“I don’t see anything besides the cars,” Andy said. “You?”
The crunch of broken reflector pieces being ground into the asphalt gave an eerie cadence to the otherwise silent hillside. “No . . . nothing. It doesn’t look too old though. I guess it could be from yesterday or the day before.”
Michelle was still looking backward as Andy crested the hill and slowed, coming to a gradual stop as he uttered the two words that are practically guaranteed to ruin your day.
“Oh shit.”
Michelle swiveled back around and looked; echoing his speech. Standing on the road in front of them, scattered between twenty and one hundred yards away, were at least twenty-five gray-skinned, infected walkers. They started moving slowly toward the truck . . . toward her and Andy. As much as that set her stomach twirling, there was something else in the picture. Something impossible to miss. Down the road she could clearly see huge columns of smoke. Fort Hammer was burning.
Chapter 21
April 24th, Eric part 2
*click*
It feels like there’s a knife twisting in my gut. I can’t sit down, I can’t stand still. I think I’ve hobbled about thirty miles pacing back and forth in the hallway, waiting for Doc to come back out. Rebecca came out a few minutes ago. She put on her best “fake medical professional reassuring smile” as she walked towards me. The question my face asked was the same, always the same. Another practiced smile from her was accompanied by the answer I had heard the last five times, “No change.” She reached up and put an encouraging hand on my shoulder . . . “Keep praying,” she said. I nodded, thanking her again.
“I’m going out on the deck to get some air, let me know if anything changes, anything at all . . . OK?” I said.
“Of course, but make sure you drink lots of fluids, orange juice or water . . . no alcohol—we might need some more of your blood.”
Blood. There was that word again. Seems like I’m surrounded by it. Swimming in it. I can’t stop thinking how much of it is going to be on my hands for the rest of my life. However long that is . . .
I limped out to the deck.
April 22nd, Michelle part 2
The scene in front of them was surreal. Shambling, gray-skinned walkers were moving slowly up the road, framed by the distant backsplash of dark smoke and flames.
“Look down there,” Andy said, pointing. “Is that what I think it is?”
Michelle squinted, but couldn’t really tell, so she grabbed the binoculars and raised them to her eyes.
“Don’t let them get too close,” she mumbled as she turned the focus adjustment wheel. The magnification of the compact, rubber-coated binoculars was more than adequate to see that every one of the infected was injured in some way. As she slowly scanned down the road, a sinking feeling that started in her gut quickly morphed into a little voice inside of her head that said, “Do the math girl, you’re looking at it but you’re not adding it up.” Michelle increased the magnification as far as it would go and focused down the road where Andy had indicated. It was maybe 150 yards away, just as the road was curving out of her line of sight.
“Oh no,” she sighed.
Andy said, “Is that a . . .”
“School bus,” she finished for him, comprehension cascading through her mind as that little voice rang his bell and said, “We have a winner.”
All of the walkers were kids—high school Michelle guessed as she scanned back through the crowd approaching them. Some of them still had backpacks on, others were dressed in their school colors—jackets and matching shirts. All were injured. There was one cheerleader in full uniform. Half of her wavy blond hair—along with the scalp underneath it—was folded over, covering the side of her face like a macabre earmuff. Another kid, pimply face beneath artificially bright blue hair was missing his right arm from the elbow down. She was zooming the binoculars back out for a wider view when . . . SLAM . . . the truck shook with a heavy impact and Michelle let out an involuntary scream, dropping the binoculars as she did. Andy swore and they both looked out the driver’s side window. Sickly, amber colored eyes stared back. A blood encrusted grin pressed against the glass as a low growl vibrated through. Andy swore again and slammed the truck into reverse, cutting the wheel all the way as he mashed on the accelerator. The engine gunned to life and threw the truck into a tight spin. The momentum carried them through a half circle, stopping when the tailgate smashed into a small tree on the side of the road. The truck sputtered and died. It was Michelle’s turn to swear. Andy reached for the ignition key as Michelle pulled the Glock out of her holster. SLAM! The feral ghoul shouldered into the truck again, making it rock. Andy turned the key—nothing. Out of the corner of her eye, Michelle saw him trying to start the truck again. There was no sound—it wasn’t even turning over. The ghoul impacted the back quarter panel as Andy let loose more profanity. Michelle was spinning in her seat, trying to keep an eye on the location of the feral when she heard Andy say, “I’m such an idiot.” Two seconds later the truck started. Michelle felt the momentum shift as Andy put it in drive and started to take off. The ghoul snarled and leapt into the bed of the truck with a heavy thump, losing his balance and going down in a heap as Andy gave it gas. Michelle fought against the acceleration and threw herself into the back seat, Glock in hand.
