The day before they had taken steps to ensure success. They had switched vehicles. They had gathered supplies. They had done the best they could to prepare themselves.
Yesterday late they had crossed into Florida and began to get a taste of what they would be facing. The determination was still there, but any optimism there might have been was crushed. No one said it out loud, but Chase thought they might all be thinking it: this was a suicide mission.
He put the Hummer in gear and rolled forward. There was no doubt in his mind that the vehicle would make it through this group. Either through or over. There had been no real problem each time he or whoever driving had done it before. The Hummer was a beast. But they were in the backwoods, in the middle of nowhere, and the groups they were hitting shouldn’t even be there. What would happen when they started hitting the bigger towns? The first of the creepers fell under the wheels, and Chase tried not to think about anything else except making sure the vehicle continued moving forward.
Chapter 2 – Marilyn
Marilyn felt a small thrill when they crossed the state line into Florida, but when she looked at the map, the thrill died. It had been a battle all the way just to get that far. They had tried to take the most direct route, Highway 333, because while the northbound lanes had been packed with cars, the southbound were mostly free of traffic. But not creepers. The creepers were coming up the highway, and there were a lot of them. The Hummer didn’t have any problem with them; they weren’t close enough together to present any kind of problem that way, but the constant slamming of the bodies against the vehicle wore on the nerves. She was sure all of them felt the stress, but it seemed to take the biggest toll on Honey. The dog cowered on the floor, whimpering softly. And there was no avoiding the creepers.
Chase had driven. He had told them he wanted to get used to the Hummer so he could teach them how to handle it, but Marilyn could tell he had been pretty geeked about driving it. By the time they had gone only a mile or maybe two, the honeymoon was over. He was handling the Hummer fine, but the never-ending creepers had worn him out. He had asked Marilyn to look on the map and find another road, a smaller, more indirect road. She found a side road heading east to a smaller highway going south, but when they reached where the side road joined 333, there was no way to get across the northbound side. Cars were bumper to bumper. Chase had said he thought the Hummer would be able to go over the cars, or push them out of the way, but if they disabled the Hummer, that would mean a footrace to get away from the creepers, so he wasn’t anxious to try it.
He had eventually found a small break in the northbound traffic. A big truck had pushed several cars forward, leaving a gap. Marilyn wondered at the terror the driver of the big truck must have felt, seeing approaching creepers, being scared enough to try to drive over the cars in front of him or her. Chase crossed through, and then had driven beside the highway for a little ways to a small road. Marilyn found it on the map. It went north, connected with the road they hadn’t been able to reach. They had then gone east (there had been cars and creepers the whole way, but not as bad as on the big road) and found the smaller highway to the south. The two-lane highway was much like the side road, with some abandoned vehicles and creepers, but not nearly as bad as the four-lane.
When they crossed the state line, the day was almost gone. Marilyn measured the actual distance they had covered since leaving Thomasville. Maybe fifteen miles. She looked over at Chase. He hadn’t slept the night before. “Chase, we need to call it a day. You’re exhausted, and I don’t think I’m ready to drive this thing at night. I’m not afraid of it, but I want a fresh start.” She looked back at Sonya, who was nodding.
“Bad as I want to get where we’re going, I’m not ready to drive yet either. We need to stop for the night.” Sonya reached forward from the back and rubbed Chase’s shoulder. Marilyn had noticed that Sonya had started doing stuff like that. Casual contact. Not a big deal, but kind of unSonya-like.
Chase looked at Marilyn, his eyes bleary. “We need a safe place. We’ve got to get off the road. Inside a barn or something.”
“What about that?” Sonya said from the back seat, pointing. In the distance, a phone tower stood in an open field. The base was surrounded by a chain link fence.
“That will work,” Chase said. He left the highway. An un-gated service road led to the tower. At the tower he got out, rummaged around in the trailer, and came up with bolt cutters. He cut the chain on the gate, pulled the Hummer inside. Marilyn and Sonya got out.
