Dead Highways: Origins

by Richard Brown

  Robinson slowly got up and walked across the living room. “I don’t know,” he finally said.

  Good answer. The same one I had.

  “I don’t see them anymore,” Bowser said.

  “See what?” I asked.

  “Them. They’re not in the backyard. They’re gone now. It’s just her.”

  A theory came to me then, a theory that almost instantly proved to be true.

  This woman was the sacrificial lamb, or better, the shiny object used to distract us.

  And it worked to perfection.

  Suddenly, the window next to the front door shattered. One by one, people began pouring inside, unfazed by the sharp shards of glass slicing open their arms and legs.

  I froze. I’m not proud of it, but I did.

  Robinson, being the consummate professional of the group, spun around and immediately began firing at the home invaders. I remember hearing somewhere (which means probably on the internet) that even trained police officers miss their targets eighty percent of the time. Nerves. They always gotta fuck things up.

  I don’t know if Robinson missed that often; it didn’t much matter. Aamod, being the all-too-eager type, or perhaps just super edgy, emptied all four remaining shotgun shells into the first guy that crawled through the window, rearranging his face and upper body. Shotguns were nasty at close range. They also couldn’t hold as many rounds. Once Aamod heard the click of an empty chamber, he high-tailed it away from the front of the house in a hurry.

  Bowser refused to take his eyes off the dark-haired woman on the back deck.

  “Jimmy, what are you doing?” Robinson yelled over the sound of his pistol. “Wake up!”

  I was awake. I sure wasn’t asleep. But I knew what he meant.

  Using the couch for cover, like Marcus Fenix from Gears of War, I began shooting at the window and the ever-escalating number of people attempting to pile through it. We were doing okay at keeping them back until a man sneaked out from the hallway and lunged for Robinson. I turned and took two shots at him but only managed to destroy a picture frame hanging on the wall. The sneaky man grabbed a hold of Robinson and tried to wrestle away the gun.

  Again I froze.

  What to do? What to do?

  The struggle for the gun quickly went to the ground.

  I couldn’t take a shot. If I did, there was a good chance I’d hit Robinson. I’d never forgive myself.

  So I stood up from behind the couch and put my sights back on the front window. In my moment of doubt, two people, a man and a woman, had crawled through the broken window—all bloodied up from the glass—and headed my way. I’d have enough time to change the magazine before they reached me. Luckily, Aamod leapt out from around the corner and cracked the man in the back of the head with the butt of his shotgun.

  I backed up, fumbled loading the new magazine. “Bowser.”

  Without hesitation, Bowser turned and fired three shots into the chest of the woman coming for me.

  She fell to the ground in a heap.

  These people might act a lot like zombies, I thought, as I got Sally up and running again, but at least you don’t have to shoot them in the head.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Aamod?

  I turned around. Nope. The young, dark-haired woman outside was banging her hands on the sliding glass door, screaming at the top of her lungs, exorcizing the demon.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  I liked them better when they kept their mouths shut.

  Through the chaos, I heard Olivia crying again.

  Robinson suddenly sprang to his feet. The sneaky man who had attacked him came up as well, holding Robinson’s nine-millimeter in his hands. He looked down at it like it was something from another planet. His moment of indecision proved to be his undoing, as it gave me the opportunity to take him out, saving Robinson.

  But another guy was coming through the window, and yet another from the hallway.

  All the while the mad screaming continued.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  “We have to get out of here,” I said.

  Robinson joined us at the back of the house. Since his gun was buried under a dead guy, I handed him mine, and he began shooting the latest intruders.

  “Everyone . . . out the back,” he yelled, blasting away. I was jealous of the way he was playing with Sally. “Bowser, clear the way.”

  Bowser began firing through the sliding glass door, shot after shot opening ugly red holes in the chest of the screamer. As each bullet hit her, she stumbled farther backward, until finally she fell off the back deck. Then Bowser and Aamod began clearing out some of the remaining glass with the butt of their guns. Once it was safe to go through, Bowser slipped out and made sure there weren’t any surprises waiting.

  “Come on. It’s clear.”

  The ladies went next, followed by Diego and me. Robinson was the last to leave, making sure Jax was behind him.

  We hurried down the steps on the side of the deck and around the side of the house. In the wooded area fifty yards away, more people were coming. We all saw them, and we all ignored them. They weren’t an immediate threat. As we reached the front lawn, more began to converge upon us from up and down the street.

  “What are we doing?” Bowser turned and yelled. He was still in the lead, looking for direction.

  “Get to the cars as fast as you can,” Robinson said.

  “Where are we gonna go?” I asked.

  “Somewhere safe,” Robinson said. “Just follow me.”

  We separated out clean and nice. Bowser and Jax got into the police car with Robinson. Peaches and Olivia got in the front seat of grandma’s Buick with me. Naima got into the Toyota with her father. Luna and Diego, however, had fallen behind, likely because of Diego’s poor leg.

  Aamod and Robinson were already backing out of the driveway.

  “Hold on,” I said to Peaches, and then got back out of the car.

  Two homicidal maniacs were nearby, looking at Luna and Diego as easy prey.

