by Ray Wallace
"Holy crap," says Garrett.
You nod your head in agreement. "I couldn't have said it better myself."
The muscle car rolls back and parks along the side of the road. Then the driver - clean shaven with short, brown hair wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of black jeans - gets out and approaches the SUV. As he does so, you reach back toward Garrett, moving your fingers in a "gimme" gesture. A moment later, you feel the cold metal of the gun as he presses it into your hand.
Keeping the gun low and out of sight, you lower the window and wait for the guy to get close before you raise the weapon and point it at him. He stops and puts his hands out in front of him.
"Now hold on a second. I just wanted to make sure everyone was all right."
"Why wouldn't we be all right?" you ask him, keeping your voice low and steady. All business. "You managed to stop in time."
"Yeah, okay," he says. "I don't want any trouble. I'm sure I gave you a pretty good scare and I'm sorry about that."
"What's your name?" asks Lindsay, leaning up next to you so the guy can hear her.
"Um, Nolan," he says, squinting his eyes a little as he looks past you into the vehicle, smiling when he sees Lindsay.
"Where you headed?" she asks.
Nolan shrugs, starts to lower his hands. You motion with the gun and he puts them back up.
"Nowhere in particular. Made some modifications to the car, wanted to take it out for a spin. Guess I came across the bridge a little faster than I should have."
"I guess you did," you say, trying to regain control of the conversation.
"Yeah, and I'm real sorry about that. Where you folks headed, anyway?"
Before you can tell him it's none of his business, Lindsay says, "Tampa. There's this message on the radio. We're gonna - "
You turn to her and give her an angry look, shake your head "no." She stops talking.
"Look," says Nolan. "I didn't mean to cause any trouble. Usually, I have the roads to myself around here."
"It's all good," you say, not wanting to waste any more time with this guy. You do have somewhere to be, after all. Still plenty of time to get there, sure, but that doesn't mean it should be squandered conversing with every random stranger that crosses your path. "No harm done. We need to be going, though."
You press the button that raises the window.
"Hey, hold on a sec."
With a sigh, you take your finger off the button.
"Yeah?"
"The way across the bridge is clear. But there's a pretty sizeable pack of zombies about a mile or so to the west. They've got the whole area clogged up pretty good. If you follow me, I can show you the fastest, easiest way past them. What do you say?"
CLICK HERE If you think you've wasted enough time with this Nolan fellow already.
CLICK HERE if you decide to trust the guy and accept his offer to help out.
Since you're already here, you tell yourself you might as well try crossing the bridge. You'll just have to take it nice and slow. At the first sign of trouble, you'll put the truck in reverse and get out of there as quickly as possible.
"We're going through," you tell your passengers.
And with that, you put your foot on the accelerator and ease out onto the bridge.
Nobody speaks as the truck rolls forward into the smoke. A moment later, it engulfs the vehicle, dropping your visibility to zero. It won't be long, you know, before the smoke finds its way inside.
It's not very far. We'll be clear before it gets too bad.
Slow and steady, you keep the truck moving forward. It can't be more than fifty feet to the other side, you figure. And what is it, exactly, that's burning down there anyway? The pitch black smoke suggests an oil fire. A tanker car filled with the flammable, black liquid? But what could have ignited it? And what are the chances of a tanker car randomly stopping under the tracks? You get the impression somebody planned it that way. But for what purpose?
All pointless speculation, really, questions with no real bearing on your immediate concerns. What matters right now is getting out of this smoke and continuing onward toward your destination.
Not much further...
Outside the windows, the world has gone as dark as a starless night. After turning on the truck's headlights, you realize they do little good here. The beams cut maybe three feet or so into the smoke which continues to pour up through the metal grating of the bridge beneath you. And now you can smell the smoke as it finds its way inside the vehicle. Lindsay coughs and you can't help but think about her unborn child. Just another reason to clear this bridge as soon as possible.
The truck crawls forward another ten feet or so and that's when something races out of the darkness and slams into the front of the pickup. The impact causes you to lunge forward within the confines of your safety harness as the airbag explodes outward, pushing you back into the seat. The violence and suddenness of the collision stuns you, has you looking around in confusion, trying to get your bearings.
Garrett yells something from the back seat and you check to make sure Lindsay's all right. Her airbag failed to deploy but she appears to be unharmed. Through the windshield, you see the front end of another vehicle pressed up against the crumpled hood of the truck.
Lindsay takes her seatbelt off, looks at you and says, "Come on, we've got to get out of here." Then she opens her door and climbs out, Garrett following about two seconds behind her. All the while you find yourself in a struggle with your seatbelt which doesn't want to unlatch.
The smoke presses in around you, becoming thicker and more impenetrable with every passing second. Pulling in a breath of the toxic air, you immediately start to choke. In desperation, you look around for anything you can use to cut through the seatbelt, wishing now you had tossed a knife into the duffel bag before leaving the house. Eyes watering and burning, you wonder how long you have before smoke inhalation takes its toll.