“Dinnertime,” Marilyn said. She pulled the propane stove and a pot from the trailer, and then came up with two cans of tomato soup and a small canned ham. She considered looking for greens, but decided against it. Chase was out on his feet. He needed to eat and get some rest.
While she made dinner Sonya explored outside the fence but returned quickly. “I was nervous the whole time,” Sonya explained. “I just feel like creepers are close, but I didn’t see any that weren’t on the road.” Marilyn looked at Honey, who seemed unconcerned.
“It’s been a long day,” she told Sonya. “My nerves are worn to a frazzle, too. I’ll be running from creepers in my dreams all night, I’m afraid.”
Chase sat on the ground, his back against the one of the tower’s concrete footings. “Go ahead and close the gate. We can leave the windows open while we sleep, anyway. I’m a little nervous about waking up and finding half the rotting population of the state of Florida surrounding us and not being able to get out, but I think we’ll be okay. I think.”
Marilyn wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw Sonya shiver.
Chase slept alone in the Hummer. Marilyn and Sonya had insisted, both because it would be more comfortable, but also because the Hummer reeked of creeper. They had gotten a tent from the trailer and set it up as far from the Hummer as they could. The ground was level, and there were no rocks. Chase went to bed before night fell, but Sonya and Marilyn stayed up until the stars came out. A fire would have been comforting, but they didn’t build one for fear of attracting creepers. Marilyn loved being out in the open anyway, she and Sonya sitting against the same concrete footing Chase had sat against, watching the stars come out. After the day they had experienced, she felt she needed it. Honey lay between them, and they took turns scratching her ears.
“There’s more,” Sonya said.
“More creepers? Well, yeah. We knew there would be.” The thought of how many, many more they would see, would put down, would run from brought Marilyn back to the reality of their situation.
“No, not them.” Sonya sighed in disgust. “Great, thanks for the buzz-kill. No, I mean there are more stars. Look at all of them.”
Marilyn looked. “Wow. Even way out in the woods there weren’t this many. All the light pollution there must have been, and now it’s gone.” The stars were so bright and plentiful she could easily pick out the full shape of the phone tower above her against the starry backdrop.
“One good thing,” Sonya said. “I wasn’t really that big on saving the planet and stuff, but maybe that’s why this happened. God, science, whatever, but I know enough to know we were doing stuff to the planet. Maybe this is the chance for the planet, for nature, to come back.”
Marilyn considered this. The Chief had said he thought 70% of the population would have been affected by the spores. There had been six billion people on the planet. Take 70% out of that and that cut down the population considerably. Then there would be a lot more that died from the bites of the first that fell. Add to that starvation, eventually, and disease, and accidents and everything else. Would it mean the end of the human race? She didn’t think so. What about isolated tribes, maybe down in the Amazon and places like that? Maybe other countries were dealing with things better than the U.S. Maybe other ethnic groups weren’t as affected as the big mixing pot in America. But there would definitely be a change. She stretched and stood.
“Sounds like a conversation to have with Chase. He’d love to talk about that stu
ff, I bet. But I’m going to bed. You coming?”
Sonya stood. “Might as well. I don’t think there’s anything on TV.”
They slept fully dressed, lying on top of their sleeping bags. It was just too warm out to crawl inside. They had sprayed themselves down with insect repellent before going to sleep and left the tent flaps open in hopes of catching any kind of breeze. Marilyn woke once when she heard the rattling of the chain link fence and Honey whine from where she had bedded down just outside of the tent. Even over the smell of bug spray, Marilyn could smell creeper. She crawled out of the tent, trying not to disturb Sonya.
Outside, she turned on the small flashlight she carried. The bright LED bulb sent a beam stabbing through the darkness. She swept it across the fence at shoulder height, finally stopping when the light picked out a lone creeper. Then Marilyn saw Honey sitting ten feet back from the fence, watching the creeper. The creeper stood silent, unmoving, the rotting remains of its fingers hooked through the chain link. Honey sat watching the figure, panting slightly. Marilyn thought about waking the others, but then wondered what the point would be. One creeper. They were so tired. And they had another rough day ahead of them. She decided she would just go back in and lie down herself. She would need rest. She decided that, but she didn’t move.
