by C. M. Wright
"Hey!" I call out to them. "Kinda need to go."
They both stop and turn my way, shooting me the universal "who the hell do you think you are to interrupt and order us men around, little woman" looks. Then I see the "oh, shit!" look when their brains start working again and they finally start moving. Both run into the house and I assume, and hope, they are getting everyone out.
Shaking my head, I turn and continue my watch. With relief, I still see nothing. That relief quickly turns to dread when I hear the scream.
It was several blocks away but that doesn’t really mean anything, now does it? I hardly think those things are going to stop and knock on each door, hoping for carry-out.
I look toward the house and see my dad leading my mom and my boys out the door, with Will guarding them from behind.
I hear a moan, a shuffle of feet. I whip my head around just in time to see hands reaching for my face. I jerk my head back and almost fall from the force of the movement but manage to keep my footing. I have no weapon. The swords and knives are in the van. (Real bloody smart of me, wasn't it?) I kick the old bald man in the kneecap, he probably only weighs 100 lbs, if that, and I manage to knock him down. Down, but not staying down. He's already getting back to his feet. Now I see movement to my left. I risk a quick glance and see at least four more coming straight for me. Help! Oh my GOD! I'm not that strong. I can't do this!
Someone grabs me from behind and I shriek and start fighting. I get in a good elbow jab to the stomach of......my husband. OOPS! But, come on! Who the hell grabs someone at a time like this? Whatever. I run to the van and fly into my seat. Shutting and locking the door I turn to my kids and I'm relieved to see that they are ok. Not ok, ok. But inside and alive. Good enough for me right now.
I realize Will isn't in the van yet and the blood running through my veins turn to ice. I open my door and look back. I see him using his arms and legs to take each of the zombies down. Can't kill them like that, but I guess broken leg bones still mean you can't walk, even when your dead. (Before, that wouldn’t have made much sense. But now, you know what I'm talking about.) Damn things can still crawl, though. And here come more. At least a dozen!
Chapter 7
"Hey, Bruce Lee! Time to go!" I yell to Will.
He runs to the van, finally, and starts it up. We back out of the drive and head south to the main street. My parents are safely following us in their van. Will pulls out his cell and makes a call. He's telling his sister what's going on and to get the hell out, that they don’t have time to pack anything. She believes him without question (of course she does. She's big into zombies, vampires, werewolves, etc.) and as we pass her house, we see her and her family, which consists of her son, his fiance, and their three kids, already getting in her car. Will calls his brother and tells him the same thing. His brother doesn't believe him regardless of what Will tells him. Will throws his phone to the floor and let's loose a few choice words. I touch his arm and give it a squeeze but I say nothing. What can I say? Hopefully, his brother will figure it out somehow before it's too late and take action. He's not stupid. Stubborn. But not stupid.
We continue out of the village and I suddenly remember the gas situation. Little Village has no gas station but the next town over, Lilo, does. I look behind us and check on my parents. Still there. I also notice Will's sister, Kim, is following us, too. I grab up Will's phone, praying it still works. Relief when I see the screen glow as I open it, I call his sister and tell her we have to stop in Lilo to get gas. She says she does, too, and will keep following us.
We see nothing on the short drive to Lilo but as we near the city limits, chaos rules. People both dead and alive, and some in between, are everywhere. How did they get here so quickly? I ask Will that same question.
He responds, "The only thing I can think of is someone who was infected brought it here before turning. Maybe. I don’t know. I have a feeling nothing is going to make sense anymore. I'm still going to try to get some gas. We aren’t going to make it much further and there isn’t any other gas stations until Springfield. We definitely don’t have enough to get there. I really don’t wanna run out of gas right now."
Uh, no kidding?
