by A. M. Keen
“How are we gonna get ourselves out of this?” Aaron whispered, crouching at the boot of a Peugeot 2008. They’d sandwiched themselves between its rear bumper and the front bumper of a Ford Transit, hiding them from eyesight. It had been a tight squeeze but they’d managed it.
“Just wait,” Bucky ordered, peering from the rear. The infected appeared worse. More contusions, more open wounds and what appeared to be rotting flesh in areas around their lips and eyes. He recalled the Prime Minister’s televised address stating that anyone infected would display these symptoms. That meant these poor losers had begun the decomposition process whilst still alive.
“What are you thinking?” Johnny whispered from the back.
“There’s another group of crazies coming up, then it’s clear for about a hundred meters or so. We can break then and make a run for it.”
Aaron frowned. “Where to?”
“God knows, Aaron! I don’t know!” Bucky retorted. “Anywhere but here!”
“So, we’re gonna be running blind?”
“Yes, we will. But you know what? We’ll be running. These will be walking.”
“Will you two cut it out!” Lacey snapped. “This is hardly the time.”
“I have an idea,” Johnny added to the conversation. “Stay here.”
“Johnny!” Lacey snapped as he moved around the vehicle and out of sight.
“What the hell is he doing?” Bucky asked. The herd of infected drew closer on his side of the vehicle. The right-hand side that Johnny vanished behind stood protected by the car. As long as he stayed there, he wouldn’t be spotted.
The approaching bodies moaned and swayed with erratic body movements. A woman with long, grey hair cocked her head to one side and squealed as she passed Bucky. He noted the streams of dried blood upon her skin and the dark, crimson blotches on a floral skirt. A man in overalls passed by next, his pale white face peering toward the sky, not the direction he was walking.
The car clicked. Bucky’s heart sank. A man ambled past, his face rotted to the core. Red bone protruded from the skin. He shambled past, drooling black liquid onto his jacket. They hadn’t noticed. The wave of crazies ended with a woman clad in an ambulance uniform. She staggered and moaned her way toward the football stadium. The popping of gunfire still echoed every now and then. Someone was still fighting back there.
“Guys,” Johnny whispered, returning to the rear.
“What in the blue hell have you been doing, man?” Bucky asked.
Johnny smiled. “This car has keys in the ignition. I noticed it before we hid down here. Even better, it’s an automatic. Guess what I can drive?”
“What?” Lacey replied. “You’re not old enough to drive yet.”
“Of course I’m not, but I used to drive my dad’s car around the abandoned airfield at Chelerton before they built a whole heap of houses on there. You know, every Sunday morning for fun. That was an automatic.”
“Serious?” Aaron asked.
“Serious. Honestly. I may not be able to drive us wherever we are going, but I’d rather be in a moving car and get out of here quick, than stay here and wait for more of these assholes to show up.”
“I don’t know,” Bucky began, “what happens if you crash?”
“Unbelievable. You are absolutely unbelievable. You know what?” Johnny began, holding his hands up, “I’m doing it, with or without you. I’ve followed you through everything since we left that farm, and now I ask that you do the same for me, and you have a problem? Screw it. I’m going, and I’m going now. You guys have a choice. You can either come with me or you stay here. It’s up to you.”
Johnny vanished alongside the car once more.
“Johnny!” Lacey whispered.
Bucky sighed. “Alright, get in.” He followed the group around the bumper. Lacey had called shotgun, meaning the two boys shared the back. Aaron climbed across the upholstery and slumped down meaning Bucky took the seat behind Johnny.
“I knew you’d change your mind,” the driver quipped.
Bucky leaned into him. “In a world full of zombies, don’t let me die in a car crash, okay?”
“Remember, Bucky, I saved you from the last one. Have a little faith.”
Bucky pulled the door closed behind him without a slam. Lacey settled in the passenger side after climbing across the driver’s seat.
Johnny reached down and pressed the lock button, securing all the doors.
“Do we even know if this car works?” Bucky asked. “If it was abandoned with its keys still in the ignition, maybe it’s dead?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Johnny replied. He turned the ignition. The Peugeot coughed and shuddered on the tarmac before cutting out. He engaged it once more. The vehicle quaked beneath them, attempting to strain itself to life. The repeated cough of the engine began to attract attention.
“Please say you can get this thing started.” Lacey said, clutching the rifle to her chest.
“Shit!” Johnny grimaced, hitting the steering wheel. “Come on!”
Bucky peered through the rear windscreen. The ambulance lady shambled back toward them.
Again, the car chugged and shuddered. The drooling skeleton guy appeared from the darkness.
Bucky squirmed. “Johnny…”
“Yes, alright!” he snapped.
Aaron’s window thudded. The snarling, pale face of a young man pressed against it, smearing dark ooze across the window. The ambulance lady pressed against Lacey’s door. Johnny turned over the ignition. Nothing. Drooling skeleton guy ambled around the vehicle and peered into Johnny’s window. The roof pounded as ambulance lady grew frustrated. Ahead of them in the road, a herd of more infected shambled toward them. Bucky closed his eyes. Everything they’d done, how far they’d come… Johnny turned the ignition. Bucky crossed his fingers. The engine roared to life.