Not very long. A couple of minutes at the most.
If you can't free yourself from the vehicle, you'll just have to hope someone will come along and rescue you.
But no one does.
Not that you can blame them, really.
The seconds tick by. At some point you find yourself unable to stop coughing. You continue to fight with the seatbelt, well aware of the irony of a safety device trapping you here like this. It would actually make for a funny story at some point if you happen to live through this.
But you don't.
CLICK HERE to start over.
"Okay, okay," you say loud enough for the man outside to hear you. "Don't shoot."
When the window is all the way down the man says, "Let me see your hands."
You do as you're told, holding up both hands to show him they are, in fact, empty.
"Any sort of weapons on you?" asks the man, moving the twin black holes at the end of that shotgun a few inches closer to your face. "Guns? Knives? Anything else that might cause me some concern?"
You shake your head. "No. Nothing like that."
The man takes a couple steps back from the door, the shotgun never wavering.
"All right, now I want you to turn off the engine and get out of the vehicle." After you comply with his demands, he says, "That's good, now close the door."
Again, you follow orders, cutting off the pinging sound emanating from inside the SUV. The man moves aside, tells you to take a few steps forward. When you do he circles around behind you and lightly presses the barrels of the gun into the small of your back.
"Now walk."
A house stands before you. It's a one story, red brick affair complete with a driveway and two car garage. A cement walkway leads up to the front porch, cutting through the knee high grass growing to either side of it. As you follow the walkway, you make an attempt to reason with the man behind you.
"Look, I'm not sure what this is all about. But if it's the SUV you want - "
"I don't want the SUV. If that's what this was all about, you'd already be
dead."
Before long, you find yourself crossing the wooden porch with the white painted railings at the front of the house.
"Open the door and go inside."
The door stands slightly ajar; all you have to do is give it a light push to send it swinging all the way open. You have a strong feeling that once you enter the house you won't be coming back out again.
"Please, don't do this."
He nudges you with the gun.
"Move."
You enter the house.
Inside, it's warm and dark. Several seconds pass before your eyes can adjust to the gloom. During that time, the man guides you with his voice through the living room and into the kitchen, eventually telling you to stop as you approach another doorway, one you assume leads out to the garage.
"Turn around."
Most of the windows in here have been boarded over. Enough light enters the house, however, to let you see the guy has taken off his sunglasses and set them on the countertop next to him. He holds the gun down low by his side, the barrels aimed roughly at your midsection.
"I want you to understand something," the guy tells you. "I had a wife. Deanna. A daughter named Emily. A family. They were all I could have ever hoped for..."
Even in the dim lighting you can see the glimmer of tears in his eyes.
"And then... well... I lost them."
He shakes his head as if trying to deny it all, even now. After taking a deep breath, he goes on:
"Have you ever watched one of them, after they feed? I mean, paid really close attention?"
The sudden shift in topic momentarily confuses you.
"After they eat they seem to be... I don't know." A shrug. "Content? At least, for a little while. Coming back from the dead like that... What an awful thing. How they must suffer. You can see it, you know. If you look real close. You can see it in their eyes. The pain..."
You don't like the sound of this.
"After they feed, all that pain and suffering seems to go away. Again, it's something you can see with your own two eyes if you look close enough. If you care enough. And after the pain goes away... I think that on some level they remember what it's like to be human."
"Why are you telling me this?" you ask.
The guy shakes his head. "Because I want you to understand. I want you to know why I'm doing this. Why I have to do this."
He gestures with the gun.
"Now turn around."
"Hey, hold on a second," you tell him, trying to keep your voice steady. "We've all lost people close to us. There's no reason to - "
"I said turn around." His voice has gone low and flat, filled with menace.
Seeing how you don't have much choice in the matter, you do as you're told.
"Now open the door."
As much as you don't want to, you find yourself lifting your hand and placing it on the doorknob, giving it a turn then pushing the door outward into the deeper darkness beyond. A terrible stench hits you full in the face at the same moment several distinct and terrible sounds call for your attention: Moaning. Low growling. Feet dragging over concrete.
"My family," says the guy from behind you. "I hope you believe me when I tell you I really am sorry about this."
Pain explodes in the back of your head causing you to stumble forward several steps before falling to your knees, momentarily disoriented and on the verge of blacking out. The darkness swirls around you, the moaning and growling sounds seeming to reverberate from all directions. The weight of two bodies presses down on your back as hands grab hold of you and teeth find their way into your flesh.
It's a hell of an introduction to the guy's family. And, unfortunately, the time you spend with them doesn't get any more enjoyable after that.
CLICK HERE to start over.
