“Never better!”, Andrew yelled in response, his mouth wide open with a huge smile.
John smirked to himself at his companion’s joy, reminiscing in his head over the first firefight he’d ever been in, and remembering that same sense of overflowing adrenaline and fear that he too had once felt. His smile grew even further though when he looked once more into the mirrors, confirming one final time that nobody appeared to be following. He wasn’t surprised, he wouldn’t have given chase if he were in their shoes, there was after all no guarantee of any decent supplies in the truck, so why waste the fuel, and why risk the lives? At least that was the theory he was sticking with, and judging by the empty highway to their rear, it appeared to be correct.
* * *
After several more miles of regular road – all of which were done at a much more economical pace than the bridge crossing – Andrew had finally calmed down enough to once more hold a regular conversation.
“So how far away are we now?”, he questioned.
“At this pace, an hour, but once we turn off the highway we’re bound to hit a few wrecks, so I’d say about two”, he responded. “Should make it there in time for nightfall”, he added, looking up at the sun, part way through its daily afternoon descent.
“So we’re not heading back today?”, Andrew asked.
“Not likely”, John answered, “All these hold-ups got us well behind schedule, important thing is getting there with the light so we can scout the place out nice and easy.
“Yeah but-“
“BANG”.
Andrew was cut short by a tremendously loud noise, causing both men to duck for cover instantly, afraid that this time their luck might just run out. Almost immediately the truck began to rumble and veer to the side slightly, and John quickly realised the situation was much less dangerous than an attack, albeit still a very unfortunate one. This was no gunshot, no group with a grudge finally catching their trail; it was a blowout, from one of the rear tires.
“God damn it!”, he exclaimed, punching the dashboard as he did. He could see now from the driver-side mirror that the rear right tyre was in tatters, pieces of rubber strewn across the highway behind, and the truck becoming more and more difficult to keep straight.
“One of their shots must have grazed the damn tyre, guess it’s been wearing closer and closer to going the more we drove”, John hypothesised.
“Is there a spare?”, Andrew asked.
“Better had be, otherwise it’s looking like you picked the wrong vehicle after all”, John replied, as he began reducing the Ford’s speed.
Andrew simply stared back at him, unsure whether to smile at his joke, or be worried at his statement.
Slowly grinding to a shaky halt, John killed the truck’s engine, clambered out of the cabin and walked to the back. Andrew remained in his chair, his neck bent round so he could see the results of John’s search, his palms sweating and his fingers twitching nervously, as if waiting for news from an operating theatre. The seconds began to feel like hours, as he waited to find out whether they were in for a quick tyre change, a lengthy trek to the nearest decent vehicle, or a night spent sleeping rough in the woods.
Occasionally, his eyes would dart to the road behind them, looking into the distance for the presence of the ‘Bridge Guards’ as he had named them in his head. Would they come to finish the job? Like a hunter tracking a deer he knows he’s injured but not killed? Perhaps ready to put the final kill-shot into each of their heads? It was not a thought he wanted to entertain any longer than necessary, but it was one he found incredibly difficult to put out of his mind.
Thankfully, as he looked back to the rear of the truck once more, he saw the hand of his companion rise up above the tailgate, a thumbs up symbol emerging, to indicate he’d found the spare. Smiling frantically and allowing his breathing to return back to normal levels, Andrew hurriedly climbed out to help.
* * *
Replacing the tyre took much longer than it should have done. Both men spent well over half an hour bashing away at the housing of the spare, trying in vain for so long to release it from the mangled shell that had held it in place, its release catch completely deformed courtesy of a stray bullet back at the bridge. Eventually though, they managed to free it, and John set about replacing the existing wheel, now little more than an alloy loosely coated with melted shards of torn tread. Andrew meanwhile resumed his duties of watching the roads – a job that was thankfully uneventful – whilst also helping to fill the tank from the jerry cans they’d been carrying with them.
“That should do it”, John said after some time, patting the truck as he got back to his feet, coated from head to toe in the dust and dirt he’d been lying in for so long. “Let’s get going!”, he ordered, followed by both men climbing into the trucks cabin, Andrew having just finished filling the tank.
As they started the truck, the fruits of Andrew’s labour gave both men a tremendous morale boost, the rising fuel indicator – which was watched intently by each of them – eventually stopping almost three quarters of the way up.
The main problem facing the duo at this point however was the light, and as the pair turned off of the last section of freeway, and began their approach to the campsite along the much slower but still very much passable country roads, they couldn’t help but notice the setting sun, just barely visible above the treeline running along the road.
“Reckon we’ll make it in time?”, Andrew asked.
“Not likely”, John responded, “Best not to try now. We’ll get settled in somewhere nearby, sleep in this for the night, then head over at first light, be safer that way”, he explained.
Andrew nodded in response, looking around the truck for possible sleeping spots. It was no luxury hotel, but it could have been much worse. The back seats would make for a decent bed, and the front ones would be comfy enough to spend a night on too, once reclined.
“But Andrew?”, John asked.
“Yeah?”, Andrew responded.
