by Mark Clodi
"I backtracked and got on to thirty second and headed towards Federal, the next main thoroughfare, it was pretty packed but I made it to the highway by driving over lawns and through parking lots. When I got on the highway I was stoked, until I hit the first big snarl up around 9 blocks later at the next major exit. Someone had broken through the guardrail though and took the eastbound lane west, I did too, there were zombies around the wrecks, probably thirty or forty. One of them was fast and he threw a spare tire at me, one of those hard dough nut kind. It bounced off the right side and I hit the gas and got out of there.
Around Wadsworth I came across another accident, I was back in the westbound lane again and this one was bad, there was a white dude and his woman and some kids in a blue two door and the zombies were breaking in. The guy, he was all bloody and bitten up from trying to protect his family, I guess. The zoms had pulled him halfway through the driver side window. From inside the car I can see his woman, she's screaming at me but the windshield blocks her words. I know what she wants, though, for me to help them. As I rolled past she looked me dead straight in the eyes, her blue eyes, and pleaded for me to do something. I just know those crystal clear blue eyes followed me the whole way. Even when I was out of sight, I still felt those blue eyes on me. I couldn't, they were already gone. Right? I couldn't stop for them. If I had even slowed down, I would have been dead, they would have got me too. Those kids crying, and banging on the rear window, trying to get out, crying. I won't ever forget it.
Here Kevin started to sob, tears running down his cheeks. Hank reached over and patted him on the back and Kevin grabbed him into a hug and started sobbing, "I just left them! I had to just leave them. How could I leave them? They were kids!"
"Yeah, Kevin, I know, kids, they are the worst. We saw and did worse, you ain't the only one man, you did what you had to do." said Hank, trying to comfort him.
Juan moved over and patted him on the back too, saying "It's okay, it's okay." Looking anxious.
After a bit Kevin calmed down and Hank said, "You wanna go on or do you want to get out of here and finish up later?"
"Will there be a later?" Kevin asked.
"Maybe you better finish up. See you tell a good story too, longer than mine, but mine ain't done either."
"Okay I think I can finish it up. We should get this out now, before we decide what we are going to do. I, uh, kept going up I-70, after the Ward exit it got a lot easier, not so many wrecks, except by Youngsfield and that was on the other side of the highway. I made it up to the hogback, well the bottom of the hill anyway, before it got into the mountains. Hank, it was terrible, like imagine bumper to bumper traffic. Only it is all stopped, every last car. Near the tail end there were cars in the median, cars in both lanes smashed up in both directions. I could see on up the hill and the cars there were still in neat little lines, with what looked like maggots crawling in and around them, only I was far away. As I got closer I stopped, they were zombies you know, crawling inside the cars, under them, over them, through them, like maggots on a piece of meat. The wind shifted a bit and I threw up in the old ladies car, it was that bad. I was still maybe a mile away from the bottom of the real mess, I could still go back or try and turn in the median. I decided to turn around remembering the wreck at the Youngsfield exit. As I did I attracted their attention. The whole mob of them started towards me. Some pretty slow, but a surprising number of them were runners, fast zoms I think I heard Juan call them. Running full tilt all out at me. It is not like they could have caught me or anything, but man it was scary. I swear some of them about touched my rear bumper as I sped off, but I know that can't be true. I went past Youngsfield when I saw the last one disappear from my rear view. By the time I got back towards my end of town I was thinking I could head east, I-70 or I-76 or maybe north, there was too much town south, you know?
At Ward Road I got off and moved to the 'right' side of the highway, no sense in running head on into another car, not that I saw any moving vehicles on the road. I did see a couple on some of the side streets as I drove by. The hair on the back of my neck started to stand up when I saw the Wadsworth street sign. As my piece of shit car reaches the top of this little hill I see the blue two door. It was all pretty much over, I tried not to look, but how can you not look. The man was gone, probably totally eaten or a crawler and blue eyes had turned, she was munching down on one of her kids….I don't think the kids were going to come back…there were only parts of them left…guess that's a good thing right? She stared at me as I rolled past, no screaming this time, other than the screams in my head. I couldn't look away from her, those blue eyes had slightly changed. Before there was panic there, now, well, now the panic was gone and was replaced with something else. Something calm and…"
"And what?" Hank asked, breaking into Kevin's monologue.
"…evil. Anyway. I can see her in my rear view mirror and she's standing there, licking her fingers, watching me drive away, next thing I know BAM" Kevin smacks his hands together, "I rubbernecked my way into the side guard rail, twisted the old lady's car around and slid to a stop, but I thankfully I didn't kill the engine. I backed up and got back on the road, some of the zoms started coming my way, but she didn't. Nope, blue eyes just stood there, guess she already had enough to eat.
