Age of Z: A Tale of Survival

by T. S. Frost

  “Admit it, Lewis, you were happy to see us too,” Alexa said, grinning broadly.

  “Maybe I was,” Lewis shot back, “But you'll never catch me admitting to it.” And to Alexa's surprise he smirked, just barely, and for a moment he didn't look like a hardened bodyguard or a head of security, but just like a relaxed young twenty-something joking with his friends.

  “Stay alive out there,” he added a moment later, and the kid was gone, replaced by the bodyguard once more. “I mean it. Blake isn't the only one getting tired of everyone disappearing on him.” And before Alexa or Casey could respond to that, he strode forward between them, barked an order to the wall guards, and stood impassively as the gates began to creak open.

  Alexa clapped Lewis on the shoulder as she passed him to head for the gate. “Thanks, really,” she said. “And you hang in there too, Lewis, and I mean that. Zoms aren't the only danger these days.” Casey nodded in agreement as he too passed the bodyguard, following Alexa, and after a moment Lewis nodded slowly back.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  And then the gate thudded shut behind them, leaving them with safety at their backs and a beautiful view of the broken, dead skyline ahead of them across the water. And all Alexa could think was, This is crazy, going out here again, but all the same, it feels like it's just where I belong.

  Chapter 11

  Now that Alexa had a specific destination in mind and renewed hope in her goal, she wanted to get moving as fast as possible. And at first, for a little while, the trip went smoothly and according to plan, just the way she'd wanted.

  It started almost as soon as they left New Avalon. Peter had been waiting for them on the end of the dock, and informed them that Blake had contacted him to make sure he was ready to transport some passengers.

  Upon learning his passengers were none other than Alexa and Casey, he had reiterated his promise to take them where they needed to go, and not just across the water to the docks.

  Alexa had felt a little bad about possibly taking Peter away from his duties, but Peter insisted it wasn't anything for her to worry about, so Alexa gave him a brief explanation on where she'd like to head for. Peter agreed immediately and guided them into the same boat as before, detouring them only long enough to find some of his companions, apparently off duty but preferring the ocean-side to the crowded island.

  A woman with reddish hair and a young man with a ponytail answered his call, and the three had a hasty discussion in Russian (“He's asking them to take his patrol shift for him.” Casey murmured). Then Peter nodded, and the other two offered polite greetings in English for Alexa's benefit, before moving up the dock with purpose.

  Peter was no slouch either, and set a breakneck pace over the water with the use of his sailboat. A trip that would have taken the two of them at least a day on foot–maybe two, if the zom packs had picked up–took Peter an hour and a half by water.

  He finally pulled the boat up to the dock of some unknown town to let them off. By then they were some thirty-five miles from New Avalon but still safely far enough away from New York City's outskirts that they wouldn't risk hordes of zoms upon landing.

  “Thanks,” Alexa told the Russian, as Peter helped them out of the boat and onto the old dock. “This is... amazing. You saved us a lot of time, it means a lot.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Peter answered. “I am happy to know I have been of service. All I ask is that you remain safe, and return to the island in the future. I believe humanity requires more people like yourself, if we are truly to survive this undead plague.”

  “No pressure or anything,” Casey said dryly.

  Alexa laughed at that. “No offense, Peter, but if we're supposed to be examples of the best humanity has to offer in order to survive, then I'm thinking we're probably doomed.” It was intended as a joke, but it was a little on the dark side all the same.

  The Russian merely shrugged. “A few months ago I might have agreed,” he said, sounding perfectly serious, “But these days I am not so sure. The world we live in is quite dangerous, and yet people like yourselves, or New Avalon's leaders, are enough to convince me that maybe there is still a little hope yet. And if we can continue to hope, then perhaps we, too, can make a difference.”

  “At least somebody believes in us,” Alexa said, and this time her smile was more genuine. “That means a lot, Peter.”

  The Russian bade them farewell and left them on the dock to continue their trek on foot. Blake had provided them with the most up-to-date maps he could manage, using satellites and scouting reports to give them a decent lay of the land, for both physical landmarks and recent zom pack sightings.

  Between that and Alexa's own knowledge of the country from all her time traveling, she had a pretty reasonable idea of where they needed to go next, and sketched out a rough outline of her plan to Casey as they made their way out of the tiny town.

  The travel plan was relatively simple at its core. The mountain range Blake had hinted there might be a settlement in was located in the southeast corner of the state of Missouri, in central United States.

  But it would be foolhardy to head straight there from New Avalon; even without the increased number of zombies in the center of the country, the wilderness and the mountains could be dangerous without proper preparation.

