by J. Thorn
Finally, I saw the boat I remembered from when Thalia, Teresa, and I had first arrived. The house I’d chosen had a “For Sale” sign in the front yard. I’d gone through a garage window, made sure it was empty, and then unlocked the garage door. Teresa had driven the trusty old power company truck inside and we’d headed to the FEMA center at Franklin High School.
I was relieved to see that it was right where we’d left it. The only problem was that we didn’t have enough room for everybody and had to get rid of the freezer in the back. We all ate from the supplies that were still good, and then loaded in with the four boys and Teresa offering to sit in back.
Just as we opened the garage and rolled out into the street, an explosion followed by a roiling ball of fire and dark smoke erupted from the direction of the school. That made up my mind as to which direction I would be heading.
Barry was actually very helpful when it came to getting me out of the residential area and on to the highway. By the time the sun came up, we were weaving through abandoned vehicles that had been left on Interstate 84 heading east. Maybe we’d try the mountains.
3
Still Running
I woke to Thalia’s scream.
Barry and Randi turned from where they sat on boxes keeping watch. They nodded to me as I pulled the struggling, still half-asleep girl into my lap. Stroking her hair and whispering soothing words was all I had, but it was enough. A few minutes later, her breathing returned to the slow, rhythmic cadence of sleep.
It had been a rough week. For me. Her. All of us. I looked around the room, a looted and gutted Mom-and-Pop mini-mart, and counted heads: eleven. That included Thalia, Teresa, and me. Then there were the others…
Barry and Randi Jenkins; a nice couple we met at that disaster of a rescue center at Franklin High School. Barry was just over six-feet tall with a near-perfectly round head that he still managed to keep shaved. His skin was the color of a Hershey bar, and his smile was so dazzling and genuine that you found yourself smiling almost reflexively. Randi was lighter skinned, damn near as tall as Barry, with black hair that had probably never been to her shoulders. Both were thin as willow branches and never more than a few yards from each other. Their daughter had died in their own backyard, Randi saw it all. She’d watched as her seven-year-old daughter was torn apart by a pack of neighborhood kids. Randi never smiled.
Sleeping in what could best be considered a circle of protection around Teresa were the high school football players, Joseph Wiser, Billy Haynes, Jamie Blossington, and Aaron Doss. They’d been more helpful than I would have initially imagined when we were forced to make a run from the aide station. Teresa seemed to preside over them like a queen over a court.
Doctor David Ellis; unfortunately his degree was math. In his early fifties, he was everything I imagined when I pictured some Sixties hippie all grown up. He’d had very little to say since we left the sounds of screams and gunfire behind. Had it not been for Jamie and Aaron physically carrying him, he would have likely been a casualty when the high school fell to the zombies.
Melissa Blake; that’s all we know. She was in a hall of the high school the night it was overrun, screaming hysterically. About five-foot-three and a hundred pounds soaking wet—which she actually was when they found her—I guessed her to be about twenty. The girl had been so covered in blood that I’d been certain she’d been bitten. Teresa hadn’t let me leave her.
“We can’t just leave her to die!” Teresa snapped.
“If she turns—” I’d argued, but had been cut off.
“We’ll know beforehand. I’ll check her out once we have time.”
We had no time to argue as zombies came stumbling around a not-far-enough-away corner. I grabbed her hand and she’d damn near broken bones squeezing so hard. Luckily, she followed when I took off.
We were a small tribe now. But, unlike the stories, we were not all a close-knit bunch that trusted the others with our lives. Instead, we’re several small groups or singles all smashed together. Of course we’d only been out on our own from the doomed FEMA center for just over a week. Maybe the shock will ease and we’ll gel as a group. With Randi and Melissa, I’m not thinking that is anytime soon. We’ve literally had to lead them by the hand as we stayed on the run from the hordes.
Last night we had to abandon a farmhouse outside of Hood River, Oregon. Our group had argued and eventually decided to head east. The argument against the coast was that, once there, we ran out of directions to run. Funny thing about the undead, once one finds you, it’s not long before a group is outside pounding on the door. Since they don’t need sleep, they seem to just wander. And while the biggest concentrations appear to be in the cities and towns, they do seem to actually be fanning out in all directions.
Also, we certainly did not have the monopoly on the idea of leaving town. So, as people die in these remote locations...another zombie is added to the mix. Now that the initial surge is over, we’re in this Nuclear Winter phase. Order is gone on any sort of governmental level, and it seems the world is made up of rogue bands.
Some good…some not.
Once Thalia went back to sleep, I got up and wandered over to where Barry and Randi sat. Both had scoped hunting rifles leaned against a wall and a set of semi-automatic nine millimeter pistols on their hips if it got tight.
“Any movement?” I whispered. Funny how loud everything seems in a dead world.
“No.” Barry glanced in Thalia’s direction. “Her screams didn’t seem to attract anything close…hopefully nothing far either.”
There seemed to be a consensus growing that her “nightly outbursts” were what brought heat on us every time. I never really thought of myself as a compassionate sort of guy, but what the hell is wrong with these people? It must’ve shown on my face.