“Keep swerving a little—it’s in the bed—keep it off balance!”
The truck was jogging left and right with Andy’s attempts to shake the stowaway, but Michelle managed to anchor herself and pry open the sliding rear window. One of the front tires careened over a large piece of debris from the wreckage, and the resulting bounce of the stiff suspension shot the ghoul into the air again. With a howl of rage it crashed back into the bed just behind the fuel tank, out of Michelle’s line of sight.
She yelled out, “Hard break now . . . then floor it!”
The deceleration threw her off balance for a moment, but she was ready when the truck accelerated forward again. The yellow-eyed monster wasn’t. He tumbled towards the closed tailgate, crashing into it before regaining his balance in a crouch. Michelle shoved the Glock out the back, aligned the sights and squeezed the trigger. The gunshots sounded strangely muted to her, and she watched several impacts—almost as if she was seeing it in slow motion. The rounds caught the ghoul in the upper chest and side of his neck, spinning him over the tailgate and out of the truck. She watched as the feral’s body rolled down the center of the road behind them, coming to a rest after leaving a thirty foot bloody skid mark.
“HE’S OUT.”
“Is he down . . . is he staying down? Andy asked.
“So far,” Michelle answered, her eyes never leaving the mangled lump on the road. Andy drove the truck about 200 yards past the ghoul before he stopped. Michelle was still breathing hard—still pointing the Glock out the rear window.
“Is there another way around this hill?”
“Nope . . . none that I know of.”
“Well then, what do you say leave the truck here and sneak back towards the road pizza, just to make sure he’s not going to try for a repeat performance?” Andy asked.
Michelle said nothing at first, then replied, “Can you hand me my binoculars?”
Andy located the Nikons and handed them to Michelle as she put in a fresh magazine and holstered her pistol. Taking the binoculars, she scanned the downed ghoul, the wreckage, and the top of the hill for any signs of movement. There was none that she could detect.
With a slight frown and exhale, she answered, “I can’t see anything moving.”
Dropping the binoculars onto the seat, Michelle swiveled her head towards Andy and then back at the wreckage. She repeated the movement twice more, finally ending with a tight lipped smile.
“What?” Andy asked suspiciously.
“Oh, just thinking about your idea . . . and that expression about what’s the best thing to take when you go bear hunting.”
“Huh?” Andy squinted in confusion.
“Well,�
�� Michelle smirked, “you wanted to leave the truck here and sneak two hundred yards up the road toward the feral. And I’m thinking about the joke that says ‘the best thing to take bear hunting is someone who can’t run as fast as you can.’”
Michelle watched as Andy blinked his eyes slowly, a broad smile forming on his lips as he replied, “If you’re going to think about that expression, it wouldn’t hurt to give some consideration to this one. ‘Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time.’”
Michelle grinned back, “Are you implying that if that thing starts chasing us, you’d trip me?”
“Every day and twice on Sunday.”
Michelle laughed at his reply and said, “How about if we compromise a bit. Let’s drive halfway back, and then we’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“Deal.”
