by Arthur Stone
This was no gravel or dirt road. It was proper pavement, meaning there were likely villages, towns, maybe even cities up ahead. Much more dangerous places than fields and forests, of course, but he could find the things he needed there. He was running on empty—even his ax was gone. A broken stick picked up along the side of the road made for a pitiful weapon, even against empties. He yearned for a bicycle, too. Yesterday had taught him that a bike was the best form of transport he could find in this world.
* * *
If Boiler had been pedaling a bike instead of walking, though, he wouldn’t have noticed what came next. He would have sped by too quickly, paying too little attention to the edges of the road.
Right as he was closest to them, he noticed tracks through the grass indicating that anywhere from a week to a month ago, a car had driven this way. It had followed no road, not even a trail, simply plowing through the grass. What was the point of veering off the pavement to power through tall weeds and bushes? The driver had possibly even risked getting stuck, considering the damp, steep ditch along the sides of the road. Boiler could take them with his Jeep, but even the latest SUV would have had trouble.
Of course, time is precious, perhaps too precious to spend researching the strange behavior of unknown people from some unknown time in the recent past, but his intuition suggested this might be worthwhile. The tracks in the ditch where the vehicle had left the road demonstrated the recency of the traversal, and no tracks ran back the other way. Probing the insides of another car couldn’t hurt.
He found the vehicle among some bushes, perhaps visible from the road in a few places but hard to see in all this foliage, especially considering its color scheme. It featured a modern, pixelated camo paint job, making it quite difficult to spot even if you were looking for it.
Maybe not having that bike is a good thing. No way I would’ve noticed this.
The vehicle was a well-equipped Land Rover, decked out with the most luxurious adventure options, including a snorkel, the most ostentatious deer-catcher, lights along the roof, and a winch. No ordinary civilian would own a vehicle like this. Its owner must’ve faced some appalling off-road trails in his time—or at least liked to pretend he had.
People like that carried all kinds of things with them when they drove. Especially if this guy had intentionally abandoned his house to set up shelter here.
But that was a stretch. Boiler had seen any number of cars run off the road by now. The distances they sat away from the road varied enormously, and many of them were smashed, wrapped around trees, or even burnt to a crisp. He remembered that first collision of his on that evening so long ago. As far as he could tell, humans kept their face and general look during the first stage of infection, but soon started to experience mental delays and problems. This increased the likelihood of accidents since driving required quick, smart decisions in reaction to the current situation on the road.
Boiler had already combed through several vehicles without finding anything of note. One had even been his transportation method of choice for an engagement he had with a particularly lonely drone. His date hadn’t appreciated his choice of vehicle.
This find was more intriguing. The Land Rover was tilted onto its left side, with the driver’s door thrown open but everything else shut tight. He approached and sniffed the inside. There was none of that familiar corpse smell—in fact, there was no odor at all. It hadn’t been sitting here for long, a month at most and maybe only a couple of weeks. Precipitation varied, though, so Boiler couldn’t be sure.
He pulled the door open wider and looked in. It was empty, except for a pile of bags in the back seat. The key was still sitting in the ignition, so he turned it. The dashboard lit up, and the fuel light beeped for attention. Empty. Had someone sat in here until the tank run dry? Perhaps. The battery still lived, so the vehicle couldn’t have been here for too long, but there was no blood or other signs of fighting. The driver drove here, opened the door, went for a walk, and never returned.
Had he become an infected? That was the most probable outcome. Infecteds did know how to open car doors, he was sure of that. And this driver had left without taking any of these things. Plus, there was something in the back seat that anyone hounded by a monster would’ve jumped for, without a doubt. Boiler almost shouted with delight when he opened the case.
Jackpot! No ordinary jackpot, either. Powerball! He was now the proud owner of a twelve-millimeter pump shotgun. A full-size Mossberg. And ammo too. Lots of ammo. What a win.