She stood staring at the creeper. It had been a man. The shirt had probably once been a plain blue work shirt. A simple, button-up blue shirt, the kind she had seen farmers wear, working men. Not a dress shirt. The creeper had on jeans and work boots. When it had been alive, it had been a he, but she couldn’t think of it that way now. She had put down too many to give these things any consideration as human. She found herself walking toward it, first coming even with Honey and then passing the dog. The dog whined. “Shh, Honey,” Marilyn hissed. The dog quieted. Marilyn stopped three feet short of the fence to study the creeper.
The rot and decay assailed her nose first, and then her eyes picked out details. There were maggots in the gray skin where it was torn, but beneath, in the darker muscle, there were none. There should have been. Maybe the fungus kept them at bay somehow. On the forehead, on the knuckles, on the right knee exposed by a tear in the rotting jeans, bone protruded. Around the tears in the skin, in the muscle a black, viscous liquid gleamed in the beam of her flashlight. She thought there should be some trace of red or even brown dried blood, but it was pure blackness. A black tongue protruded from between gray lips, and the teeth appeared unnaturally white against the black gums. The tongue looked dry, velvety. The fungus. Then she looked at the thing’s eyes.
In her mind, the eyes should have been gone long ago. Something in this state of decay should not have anything left in the sockets. But the sockets were filled with white, a brilliant white, smooth and wet-looking. She found herself staring, wondering. There was so much people could tell each other with their eyes. And staring into this thing’s eyes, she finally set all her doubts to rest. This thing was not in any way human. Whatever was once human was long gone. She no longer had to wonder if she was destroying an image of God each time she put one down. She felt no presence of God in the thing before her.
This was the Enemy. She wondered what kind of thoughts it might have, but even if there was some way of knowing she doubted she would ever be able to understand them. This was primitive, more primitive than any animal. This thing’s level of thought was more alien to her than if it had been a reptile, or even an insect. More rudimentary. More base. For a long time she stood transfixed, enveloped and incapacitated by her own normal human thoughts. But finally she shook herself and turned away. As she walked past Honey, she crouched and scratched the dog’s head. Honey licked her hand but didn’t follow her as she continued past.
At the tent, she turned off her flashlight and crawled inside. Sonya groaned in her sleep. Marilyn reached over and patted Sonya’s back as much to feel normal human contact as to comfort the sleeping girl. Marilyn tried to sleep.
The creeper still stood there in the morning light and had been joined by two more. Honey ignored the one which had been there all night, watching the others, pacing with them as they moved along the fence. The creepers ignored the dog, but not the people. As Marilyn, Chase, and Sonya ate breakfast and broke camp the audience grew by two more and there were four creepers dragging themselves along the fence and focusing on the movement of the people inside.
“I think that gives us some idea that we won’t be camping in one spot too long,” Chase observed. “It might take a while, but eventually I think there’d be enough of them that we wouldn’t be able to get out.”
“What if we took them out?” Sonya asked. “I mean, as they arrive. Just thinking about it, when we find my dad’s truck, we may have to look for him a while. That’ll mean setting up some kind of base camp. If we put them down as they arrive, we could reduce the problem.”
Chase took a bite of granola bar and considered. “Yeahhhhh. For a little while. Maybe. It would have to be by hand. Gunfire would probably attract more. But I think it’ll be different when we get down there. We’ll have to figure something else out.”
Marilyn looked around, thinking about the creepers outside the fence times twenty. Times a hundred. “Well, I’m ready to get out of here. Let’s get on the road. Maybe today we can find a place where I don’t have to look at any of them for a while.”
Chapter 3 – Sonya
Since leaving camp, Sonya had worried. More than just staying alive, more than just finding her father. After the events at the church compound, after almost losing Chase, she realized there was more. In this new world, she had learned to care for other people. And she feared losing them.
When they crossed the state line into Florida, she had expected to feel excitement, a sense of accomplishment. Instead, she felt fear. This fear had grown as conditions had grown worse. More creepers. More signs of how bad things had been at the end. The soldiers at Thomasville. Stronger than ever, she doubted. But it wasn’t just the doubt.