“I call the back seats”, John declared, smirking.
* * *
It wasn’t the best sleeping arrangements in the world, but compared to some of John’s time spent at war, it wasn’t the worst either. He had settled into the back of the truck, using the row of seats as a makeshift bed, with the driver-side headrest detached and behind his head as a pillow. Andrew meanwhile had reclined the passenger seat and was trying his hardest to get comfortable, though he felt somewhat out-of-his-element. Even now, despite the way the world had become, he was welcomed into a perfectly good king-sized bed every night back at the Motel, and so the front seat of a truck was quite the change of scenery.
“John”, Andrew said, as he finally nestled into a comfortable position, “You’ve never mentioned much about what happened to you at the end, you know, how you got through the panic, how you got to the motel, that sort of thing”, he said.
“I’m not real big on telling stories”, John responded.
“Oh come on, we’ve been through enough at this point surely?”, Andrew asked, “I know we’re not exactly sat round a campfire, but I can flick the heater on and we can pretend?”, he chuckled.
A smile just barely crept onto John’s face, before eventually he spoke. “Fair enough”.
Immediately Andrew’s face lit up, ready to soak up every word.
“I remember it pretty well, I was at home depot, picking up a couple things for the house. People’d been talking bout’ folk going crazy and biting each other on the news, but most just figured it was like every other scare, like bird flu but with rabies or somethin’. Anyway, I was walking round the store, alongside the windows, and I hear this faint scream from someone outside. I look up and this woman’s just standing there while this trampy looking guy, covered in blood, just starts tearing and biting away at her. I didn’t get it, it was like she was so frozen with fear she couldn’t move. I drop everything and go running out, everyone did. We all pulled this freak off of this poor lady and lay her
down on the floor. I remember this young kid took off his sweater and put it under her head, just as she closed her eyes like she was goin’ a’sleep. Meanwhile a couple guys hold back this other guy and someone starts calling the police. None of it was any different than… if you see a couple people fighting in the street… or someone being robbed or something”.
John paused for a moment, looking over to Andrew to make sure he was still listening, before continuing. “This guy though, he just kept going, he wouldn’t stop! Eventually there was a different person holding every part of his body and he still kept trying to bite, we just figured he was crazy or somethin’. After ‘bout 20 minutes, we start wondering if the Police are even coming, just as this lady wakes back up. But she didn’t just wake up, she damn near flew up, sunk her teeth right into that same kid who gave her a god damn sweater to rest her head on. Straight away she starts doing exactly what this other guy was doing, only now there aint’ enough people to hold em both down. After we struggled with ‘em for a minute, one of the guys picks up this two by four he’d just bought, and just smacks the shit outta’ the first guy, knocks him out cold. We all started yelling, telling him he was sick, but at least it gave us enough hands to hold the woman down, cause she was struggling even more than him now”.
“After a while, we decide to call the cops again, but this time I call. I still remember the woman answering, she sounded scared as anything, and when I told her what was going on, she said…”, John paused for a moment, trying his hardest to remember the call word for word, “She told me to ‘put them down’. I couldn’t believe it, the god damn 911 operator was telling me to kill these people, I thought it was some kind of sick joke, but she just kept saying it, ‘put them down’, ‘don’t give them a chance to bite again’, ‘nobody is coming to help’, it was crazy!”.
“Did you do it?”, Andrew interrupted to ask, “Did you put them down?”.
“We didn’t have a chance, within a couple seconds these big army trucks started rolling in, screaming at people telling them to get to the local gymnasium, acting like they were rounding people up ahead of a storm or something. One of them came over and put a bullet in the guy and then the lady too, right in the head. Everyone just screamed, most folk’d never seen someone killed before, they couldn’t take the sight of it”.
“None of us understood, but we knew something was going on, so they all started running towards the gym, herded like cattle by those god damn trucks. I wasn’t going though, I had-”, John stopped suddenly, realising how close he’d come to giving away the existence of his family, “I had stuff, back at the house, I had to get back there. I tried to get past the trucks, but they grabbed me, started pushing me along with everyone else”.
“What was in the house that was so important?”, Andrew asked.
“Guns”, John lied almost instinctively. “All my guns were in that house, all I had on me was my Ruger, only thing the damn state would let me carry out in the open”, he explained.
“Well at least you only left guns behind. That sort of stuff that can be replaced after all, you know?”, Andrew said, not knowing the significance of what he was saying.
“Yeah”, John replied, “Nothing left behind that couldn’t be replaced”, he muttered.
“I think that’ll do it for tonight”, John said after a few seconds, “Let’s get some sleep”, he added, to the nodding agreement of his companion, who quickly turned back into his seat, and appeared to drift off almost instantly. John on the other hand lay awake, thinking back to the moment the soldiers told him he couldn’t go back.