He inspected the gun. Everything looked good, and he loaded three buckshot rounds and three ordinary rounds, in alternation. After all, he had no idea which type would be most effective against the worst of the beasts. Best to hedge his bets.
The vehicle’s benevolence was far from expended. Boiler found a small backpack made for a situation just like the present one. Its many pockets and pouches held an excellent set of items for the crisis he now called home, including a good first aid kit, a rain poncho, a small all-metal hatchet, a small set of binoculars, a bottle of water, some foodstuffs with a long shelf life, a multitool, and more. Boiler was delighted by this find, of course, but he still wasn’t done. He could not pass up anything this treasure chest had to offer.
Under a couple of blankets in the back, he found something that proved the eccentricity of this rover’s owner. What else could you call someone who kept a Japanese katana in the back seat, if not eccentric? On inspection, it wasn’t quite a samurai’s katana, but it was similar, with its slightly curved narrow blade, its characteristic black handle, and its massive black sheath.
Boiler would have preferred an ax. Even a cheap ax stowed away for a garage sale somewhere would have worked. But he held the sword and waved it back and worth, appreciating its balance. This was the best blade he had at the moment, and he could always discard it later if something better came along.
He found some rifle rounds, too, in addition to some more canned food and groceries, but the rounds made no move to fit inside the shotgun without inserts, which he was unable to locate.
There was no point in taking ammo that the only weapon in the car couldn’t fire, was there? The driver must have had a rifle, too, in addition to this noisy shotgun. A gun like that would be great for distance shots, and even at close range would be a good option. Boiler doubted that the skulls of even the mid-level monsters could hold up to one of those rounds. Hunters and soldiers had used such ammo for over a century now, and to great effect.
Boiler searched the car top to bottom looking for the rifle, then circled outwards from it, trampling the tall grass down as he went. Nothing. No rifle, no anything else, unless he could count a crumpled, discarded water bottle with its label peeled off.
He had to make peace with the fact that he’d never find the rifle. Or perhaps the vehicle owner, fighting off the irrevocably mounting insanity of this place, had forgotten to grab the rifle, or had slung it over his shoulder as he wandered away. So where do I look for it? What’s the use, anyway? The man had probably dropped the gun a long time ago and was running around with sagging, stinking pants and working to procure some tasty neck meat.
He drank about a third of the bottle of water, replaced it with some vodka he’d found in the car, and took out the spore Charcoal had been gnawing just yesterday. He popped it in and started shaking the bottle. About seven minutes later, the sporegrape had dissolved, and the bottle now contained a cloudy liquid with ugly green flakes floating within.
He drained the residual water from the other bottle, used a piece of gauze to create a rudimentary filter, and ran the liquid through it. The result was an acceptably clear drink. He tested it. His stomach grew warm immediately, and his unpleasant heartburn retreated. Apparently that had been his body saying he needed another dose of muck soon.
The cat watched intently, and when he saw Boiler test the drink, his eyes expanded into the saddest, most pleading orbs the man had ever seen. Boiler cut the bottom off the empty bottle to m
ake a small bowl and poured a little of the lifejuice inside, placing it on the downtrodden grass.
“Here you go, Charcoal. It’s not quite catnip, but I think you’ll like it.”
The animal sniffed and snorted but didn’t turn up his nose. He began to lap the solution up with zeal.
“I think I overdid it with the vodka. I’ll be more careful next time. There will be many next times, won’t there, Charcoal? Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to take that away from you. Want something to eat? There’s no way we can haul all this food with us—this guy had enough to supply a company picnic. How about some of this stew? My stomach is rumbling so loud the ghouls will be roaming in from a mile away before long. And stew isn’t all we’ve got here, there’s also—”
Boiler stopped short. He heard an engine approaching.
“Charcoal, get down!”
The cat just lowered his ears and kept on lapping. That made sense—nobody would ever notice him in this grass. But Boiler decided to hide behind a bush a few feet away, providing cover while still allowing him to see the road.
