by Lundy, W. J.
Beyond the trailer, they found a field full of dead cows, interspersed with mangled and trampled infected. The terrifying scene played out in Clay’s head. What it must have been like, the horde of infected stumbling through the wire fence, and then attacking and devouring the cows one at a time, surrounding them. Some cows probably fought back, a bull would for sure. He couldn’t look anymore and peeled his eyes from the carnage to focus on the road straight ahead of them.
Nikolai slowed the Jeep to maneuver around an abandoned charter bus. As they rolled past, infected inside began beating on the windows, screaming. The drive remained calm, navigating through the traffic jam and eventually moving to the center of the road to drive down the median. Miles ahead, a pair of cars was stopped together, one smashed into the back of the other. The trailing car boasted a bloodied and broken windshield, but there were no bodies.
Andrew leaned forward, looking at the wreckage as they passed. “Maybe they’re hurt, just out there in the woods somewhere, looking for help,” he said to no one.
Nikolai raised his hand, silencing the boy, and then said, “Do you hear that?”
Clay shook his head no.
Nikolai cut him off. “No, I hear it. Like popcorn popping.” He shut off the Jeep and rolled down his window.
Clay squinted, focusing. His eyes went wide with the recognition of distant gunfire—a lot of it. Someplace ahead of them, an active gunfight was taking place. Moments later, there was the deep rumble of an explosion.
“Someone’s fighting out there,” Nikolai said.
“What do we do?” Miguel asked, leaning forward. “If there’s shooting, it means the infected are already here. We have to turn back, right?”
Clay grimaced, looking out the window, then back at the others. “The fighting—that’s where the people are at. If someone is fighting them, then we should be there too.” He looked around the interior of the small SUV at his companions before continuing. “It also explains where all of the infected are. They’re moving toward the sound of the battle.”
“And you expect us to do the same?” Miguel asked.
Nikolai unholstered the 1911 and set it in the console for easy access. Then he looked back at Miguel. “Clay’s right. We’ll die out here alone. We need to get to whoever that is.”
Rolling down his window, Clay pointed his carbine out and said, “Do the same with them scatterguns, boys. It’s time for us to roll up on those infected like a bunch of outlaws.” He laughed with a tinge of insanity, then dialed it back when he saw the scared faces of Miguel and Andrew looking back at him. “Come on now, fellas. We get through this, and we’ll have soft beds and hot chow waiting on us.”
Reluctantly, the pair rolled down their windows and readied their shotguns. Clay shot Nikolai a thumbs up, and the driver started the engine, rolling forward slowly. The gunfire grew louder as they made their way over a large rise, and they started to see the telltale signs of fighting. Smoke, dead bodies, and lots of spent brass on the ground told them they were in the right place.
Miguel spotted three floating dots on the horizon and called them out, pointing at the sky. Leaning forward over the console, Clay focused on the specks as they grew larger, materializing into helicopter gunships. The helicopters flew over them, slow and fast, orbited, then shot back in the direction they’d come from.
“Well, they know we’re coming, boys,” Clay said.
“But who are they?” Miguel asked.
Nikolai shook his head and increased his speed. “Doesn’t matter. They’re killing the things that want to kill us, so I’ll call them friends.”
They started to make out pockets of infected. They staggered alone in twos and threes at first, but eventually the pockets grew into the tens and close to the hundreds. They began spotting destroyed military vehicles and abandoned checkpoints. At one spot, Clay had to hustle out of the Jeep to remove a long coil of barbed wire blocking their path.
They weaved through a path of concrete barriers and roughly shaped earthen berms and saw a trio of armored vehicles ahead of them. Just as Clay was wondering if the vehicles were occupied, a copula-mounted heavy machine gun belched and tore apart a group of infected. The other vehicles joined in briefly before the guns went silent again. Overhead, a fighter aircraft swooped in low and dropped a firebomb over the field. Even though it was far away, they could feel the heat from the blast through the Jeep’s windshield.