“Hey,” Barry whispered, “the little girl has been through a helluva lot. We all have. It’s just that there is a concern that she might—”
“And just where would you be if we hadn’t let you and all the others in our truck?” I challenged. “Did you have a vehicle hidden close, because you sure as hell weren’t making any try for it?”
Barry held up his hands, motioning for me to keep my voice down. Screw that and screw all these folks! “She’s five-freakin’-years old! And her name is Thalia, not little girl!”
“I’m just—”
“You’re just nothing. That little girl is with me. You have a problem with her, then you have one with me.”
“And me.”
I hadn’t noticed Teresa come up behind me. Billy and Aaron stood at her sides like stone sentinels. Their sudden appearance had amped the scene from a disagreement to a confrontation. I wasn’t prepared for this to escalate. Fate took that moment to intervene. The sound of heavy thuds on the wall to my left ended the discussion. A body stepped out of the darkness and pressed against the window at Randi’s back.
I yanked her towards me just as the body hurled itself, breaking through the glass. She and I fell backwards with her landing on me at the perfect angle to knock the wind out of me. If you’ve never experienced that sensation, it’s hideous. You feel as if you’ll never regain the ability to breathe, and it scares you. The harder you gasp, the more elusive breathing seems to become. And it doesn’t return suddenly. Instead, it is the gradualness that leads you to wonder if you will ever again draw a full breath. Oh yeah, one more little side effect...moving is practically impossible.
Randi rolled off, scuttling away from the zombie thrashing near our feet. I was helpless! A hand clutched my ankle as another grabbed my arms. A tug-of-war would be useless as the thing simply needed to get a nip on my leg that it was probably bringing closer to its mouth by the second.
An explosion near my head now added deafness to my growing list of disabilities. My mind registered the familiar smell of a fired weapon, and a burning sensation on my throat came as the grip on my ankle vanished. I felt myself being dragged through glass, but I had no ability to help or protest.
And what the hell was burning my throat?
Whoever had been dragging me now dropped me unceremoniously to the floor and jumped over my still-prone body. I was able to draw my legs up enough to avoid being stomped on as my rescuer, Billy by the shape of his shadow, stormed towards what was likely more of the undead trying to enter through the broken window.
The ringing in my ears began to subside, only to be replaced by the sounds of chaos. My hands found my throat, and I clawed at it, effectively swatting away the bullet casing that had surely left an angry, blistered burn on the hollow just below my Adam’s apple. Still, I could barely move, and all I could manage audibly was a weak croak that was drowned by the screams and gunfire.
Somebody was pulling me to my feet, forcing me to move. It was Randi, and she had help from Barry. The two were hustling me through the store towards the back door. Aaron appeared at the end of the aisle with Thalia in his arms. He raised his free arm directly at us, and for a moment, I thought he would shoot either Randi or Barry.
“Duck!” he bellowed. We dropped—which did nothing to help me get my air back—and he fired.
I managed to glance back over my shoulder as I was manhandled up to my feet once more. Damn! Like stench-ridden, flesh-eating, slow-moving moths to our living flames, the undead were piling through the ever widening hole in the front window of our bastion.
My body was slowly returning itself to my control, and now I could stumble more than be dragged along. I followed somebody—I think it was Dave Ellis—through the metal door and into the gravel lot behind the little store. The truck was already idling, and I recognized Joseph Wiser behind the wheel motioning for everybody to hurry. Everybody piled in or on the truck and, in a cloud of dust, we were on the road once more.
***
The sun flashed bright in my eyes as the truck crested a small rise on the interstate. Somebody was tapping my shoulder through the window. It was Barry. He was perched on the hood of the cab as a lookout with Dave. Randi, Teresa, and Thalia were in the cab with me, sleeping relatively sound.
“Looks like a farmhouse on the left,” he said.
I glanced over. From my vantage I could barely make out what might be a roof across a field of who knows what. One advantage of the new world we lived in; roads are optional. I veered slowly off the road and into the ditch. It was all gradual enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about tipping or getting stuck. It was a little rocky, but we came up to a flat field. Barry jumped down and cut the fence in a matter of seconds.
“Comin’ up on a house,” I announced. “Everybody awake.”
I noticed that, of everybody, Teresa was developing what I could only call “soldier’s instincts.” She woke and was ready for action before her eyes managed to adjust for light. She instantly checked her weapons; a pair of Colt .45 semi-automatics, nine rounds in the clip, one in the chamber and four spare magazines in a pouch on a webbed belt she had picked up, .30-30 with a laser sight—the rifle reminded her of the one her dad taught her to deer hunt with, minus the laser sight of course—and this three-foot blade that she kept sharp enough to shave with.
“Where are we?” she asked. It wasn’t that she cared, it’s just an old habit. You know how it was when you would wake up on a road trip.
“Just passed some place called Heppner Junction,” I said.
“Traffic?”
“Nothing. Haven’t even seen a straggler since The Dalles. Wherever the dead are, they aren’t near the roads out here. No lights anyplace, which means if anybody is alive, they are staying low and don’t care if help comes.”
