A Good Distance From Dying

by David Carroll

  “She seems to be hitting the windshield with more force as well.”

  “You’re right. When we first saw her, she was barley smacking that window, now she’s hitting it like a battering ram.

  As we watched the woman thrash about in the car, her movements began to get slower and the force of her blows began to diminish. Soon she was back to how we found her. “And now…nothing. It’s like she used up all her energy. Maybe the fast movers are like, I don’t know, like running on batteries. They can move faster and hit harder, but only for a little while. After they burn that energy out then they become normal, slow, zombies.”

  “That would be good news for us.” Sass said and he must have thought that was the end of the conversation because he began moving to the next car. As he passed by he said, “Come on, I don’t think she wants to be your girlfriend, let’s keep moving.”

  “Well, honestly I’m not looking for anything long term. I wonder if she would be up for a relationship based on nothing but sex?”

  Sometimes I like saying something so far out there that it makes no sense whatsoever. It tends to help keep everyone’s stress levels down as they try to figure out how screwed up I truly am. The bad part about trying this with Sass is that he knows exactly how screwed up I am. This makes it hard to give him pause. He shot me a look and returned my volley.

  “Well, I doubt she would mind eating you, but probably not in the way you would want.” He smiled at me as if to say, “lob me another ball to knock out of the park”. I decided to shut up and wait for another chance to freak him out.

  Navigating the bridge was not an easy ordeal. Cars were everywhere, at all kinds of angles. Trying to stay on top of the wrecks instead of weaving through them just complicated the effort even more. We were only two cars in when we had to take our first pause to figure out how to proceed. From where I stood the cars resembled a mosaic of drunken ticked off porcupines, and I thought getting past the jagged bits of wreckage once would be tricky enough. I really didn’t want to have to back track and try it multiple times.

  Sass began to walk towards an SUV that was lying on its side to the left of my girlfriend’s car when we heard a loud bang from behind us.

  There’s small group of buildings on the right side of the road, just as the land falls away to the gorge which the bridge’s purpose in life is to span. One is a market with gas pumps. One looked to be storage for the market and there is a third building which could have been anything but now it had a Greyhound bus lying in the middle of its remains. The bang had come from inside one of the buildings. I was assuming the market.

  “Was that a gun shot?” Sass asked, “If somebody is shooting at us, we’ll be sitting ducks up here on top of these cars.”

  “That’s not a gun, Sass. That’s either a zombie killing its meal or its meal killing the zombie.”

  Sass stood quietly. We were only two cars into the bridge so it would be easy to simply drop down and go check out the building. However, the building was something completely different. We would be confined; our escape path could be cut off in a second. Also, our ability to see or hear any approaching zombies from the outside would be dropped down to just about zero. While we burned daylight exploring the store an entire army of zombies could set up shop outside the front door waiting for the sound makers to make the sound again so they could home in on it. We could find ourselves trapped inside the building like the billboard man was trapped up on that ledge.

  Sass shrugged, but his body language said he wanted to check it out.

  “We shouldn’t do this.” I said.

  Sass just looked at me. I sighed and said again that we shouldn’t do this, but I said it as I began walking towards him.

  Sass had nodded to me and began to make his way back to the first car, where my new girlfriend was still waiting on me to give her a hug. As we stepped onto her car Sass turned around and smiled, “Look, she’s so happy to see you again.”

  Looking down at my girlfriend I could see how badly she wanted that hug. The inside of the windshield now had red streaks across it as she had ripped her skin open beating on the glass. No pain was registering in the dead brain of my sweetie as she continuously pounded on the safety glass of the windshield.

  “How long do you think it will take her to bust through and come after us?”

  Sass shook his head, “No clue and I really hope we never find out. We should really…”

  Whatever Sass was going to say was lost forever as another, louder bang exploded from the building. I felt myself jump as if I were watching a horror movie and the killer had just grabbed me. Sass looked my way. The look said, “That really doesn’t sound like a living somebody in there”. I agreed. It sounded like something really mad, and really hungry.

  “We can forget about this.” I said hoping Sass would go for it, but he was already moving forward again.

  “Sass, I think it just needs to be said, this is the part of the movie where the guy that walks into the building first gets killed.”

  Sass smiled at me, “That’s why you’re going in first, Crackhead.”

  “I’ll be damned. To me that sounds like a zombie trying to beat his way out of the building. My vote goes for heading back to the bridge.”

  “And your vote makes perfect sense except for one thing.”

  “Enlighten me O'Mighty Sasquatch. What is that one thing that keeps me from making sense?”

  “This is a store. There are things in here that might be of use to us. Things that could maybe help us get across that bridge easier.”

  “What on earth could they have in there that would make crossing that bridge easier?”

  Sass shrugged, “A pair of gloves would be nice.”