A hatch on one of the armored vehicles opened and a uniformed soldier waved them forward.
Clay pulled his carbine into the window and told the others to do the same, then Nikolai pulled the old Cherokee up alongside them. “Take it slow,” Clay warned. “They might be jumpy. Let’s let them know that we’re friends.”
He pulled his knife and cut away the belly of his white t-shirt, and then he reached out the window, waving the scrap of cloth as they neared the vehicles. As they approached, a band of infected ran out from behind a disabled semi-truck. The guns on the armored vehicles opened up and made short work of the things. “Keep your speed steady, son,” Clay said, noticing Nikolai’s hands shake as rounds tore past them, close enough that chips of concrete pelted off the fenders.
When they were within shouting range, the man in the hatch leaned out and shouted. “Where you all coming from?”
“Michigan,” Clay yelled back.
“Michigan? How the hell did you get from Michigan?” the soldier replied, not convinced.
“Boats, planes, a Jeep… It wasn’t easy,” Clay stated.
The soldier laughed. “I hear ya. Looks like you got here just in time. We’re prepping to fall back—and there ain’t nothing friendly north of this checkpoint.”
“Just tell us what to do,” Clay said.
The soldier grinned and turned south, pointing. “Stay on this road. You hear me? I don’t care if you see the Virgin Mary herself screaming for help. Don’t leave the damn blacktop. There are helicopter gunships and fighters providing close air support. They’ve been firing rockets, Napalm, and sub munitions all over the place. You stay on the road, and the birds will escort you back to our lines.”
Clay nodded okay. The soldier wasn’t convinced and shouted back at him. “Now, what is it you are going to do?”
Clay nodded again as all of them responded with, “Stay on the road.”
The soldier flashed a thumbs up. “All right, move out then. The birds know you’re coming, and we’ll be right behind you.”
Nikolai hit the gas, and the vehicle raced forward. Just as the soldier had said, the helicopters buzzed up and down the road, killing anything that moved in the fields. In the distance, they began to make out another checkpoint, this one made up of double-stacked shipping containers. Men at the top fired heavy machine guns and grenade launchers at masses of infected to the east. Jets swarmed in low, dropping bombs.
Closer to the checkpoint, a soldier looked at them and spun his arms, waving them past. “Don’t stop until you hit the gates,” he yelled.
Ahead was a long wall of shipping containers. Fighters lined the top of the containers, which formed a zig-zag maze. Nikolai drove until the path stopped and a pair of doors opened in the wall. Soldiers rushed out with weapons up, telling them to exit the vehicle.
Clay stepped out with his hands up as the soldiers surrounded the vehicle with their guns pointed out. A second group of soldiers ran to Clay, and the others escorted them through the wall of containers. Before they could register what was happening, they were all inside with the doors sealed shut.
Clay looked to one of the men and extended a hand. The soldier looked at him and pursed his lips. “No offense, old timer, but let’s wait until you pass inspection before we become pals.”
The group of soldiers broke up and climbed ladders to the top of the double-stack, leaving Clay and his small group with only a pair of men to watch over them. Soon, a different group of soldiers passed through a door cut in the side of the container. The soldiers looked the men up and down
and passed a flashlight over them. The oldest of the soldiers wore an officer’s insignia. He signaled them to follow as he moved back through the door. They passed through what Clay assumed was the wall of the compound, going through several sets of doors that segmented the pathway.
Finally, they reached a door that had a phone next to it, attached to the wall. The officer picked up the phone and spoke into it. Soon after, the heavy steel doors squeaked open to reveal a brightly lit room. Inside were men in white gowns, and armed soldiers stood in the corners.
One of the men in white stepped forward and handed each of them a trash bag. “All right, gentlemen, strip down to your skivvies. Everything goes in the bag.”
Once Clay was nearly naked, the men called him forward. One held a blue light that he waved over his body, inspecting every blemish and scratch, looking for bite marks or any sign of infection. The man nodded at Clay then pointed to a large shelf on the back wall. “You’re clean, go grab some new clothes.”