Andy turned the truck around and drove partway back, stopping about seventy-five yards from the sprawled figure. He put the big vehicle in park but left it idling in the center of the roadway. Michelle and Andy grabbed their shotguns and took a thorough look around before they exited the truck. Outside the vehicle it was eerily silent. No insects, birds or animals—no traffic sounds either.
“Damn,” Andy said, “that son of a gun dented the crap out of my truck.”
“Yeah, this side to,” Michelle replied, noticing the impact on the quarter panel.
Andy said, “Michelle, I’m sorry for that back there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The truck . . . I should have remembered that it won’t start unless it’s in park. When I backed into the tree and the truck cut off, it was still in reverse. I probably could have had us out of there ten seconds sooner if I didn’t have my head in my ass.”
“Not your fault . . . we were both a little shocked when ‘Mr. Happy’ smashed into the truck.” Andy said nothing in reply so she continued as they carefully walked down the road, muzzles leading the way. “Let’s make sure that he’s dead for good.” As they closed in, Michelle noticed fingers flex on the ghoul. She sensed that tension increase in its body.
“It moved,” she whispered softly.
“I saw it,” Andy said. They closed to within twenty feet before Andy stopped, raised his shotgun and fired a round into the head of the prone figure. Michelle stepped to the edge of the road and found a fallen tree branch about seven feet long. She used to it to make sure he was dead. He was.
After scanning the surroundings again and finding nothing, they walked back to the truck and got in. They spent the next several minutes in quiet retrospection, neither of them sharing their thoughts. Finally Michelle spoke. “The other ones . . . from the school bus . . . they must still be over the crest of the hill.”
Andy grunted in reply and said, “Decision time.”
Michelle turned to look at him as he continued, “If we go forward, we’re either going to have to go around, or through, a bunch of infected . . . kids.” His voice was flat—unemotional. “And that’s just on the other side of the hill. We’ve still got another three miles before we get to Fort Hammer. Judging from what we saw a few minutes ago, I don’t think that’s going to be a walk in the park.”
Michelle was sitting quietly, her gaze traveling from the crest of the hilltop to the shotgun leaning on the seat next to her. Andy waited patiently. After what seemed like an eternity, she looked into his eyes and asked him, “Do you think there’s a cure? I mean, is there hope for them once they get this . . . disease . . . virus . . . whatever it is? Are we doing them a favor by killing them? Do they feel pain anymore? Are they even aware of what they’re doing?”
Andy shook his head slowly and lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know. I don’t know that we’ll ever know.”
“I’m trying to make sense of this . . . to, I don’t know, ‘justify’ my place in this new reality.”
“I don’t think that anything could have prepared us for this,” he answered calmly.
Michelle met his eyes, silently delving into their steel-colored depths . . . searching for a lifeline that would pull her out of her own myriad of internal struggles.
“How can you be so unruffled . . . so relaxed?”
“I’m not. I’ve just had a lot more years to practice hiding it.”
Somehow, the assurance that Andy wasn’t entirely tranquil soothed Michelle’s nerves, and she reached into the back and closed the sliding window. Lying on the back seat next to some of her fired 40 caliber brass was the old thermos. She grabbed it and brought it up front, pouring each of them a slug into the empty Styrofoam cups gripped by the drink holder that stuck out from the dashboard. It was still steaming—hopefully from the temperature and not the concentration of chemicals in Bucky’s cowboy coffee.
They sipped it in silence. Michelle’s tongue curled and her nose wrinkled with the first taste, but Andy showed no reaction as he stared out the windshield. After a few moments, he upended the cup, draining the contents and returning it to the holder.
Turning to look at her he said, “Michelle, I don’t have the answer. But I think, given what we’ve experienced in the past few days, well, I know that I wouldn’t want to be like they are . . . infected I mean. I don’t think they know what they’re doing. A lot of them probably wouldn’t even be alive with the wounds they have, but that infection is keeping them going somehow. I’ve thought about it a lot. It seems like every hour I pray to God for an answer . . . for guidance—heck I’d take a vague clue right now. Like I said, I don’t have ‘the’ answer, but I do know this. When I think about our decisions so far, everything from sending Eric to find Doc’s granddaughter, to helping the guys walking along the road and the state trooper with gas. Everything up to and including doing our part to make Ravenwood a safe zone . . . well that just sits right with me inside here.” Michelle watched as he put his hand over his chest. “I’m not saying that we’re angels, but I think we’re on the same side as they are,” he finished.