We make it around to the west side of Lilo where the gas station is and find it deserted. No living, or dead, or.....living dead. But it's closed. Apparently, Will didn’t find that a problem. He pulls up to the pumps and jumps out of the van. I watch him run over to Kim car. Then I watch as he runs back to our vehicle and she runs to the store. She takes her keys and unlocks the door. What the hell? I see her run behind the counter and push some buttons on what I assume is for the gas pumps. I see them light up and Will starts filling up the van. Dad, on the other side of our pump, is doing the same. Kim runs back out and gives her vehicle some go-juice, too. I know she used to work here, but she doesn’t now and hasn't for at least a year, so what's with the keys? Whatever. Who cares!
Will finishes filling up the tank and maneuvers the van much the same way I did back home. Except this time it's the building and the ice cooler he's wedging us against.
Confused, I look at him and he does a double-take at me. (Yeah, Buddy. Still here. Remember me?)
"We're stocking up." He simply says, as if I should have known that. And I probably should have.
He sits sideways in his seat and just stares at me.
"What?" I ask.
"Honey, you gonna get out?"
"OH!" I exclaim. I get out and go through the glass doors. I snatch up a box of trash bags. Opening the box, I pull out a bag and start filling it up with as much canned food as I can without busting out the bottom. A separate bag for vehicle items such as; oil, transmission fluid, windshield wash, etc. Another bag for snack cakes, chips, and candy bars and still another couple bags for sodas of every size and flavor. (Yep. Sure did. I'm not stupid. I know we might never have junk food again.) I pass each bag to Will once they're full, grab another empty bag, and load it with smokes. (DON'T GO THERE! Besides, I got the important stuff first.)
As I'm behind the counter, Kim comes in and grabs the box of trash bags and starts filling them with the rest of the smokes and the other items I hadn't taken. Don't worry, I left plenty for her.
I'm watching the activity going on outside the large window. Dad has placed his van side by side against ours with only a very small space between. He has opened his side door facing our van and both of our side doors were open, too, making a safe passage between vehicles. As Will loaded the bags, some went to their van, some to ours. I'm going to have to make sure the bag of smokes goes to ours. If my mom sees them, I won't have to worry about the dead killing me. She will. I notice the sliding door on the opposite side of my parents van has been opened while I was freaking out over Mom seeing the smokes, and Kim's car is right next to it with her passenger side windows rolled down. Now they are passing her bags through both vans and into her car. Good thing she has a car with a backseat that folds down to get to the trunk, AND a large trunk, because with three adults and three kids, there's not a lot of room. Bet she's not making fun of me for getting a van now!
Will is finally done loading bags and comes into the store. He snatches up a couple trash bags and some duct tape. He winks at me as he walks back to the door. I smile in response because I can't wink (yeah, whatever) and watch him move to the back passenger-side where our window used to be on our van. He puts his arm inside, pulls out a handful of glass, and throws it in the rocks between the building and the cement walk. He sticks his arm back in and I see him jerk back a little, then lean inside. Suddenly, he jumps back and let's out a loud, "Son-of-a-bitch!" My dad runs over to him and I move closer to the window, trying to see what is going on. My dad grabs one of the trash bags, reaches inside, and pulls out a freakin' ARM! The zombie who broke the window must have lost it when Will took off so fast back home. OH MY GOD! And we've been riding around with that THING in there this whole time???
But the men deal with it and go right back to fixing the wi
ndow. Duct tape and trash bags won't keep out the zombies but it will help keep out some of the cold night air.
My attention is pulled back inside the store as my sister-in-law walks up next to me behind the counter.
She turns to me and says, "You know, we may need money if there are still places not affected, yet. I don’t have any. You?"
I shake my head. "Nope."
She turns on the register and pushes a button which sends the tray flying out with a whole lot of drama and noise and it startles me in the quiet of the store, plus I'm already super-sensitive to all noises and movements right now. She chuckles and winks at me when I jump and cry out. I give her a quick embarrassed grin. (What the hell is it with these people and their eye twitches, anyway?)
She empties what little is kept in the drawer and then leads me to the office. She quickly, and with ease, opens the safe and pulls out moneybag after moneybag. Opening them, she finds one with checks and tosses it back in the safe. Then she divides the bags up and hands half to me. She takes the video tape out of a hidden recorder for the security system, "just in case" and we leave the office. We rush to the front doors and then both of us stop dead. (Not really. We just stopped suddenly.)