The story he’d told wasn’t a complete lie. It was a supermarket not a home depot, a quick stop into town to get supplies for the rest of the drive up to the campsite, ready for their family holiday. John truly had been alone though, his family still asleep back at the motel, ready to go whenever he returned. He thought back to the hour he spent being shuffled towards that gymnasium, before finally being able to slip out and head back to the campsite, ditching his car after it became stuck in one of the many panic stricken traffic jams that by then was already so common place. Finally he thought back to the moment he eventually arrived back at the motel, only to find that it was virtually deserted, save for a few locals who had taken refuge there, the same few locals who now made up the majority of its residents. It had been a long road since the infection first spread, but John was adamant that the road could still end with him finding his family, and maybe, just maybe, that road would end at Apple River.
* * *
A slow creeping of light rose up John’s face, as the sun rose over the treetops, stirring him gently awake. Quickly inspecting the area, John was happy to see that Andrew remaining in the passenger seat dozing away, and that nothing appeared to have changed since the night before.
“Up you get”, John instructed, forgoing the more relaxing, slower wakeup he himself had received, in favour of getting them both up and out as early as possible. “We’ve got tracks to make”, he added, getting out of the truck and stretching.
Slowly Andrew began to awaken, his eyes taking their time to adjust to the light, and his head only barely managing to remember the current situation.
John meanwhile climbed back into the driver’s seat, and started the engine, clearly keen to head out.
“Jesus hold on a second”, Andrew barked grumpily, pulling his chair back upright as he did.
“Sorry”, John responded, “But we might as well get moving”, he said, the truck moving off in time with the words leaving his mouth.
Andrew simply stared disapprovingly, both at the rude awakening he’d received, and at the confusing excitement on John’s face at the thought of arriving at a campsite Andrew thought of as nothing more than a supply run.
John had manipulated Andrew well, convincing him that the need to arrive with light was to allow them to better see the supposedly deserted campsite. The actual reason of course being John’s desire not to raise an alarm by stumbling into the fully populated camp at night, and getting confused for the roaming undead. It was a risk he didn’t want to take, and so one he would happily lie to avoid.
And so the truck began the short journey to the campsite from their night-stop, rounding several winding corners on the now woodland engulfed road, before eventually catching site of a clearing in the distance, the sort of open, flat clearing that would make for a great camping spot.
“That looks like the place up ahead”, John eventually said, “Apple River Campsite”.
“Oh yeah”, Andrew replied, his eyes now attempting to focus on the partially obscured land. “It looks like there’s plenty of tents left”, he exclaimed happily, his eyes still catching small, occasional glimpses of detail. “Wow, hold up!”, he suddenly spouted.
“What it is?”, John replied, not slowing the pace of the truck.
“There are biters up there! A couple of them over by the tents on the left!”, he yelped.
John slowed the truck so as to maintain the illusion of his surprise. But he was not surprised at the sight of things moving, he was only surprised that Andrew had not noticed what John had.
“Andrew”, he said, “Those things aint’ dead”.
Chapter 11: Telling Tales around the Campfire
The pair stared at the series of figures up ahead, mostly concentrated to the immediate vicinity of various tents or vehicles. John had stopped the truck as soon as he’d realised what they were looking at, but the most surprising factor was that the people themselves seemed uninterested, unfazed by the sudden arrival of the unidentified vehicle. John held the truck in position for a few seconds to make sure, waiting to see if anybody reacted, but for every pair of eyes he saw focus on the huge F150, another head simply turned away uncaringly.
“You sure they’re alive?”, Andrew asked, unconvinced.
“Looks like it”, John confirmed.
“But, they’re not coming over? Shouldn’t they be checking us out or something?”, Andrew asked again.
“Whoa hold up!”, Andrew interrupted, “We’re here for a supply run, we’re obviously not gonna get much from a campsite full of people, we should head back, right?”, he asked, still fully believing the supply run cover that John had thrown over the journeys true purpose.
“Well, we’ve come all this way, we might as well find out what’s going on here, maybe they’ve got some stuff to spare”, John responded, as the truck made its way slowly through the open entrance gate. Cautiously he watched as more campers briefly inspected the truck, but each simply returned to their breakfasts.
Arriving at what appeared to be a makeshift car-park, John disembarked, closely followed – albeit begrudgingly – by Andrew. Locking the truck behind him, John couldn’t help but smirk at the thought of now effectively owning the huge Ford, with the keys to prove it, and the real owner probably roaming the streets with the rest of the undead. It had no doubt cost someone out there a pretty penny, especially given that it was decked out with a full leather interior, and more gadgets than he knew what to do with. But in this new world, it was little more than four wheels, and a place to sleep if required, not that that made John any less glad to have it.
As the pair approached the nearest campers – a family of four all sat around a log-fire outside their ragged old RV – they got their first serious attention, each member of the family slowly scanning the newcomers up and down, deciding whether or not to acknowledge their presence.
“Mornin’”, John interrupted with a smile, taking the decision out of their hands.
Nobody replied, each of them instead going back to their breakfasts.
“Forgive my intrusion, but we just got here and wondered if you could tell us anything about this place?”, he continued, as the father of the group slowly looked up, rearranging his spectacles as his long, thick black hair knocked them askew.
Aftermath (Book 1): Only The Head Will Take Them Down Page 8