Michelle finished the rest of her coffee in one large slurp, for some reason enjoying the acrid taste that reminded her of burnt hair. She had a brief flash of some scumball wearing a trench coat, standing in a dark alley with a line of people in front of him. They’d approach him one and time for a fix. Opening the left flap of his coat and gesturing to the contents like a game show host he’d say “Heroin?” They’d shake their head no. “Cocaine . . . crack?” No. “Crystal meth, X, marijuana, hash?” Each one was refused. Finally he’d reveal what was under the right flap of his coat. It was an old Stanley thermos. “Bucky’s cowboy coffee?” The line would surge forward, each gaunt-faced addict holding forth a battered Styrofoam cup.
Shaking her head to clear that visual, she composed her thoughts and said to Andy, “We go for the radios.” Andy nodded.
Michelle wasn’t done though. “New rules. We don’t stop for anything unless we’re sure the situation requires it. We don’t waste ammo unless we have to. I’m thinking we need to stay in the truck and either zigzag around . . . or run over any infected in our way. Communication between you and I is going to be imperative. I think we’re off to a great start with how we handled the feral a few minutes ago . . . but we need to keep it up. If it looks like we’re getting in over our head, then we bail and cut our losses. Anything I missed?”
Andy shook his head, “Not that I can think of, except maybe draw me a little map of how to get to your office from here, just in case you’re . . . preoccupied.”
“Good idea,” Michelle said while grabbing a notebook and pen out of her backpack. A few minutes later they were ready to go. She reloaded her partially used magazine as well as Andy’s shotgun, double checking to make sure the safety was on before she leaned it back against the seat. Without another look, Andy threaded the big, dual wheeled pickup around the body and back to the wreckage before approaching the crest of the hill for a second time. Once at the top, they found that the walkers were still in the general area they had left them.
“Out of sight-out of mind?
” Michelle asked.
“Maybe.”
Out of sight apparently no longer applied as multiple sets of dark red eyes swung towards them. Almost in unison they began to surge forward slowly, gaining momentum with each step.
“Don’t stop,” Michelle said as her fingers whitened against the shotgun’s grip.
Andy swerved left and right, avoiding as many impacts as he could. Not all of them though. Michelle’s stomach lurched in time with the squishy crunch of a chubby student dressed in a bloody band uniform, and the double “snap” of a large, well dressed young man’s legs made her cringe. As they approached the wrecked school bus, a large cluster of seven or eight children blocked the way. Andy didn’t stop. Keeping a steady fifteen miles per hour, he pushed through them . . . their mass losing out to the big Chevy. Michelle tensed as the students reached for them, grabbing hungrily and snapping their teeth before being pushed aside . . . or under. The jarring effect of the human speed bumps did little to settle Michelle’s stomach. They were through though—the only casualty was the mirror on Michelle’s side . . . still locked in the grasp of another cheerleader, this one with dark hair. Once past the walkers, they continued down the hill. A short time later they entered the smoky ruins of Fort Hammer.
Chapter 22
April 24th, Eric part 3
*click*
It’s, I don’t know, maybe 4:00 AM. My watch is still in the Gator. I feel naked without it. It’s been there since this morning? . . . this afternoon? . . . I don’t know when it was. I’m still outside on the deck . . . going on several hours now. I’m cold. Tired. Angry. Worried. I guess mostly worried. Could I have done anything different? Should I have done anything different? I don’t know. Still no news from Doc either. No way I’m getting any sleep right now, maybe never again. Sigh . . .
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