Outside, there are walking dead, everywhere!
Chapter 8
Will grabs both our arms and practically drags us to the van door. He pushes me into the front seat and pushes Kim in one side and out the other of our van. She goes through mom and dad's van and then freezes. I bend down in my seat to see why she stopped and I see two zombies crawling onto her car and more heading our way. The two zombies are at the back of the car. One is all the way up on the trunk slapping at the back window just behind where her grand-kids are sitting. I'm terrified that any moment the glass is going to shatter and explode all over those poor babies and then the nasty things will be able to get to them.
Everyone, including me, starts screaming at Kim to HURRY! MOVE IT! GO! She unfreezes and dives headfirst into her open passenger window and yells at her son, Wes, to "step on it". I watch her try to get her ass in the seat instead of her head as they take off. Bo jumps inside his grandparent's van and pulls the driver's side sliding door shut and then the opposite door after jumping back in our van (they really need automatic sliding doors!). He pulls the door on his side shut (we only have a passenger side automatic) and Will pulls away from the store, following the others.
As each vehicle races for the exit, we watch the two zombies that are still on Kim's car. The one that is only half on the trunk flies off like she weighs nothing as Will's nephew makes a sharp left turn in an effort to dislodge them. My dad has no time to swerve (or else he just doesn’t care at this point) and runs the middle-aged woman over. As his vehicle goes over her body with both passenger tires, I hear crackling, snaps, and a wet bursting sound as her body gives from the weight of the van. I 'm sickened by the sight and sound. Sound? Could I really have heard that with my window up? Surely not. I'm wondering if my imagination helped with that some.
I remember the other zombie. The one still on their car. It's still slapping and punching at the window. The horde of zombies (maybe sixty or so. I'm not counting them. Sorry.) are doing their best to catch up to us, although they are still at least a football field away. I turn my attention back to the front and see the car whipping back and forth too hard and too fast. Is he trying to flip the damn thing? At this point, you can tell he's driving more out of fear and frustration than common sense.
Suddenly, he stops the car. We are all thrown forward from having to stop so quickly to avoid plowing into each other. Now remember, I said Will's brother was the smart one. Not the nephew. He jumps out of the car and runs to the back. The zombie, seeing fresh meat that isn’t behind the display glass, moves pretty darn fast for a dead guy. He's off the trunk in seconds and starts a weird sort of trot-shuffle towards Will's nephew. Wes takes too long taunting and screaming at the zombie and that costs him. The zombie is on him before he even has time to take a step back. We hear screams of terror coming from Kim's car.
Dad and Will both fly from the vans and charge forward to help. They reach Will's nephew and the dead guy, who has Wes by the arm and is pulling it towards his snapping mouth. My dad wraps his own arm around the neck of the zombie and pulls. As the zombie's head is forced back, in a desperate attempt to still try and get his food, it's hand rips a chunk of flesh from Wes's arm. Wes screams and cries from the pain. The screams from Kim's car is devastating to hear.
While Dad still has the zombie in a headlock, Will raises his arm and I see light flash on something metal. I realize he had taken one of the long bladed knives with him. My dad releases the zombie and immediately Will's arm makes a sharp right to left (he's left-handed) motion. He slices halfway through it's neck. One more time and it's head comes completely off and slams to the ground. The rest of the body stands for a few seconds then follows the head.
I scream at them to hurry up. We still have zombies coming for us. Will motions my dad to go on and then helps his nephew, who is very much in shock, to the passenger side of the car. Kim is in the driver's seat and we can all hear the cries and screams of Wes's fiance, kids, and mother become even more frantic, I'm sure from seeing the damage of his arm up-close.