“Yes!” Johnny screamed, flipping off the skeleton guy. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
He reached down and dropped the transmission into drive. The car roared but remained motionless. “Come on!” he screamed.
“Hand break, idiot,” Lacey replied before reaching down and releasing it. The car moved forward as Johnny engaged the accelerator.
Bucky leant toward the driver. “Go slow and they’ll brush past you. If you hit them at speed they’ll just slow you down.”
The car weaved between other abandoned vehicles and, just as Bucky had said, the snarling, clawing infected that reached out to them bounced away from the car whenever they made contact. They soon became engulfed by rotting, swaying bodies expelling dark liquid from their growling mouths.
“Just keep going,” Bucky said, still leaning into the front.
The car continued, bouncing the infected away like bumpers in a pinball machine whenever they pressed against the vehicle’s body.
“There’s a clearing,” Johnny said. “Just there. Up ahead. Looks like the infected here are the last of the big pack.”
Bucky nodded. “Great. Let’s get through it and see where the road takes us.”
Their car chugged along the road passing the last of the crazies and entering a clear area.
“Yeah ha!” Johnny screamed.
“Wooo!” Lacey replied, beaming ear to ear.
Bucky tapped his shoulder. “Well done, mate. Good job.”
The car continued forward, finding a few infected along the stretch, but nothing that could trouble them or their progress.
They came to a roundabout. Johnny brought the vehicle to a standstill.
“Where do we go?” he asked the passengers. “Anyone have any suggestions?”
Silence engulfed the kids for a moment before Lacey spoke up. “Home,” she replied, with a certainty in her voice.
“Home?” Aa
ron asked, repeating her statement.
“Yes. We were supposed to be heading there tomorrow, before all of this happened to us. Our school is being used to take refugees, like the football stadium did. The big difference is that our school is huge. I know most of the population is gone, but if there’s any chance our families survived, I think that’s where they’ll be.”
Bucky looked to Aaron. “What do you think, Aaron?”
“Suits me. As long as it’s safe, that’s all I care about. I don’t think any of us have anywhere else to go, so yes. Let’s go there,” Aaron said.
Johnny looked across his shoulder. “Bucky?”
Bucky nodded. “Yes. Lacey’s right. Aaron’s right. That’s the place to go. I’m not sure where we are or how we get there, but I think that’s our destination.”
“You want me to follow the sign for the main road?”
He sighed. “We have a big decision to make right now and one we all must agree on. If we take the main road we’ll find our way back, but we run the risk of being caught like last time. Clowns, infected, we’d be vulnerable. This car will only get us so far before we’d have to stop and make the rest of our journey on foot. If we went through the countryside there’d be less crazies to deal with but we wouldn’t know which roads to follow to get back. We’d probably get further in the car, but maybe not in the right direction. It’s a tough one.”
“School is on the outskirts of town,” Aaron began, explaining the situation. “The sign over there says, ‘Liston Vale’. The school is in the next town along in Henshaw Ash. Don’t pay any attention to these little shitty towns and villages with their roads that run out into the middle of nowhere. If we follow the main road, we’ll find our way back.”
“We have this now,” Lacey added, lifting the rifle. “We’re better protected now than we have ever been.”
“As long as the bullets hold out,” Aaron added.
“That’s the thing,” Bucky replied, thinking the situation through some more. “We know we can hide in a car if a herd of infected come at us, but it’s the un-infected I’m worried about. Who’s not to say there’s more gangs out there, like the clowns, waiting for people like us to walk on into their lives?”
Johnny looked to him. “Bucky, the world has gone to shit, now. Nowhere is safe anymore, not the roads, the countryside or the towns we’re going to pass through to get back. Living is a risk. If there’s a road we can take to get home sooner rather than later, I’d take that road all day long and suffer the consequences.”
Bucky looked to his friends. “So, we’re all decided, then? We’re going to take the main road?”
Lacey nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
Bucky smiled. “See, you don’t need me to lead you.”
The car pulled away taking the junction that would lead them to the main road. Bucky was right, though. It was the un-infected that posed the greatest threat. Especially when they watched from afar, noting which turn their vehicle had made.
Eight
Rain pattered the windscreen as the car continued onward toward the dual carriageway. The outskirts of town had been relatively quiet and the infected that wandered in these areas posed little to no threat. The car passed by all of them without any trouble, the occupants watching as the crazies growled and reached out, almost appearing to be reaching to them for help. On the occasion that one came in contact with the vehicle, they bounced away without a fuss. Driving slowly through the infestation had proved a touch of genius. In all the video games and movies Bucky had played and watched, vehicles ploughed through the zombie masses at speed causing maximum damage but halting the journey of the people travelling inside them. Here, any damage caused was superficial and did not affect the car’s performance.
