She looks at me and I’m not sure she knows how to take what I’ve told her. I know that she understands that I have firsthand experience with Detroit and we leave it at that. “We were passing through when he ambushed us,” she says calmly, gesturing to the burning pyre where the cannibal is, as if it’s all a part of some movie that she’d seen. “He was a freak. Some kind of monster. He had us strip down and then locked us in his closet, dungeon sort of thing. He kept us there for days, torturing us. He used up everything we had, mocking us. Every day, he would just sit on that bed and watch us in his closet, touching himself. He was demented. Some sort of horrible deviant. I begged for him not to hurt the children. I just wanted him to let the children go. I suppose that was all some childish dream of my own.”
“The world doesn’t take kindly to dreams anymore,” I say, watching the boy behind the door, just staring at me. That boy was going to grow up mean and callous, if he even got the chance to grow up. I watch him and wonder what kind of life he’s going to live.
“How did you find us?” she asks me. Suddenly she bows her head and shies away from the question. “I’m sorry, that’s really none of my business. I didn’t mean to be so rude.”
“I saw the town and an old friend of mine said I should check it out,” I tell her anyways, ignoring her supplicant attitude. “She said that there might be something in this town worth finding. I found you two and that’s been it. She must have been looking out for you.”
“My God,” she looks at me with genuine shock on her face. “It’s like a miracle. Is she nearby?”
“No,” I shrug. “She’s was always one to save people’s lives. She saved mine a bunch. She was great like that.” I suddenly feel dark and sad talking about her.
“She sounds incredible,” the woman says, suddenly quieter. “What happened to her?” It must be my tone, because she picked up immediately that Lindsay isn’t around anymore. I look at her, into those big blue eyes and I wonder what kind of hells she’s experienced and yet she still has the capacity to feel sympathy. God, I would hate that.
“Those fanatics in Atlanta killed her,” I answer. “So I killed them all.”
She’s silent for a moment, looking out over the town with me, silently pondering what I just told her. She looks at them for a moment before finally breaking the silence. “It’s nice to know Nick and Rayne will be able to play again, thanks to you,” she says softly, with a smile on her lips. I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, but it’s weird enough for me to feel suddenly uncomfortable around her. “Thank you,” she says.
The woman bursts into tears, rushing from the porch and into the house, brushing past the kid. His name is Nick, I think. I’m trying not to feel for these people. I can’t get entangled in their lives and they can’t get wrapped up in mine. There’s too much at stake. As she disappears inside the cannibal’s house, the boy comes out and stands near me. Without a word or a thought, I reach down to the dusty chair I was sitting in and hand him the baseball bat I used to kill the cannibal with.
“Don’t be afraid anymore,” I tell him, putting the bat in his hands.
He takes the bat and looks at it. There’s bloodstains on the pale wood and I hope that they stay there forever. He keeps his gaze on that bat when I leave the boy and head for the hill, looking at the gas station below when I hear the woman coming after me. I hear her footsteps on the hardening earth and refuse to look back at her.
“Wait,” she calls after me. “Wait, hold on a second.”
I keep walking.
“Wait, god damn it!” she calls, grabbing my arm and spinning me around. I look at her with cold, merciless eyes. I can’t do it. I know what she’s going to try and say, but I can’t do it. I can’t do it for a lot of reasons. I can’t take a kid with me and another beautiful woman or a woman of any kind. I can’t replace the friend that I just lost and I’m not willing to. I lost Lindsay because I’m a terrible person to be around. Bad things happen to me and I’m not willing to inflict that on anyone else. I look into her eyes and know that she needs help. She needs something to help her move or she isn’t going to survive. “Where are you going?” she asks.
“To Florida,” I answer.
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” she says to me, looking away, afraid of what I might say to her. “But I was wondering if you might let us tag along. We’ll keep to ourselves. I’ll gather our own food. All we need is a little help from a decent sort of person. You seem like a decent sort of person.”