Will runs back to our van and jumps in. He grabs one of the many rags from work he always forgets sticking in his back pocket, which seem to always find their way to my van, and wipes off the blade. He rolls down the window, tosses the rag out, and then rolls the window back up. Taking a deep breath, he looks at me and my heart breaks with the pain I see in his eyes. I look back, judge how much time we have before the zombies get here (not a hell of a lot), and reach for him. I hold him tight for a few seconds, tell him I love him. He squeezes me back and we release each other reluctantly. He turns back to the front and puts the van in gear, speeding up to catch up to the other vehicles.
I settle back in my seat, my mind replaying over and over what had just happened. Now what? Is a bite the only thing that can turn them or can other zombie-made wounds do it, too? Does a bite even turn them? Or do they have to actually die before they turn? Is Wes's family safe with him? And if not, what the hell are we supposed to do about it? I hardly think they will let us leave him on the side of the road. I know they won't let us kill him, either, tho I doubt any of us could. I mean, he IS still alive! But what if he kills his babies? His own mother? His fiance? Hmmm. I wonder if they would be open to tying him to the luggage racks on top of one of the vans? WHAT? You got a better idea?
I pass my idea on to Will and he's looking at me kinda funny.
"What? You got a better idea?" I ask.
"Well, no, but DAMN! That's harsh. Do you think my sister or his old lady," (meaning his fiance), "will go for it?"
"If they love those kids they better!" I tell him.
"You're right. I'll call them now"
"Umm, maybe this is something you should talk to them in person about?"
"Yeah. Probably." He sighs.
Chapter 9
We are now on the interstate, heading towards Springfield. It's dark and there are few cars moving and no cars abandoned. Everyone is starting to relax a little. Everyone is exhausted. It's almost 11 o'clock and I’m pretty sure we are all missing our beds by now.
Suddenly, I hear the sound of a package being opened. I turn and look in the back and see Bo with a bag in one hand and a handful of chips heading towards his mouth with the other. Ashton has his whole upper body in the trash bag searching for a goody all his own. I realize then just how hungry I am and surely Will must be too, considering he worked all day and his last meal, lunch, was at ten o'clock this morning. I ask Will if he thinks it's safe to stop long enough to feed everyone and check on Wes. (Plus, I gotta PEE! Yeah, I went there. Look, we aren’t in some damn movie where toilets are only to stand on and hide.) Anyway, he says he thinks it'll be ok so I call everyone to let them know the plan.
We take the off ramp that leads to the town his brot
her lives in and pull onto the wide shoulder that semis use regularly, usually for quick naps. We all take a long hard look around and decide it's safe to get out of our vehicles. I call everyone over to our van and start pulling out the ham, cheese, and bread. Mom and I put the sandwiches together and pass them out while dad starts organizing his van. He and my husband are both anal about organized and clean vehicles.
I finish handing out sandwiches to all but Will's nephew, Will's sister, and Will himself. I look around and find Will talking to his sister down the ramp behind us. I can't hear what's being said, although I can guess, but I can definitely see how upset she is. Finally, she wraps her arms around her brother's waist and sobs, but nods her head in defeat. I watch them walk back towards us for a couple seconds, then turn back to the van and pull out the medical supplies Will got from the school. Taking out a roll of gauze, disinfectant, and tape I fall in behind Will and his sister as they walk past.
Reaching the car where Will's nephew is still sitting, looking bad, I hand the supplies to Kim who then hands the stuff to Will. I look around and wonder where Wes's fiance, Peg, is. Why wasn't she here with him? Taking care of him. Being his fiance? I finally see her sitting on the slope from the shoulder to the field below. Her back to us, to him. Her damn cell phone against her ear and....laughing! I never did like that bitch. Nope. Never. And who the hell's she talking to and laughing with? What the hell is there to laugh about?
My attention is brought back to the car when a cry of pain breaks through the night. I take in Wes's flushed face, head dripping with sweat, his entire body shaking. I can't see the bite since Will had already begun covering it, but I can see all the blood soaking through the bandage faster than Will can wrap it. I will admit it, I wish my husband wasn’t anywhere near Wes. If that makes me sound like a heartless bitch, so be it. But if his nephew does turn, Will is definitely on the menu.