  So Alexa intended to aim for another settlement a little closer to their actual objective: a converted military base located in southern Illinois that she'd traveled through once. It was a secure safety zone, not quite as well equipped as New Avalon but backed up by some military support, and was one of the few military colonies in central/eastern United States that still had the trust of the civilians.

  This was probably in a large part due to the way civilians had been integrated into the military community even before Z-day, and when the outbreak hit both military and civilian factions had been able to effectively function as a team to provide safety to the residents of the base.

  More importantly to Alexa, it was located barely a hundred miles from the mountain region, making it the closest safe zone to her objective. They'd be able to stop in and resupply before beginning the search. Also, if winter hit before they could find the mountain settlement, they'd be able to hole up in the base for the duration of it in exchange for trade or labor–colonies were always looking for willing workers.

  Getting there would be trickier. Alexa intended to stick to freeways and roads as often as possible for this stage of the journey.

  “Back when the outbreak first happened, it was best to avoid major roads whenever you could,” Alexa explained to Casey, on their second day of land travel. “They were packed with people trying to escape to anywhere that wasn't infested. Better to travel on less populated roads or even cross country.

  “Now, though, it's better to use the roads when you can, especially with the center of the country so badly swarming with dead heads,” Alexa continued.

  “The roads are relatively open and it's a straight shot wherever you need to go. A lot of the high-rises and bridges will keep us out of zom territory too. We'll still have to skirt around cities and big towns, and break off the freeways for shelter and scavenging, but this'll make travel a little faster at least. Just, um... just stay away from abandoned cars. Sometimes people die and reanimate still strapped into the seats and... well... just don't go near open windows.”

  Alexa shuddered slightly as she finished. She'd seen two unfortunate travelers yanked into open vehicles by reaching, pale arms, kicking and screaming; it was just another bit of nightmare fuel for her. Casey, fortunately, heeded the warning, and gave plenty of notice when they approached any vehicles with sounds of movement within, letting them give the rotting cars and trucks wide berth.

  Caution aside, their first two weeks of travel went smoothly–as smoothly as any form of travel through zombie-infested territory could go, at any rate. They crossed over Connecticut's border, passed briefly into New York state, and were well into Pennsylvania within the first week
.

  There were still plenty of zombies everywhere, but they were easy enough to avoid, especially since they typically avoided the cities and more crowded towns and stuck to the freeways when they could.

  Foraging was still pretty easy at this juncture, especially with all of the abandoned fields and orchards that they passed, letting them load up on wild fruits and vegetables. Shelter was still relatively easy to find as well, if you knew what you were doing, which the both of them did.

  It meant they could push for as much speed as they was capable of, walking for most of their daylight hours and only breaking off briefly for some minor scavenging and shelter-hunting, and Alexa was pretty happy with their progress.

  More rare, but not exactly unwelcome, were occasional travelers they came across. It didn't exactly happen all that often, outside of major settlements, but there were other people out there just like Alexa–people searching around for family or news or something that couldn't simply let themselves be tied down to a colony.

  They hadn't run across any people while traveling up from D.C. to New Avalon, but then again, Alexa had taken an unconventional route of backroads for the sake of trade scavenging. The freeways were still the most popular and most direct routes between settlements, and just the safest way to travel in general, which meant better chances to meet the living variety of people.

  Alexa had been forced to restrain Casey (not very successfully, but she figured the frantic shouting of 'no' caught his attention well enough) the first time they'd come across living people, before he accidentally smashed in perfectly normal heads by mistaking them for zoms from a distance.

  After that Casey had learned to approach cautiously, observing small scatterings of bipedal travelers from a distance and determining if they were alive or dead before attacking. If they were living people, they still approached cautiously, just in case; Alexa really didn't want an encounter with wandering bandits if she could help it.

  But when they were alive, and safe, then they usually stopped briefly to chat, and Alexa introduced her anti-social shadow to the fine art of travel etiquette.

  When you found other travelers out on the road, you typically traded information with them, free of charge: warned them of any zom sightings or other dangers you might have passed through recently, gave them tips on good foraging spots or decent shelters you might have used, and you could fully expect them to do the same to you.

  Ultimately, good, friendly travelers were allies. Everyone was human and ultimately everyone was on the same side and all shooting for the same goal: survival. If all it took was ten minutes of sharing intel to keep your fellow human beings alive, it was worth it.

  Alexa held nothing back as she described useful places to hide or warned of dead head packs behind them on the way to New Avalon, and she and Casey benefited enormously from the things other travelers shared with them, often saving them hours of time when they didn't have to go searching for food or safe spots to sleep for the night.

  Sometimes it was possible to trade food or supplies too, if you needed something and they wanted something from you; you just had to be careful to keep an eye open, just in case they wanted it badly enough to do something drastic. It was typically win-win all around.