The car whizzed by, and his view was less than spectacular, so he failed to make out any useful details. It was a white sedan of some make he didn’t recognize, and he thought he saw more than one person in the car. So far his two episodes of traveling by vehicle had made it clear that the only sane way to undertake such a venture was in the company of some serious guns, but this was just an ordinary car. No bars, no spikes, and definitely no machine gun turrets.
Newcomers? Quite possibly. They were coming from the direction Boiler was heading. He really had no reason to go that way after hitting the jackpot like this. I’d still like a bicycle, but that can wait. Perhaps he’d even reach a stable on his own two feet before finding one.
He couldn’t wait for information, for a safe place to sleep. And for a bath. They must have baths or showers or something there, right? He hadn’t even seen hot water since the last morning he’d left for work, unaware how badly his severance package would suck. He’d gladly maim for some tea or coffee, and would probably kill for a bowl of soup.
Once the noise from the car had died down, he let Charcoal in on his plans.
“Alright, let’s scarf down this stew, then we’ll head west across that field. You have any problems with that? Good. Then that’s the plan.”
Chapter 19
At last I’m not just a nobody. I’m a nobody with a gun. But Boiler wasn’t about to lose his wits and kid himself into thinking he was a sight to behold with fear and trembling. He focused his attention on the street, taking cover in the cornfield running alongside it. About a hundred feet away, a forest of poplars grasped its way across the gentle hills. The border between this cluster and the next stable ran across those very hills. The trees were old, and many of them dead. The road was a major highway, but covered in debris and in terrible shape, with the only significant sign he could see rusted beyond legibility.
At first, Boiler was alarmed by all the tracks running over the plant and other debris lining the pavement, as if a thousand cars had been through this week. But the road was probably used regularly over an extended period of time, not necessarily often.
Suddenly, he heard something out of place. An engine. A small one, perhaps, even a toy one. Three days ago, he would have looked around for the source of the noise, but Boiler had become a different person with different habits, not just a Leland with a new name.
He dropped to the ground and remained still until the mysterious sound vanished into the distance, but in the interim, it grew to be quite loud, and quite unlike a ground vehicle’s sound. Its altitude seemed as high as those dead trees, but it was clearly not the cross-shaped drone that had blasted Boiler’s car on his first day here. It was smaller and somehow more mysterious. And quite possibly mortally dangerous.
Boiler stayed in hiding even once the sound had gone. He moved to thicker cover, tore off some leaves, stuck them together, and placed this homemade camouflage atop his head. That was a little better, at least. He’d sit for half an hour or so, keep an eye and an ear out, and then figure out what to do next.
The cat stared at the human’s new hat for a while, then disappeared. Either creeping further through the field or enjoying his favorite activity, catching small rodents. He was still hungry, even after that stew. Gluttonous beast.
Ten minutes was all it took for a rumbling choir of engines to sound in the distance. Big engines. Boiler pressed himself into the dirt harder, trying not to breathe, trying not even to think. Who knew what the local crazies were capable of? Nimbler took off like a fucking cheetah. Who knows—maybe these bastards can read minds at a distance or something like that.
Hopefully they couldn’t see through the corn. Telepaths may not exist, but immunes with X-ray vision probably did.
Then he saw the vehicles. Terrific. It was a military convoy. These were no thugs with machine guns in rough refitted trucks. The first vehicle was something like a Humvee, with a marksman stationed in a half-open turret. The second, Boiler didn’t recognize at all. Next came an armored truck, followed by an unarmored one with a green fabric covering. After that, a vehicle exactly like the first. Even the machine gunners looked alike.
No, wait—that wasn’t a Humvee. He had only seen a couple of them in his life, and not recently, but he remembered them well. Maybe this was just a new model of some kind. But it didn’t look like a brand new vehicle.
The convoy departed, but Boiler’s questions remained.