Clay stepped to the shelf, where a woman stood with a clipboard. She looked him up and down before handing him a pair of blue trousers and a long-sleeve canvas shirt. “These should fit you,” she said tonelessly.
“What about the dog?” Clay asked, motioning to Rufous, who hadn’t left his side.
“It doesn’t affect animals.”
He watched her make a check on the clipboard. Clay pulled on the pants then stopped to ask, “What is it? What are they checking us for?”
She looked at him absently. “We aren’t exactly sure, yet. We’ve been told it’s a parasite, of sorts. It’s spread through direct contact.” She handed stacks of clothing to Nikolai and the others and waited for them to dress before passing them off to a pair of escorts.
“Wait,” Clay said. “Where are we going now?”
“To Texas. There’s a survivors’ camp there. We’ve been evacuating all day; this facility will be closing soon—not very many survivors are coming in now. At the rate we’re going through ammo, we probably have less than a day left here,” she said. “Now please, you must hurry.”
The door behind her opened, and they walked into a large tent city filled with bustling people. A man handed them each tags and pointed them to the transportation zone. The four of them stood looking at each other in their new clothes. Their bags and weapons were all gone. They had nothing left.
“So what now, fellas?” Clay asked.
Nikolai shrugged. “I’m going to try and find my parents. I think they might be here.”
Miguel put his arm around Nikolai and pulled him close. “They will be.”
“And what about you, Clay?” Nikolai asked.
“Well, I guess I’ll try and catch that ride. I hear Texas is nice, as long as we’re not talking the Alamo.” Clay laughed and turned to Andrew. “What about you, kid?”
Andrew looked around at the three of them, and then back at Clay. “Can I go with you?”
“Yeah, sure, why not? Another gunfighter won’t hurt, right?”
42
Colorado’s Powderhorn Wilderness
April 1st
The cold wind rustled the edges of the map that Charlie spread on the hood of the Isuzu. He grabbed a couple more rocks and set them on the sides to secure the big sheet of paper to the makeshift table.
“The road turns east after Piedra,” he said. “Then we can cut back south past Chimney Rock and follow this twisty, turny road down to Arboles and cross into New Mexico. This’ll take us west of both Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and we can avoid the population centers. We can pick up I-10 outside Las Cruces, and roll into El Paso. Easy peasy.”
He looked up at Jack and Sarah, both hunched up in their jackets, teeth chattering against the cold morning air of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
“Okay,” Sarah said. “I’ll agree to anything if we can get back in the trailer, out of this wind. I’m freezing!”
“Sound good to you, Jack?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, it does. I think the more we can stay away from the interstates and bigger cities, the better. Let’s do it.”
“Great, then let’s grab a quick bite and get back on the road,” Charlie said, tossing the rocks to the side of the car and folding the map before he walked over to the teardrop trailer and climbed in. Jack and Sarah followed him, the latter climbing in first.
Inside the trailer, the electric heater was turned up, keeping the interior a balmy sixty-five degrees, as opposed to the twenty-five degrees outside.
Charlie dug through a cooler and pulled out some strawberry jelly, while Sarah produced a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter from a box she’d packed the night of their escape from the city.
“Anyone tired of PB&Js yet?” she asked. “Tough shit, because it’s all we have left.”
“A PB&J would be lovely, thank you,” Jack replied. He looked at the big radio strapped to the table. It took up half the surface area, crowding the small trailer even more. “Any more info from your radio contacts, Dad?”
“Nope. Not a word. All I’ve found in the last day and a half is the repeating message from Fort Bliss for anyone coming in from the north or west to use I-10, and we’ll get directions on the way once we make contact with their people.”
“You think it’s still there?”
“The safe zone?” Charlie asked. “No reason to think otherwise. It takes people to keep the power on, to keep that thing broadcasting. No matter how automated things get, without people, this stuff always shuts down eventually. Now, the people that I’ve been talking to elsewhere, I have no idea if they’re still there. More likely than not they’ve just lost power.”