  I stopped walking. This is what gets people killed. The inability to separate themselves from the world that existed yesterday and the world that exists now. This is what would lead to so many people dying like it was open season on humanity. It’s funny to think of it like that because that is exactly how it is now. If you’re human you are being hunted. You may not see it, you may not hear it, but there are things out there hunting you and if you don’t act accordingly, you will be caught, killed and eaten.

  “Wait, you’re willing to risk our lives for a pair of gloves? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Sass turned back around to look at me, “What’s wrong with me? You’re one to ask. Look around, you’re supposed to be the expert on this kind of thing. You’ve seen every zombie movie ever made. You’ve read book after book about it. Hell, you even had that web comic about zombies for a while. And here we stand smack dab in the middle of the day of the dead and you’re as clueless as I am on how to proceed. At least I have an excuse seeing as how I honestly have no clue. You, however, should have several clues. So, either you’re honestly lost or you’re holding them all in and if that’s the case you really need to grow a set and step up to the plate.”

  I knew Sass wasn’t mad at me. It’s just how stress works. What I had said struck a nerve, he was wound pretty tight already and he opened up and let fly. Most of what he said was true though, and maybe I did need to hear it. I had seen quiet a few zombie movies and I had read a couple of books. Nothing like what he was saying, but it was still a good amount. The web comic was true, for a while I had fun doing it. And yes, I did have a few ideas on how to survive.

  “You have some good points, Sass, but you’re wrong. I have been trying to give you ideas on how to survive. You just don’t want to follow my suggestions. I kept you from getting out for that cop. I would have kept us in the truck at the airport for that particularly unfortunate set of circumstances, but you wouldn’t hear it. I have told you that we need to keep cover. I have also been constantly assessing the abilities of these creatures that I have never actually seen until a few hours ago!”

  Sass’s eyes narrowed as I raised my voice. He was gearing down for an argument. I knew that was something we absolutely couldn’t afford to do right now. We were very out
in the open and vulnerable where we stood. Sass opened his mouth to say something but I cut him off.

  “I’m sorry I yelled. I’m stressed, you’re stressed. We really don’t need to get into this right now. We need to turn around and head back to the bridge. You wanted my opinion on how to stay alive, there you go. There are bangs coming from that building. It may be somebody hammering up boards to keep zombies out, it may be zombies trying to beat their way through the door to get out. We simply don’t know. And that is the fact that should make this decision easy for us. We don’t know what is behind that door. It could be one zombie, which I’m sure we could handle, or it could be ten zombies. We don’t know if they will be slow or fast movers. We don’t know anything, and that makes it rank very high on the danger scale. You want me to grow a set and step up to the plate? You need to listen to me for once. In my professional opinion, being a graduate from Zombie Survival College, we need to leave that building the hell alone and go on our merry way across that bridge.”

  Sass stood still looking at the ground for a minute. I thought that he was going to launch another attack at me but instead he dropped his tire iron to the ground and shook his head in a gesture that meant “no”.

  “I wish things were as easy for me as they are for you. How can you just detach and not be concerned for anyone that may be in that building? How can you rationalize leaving people to the mercy of those things?”

  “Sass you are looking at this all wrong. I am not detached. I do have concern for the people that are still out here in this world. However, if there are people in that building banging around, it’s by their choice. They think that boarding themselves up in that building is their best option for survival. They aren’t asking for us to come save them and they aren’t asking us to join them either. They are taking their path just as we are taking ours. There’s no right or wrong. There are no heroes or villains. There’s just the remains of the human race trying their best to stay alive. You can’t honestly expect every single person we see to want to come with us. Most people are going to hold up wherever they are for the very same reason we stayed in your truck so long. The very first thing I told you was that every time we get out of the truck our chances of dying get greater. This is not some amazing piece of insight only I am privy to. This is a universal truth. You go outside, you risk being cornered, eaten and killed. As much as you don’t want to hear it, we can’t be responsible for anyone but ourselves now. If we run into others that want or need our help then we’ll be happy to give it. I’m not against us picking up more people on our way to Johnson City. But if there are living people in that market I can guarantee you, they know we’re out here and they want nothing to do with us.”

  Sass looked back at the building. “You make sense. Really, you do…” I had a sinking feeling creeping into my gut that I was going to hear, “but…”.

  “…but that’s not me. I have to know there was nothing I could do to help them.”

  This right here, this is what is going to get me eaten. I thought that I should just part ways with Sass right here and right now. I should leave him here at the minute market while I still had the ability to get out of this dangerous situation with my life. I shouldn’t look back. I shouldn’t speak to him about it. I should simply turn around and leave. If he follows cool, if not then it was like I told him, we each have to take our own path. My path should have been carrying me back to the bridge. Instead I picked up his tire iron and handed it to him, “Then let’s go knock on their door and see what’s going on.”

  Sass put his hand on my shoulder, “You’re such a big softy.”

  “I swear to God Sass, if you get me bit, I am going to do everything I can to infect you after I die.”