It had the look of an army convoy but without any identifying marks. No numbers, no emblems, no symbols, no words. Some former markings had been covered, but so carefully that Boiler had no way of telling what they had been. Had they been from some army? Earlier, he would have gone out to meet them, but his three days of experience told him his gesture would be greeted with a warm burst of machine gun fire.
In this world, you could never approach anyone you didn’t know, for any reason.
He stayed flat in the dirt for another ten minutes or so, but nothing else showed up. The convoy disappeared into the east, with no more engine sounds ensuing. He wanted to cross the road before anyone else showed up and get a closer look at this stable. Maybe that convoy was part of some local militia force. After all, a stable would need someone to guard it, right?
* * *
Boiler had food, water, a weapon, and a small bottle of the all-important lifejuice. There was no need for him to risk rummaging around dangerous places. But he still wanted a bicycle, which would allow him to move much faster without the dangers of engine noise that cars presented. It wouldn’t be the greatest for off-road travel, but he could always lift it over obstacles or walk it along with him a few hundred feet. Even a narrow path or a field with reasonably short plants would be no serious impediment to his riding.
He spotted Charcoal’s eyes just behind him. The cat couldn’t speak, of course, but each time Boiler stopped, the animal made himself comfortable and relaxed, often falling asleep. The feline race spent the majority of its life sleeping, so Charcoal couldn’t keep up with Boiler’s pace from morning till night. If the man pushed his pet too hard, it might abandon him. Boiler didn’t want that. He liked having Charcoal around. As funny as it sounded, he felt safer with the cat nearby. After all, the animal warned him when he almost ran into a crowd of runners. Not the most dangerous zombies in existence, but they could sprint, and with a crowd like that a machine gun might not even be enough to save you if you were caught out in the open. Escaping with just a shotgun was even less likely. The cat, sensing the beasts before Boiler did, froze and hissed in their direction, clarifying the foolishness of proceeding. The only thing they could do was wait, watch, and listen. And if something attacked them at night, the cat’s quiet hissing would wake him.
This cat was no dog, of course, but he was just as different from ordinary cats, too.
Boiler’s planned route for exploring the stable was a masterpiece of Spirograph a
rt, and its next loop led him right up to the border. The next cluster was active, as he could easily see by the condition of the suburbs across the way. There were no buildings any taller than four or five floors, but he could make out the pipes and smokestacks of some industrial sector in the distance. All the windows were intact, and the streets were clean. He didn’t see any people, but it looked like they had been here just yesterday.
Whether this was just a piece of a city or a whole town that had been brought in, Boiler had no idea. It didn’t matter, anyway. How much time had passed since its last reboot? A week? Maybe a month? However long it had been, the empties were now more powerful beasts, of unknown quantity. Maybe rafflers were running around in packs, or even the monsters that had crushed those policemen as their car was speeding along.
Many cars called this town home, but Boiler might well never want to drive one of them again. Even if he found an armored car with a full tank of gas. That might keep him safe from the beasts, but what about the humans? A rattling, rumbling metal box would keep out both monsters and the warning sounds of approaching convoys sporting high-caliber machine guns or worse. By the time he realized they were close, he’d be burning alive.
A bicycle was much safer. Of course, even that could get him into trouble.
Boiler didn’t have that much lifejuice left. He still didn’t know how much of the stuff he needed each day, and so had no real idea when he’d run out. Maybe it would last him a few days. Or longer. But then again, perhaps his supply would be exhausted before a single day had passed.
He lacked a quiet hunting weapon, though. The sound of a shotgun would echo through the whole town, and the beasts would come running. It was not a large town, but provoking its current inhabitants was too risky. His best option, then, was to move around through the brush to the industrial area, take a careful look around, and try to get his hands on an ax. If he could kill some weaker creatures along the way, he would, but if not, he’d just slip out, quiet as he came. Spore hunting was better undertaken in places with fewer buildings and thus lower populations, meaning relatively few zombies with little chance of reaching the powerful stages of evolution.