Since the beginning, she’d always recognized the possibility of her father being dead in an abstract way, but she had never once really doubted she would find him. And besides, what did she have to lose, or what did she have to gain by not looking for him? Well, that was then. Now she had a lot to lose and maybe a future to gain by returning to the camp. There were people there that would have been glad to see her and Chase and Marilyn stay, people that would welcome their help, people that maybe even needed them. Was she taking her friends on a wild goose chase with no chance of success? They could die down here with her, and there had always been the chance her father might have been dead before she even left Omaha. Her thoughts were interrupted when Chase jerked the wheel to miss a group of creepers and sent her sprawling across the back of the Hummer, tangling her with Honey. One of the dog’s claws scratched her arm and she yelled in pain. Honey cowered into the floor and Sonya felt bad.
“You okay back there?” Chase asked.
“Yeah,” Sonya said. “Just wasn’t paying attention.”
They had only left the fenced-in phone tower fifteen minutes ago, but creepers already filled the road. She watched Marilyn try to focus on the map in the swerving vehicle, studied the tall blonde. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and there was a smudge of dirt on her check. There hadn’t been a real chance to wash up this morning, but Marilyn was still beautiful. A heroine in a movie, maybe. Others might look at her and think she was a little plain, but Sonya knew. There was so much beauty inside that it spilled out. Tall and blond, smart, and kind. And Sonya’s friend. A real friend.
“Find me a smaller road yet?” Chase asked. “If you can find a dirt road on that map, we’ll take it.”
“I’m looking. There’s lots of roads, but they all seem to end up back on big roads,” Marilyn replied.
“We’ll do that if we have to,” Chase said. “I can do a big road long enough to find another small one. But I can’t drive like this all day,” he said as yet another creeper bounced off the fron
t. Even in the bigger vehicle, heavily armored, the jarring thud of the body caused Sonya to clench her teeth.
And there was Chase. Sonya looked at him, but she couldn’t look at him too long. If she looked at him too long, she wanted to touch him. To just hold his hand, to rub his shoulders. She hated that in herself. She didn’t want to be that girl. But she couldn’t help it. She could stop herself from acting that way when she tried, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking. When she had thought she lost him, she had realized he meant more to her than just a friend. Even with the world being what it was, she realized that. At the beginning, she had just considered him a helpful companion to aid her in achieving her goal. She was going to use him. But since then, things had changed.
It wasn’t just that he was good looking. Actually, in the beginning that had put her off. It wasn’t that he was strong, tall, and everything girls are supposed to want. She had never been a girl that liked that kind of thing, and she had been usually attracted to quiet nerdy guys, the opposite of Chase. But he was smart, and she liked that. And he was kind, and she liked that. And he was funny. She had gotten to know him, and she had gotten to know that just like her, he had a side to him that he hid from the world. She hid hers under silence and shyness and avoidance. He hid his under sarcasm, loud social sarcasm. But they were alike in that way. They’d both lived with hurt and learned to hide it.
“Just up ahead is an intersection,” Marilyn said. “Don’t miss it. Small town just past it, but if you go left we’ll be on a smaller road going east. Then we’ll go south on another little road, 255 I think, and that will get us down past I10.”
“How close do we get to I75?” Chase asked.
“Not very,” Marilyn replied.
“Good.” Chase swerved to avoid a group of creepers and then slowed as they approached the intersection. At the intersection, a blockade had been set up by a mixture of police and National Guard vehicles. Chase left the road, driving down a small incline and into a yard, picking his way through scattered trees. Sonya caught glimpses of piles of bodies at the intersection, and among them creepers walked. They all turned as the Hummer drove past, and some were close enough to begin following. Chase was concentrating on getting through the trees and Sonya didn’t think he noticed, but the creepers were gaining on them. Sonya looked ahead anxiously. At last, the vehicle accelerated ahead as Chase cleared the last obstacle and the creepers were left behind.
After Everything Else (Book 3): Creeper Revelation Page 2