  I whistled to draw their attention. “Hey. Over here.”

  Then when they turned on me, I filled their asses full of lead.

  I should point out killing people didn’t fill me with the slightest bit of joy, even killing psychos that wanted to kill me. It wasn’t something I stopped to think about. There was no time to evaluate my emotions. I had no feelings. Not compassion. Not anger. I was acting on pure instinct. I wanted to survive. That’s it. That’s all. And left with no other choice, I’d do anything to survive.

  I helped Luna carry Diego to the car. After they were in the backseat, doors shut, I put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway Duke’s of Hazard style. Robinson and Aamod were already a little ways down the street, so I had to slam the gas to catch up. People crowded around the car, pounding their fists against the windows, trying to get at the five of us inside. I felt like a celebrity.

  I hit as many as I had to in order to get away.

  So much for keeping the car scratch-free.

  Thankfully, I didn’t see my grandma in the mob. I knew I’d probably seen her for the last time.

  When I had said goodbye in the road, I’d meant it. And I’d hoped somehow, through whatever uncanny energy that passed between us, she’d received the message.

  Chapter 32

  “Am I gonna get stuck out here?”

  “Nah, you’ll be fine,” Peaches said. “I’ve been out here a ton of times.”

  “In an old lady car?”

  “Well, no, usually in a truck. People come out here to party . . . or they used to.”

  Robinson led us down a dirt road that ran along the side of I-95. The road eventually curved around and came to a dead end at a small body of water connected to Lake Poinsett. There were tire tracks going every which way.

  He had said he’d lead us somewhere safe. So far so good. I didn’t see anyone around. On the drive out here, however, we saw, and avoided, hundreds of the newly awakened. But there wa
s even more people still asleep, hunched over in their cars or face down on the side of the road. After what we’d just been through back at the house, knowing so many people were still in a coma felt like a blessing.

  I stopped the Buick behind Aamod’s Toyota and we all got out.

  Jax leapt out of Robinson’s squad car and ran off, tail wagging, sniffing all the trash on the ground.

  I crushed an empty beer can under my foot. “Looks like somebody just had a party.” Then I noticed shell casings mixed in with the other trash. “Or got drunk and killed somebody.” I surveyed the surroundings. There were narrow valleys of water on both sides of us no more than a few feet deep that led out to a larger body of water to the west. “Not a bad place to dispose of a body.”

  Jax stopped investigating the ground and found a nice spot to take a crap. Then he got thirsty and drank from the creek.

  “Is everyone all right?” Robinson asked.

  I looked down at my shirt and pants. Most of the blood had dried, but I smelled like something awful—perhaps a butcher after a long day of hacking and racking. “I could use a change of clothes.”

  “I think we all could,” Robinson agreed.

  “Me the most though,” I said, still looking myself over. “I just want to take off these clothes and go wash off in the lake.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Peaches had Olivia naked on the passenger seat, changing her. “Hold on, let me finish this first. I’ll get my camera.”

  “You don’t have a camera.”

  “I was joking.”

  I crushed another beer can under my shoe. “Well, I was just joking too. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “What are we doing out here?” Aamod asked. “We are wasting time.”

  Robinson smirked. “You got somewhere else to be?”

  Aamod bowed his head. He didn’t.

  “I don’t understand what happened back there,” Diego said, limping forward. “Where did those people come from, and why were they—”

  “Trying to kill us,” Bowser interrupted.

  Diego nodded.

  “Those people, some of them at least, were my neighbors,” Robinson said. “Why they were trying to kill us is a little more complicated.”

  “So you knew them?” I asked.

  “More like knew of them. We weren’t close or anything, you know. I’d see them out in their lawn when I’d drive by. They’d wave. I’d wave back. And that’s about it. Neighbors. I meant to invite some of them over after I’d finished the deck but hadn’t got around to it yet.” He sighed and leaned against the car, looked up into the blue morning sky. “The house is destroyed now.”

  “The fucking world is destroyed now,” Bowser corrected.

  “So everyone is waking up then?” Luna asked.

  “It appears that way,” Robinson replied. “But they’re not quite the same.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Bowser said. “Not quite the same. Nigga, they’re fucked in the head.”

  Robinson shrugged. “I won’t argue with you. They definitely have some kind of brain damage.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  Everyone looked at me.

  “What? But Jimmy, earlier you said—”

  “I know what I said, but that was when we were just dealing with my grandma. It just doesn’t make sense anymore. If the infection gave them brain damage, and the damage was causing them to act violently.” I paused, searching for the right words. “Then why aren’t they attacking each other?”

  Silence.

  I had blown their minds.

  Then Aamod finally said, “Not only are they not attacking each other. But they seem to be working together, planning their attacks.”

  “They don’t even talk,” Robinson said. “How could they be planning anything?”

  “This might sound crazy,” I said. “But when I was talking to my grandma I sensed something weird between us.”

  “What do you mean . . . weird?”

  “You know how sometimes you can just look at somebody and tell what they’re thinking?”

  “You mean you think you can tell what they’re thinking,” Robinson said.