“No,” I shake my head.
“Why the fuck not?” Tears are brimming in her eyes. “My daughter is injured, asshole. My son and I aren’t going to make it without anyone watching out for us—helping us with her. Don’t you give a shit? You gave a shit enough to burst in there and kill that fucker, so why won’t you give a shit now? Huh?”
I look at her in silence for a moment while she looks away, letting the tears run down her cheeks. There’s no way that I could keep going if I lost Lexi or Val. I can honestly sympathize with her, but there’s no way I’m doing this again. There’s no way that I’m taking her with me. “That town down there is completely abandoned,” I tell her. “So this is what you’re going to do: You’re going to go to the residential areas and search for a car then search the house for keys. Then you’re going to get in that car and drive north, stay out of towns or cities and don’t be afraid to drive off the roads and into the fields. You’re going to keep heading north until you find a town called Dayton in Ohio, you got that?”
“Why?” She looks at me with a suspicious expression.
“Because if I make it to Florida and if I find the people I’m looking for, then I’m heading back to Dayton with a lot of people,” I tell her. “Look for a farmhouse north of Dayton, two stories with a greenhouse in the back. There’s a cellar and there will be bodies on the lawn. The house should be empty. If it’s the right house, look through it. You’ll know if it’s the right farmhouse.”
“How will I know?” she asks.
“You just will,” I tell her. “Trust me.” I look down at the truck and let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Follow me,” I tell her, and head down the hill.
She follows me back to the truck and I’m afraid that she’s going to pass out when I give her a ten gallon container of gas, ten gallons of water, and enough MREs to get her to Dayton and be well fed if she’s smart. She looks at me as if I’m Jesus Christ and she hugs me. I can feel her body against mine and it’s unsettling. As she pulls away, I look at her and feel shame inside of me. It feels wrong to be hugging someone who isn’t Lindsay. Before I hop into the cab, I tell her to find a car again and to look for a house north of Dayton.
“I hope you make it,” she says to me as I slip the keys into the ignition and turn them.
“If I don’t,” I tell her, “just wait. Someone will come.” There’s something about the look in her eyes that tells me she isn’t going to go. I want her to, I hope that she sees reason and actually goes, but I don’t know, it’s just that look that makes me feel like I’ve wasted my time. She’s going to do whatever the hell she wants.
As I drive away from her and Nick, I know without a doubt that it was Lindsay who brought me to this place. I have no doubt that it was she who was trying to show me that doing a little good and sticking my neck out didn’t always have to end terribly. I want to believe her, but I’m not sure if Lindsay is right. That woman will probably get stopped somewhere along the way and raped before someone kills her. She’s pretty enough that they might keep her around until she’s too much trouble. Or she might just get taken out by Zombies who don’t give a damn about intentions or dreams. I leave them in the distance, looking back every few minutes as they tear into their first MRE. Part of me feels fantastic about leaving them behind, but a small, hidden part is saddened to see them go.
I have absolutely no idea where I am. Without a map, I’m driving blind. I want to stick to the 77, but there’s no way of finding that without
wasting copious amounts of fuel. As of right now, I’m sticking to the roads heading south and that’s as well as I can guess. I don’t like driving blind, but options are as plentiful as friends at the moment.
The road doesn’t keep track of time and it feels like an eternity that I’ve been driving. I feel like everything is starting to mesh together and look identical. All the roads, the hills, the desolation, it’s all just one scene playing over and over in a loop. It reminds me of the old days, when I was walking. I don’t envy the past and I sure as hell don’t wish for the good old days back. I like the rumble of the engine and the sound of things zipping by, vanishing into the distance. Who cares about the dust trail or others seeing me, I just want to get to Florida. I pull off at another gas station and let the truck idle for a moment before I kill the engine. I wait for a moment, listening the best I can from inside the cab, waiting for someone to come charging out at me to try and take the truck. I’m being reckless, but I need a map.
