almost total silence that seemed to cause the tension to escalate. Finally, Darrin lowered the rifle the rest of the way.
“You’re the one who has to live with Cary’s death on your conscience,” Darrin snapped.
“I know.”
“And the next time you bail on us,” Darrin walked back to his car no longer able to look at Kevin, “I’ll...” He ducked inside his car and tossed the rifle in the back seat. After a deep breath, he turned back, glanced at Mike, and then locked eyes with Kevin. “I’ll make sure you end up just like Cary.”
The three climbed into their vehicles. It was going to be a long day of driving. Once they were across the Ohio River and heading west on I-70, things would likely be a bit easier.
They hoped.
***
The continuous but irregular sound of pounding forced its way through the oblivion of unconsciousness. Two sensations made themselves immediately apparent: the first was a dull, thudding pain that hammered at his skull, the second was the sweltering heat.