  “Yeah, it’s like a feeling.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was like that, only much stronger. And I think it went both ways. When she looked at me, it gave me this feeling . . . how do I describe this . . . like she was writing messages in my brain. Sort of like telepathy. Only, the messages didn’t make any sense to me. They were just noise.”

  “That sounds crazy,” Peaches said.

  “I told you it probably would. But if it’s true, then maybe that’s how they’re communicating.”

  “They still aren’t attacking each other though,” Naima said.

  “Maybe their linked, because of the infection. And they can tell us apart.”

  “What do you mean . . . tell us apart?” Robinson asked.

  “They know we’re not like them. They know we’re immune, and so they’re trying to exterminate us.”

  Silence.

  I had blown their minds. Again.

  I’d read a lot of science fiction novels in my life, now I felt like I was inside of one. I didn’t know if I was articulating my thoughts to the others very well, but it all made sense in my brain.

  “But . . . why?” Peaches finally asked.

  “I don’t know the answer to that.”

  “And it doesn’t even matter,” Aamod said. “We almost died. If the rest of them wake up, how much longer do you think we’ll have? We’ll all be dead soon.”

  “Daddy,” Naima said. “Don’t say that.”

  “I’m sorry, Naima, but it’s true. Your mother is gone, and we’ll be gone too. I’d just as well get it over with.”

  Naima walked away. After a moment, Aamod went after her.

  Bowser shook his head. “I ain’t giving up so easy.”

  “Neither am I,” Robinson said. “But he’s right. If we’re not smart, we won’t last long. There’s so many of them, and only a few of us.”

  “There’s probably more . . . like us, I mean,” I said.

  “Yeah, and they’re not here right now, so we only got each other to depend on.” He paused, looked at each one of us individually. “Can I depend on all of you?”

  I nodded. Peaches, Bowser, Diego, and Luna followed suit.

  Bowser glanced back at Aamod and Naima walking along the edge of the lake. “What about those two? Can we depend on them?”

  “I think so,” Peaches said. “We just gotta try and keep each other sane, best as we can.”

  “What about you?” Robinson asked Jax, who was rolling around in the dirt. “Jax?”

  The shepherd got up, shook the dirt from its fur, and then sat down in front of Robinson.

  “Well, are you in or out?”

  Jax barked.

  Robinson leaned down and scratched Jax’s ears. “Good boy. But we’re gonna have to work on your barking. Don’t want to draw any unwanted attention. Okay?”

  “There’s just one small thing,” Bowser said. “If we’re gonna have any chance at surviving, we’re gonna need more guns. You know, just in case. I think I got like five or six shots left in this gun you gave me.”

  Robinson frowned. “At least you still got one.”

  “You got one,” I said. “And I as much as I hate to ask this . . . can I have Sally back now?”

  Robinson frowned. “What?”

  “My gun?”

  “You named your gun?” Robinson asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

  Bowser and Peaches both started laughing.

  “And you named your gun Sally?”

  Again, I nodded.

  Robinson stared at me like I was crazy, like I’d just told him I stuffed my bra. And I don’t even wear a bra. Then he reached into his squad car and pulled out my Sally, handed her to me.

  “Here you go. Wouldn’t want to get between you two or anything.”

/>   “Haha. Very funny,” I said.

  “Anyway, weapons are number one on my list too.”

  “What about supplies,” Diego said.

  “Yeah, we have no food or water,” Luna said. “No clean clothes. No medicine for Diego. No nothing.”

  “I know. I know. But we can’t make a supply run without protection.”

  “God, can you imagine,” Peaches said. “Remember what the store looked like yesterday. There were people everywhere.”

  “I don’t think we should go back there,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. We need to find someplace else, somewhere smaller, less populated.”

  “We get the guns first,” Robinson said. “And then we worry about all that. I was thinking we could go back to the station. Got all kinds of stuff there. Riot gear. Full auto guns, even. Problem is, it’s gonna be crowded, and I don’t think we can risk it. Anyone have any other ideas?”

  I did. Just one.

  My home away from home for a month or so before the world shit the bed.

  Guns Unlimited.

  “I know a place,” I said. “It’s not too far from the bookstore.” I held Sally up, trying not to accidentally point her at someone. “It’s where I got this.”

  Robinson nodded. “It’ll have to do. Take a minute to rest up, then we’ll be on our way.”

  Taking a minute to rest sounded swell. I was going on maybe two or three hours of sleep, if that. But I knew if I sat down and got comfortable I’d be unconscious in no time, and then I wouldn’t want to get up. So I walked around aimlessly to keep active. On my second circle of the lot, I stopped and joined Naima by the water. She was gazing out into the distance, looking lost in thought.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  She sighed. “Nothing.”

  “Really? You can tell me, you know.”

  I gave her a moment.

  Finally, she said, “I miss my mom.”

  I bit my lip, wondering if I wandered into more than I could handle. I took a moment to think of something nice to say, and then said, “Of course you do.”

  That was the best I could come up with.

  How pathetic.

  “I know she’s out there somewhere. I know she’s still alive. But it doesn’t even make any difference now, does it? ‘Cause even if we could find her, she wouldn’t be the same anymore. She wouldn’t be my mom.”