Lacey had attempted to find a radio broadcast they could listen to for any new information they may have missed whilst away from a public broadcast, but all she could find thus far were automated advice readings and snow.
“Hey, look. I think we’re here,” Johnny said, pointing out the road sign in his headlights.
‘Liston Vale’ appeared on a white background with an arrow that pointed to the left. “Ten miles. Any other day and it wouldn’t seem so far away,” he said, reading the sign.
Johnny followed the sign and turned onto a slip road. A few cars sat on the descending hill, but nothing that could stop their vehicle from moving between them. The car swayed as Johnny manoeuvredfrom right to left.
“What’s the road like?” Aaron asked from his seat behind Lacey.
Bucky peered through his window. “I can’t see much. Doesn’t look too busy from what I can see.”
Johnny joined the road. A few static vehicles rested across the double lanes, but nothing like Bucky expected.
“This is weird,” he said, noting the absence of vehicles.
“What?” asked Lacey.
“This. I mean, I’d expect more cars on the road than what are out there right now.”
“There’s a few on the other side,” Johnny stated, pointing out abandoned vehicles across the barrier. “Maybe there was more heading into town than there were coming out?”
“Maybe,” Bucky sighed.
“Empty road is good for me,” Aaron began, also peering out through his window. “It just means a quicker travel time to get back home. I never in my life ever believed I’d be so desperate to return to school.”
Johnny increased the speed. Bucky looked to the dash and noted the twenty-five he had averaged through town had increased to just over forty. More vehicles emerged on their side. Infected popped up here and there, staggering and reaching out as the car drove by. They posed little threat for the time being. As long as the car continued onward, their chances of reaching the school would increase. Every mile that passed by, Bucky became more and more uneasy. It was too simple. They reached the turning for Liston Vale and drove onto the slip road. Johnny slowed at the tee junction where white signs pointed left and right from across the way. According to the arrows, Liston Vale and Fendon could be found by turning left. Turning right would lead them to Henshaw Ash and back to school.
“Henshaw Ash. There we are. Only five miles,” Johnny said, his voice tinged with excitement.
“No way,” Aaron gasped.
“I kid you not, man. Five miles. That is all we have left.” Johnny turned the car and followed the road sign. “Shit, guys! I know where we are! We follow this road and we come to Henshaw where the Industrial estate is. You know, the one you can see from the first floor of the maths block? We’re nearly there, peeps.”
The road to Henshaw Ash took them through the countryside. For the second time in two days, Bucky noted dawn breaking upon the horizon. At least the car he found himself in this time was moving.
A valley of trees reached across the road forming a tunnel of greenery as they passed by. An infected had become tangled in wire fencing, snapping and snarling at them as they continued past. They weaved left and right, up and down as the countryside passed by on an uneven road until the sign for Henshaw Ash and its industrial estate appeared on their left.
“You want me to take a short cut and drive through the estate? This road here carries on toward town, and you know what traffic is like at the Slipman roundabout. It may be clogged if everyone got that far and then baled.”
“Yes, it makes sense,” Bucky replied. Slipman roundabout was a complete nightmare. The council had been in the process of starting work there to ease the traffic, something that would never now be completed.
Johnny turned their car onto the estate.
“Look at this,” Aaron began, peering at the emptiness. “This place was always so busy.”
Some lorries remained in place at the logistics company but otherwise the estate stood empty. Papers flapped by in the early morning breeze.
They conti
nued onward. Around the buildings they drove with not a soul in sight. Offices stood abandoned. Car parks remained empty.
“Look,” Lacey stated, pointing out through the windscreen. A lorry had been parked across the road, halting any progress by vehicle.
Johnny pulled up to a standstill. “Shit. I guess we’re gonna have to go back to the roundabout.”
“There could be people here,” she replied.
“There must be. That lorry didn’t get like that by itself,” Aaron added.
Johnny turned to them. “What should I do, then?”
“If we go back now we could end up stuck at the roundabout, which is further away,” Aaron explained. “The only thing that separates this estate from the school is an area of wasteland down there. If we make the rest on foot, it will be twenty minutes at the most.”
“I don’t know,” Johnny sighed, “I kind of like the car now we’ve been travelling a while. It just feels safer.”
“We walked so far before this,” Lacey said, “twenty minutes is not going to make much of a difference now. I’d take the risk.”
“What about you, Bucky?” Aaron asked.
Bucky rubbed his eyes. Lack of sleep had started to weigh down upon him. “I don’t know. Walk, I think. There’s nothing much between here and school. Besides, our cross country running route comes onto this estate. Mr Peterson used to tell us the distance was no longer than a mile and a half. We’re not far now. I just want to get there and get some rest. Walking will be quicker.”
“Looks like we’re walking,” Lacey responded.
Johnny killed the ignition. “Walking it is.”
They exited the car without a sound. The early morning breeze gusted about them, rippling their uniforms and hair as it danced by. It carried with it a sharp bite, chilling Bucky as he stepped into the cold, summer dawn. Lacey took the lead, clutching the rifle with both hands in case it would be needed.