Leaning over, I open the glove box, just to make sure that there isn’t one hiding in there. All I find is a manual, a flare gun, and a small medical kit. There’s nothing in the way of navigation in here. I look spitefully at the dead military grade GPS navigator. Fuck that thing. I push open the door and cautiously step out into the world, looking around and expecting a killer to be lurking around every corner.
I hear nothing but the breeze as the drifts of dust slither across the road and concrete. The world isn’t as wet here, isn’t as soft. I don’t think the storm actually made it this far south. When I enter the store, I smile at the sight of forgotten hats with the word ‘Florida’ pasted across them and a dozen stained shirts lying about, still on their hangers with slogans about how wonderful Florida is written across their chests. I’ve made it. I’m in Florida. I smile and shake my head.
“God damn,” I chuckle. I never thought this day would come.
I spend the night here, by the gas station. Pulling the truck around back, I lock it up and wander into the gas station. I browse the magazines, looking at the faces of celebrities from long ago, lustful porn stars, and the dying leaders of the time. None of them are probably alive now, or maybe all of them are. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anymore. I find it odd how we were all so obsessed with foolish things back then. Who cares about what people in California, New York, or D.C. are doing? In the end, we’re all just people, trying to survive. In the end, we’re all just animals.
Thankfully the maps are still there, stuffed into a display next to the counter, completely abandoned. The shelves are empty, but these people had their priorities. The beer cases are all empty and there are empty cans thrown everywhere. Clearly there was a party here that I’m a year late to. I wonder how much gas is still in the tanks outside. How much is just sitting down there, waiting to expire. Most people don’t realize gas expires. Such a waste.
I spend the night in the cab of the truck again, struggling to get comfortable without Lindsay there to pester and chat until I pass out. She was always good at talking and cuddling up against me until sleep found me. I spent a lot of time thinking about that woman from earlier in the day. I can’t help but wonder what’s happened to her, if she’ll ever make it to Jason’s house, or if I’ll see her again. I hope I do. I hope she makes it to the house and that she joins the effort I intend to pursue. I could use good people. I could use a lot of them. Hell, I just want to see my daughters again, then I’ll talk about doing good deeds for the world. I need a little payout for my troubles, for my bitter faith.
When I wake up in the morning, I skip a meal, trying to compensate for the food I’ve already eaten and the packs that I gave away to the woman and her son. I’m too much of a bleeding heart, even after everything I’ve seen and experienced. I think it’s a weakness. Somehow, I know that it’s not. Even after everything that woman had suffered, she still believed in the goodness of people. She still had the strength to carry on.
I fire up the engine and I keep going south, the map spread out in the seat next to me as I search the radio, weaving past cars that have thoroughly clogged the roads. I find someone out of Tallahassee who lets me know that fighting is still raging in Jacksonville and Miami. Apparently Tallahassee is a war zone and that there are militias everywhere in Florida. I am not the only one who got the bright idea to head south, according to Tallahassee. I listen to him talk about fighting in Tampa and a dozen other places. There’s a group down here called the Relief Movement who are trying to unify and strengthen Florida against all the infighting that has ravaged the state. I’ve neither seen nor heard anything like this in any of the other states I’ve been in. I find it slightly noble, but entirely misguided. Why unite a bunch of dying people? Let them choose how they want to go out. Sometimes I think a bullet to the head would be better than starving to death or becoming a Zombie.
Eventually, I hear word of the government, something that I haven’t heard in a very, very long time. Tallahassee says that there is in fact a government still in place, or a vestige of the old one. This is something that causes me to turn up the radio to make sure that I’m hearing everything he’s saying. “Now, we’ve gotten word from the west where the United States Government still has control of the southwest,” Tallahassee says with a fiery voice. “According to recent reports, the USA still has control of a three city triangle, occupying and holding territory around the Hoover Dam, powering Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. Now, from what I’ve heard, they’re working on some sort of effort to try and restore the planet back to its normal condition, which is surprising…”
I turn down the radio and slowly bring the truck to a stop, staring at what I’ve been looking for since I crossed over the border. I look at the buildings with silence and reverence, like a pilgrim finally coming to Mecca. I look at the cluster of abandoned, neglected buildings and feel a cold chill down my spine. This is something that predates Lindsay or losing my hand or Zombies. This goes all the way back to my core, all the way back to when I was stuck in a cabin out by Lake Huron. Looking at the buildings I feel a sense of accomplishment, the first time in a very long time that I can take pride in. I look at the sign in front of the buildings.