"When I made it back to the next major exit, where that zombie had thrown the dough-nut tire at me I was surprised to see a couple of zombies standing about a quarter mile in front of it, just around the corner, I had time to wonder if they were still trying to catch me when I came back to the wreck site. Someone, something, had been busy, alls sorts of shit was piled on the 'clear' side of the road, along with maybe a dozen zoms all working pulling more crap off the wrecks to block the good side of the road. Maybe twelve of them had half lifted a little Corolla up onto the center guardrail and were trying to push it the rest of the way over. I hit all the shit in the road and I think I ran over that god damned donut and it twisted under the car, it didn't really stop me but man there was a bad grating and scraping sound after I got by, I was almost to Federal Boulevard when all the idiot lights came on and the car just stopped. Turned off, like and I coasted it up the off ramp to try and find someplace to hide. Not a lot of luck, as soon as I started slowing down, near the top of the off ramp I got the attention of three zoms near the head of the ramp."
"I just had an image of all the people on the highway, staying in their cars, waiting to be torn out by a zombie mob. I knew the car was no defense. I grabbed one of the cokes, the bat and was out of the car before it slowly ran into the first of the three zombies. I had physics in community college, I know how mass works, that of the car versus that of the zombie was no contest, the car, even going so slowly won, the zombie got pushed into another stalled car, practically squished in half, didn't kill it, but trapped it. The other two were too slow, one of them was a bit faster, I don't think I could have outrun it, not over the long haul. I tried, I ran across the overpass towards the Village Inn and gas station on the other side of the highway, but it was keeping pace with me so I turned and made a stand. It tried to tackle me, but side stepped and smashed it in the back of the head, didn't kill it though, it started to roll away from me and I followed, smashing it or the pavement with every roll. Eventually it ran into the side of the guardrail and I got it then. The other zombie had already given up and was looking at the highway again. I moved to the gas station, at least I was on the same side of the highway as my car now, and only had to go about a mile to where I left it.
I headed off, keeping in lawns and near houses trying to avoid being seen, but I came across a mob of them on the side street, near a bar. I ducked into the back yard of the nearest house and tried to get in the back door. I tried to bust it down, you know, Rambo style, only I bounced, hurt like hell too, a fucking door! I got mad and was going to give it another try when I saw the guy, he had an old gun, maybe a shotgun, pointed right at me. He was an older guy, a brother, he had short grey hair, was a bit overweig
ht and had on thick glasses, what my mom would've called coke bottle glasses, whatever the fuck that means. He said, "You one of them?"
I shook my head and said, "No! Could you let me in?"
The old gray hair looked me over, looked at my bloody bat and said, "Show me your arms and legs, I wanna see that you aren't bit up before I let you in."
I pulled off my shirt and pulled my jeans up as far as they would go, which is pretty far as they are a couples sizes from being tight, the oldster nodded and took the bar off the door. Like a big old piece of wood, like you see in old movies with knights and shit. He let me in and said, "I'm Alvin." His gun was pointed away from me and he offered me his hand, even before he had the door barred again. I shook it and said, "Kevin, thanks!" Alvin re-barred the door with his hunk of wood and motioned me to head down some stairs into his basement.
I got downstairs and into an old cellar, not much like a basement at all. The whole area consisted of one rather large room with old brick walls, there were two doors in the far wall across from the stairs, between them sat an old refrigerator, probably fifty years old. There was also couch that looked like it came from a dentist office, a desk with one new looking office chair on wheels, a coffee table stained with rings and a television stand with a decent television, probably high def, but small. The mix of old stuff and new stuff definitely did not go well together. I looked back at Alvin and he shrugged, "It's worked so far, figure it will work for both of us for awhile yet."
I sat down on the couch and Alvin sat across from me on the desk chair which wobbled as he sat down. That is when I noticed the bandage on his leg. He saw me looking and got kind of weird, he said, "Yeah, it's what you think it is, so far I haven't changed though, don't feel it in me and, and, my wife, she got bit up and was dead in an hour. She got it worse than me though, and lost a lot of blood. Me? I feel fine."
I didn't say anything to the old guy, but I was already making plans to get out of there, that is when I heard something walking around upstairs. I got scared then, real scared and the old man he never quite put his gun down, in fact it was pointed right at me, he said, "Nothing to worry about, she won't come down here, she never did when she was alive and right now she is too stupid to get through the kitchen door."
"Right now?", I asked the old man.
"Yeah, maybe she will get better, I have seen a few smarter, faster ones, the one that got her was that way, I put it down though, not soon enough. I brought Shandra back here and cleaned her up good, but she 'died' quick, I saw her turn, her eyes, her eyes they were, so blue, 'Betty Davis' blue we used ta call it. You know that color?"
Uneasily, I answered, "Yeah sure, my ma used to talk about it, she white? Your wife?"
The greybeard nodded 'yes', "Used to be more of a hassle, you know? Mixed marriage. Nowadays not many care that much, we got skin heads and things, but not around here. Still old habits die hard and we were always careful, strangers come to the door and we would look em over real good. We always got more crack-heads than skin-heads though. That is why I have this." He pointedly held up his gun. "This is loaded with shot, pretty fatal real close, but I have some rock salt shells around here somewhere too. An eight shot, cut down shotgun, a little illegal too, they don't make them this way anymore, not with an eight shell magazine or such short 'coach gun' barrels. I never fired it, not even since this trouble started."
I nodded, "You got a bathroom down here?"