“We’re out far enough,” Teresa said with a nod. “Most of these folks are farmers. They like outdoors. Likely the best equipped to take care of themselves.”
A gunshot rang out and I heard our lookouts scrambling off the roof.
“And most likely to have guns,” I chuckled. I slammed on the brakes, which caused a jolt, but as slow as we were going it didn’t ruffle anybody too much.
A flash that had to be a gun barrel catching sunlight came from a window on the second floor of the colonial-style farmhouse. Teresa had already grabbed the binoculars from the glove box and was scanning. Like I said, at sixteen she was morphing into a damned Army Ranger. “Two. One in the upstairs window far left. One set up on the roof behind the chimney. Scoped rifles, so I’m guessing that was a warning.”
“I’m getting out,” I announced. “Randi, get behind the wheel. If they shoot me, leave. If I signal to come with both hands, it’s a trap. One means everything is okay.”
I knew there would be arguments, so I simply jumped out of the truck, slammed the door, raised my hands above my head, and started walking. It was a good couple hundred yards, which gave whoever was in that house plenty of time to prepare.
I got to the edge of the field and stood at the outskirts of what was once probably a beautiful yard. The grass, long enough to cover my shoes, was lush and green. A swing sat under a tree that was starting to bloom. A big shed was off to my right, and I glimpsed the corner of a swimming pool around the back of the house. A still well-manicured gravel drive led up to a garage larger than most houses I’ve been in.
Steps led up to the covered porch. It looked like it had been screened, but the screens had been cut or torn out. A man stepped out onto that porch. He was a fairly large black man with a shaved head. He held what I had to guess was some sort of military rifle. I’m only guessing.
“Step on closer so I can see you better.”
I didn’t argue. Keeping my hands up, I took a few steps and did a slow turn. I tried to get a look at everything around me, but really saw nothing useable for cover if this went bad.
“Besides the gun on your hip,” he gestured, “you carryin’ anything else?”
“Nope.”
“How many you got in that rig over there?”
“Ten. One’s just a little girl. Only five years old.”
“Name’s Dillon Clay. Up in the window’s my partner, Ian Lotherman. The young man on the roof with the quick trigger is Anton Maxwell.”
“Sorry!” a voice spoke from above. “I didn’t know what to do and I guess I kinda freaked.”
“You the owner of this place?” I asked.
“Ain’t nobody ownin’ much of anything the way I figure.” Dillon swung the rifle up over his shoulder. If he really wanted to put me at ease, he’d put the thing down.
“So you’re on the road, too?” I eased my hands down slow with the obvious attempt to keep away from my gun.
“Been here for a couple days now. The folks I figure lived here had already...turned.”
The big man fell quiet. It was obvious that he was uncomfortable with talking about the fact that the dead were walking.
“How much activity you seen?” I asked.
“Since we met Anton about four days back, there hasn’t been anything.”
“Living or dead.” A head was peering out of the window above. That would be Ian Lotherman. “We tried to check out Pendleton and Hermiston a few miles east, but it was pretty nasty. We decided that our best bet was to get away from any concentration of people.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” I glanced back to my truck still sitting in the field. “Look, can I give my people the ‘all clear,’ or would you rather we moved on?”
“I think it’d be nice to have more bodies to keep an eye out. ‘Specially since somebody went and fired his gun.” That last remark was spoken loud enough to be heard on the roof. Dillon looked at me, smiled, and winked as stumbling apologies and protests came in a flood from above.
I liked this guy. The world was literally in total chaos and confusion and this Dillon still had a sense of humor. I turned, realizing only after it was too late, to give the signal to my little band. I was instantly aware that my back was now completely exposed to men I did not know. Men with guns. Slowly, I raised one hand and waved it. After a deep breath, and a pause to make sure my face was as impassive as I could manage, I turned bac
k.
“Hope one of y’all knows how to cook.” Dillon had leaned the rifle against the column and was sitting on the top step. “There is a grip of food inside, but not a one of us can do much past burn water.”
The truck made its way across the field. Randi pulled around the house, effectively shielding the vehicle from being seen from the highway.
***
The former residents of this place obviously had large meals. A long table that sat everybody comfortably held the remains of one of the best meals I’ve had, even before all of this happened. Having never eaten chicken that didn’t come from a grocery store or, more likely, a drive-through window, the meal was a real treat. There were all sorts of fresh fruit and vegetables in the big walk-in pantry, along with tons of home-canned produce.
Joe, Billy, Aaron, and Jamie helped Barry build a fire pit. There was some concern that the smell of smoke, or more likely, meat cooked over open flame, would draw some unwanted attention. Dave, Ian, and Anton stood watch diligently on the roof all day as Randi and Teresa prepared the meal with Thalia underfoot the entire time. It was almost...normal.
Everybody ate their fill and, by meal’s end, a bit of laughter was heard. Names were exchanged and turns were taken up top as the meal stretched on. I took my turn with Dillon.
“So, where do you guys come from?” I peered through the binoculars, turning slowly, seeing nothing.
“Me and Ian are from Idaho. We picked up Anton heading west. His car had conked out and he was busy trying to get into another.”