“When did you become an optimist?” Sarah joked.
“I’m a realist, honey. The power grid is shit in a lot of the country, especially out in the sticks. It’s usually just a step or two ahead of an outage, but the military has generators and backups. Hell, some of them wheel diesel locomotives in and plug into them when they have an emergency. They produce something like three million watts, enough juice for a small town. The point is, they have power, but it takes people to keep it running, and if they’re keeping the lights on, they aren’t overrun. Which is why I say that they’re still there.”
“I was just busting your balls, Charlie. I didn’t need a tutorial on emergency power supply technology.”
Charlie tapped his groin. “Unbustable,” he said.
Jack laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Charlie asked.
“I remember Odie busting them a few times,” the younger Washburn chuckled.
Charlie started laughing too. “That damn dog hit everyone in the nuts. No matter how tall someone was, he’d jump up and tag people right in the jewels. If he wasn’t such a dummy, I’d think he did it on purpose.”
“That one time, at Gramp's birthday party, he got you so bad that you threw up on the patio! And Grandpa got mad at you because he said you wasted a hamburger!”
Charlie started laughing harder, his bite of peanut butter and jelly sandwich visible in his mouth. Sarah was giggling, too. Charlie swallowed his food and turned toward Sarah.
“And then,” he said, taking a breath between laughs. “That dog ate up all the puke, and we’re all grossed out by it, but your husband here, with the wisdom of a ten-year-old, says, ‘See Grandpa, it wasn’t wasted. Odie got it!’ Well, that broke us all apart. About two minutes later, just when we’d stopped laughing, Mom—my mom, Jack’s grandma—comes out to the patio and sits down. Ol’ Odie jumps up and gives her a big kiss. A full, dopey, yellow lab tongue right across her face, and she says, ‘Odie, your breath is so fresh! What have you been eating?’ and we all fell out laughing again. Dad laughed so hard his dentures fell out, and the damn dog took off with them too.”
Sarah snorted, and Jack laughed so hard that he started coughing. His face turned red, and just as Sarah was getting worried, he coughed up a hunk of sandwich covered in blood. The laughter stopped.
“That’s new,” he said, wip
ing it up with a napkin and then dropping it into a bag that served as their trash can. Charlie put the second half of his sandwich into the bag, then grabbed Sarah’s and tossed it in too. Sarah grabbed a packet of bleach wipes and cleaned the table.
“I don’t think anything got on your sandwiches, Dad.”
“We can’t take that chance,” Charlie said. “And this changes things. We need to get to El Paso ASAP. You’re starting to show symptoms. We’ve got to get you some help.”
“Granted, that looked bad, but I feel fine. I’m not scratching my head or anything else.”
“Still, we need to get moving.”
Everyone was quiet for a minute, then Sarah broke the silence. “What happened to the dentures?”
“What?” Charlie asked, then remembered the story. “Oh, yeah. Dad got them back, rinsed them under the spigot, and put them back in his mouth. Mom said that was gross, and he said, ‘Not as gross as you liking his puke breath.’”
Sarah smiled, but the laughter of moments ago was gone. “Well,” Charlie continued. “I guess we’d better get on the road.”
Jack went out first and headed toward the Mercedes, while Charlie and Sarah turned toward the Isuzu. “We’ll lead,” Charlie called out.
The black Isuzu wove its way down the hillside, away from the secluded campsite where they’d spent the night. Jack followed, pulling the trailer behind the Mercedes.
In the Isuzu, Charle broached an uncomfortable topic. “Have you thought about what we might have to do?”
“It’s all I’ve been thinking about, Charlie. Ever since he told me about it, it’s never been far from my mind.”
“Have you thought about how…”
“I’ll do it,” she said, interrupting him. “If it comes to that. I’ll do it.”
Charlie let it go. They rode in silence for a few minutes with Charlie only speaking up when they needed to turn from Highway 160 onto Highway 151. It wasn’t long after they made the turn that another roadblock stopped their progress.