Knowing it's a reckless move but confronted with a serious lack of alternatives, you duck down and jam your foot on the accelerator, try to keep the SUV straight as it careens blindly in reverse down the road. You don't get far before the shotgun roars and half the windshield disintegrates, showering you with shards of safety glass. Another blast sends the SUV veering wildly to the left. Blown tire, you realize. Also, the engine has started making a loud clanging noise you don't like. Things go from bad to worse as the rear of the vehicle slams into something, throwing you back in the seat and bringing your wild ride to an immediate halt.
Gazing out through the opening where the windshield used to be, you see the guy with the shotgun about fifty feet away, reloading his weapon and walking toward you. He seems to be in no particular hurry.
"It's now or never," you mutter before flinging open the door and hopping out of the disabled vehicle.
Water pours from underneath the SUV and you can smell the unmistakable odor of antifreeze. You take in the sight of the sporty little two door convertible you backed into before turning and running for all you're worth.
"Stop!" shouts the man from behind you.
No, I don't think so.
Just ahead, a side street branches off to the left. You head toward it and round the corner just as the guy fires the shotgun, rattling the street sign as you run past it. More overgrown lawns and cozy looking, one story houses line the road here. At the end of the block, you see an intersection and another street sign. You see zombies, too, just beyond the far side of the intersection. Only three of them. Although, you've learned in the days since the Outbreak that where there's even one zombie there's a chance plenty more of them might be waiting somewhere nearby.
The guy with the shotgun keeps yelling for you to stop. But, of course, you keep going.
At the intersection, you head westbound once again. And appearing before you, just as anticipated...
More zombies.
Gotta be close to twenty of them.
They wander toward you from the end of the block. Even with that many of them, you figure there's still a decent chance you can make your way through the crowd unscathed. They're slow, after all, and not too closely packed together. Or you could always head for one of the houses here, hole up and hide out until the guy with the gun stops looking for you.
While considering the best course of action, a third option comes to mind:
Find a place to hide near the road then jump the guy when he walks by.
Who knows, maybe he's got more ammunition on him? With all these zombies in the vicinity, you'd feel a whole lot safer with that shotgun in your hands.
CLICK HERE if you decide to test your zombie evading skills.
CLICK HERE if you think hiding out in one of these houses is your safest bet.
CLICK HERE if you want to try and take the gun from the guy chasing you.
As much as you would like to keep moving forward, the way ahead has simply gotten too dangerous. And seeing as how you've still got plenty of time to reach the spaceport, there's really no reason to take unnecessary risks.
After getting the bike turned around, you're happy to discover the path that brought you here appears to have remained zombie free. And so you head back the way you came, making sure to keep the bike down to a manageable speed, well aware of the obstacles you had to deal with on the way here.
Eventually, you reach a place where the pathway widens a bit allowing you to give the bike a little more gas.
The faster I'm away from this place, the better.
Cruising along, you start to think ahead, picturing the route you'll follow once you've freed yourself of this traffic jam. Of course, the first part of the plan forming in your mind involves finding an exit ramp. You recall passing one just before reaching the endless rows of cars surrounding you now. Wanting desperately to get there, you have to resist the urge to make the bike go any faster.
Don't do anything stupid. It's not that far. You'll be there before you know it.
The shock of seeing the dead woman open her eyes has worn off a bit and you've started to calm down. The worst, for now, has passed. The last of the cars penning you in can't be too much furthe
r ahead. Any minute now you'll reach open road once again.
As you pass by one of the stalled cars, the rear door swings open, clipping your leg and catching the motorcycle's foot rest. Thrown off balance, the bike starts to careen out of control. While struggling to keep it upright, you inadvertently open up the throttle. The bike jumps forward, the front tire lifting into the air. The next thing you know, you fall off the seat and slam down hard on the pavement.
And there you lie, disoriented, the wind knocked out of you, trying to catch your breath as the thing that opened the door approaches along with a couple of its friends. You push yourself to your hands and knees, knowing you need to get out of here right now but finding it difficult to complete the climb all the way to your feet. This normally simple undertaking proves to be a lot more difficult once the zombies get their hands on you. After that, it goes from difficult to pretty much impossible.
Too bad the accident didn't knock you unconscious because then, at least, you wouldn't be aware of what happens next.
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Maneuvering the bike between the front end of one stalled car and the rear bumper of another, you head for the median and the eastbound lanes beyond. You're not ready to abandon the interstate just yet and know this is the only way you'll have any chance of continuing forward from here.
More vehicles crowd the median, many of them turned sideways, caught in the act of trying to reverse directions. A number of the bodies that have been lying here push themselves up from the grass while others pull themselves out of cars through open doors and windows. It doesn't take long for you to reach the blacktop along the other side of the median where you find more of the undead standing and moving in your direction. Easing the motorcycle forward, you reach the midway point between the median and the guardrail, the latter visible directly ahead through a gap in the cars.