Again, the old man shook his head yes and pointed to the door on the right, "Bathroom, is right through there, it is the nicest part of this basement, Shandra fixed it up for me two years ago as an anniversary present. The other door is the furnace, water heater and pantry. We won't starve anyway."
I stumbled through the door into the bathroom, it was nice. Tile covered the walls and there was a shower stall with the kind of bars old people use to keep from falling, I did my business and headed back out. Alvin had turned on the tv. It was CNN, broadcasting live from, Chicago, I think or maybe New York. A big city somewhere. Live broadcasts from an office building, probably the second story. The reporter was saying how he was broadcasting pictures live from the street and his building was surrounded, but he was not worried because he had a whole troop of national guardsmen with him. There was constant firing of bullets, in the background and the swarm of shambling dead was growing larger, not smaller as we watched. CNN eventually cut back to the announcer and the guy was said something stupid, like, "Well, Bill we wish you luck and will check up on you in a few minutes. Now Deana, you have more information about this plague from Florida? Good lets cut to…" I looked at Alvin and he looked at me and we both just shook our heads. After flipping through several news channels we caught the presidential order that there would be no prosecution for killing the zombies, and everyone was encouraged to fight for their lives if they needed to. I was thinking to myself, "Thank you God almighty for allowing us the privilege of not worrying about going to jail if we fight for our lives against these things and happened to kill one or two! What a dumbass!" I could tell Alvin was thinking the same thing. He got up and said, "You hungry boy? I got a microwave in the furnace room, got popcorn or we could get water from the sink, warm it up to make noodles?"
I nodded and he motioned me to come with him into the furnace room, once there he said to just pick whatever I wanted, I went for some chili he had and he nodded his approval, "Probably a bit better than noodles anyway." The microwave sat on a small counter and Alvin reached under it and pulled out a couple of bowls, grabbing two cans of chili he opened them and popped one bowl in to heat up. Once it was done he handed it to me with a spoon and put his bowl in. I went and sat on the couch and was soon joined by Alvin. After a few bites he said, "You want something to drink?" I nodded yes and he went over to the old refrigerator, "Ah, I got water and, uh, beer, you old enough to drin…Ah never mind you want a beer?"
"Hell yes! Thanks!"
Alvin opened the fridge and it was stocked full of beer, all 'Natural Light' pretty much from top to bottom. "I hope you don't mind drinking my brand." He said as he came over with a couple of beers.
"No, this will be fine. Thanks Alvin. Thanks for letting me in here too."
The rest of the day we watched the news and ate popcorn, cookies and soup. And drank beer, probably we killed a case between us. As we got our buzz on and watched the news I knew we were dead, there would not be a way out of this one, Armageddon, like my momma always told me it would, had come.
The worst part of it was I had no way to atone for my sins, you know? I had just fucked my life into a corner and now there was no time left to make up for my mistakes. Once it was dark Alvin said, "You mind taking the floor too much? My old bones won't do well on the cement, I have couple of blankets and there is an old kids sleeping bag in the furnace room, you could put that down for added padding."
"No problem.", after using the pisser I made myself pretty comfortable on the floor with the old sleeping bag and fell asleep. We left the tv on and I drifted off watching the news. I woke up in the middle of the night and the tv was off, I heard the door to the basement rattling, kinda thumping and moving a bit.
"Alvin!" I whispered as loud as I dared, "Alvin!"
"Wha-what? Who's there!?"
"Its me, Kevin! Alvin, I think your old lady is at the door near the top of the stairs!"
We listened and heard the door rattle a couple more times, before we heard footsteps moving away from it into the living room.
"See? We're okay, she never comes down here.", Alvin said.
I didn't sleep well the rest of the night. In the morning we made breakfast of some ramen noodles, with instant coffee to drink. By mid-morning we were into the beer again. The power was not off, Alvin had just shut the tv down at some point last night, so we watched as the news went from slightly graphic, to very disturbing as the day progressed. The guys at fox had charts of the whole US, predicting where the plague was spreading, the graphics were downright scary, it looked like mo
st of the coastal cities had been hit pretty hard, plus Toledo, Dallas, Denver and Salt Lake City. Iowa looked mostly intact, at least according to the guys on Fox news. As we watched Alvin shook his head and said, "You know I always pictured in my head that they had a room somewhere with all these charts and stuff in them, ready to pull out for any occasion. I thought to myself, 'someday Alvin, you will see something come up that they do not have a graph for' and I was looking forward to that day, just to see how they handled it. I don't guess I will ever see that happen now. They must just have people waiting around to make this stuff up as it happens. That'd be a nice job wouldn't it?"
We whiled away the whole of Tuesday and most of Wednesday that way, eating drinking beer and hoping the power wouldn't go out and that someone would save us. We got half our wish anyway, the power didn't go out. Every once in awhile the basement door would rattle. Once Alvin tried to reason with his Shandra through the door, he got nothing but moaning and some door pounding for his efforts. I didn't tell him to shoot her, he didn't ask me about it, just looked at me with those brown eyes of his, all sad and mopey. What did he think? That she was going to recover and they could get on with living their lives?