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  “And quit yelling at me to give you advice on how to survive if you never plan on listening to me. All it’s doing is eating up the clock and tiring me out from all this talking you’re making me do.”

  “Hell Crackhead, you’ve always liked the sound of your own voice. You could have said all of that in like three sentences, but you always drag stuff out.”

  “Sass, I am holding a hammer. You know that right?”

  “Keep it close. You can use it to nail your girlfriend when we get back to the bridge.”

  I must admit Sass was on his game today, I almost had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at that last one. Instead I found the strength to say, “Sass, you know you're really pushing it today.”

  We had reached the building and were standing at the door. It was made from the heavy shockproof glass that I think all minute market stores use. The bad thing about it was that the owner of the market had pasted so many beer and cigarette advertisements on the doors that you couldn’t see what was on the other side. The only good thing was that this was a really old building and it didn’t have the doors that you could just push open and enter or exit the building. It had a door set into a metal frame that you had to physically turn the knob and pull to open the door. This meant we weren’t going to get any surprises popping through the door at us, but it also meant that once inside we wouldn’t be able to just run back out the door to the safety of the wide open spaces.

  I grabbed the door knob and turned it. I felt the locking mechanism slide free of the frame. We were only seconds from the good or the bad of the situation. I looked to Sass and nodded my head. He took his best homerun hitter stance and prepared to brain anything that sprang out at us. I counted to three and swung the door all the way open. I heard Sass growl as he tensed up to swing the weapon. Then, absolutely nothing happened.

  I peered around the door and saw nothing standing there looking at us. No humans. No zombies. Not even a cat or a dog. Sass was looking into the market with a curious expression on his face.

  “What gives?” I asked as I walked around the door. “Where is this noise coming from?”

  As if to answer my question a loud bang came from inside the store. I looked back to Sass who simply nodded and motioned for me to go on inside. “This is a really bad idea.” I whispered as I entered the building.

  Sass followed me in and I motioned for him to set something down on the ground to prop the door open just in case we needed to leave this party in a hurry. I watched him slide a case of Pepsi in between the door and the frame.

  With our escape route propped open I began to look around. You could tell this building was very old. I imagined that the people who had built the thousand year old bridge we were about to cross probably bought their beer here at the end of each work day as they made their way back to their caves to eat the Brontosaurus steaks that Wilma or Betty had cooked for them.

  All the windows were covered up with the same beer and cigarette ads that had clogged up the glass door. This kept any sunlight from reaching inside the store. Only the inside lights illuminated the products that the owners had hoped to sell. To complicate it even more it seemed the owner of this place had decided that he didn’t need anything more powerful than forty watts. This led to us trying to scout what dangers lay within a building that was as bright as a cave.

  “How did these people ever sell anything?” I whispered to Sass who was looking as happy about the situation as I was.

  “They knew how to set the mood huh?” was all he could whisper back.

  Directly across from where we had entered was the counter where Pa Kettle would apparently sit and wait to take money from whatever person was desperate enough to actually come in here with high hopes of finding some treasure hidden within the darkness. Behind the cashier area was a large rack which held about three million different kinds of cigarettes. To the left of the counter was a newspaper slash magazine rack that sat against the front wall of the building. The large window above the rack was designed to let the sun into the building, but seeing as how the owner seemed to be a vampire, not one beam of light made it past the thick posters of cigarette and beer ads.

  When you looked towards the back of the buildi
ng, there were two rows of shelves which held candy, oil and other automotive items as well as a small section of school supplies and hardware goods.

  Behind these two shelves was another shelf that ran across the other end of the store blocking our view of the cooler that took up the back wall. Having seen the lay out I was really only concerned about two things. The first was a large pool of blood which sat against the left wall of the store. A splatter pattern streaked across the wall as well as the floor and the front part of the candy shelf.

  The second was the body that was lying on the floor in the middle of the store between the two shelves. Sass stopped at the opening of the middle row as I went to the left. I could see that the blood trail led on towards the back of the store and that there was another body on the floor right at the end of the long shelf. I also noticed that in the back corner of the store was a bathroom that sat between the block outside wall and the cooler where the drinks were kept.

  I turned back to Sass, “This is not good. We need to leave. Now.”

  Sass looked like he was finally in agreement with me. Then we heard a loud bang come from the back of the store. I cringed as I saw Sass starting to make his way down the middle row and towards the body on the floor. I gripped my hammer and began to creep my way down to the body that lay before me. I had just noticed that the head of this body was absolutely destroyed when I heard Sass whisper “Whoa!” and exhale a long whisper of a whistle.

  “Charlie this guys head is ripped off his body. It doesn’t look like a saw or anything was used either. It looks like somebody tore him apart with their bare hands.”

  I had knelt down looking at the body before me. I knew there was no danger from this guy, even zombies can be killed with the proper application of force and whoever had taken care of this guy had used way more than the proper amount.

  “Yeah, this guy over here has half of his head caved in. Whoever these guys were fighting must have been ungodly strong.”