‘Welcome to the University of Florida. Home of the Gators.’
Chapter Ten
I don’t forget what it is that Lindsay told me about the University of Ohio’s campus and all of the fighting that had gone down in Columbus. I understand that completely. Where I had been, the students had taken to the streets, unable to get home to their families, cut off, and forced to live in their dorms until the government could safely remove them and relocate them with their families. Everyone saw the writing on the wall, everyone knew that the students weren’t going to ever see their families again. They were holding those too stupid or too poor to get out while the getting was good. They were locking all of us away, telling us to continue on as if our lives were normal, and the students were having none of it. The riots, the protests, and then the fighting began and I was out of there. Unlike the students, those of us who worked on the campus were paid to help maintain the façade of normalcy—not that money meant anything anymore. I did it for the kids, honestly. It helped some of them cope, but I remember many of them crying in my sparse lecture halls, sobbing to themselves while I prattled on about Thoreau and Whitman. No one cared in the end. When I heard the first gunshots, I got to my car, drove to the military checkpoint, flashed my off-campus ID and left the University of Michigan behind me for good. I could only wonder about those few students I left behind who just sat there and cried in class, looking out the dreary windows as tears ran down their faces. I listened to my radio, hearing about the massacre at the university.
The military had opened fire, throwing down martial law and any semblance of order that left the school in a pool of blood. No tear gas, no non-lethal measures, just bullets. That was when the rest of the city rose up. Lake Huron had told it best, and seemed to be the only one who cared about it. He reported that the
whole city of Detroit rose up. The Preacher had only mumbled about the necessity of uprising and the requirement of salvation. He fueled the fires and that was when the whole city of Detroit, the police, the National Guard, and everyone else who had been called in, lost to the citizens. I remember walking through downtown, witnessing all of the chaos and madness for myself. There were a lot of dead people in Detroit because of that little measure against the students. A lot of dead bodies haunted those streets and I’m not sure that I feel any kind of sadness or sorrow for them.
But here, in Gainesville, everything looks still. There’s the military barricades and perimeter set up, but it looks like it has been abandoned a long time ago. There’s nothing here that would indicate that there was a huge firefight or that the military had thrown down martial law as well. In Florida, there had been refugee camps. To people outside of the Quarantine States, the refugee camps were the sources of the uprisings, not the universities or stadiums where people were corralled like animals and told to sit quietly and wait. Maybe the troops set up the perimeter, saw what happened at the refugee camps, and then decided to let the students go.
God, I hope that’s what happened. I can’t bear to think about something else happening. I look out over the campus, wondering if they were relocated. Maybe the government packed them all up and drove them somewhere else. The city had looked pretty well looted and ransacked—and so did the campus for that matter. But I don’t think that the military would have relocated them. There would have been more fighting, more destruction. People wouldn’t willingly be shipped off somewhere just to be told to wait and keep quiet until they were packed up and sent off again.
I park the truck near a vehicle depot where the military had parked half a dozen tanks, a bunch of Hummers, and trucks. My truck fits in nicely and I let it sit there for a moment, looking around to see if anyone has been watching me. I don’t see anyone, but I don’t give that much credence. If they’re watching me, then of course I’m not going to spot them. People at this point are cunning and smart. If I abandon the truck, then they’ll be on it in a matter of seconds. Sitting in the cab, I try to weigh the benefits of this.
LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series Page 43