  Even less common than travelers were the smaller fortified homes and communities they occasionally found along the way. These were never huge, usually consisting of anywhere from one to three families that had banded together and fortified a house or school or office building, in order to survive the zombie hordes without relying on a major reinforced colony like New Avalon.

  Casey was baffled by these at first, not understanding why they would want to live that way.

  There were a number of reasons, Alexa explained. Some groups just didn't want to submit to colony rules and regulations. Some trusted people they already knew, as opposed to the nameless, faceless masses that they didn't. Some groups simply had people incapable of surviving traveling through zom territory for whatever reason. And some simply preferred the solitude.

  Whatever the reason, these groups were usually able to carve out a minor safe space in the otherwise dangerous world. And while not all of them managed to survive and many were wiped out over the course of a year due to attacks, infection, starvation, or sometimes infighting, many others managed to retain their little foothold and keep going strong.

  They could be safe-zones for travelers as well, but Alexa cautioned Casey to always tread carefully when approaching minor settlements and communities. Even if they weren't outlaw zones–which was not always a guarantee, as Alexa had explained to him before–many of them were still close-knit and followed the rules of survival of the fittest.

  A lot of inter-family communities looked out for themselves and their community first, and might not think twice about hurting or killing travelers in order to get much-needed supplies from the outside world.

  A typical rule of thumb, Alexa had long since learned, was to only approach a settlement if she knew there were kids there–families would be more protective of them, but they were also less likely to mentally scar their children by beating or killing a traveler for their things, and typically had a little more humanity in them due to the presence of their offspring.

  They were also more willing to let travelers stay for a meal and a night in exchange for labor or trade, or sometimes even combat assistance to take down small but potentially deadly packs of zoms wandering the area. Alexa and Casey made use of these safe zones once or twice, although they kept their eyes on their packs the entire time just to be safe, and were careful not to overstay their welcome.

  But eventually all good things came to an end, and that included strings of good luck. About three and a half weeks into their travel, not long after they crossed the border into Ohio and officially slipped into central U.S. territory, things began to get significantly more difficult.

  The East Coast, Alexa learned quickly in her first year, was like 'Intro to the Zombie Apocalypse'. It was still dangerous, very dangerous, if you didn't know what you were doing–but for the most part, if you were careful, you could avoid any major swarms of zoms and survive.

  Central U.S. was like the Hard Mode in any zombie game Alexa had ever played, and there was only one life to work with and no cheat codes or shortcuts. If they screwed up, it was game over, and there was no respawning–unless, of course, it was as an undead monstrosity.

  It started with a significant decrease–and then abrupt vanishing–of any and all centers of human habitation, as the travelers stopped coming and the communities became few and far between until they ceased altogether.

  Then came increased zom sightings, as Alexa and Casey began to stumble more and more frequently across larger and larger packs of zoms, even outside of cities and large towns where one expected a large population of the walking dead.

  The increased sightings of dead heads dropped their pace significantly as they were forced to spend more and more time avoiding them, and it took longer to forage, hunt, scavenge, or search out shelters while constantly watching for and evading the walking dead.

  Safety, never a guaranteed thing to begin with in the apocalypse, decreased significantly as they were forced to abandon the relative protection of the freeways more and more to hunt for necessities. And when one took into account that everything became more difficult to come by, it meant that their pace slowed to an unbearable crawl as they began to spend more and more time looking for sustenance and rest and less and less time traveling.

  Shelter was, by far, the hardest thing to obtain, and the deeper they went into heavily packed zom territory, the harder it was to find something reliable and safe that kept them protected from both the walking dead and the elements alike. Alexa was glad she'd prepped Casey for a lot of this stuff in advance, telling the clone stories and making him recite campsite rules.

  Because things had never been this bad when they went to New Avalon together, and Casey had never experienced zombie attacks to quite t
his violent and terrifying a degree before; she wasn't sure Casey would have adapted as well as he had otherwise.

  Even with all the preparations, they were rapidly entering some of the worst conditions Alexa had ever been forced to deal with, and what followed were some of the most harrowing days and nights either of them had ever experienced. Most of that time blurred together, in Alexa's mind.

  She mostly just remembered days of running for hours at a time, with packs of zombies trailing them relentlessly, or nights curled up in old trees or huddled together on top of sheer boulders or broken buildings that Casey was forced to jump them up to.

  Places that were 'shelters' and 'safe' only in the loosest definitions of the terms. The travel was exhausting and those nights were even more so, when they rarely slept and were always ready to run at the slightest noise, and even the few hours they did manage were not restful.