by Ponce, Jen
There was a strange muffled noise and we heard, “You can’t say vaginal secretions on the radio.” That had definitely been the first guy, the one Brit had called Kaison.
“Oh, but I can say sperm? Screw off with your gender discrimination. Next you’ll be telling me all this is just a deep state conspiracy run by transgender operatives hoping to create a new world order.”
Someone, presumably Kaison, shouted something and someone else, maybe the anonymous dude whose nana died, clapped a hand over the first guy’s mouth. The muffled shouts faded, and I pictured Kaison being dragged out of the radio’s control room.
After another moment, Brit said, “Just don’t bone with anyone who’s been exposed to whatever is turning our fellow humans into killing machines. Okay? Stay safe, stay wrapped, and shoot to kill.”
Bumper sticker material if I’d ever heard it.
21
Then
The road trip so far had been uneventful. The few times we’d gotten slowed by a pile up we were able to drive around the stuck cars by easing the SUV into the ditch and back up onto the road. Twice we stopped at farmhouses we saw off the main road to look for gas and weapons. We scored big on gas, adding three more containers to the roof rack, and got an ax and a machete out of the stop. I wasn’t too sure about either one, since they would have to get really close for us to use them, but they were better than the butcher knife I’d tried to fend off the cat with, so I told myself not to complain.
I wanted Dan to teach us all how to use the firearms, but none of us wanted to stop again while we were making such good time.
While he drove and Lana slept with her head on my shoulder, I stared out the window, amazed at all the space. I’d never really spent any time in the middle part of the country. Seattle had always been my home and it was green, lush, and packed with trees everywhere there weren’t buildings or concrete. People knew how to decorate their yards with greenery too. Here, though, it was brown and so expansive. It wasn’t flat like I’d pictured it; there were plenty of rolling hills and trees, too, though most of these were planted around farmhouses as windbreaks or in towns.
I kind of liked how far I could see. I liked the feeling of unconscious freedom and, when I rolled down the window for a bit of brisk fall air, I liked the smell.
Signs told us we were nearing a place called Mullen and I caught sight of pelicans sitting on a jewel-bright lake … pond, maybe, it was so small … and had to do a double take when I realized that yes, they were, indeed pelicans. In Nebraska?
Lana stretched beside me as Dan slowed the SUV, probably out of habit when he saw the speed limit signs but it was a good thing he had, as there were crowds of them in the road far ahead. I leaned to see around Dan’s head as he slowed more, my heart rate ramping up at the sheer number of them. Where the hell had they all come from? Why were there so many just out and about?
Banners fluttering on light poles next to the highway trumpeted a harvest festival. Apparently the entire population had turned out to party. Either that or they’d managed to attract a buttload of tourists.
“We’ll have to go around, somehow,” Dan said. “Ivy?”
“I’m looking,” she said, the atlas already open on her lap. She studied it briefly, then said, “You sure we can’t just plow through them?”
“Not if we want a working car when we’re done. That many would bring us to a halt.”
I saw the skepticism in Ivy’s eyes and the way Dan gripped the wheel as if pissed off by her questions.
“This thing has to weigh 3000 pounds, probably more with the food and us inside,” Ivy continued. “I’ve hit a deer with my truck and obliterated it. Now, I know my truck was bigger but …”
Dan didn’t answer her, merely stopped and put us into reverse. “Find us a way around.” His tone was low and angry, and I cut my eyes to Lana who raised her eyebrows.
“Just punch the gas and—”
He snatched the atlas from her lap and held it back to us. “Will one of you find us a way around? They’re headed toward us and soon we won’t have any options but to go back.”
“Now listen here, buddy, I’ve been driving my whole life and I don’t appreciate you just dismissing me and interrupting me when I’m talking.”
Hands hit the hood, making us all jump. One of them, with a blood-smeared face and what looked to be a child’s leg in its mouth …
“Oh my god! God!” Ivy pushed back in her seat as if she could get away from the thing leering at her through the window. “Go! Go!”
More hands slapped at us, but Dan punched the gas—in reverse—and we soon left them behind. When it was safe, he put us back into drive. “I don’t want to go back too far, but we may have to. There’s no getting around that crowd in this.” The muscle in his jaw jumped. “That many would stop us like a wall, screw up our tires or axle if we drove over them, and eventually they would pile up underneath us, making it impossible to move. And they could tip us like that,” he said, pointing at another car that sat, overturned, by a billboard. Blood smeared the highway around it as if something terrible had happened to its occupants.
And of course, something had, hadn’t it?
Lana studied the map and said, “We could go around, take Highway 97 South. We’d have to take South Grant Avenue, which curves into Southeast Second Street. Then we’d turn left onto the highway. We could also try taking Second all the way through town. Maybe they’re all concentrated on the main road and we could get around them this way.” She showed me the atlas as if questioning herself, a little freaked by Dan’s outburst, however small it had been.
I nodded. “Looks good to me. Dan?” I held up the map and he nodded sharply, mouth drawn in a tight line as we started forward again.
They were headed our way, their catcalls and hoots and oddball songs making my stomach hurt just hearing them. Why couldn’t they have been normal, groaning zombies? That was terrible enough, but to hear the insanity bubble up from their mouths, knowing it was designed to lure us in so they could eat us, well, it made me want to curl up and cry.
Dan took the left Lana had found and we passed a couple of quaint, tidy houses. The highway that led south was free and clear. “South or try for the other side of town?” he asked, slowing again as we came on the intersection. Far to our right, they were coming, leaving the main road in waves, some tripping over curbs, some crossing into neat little yards, some getting caught up on fences.
The highway was clear, yes, but Second Street looked good too, and it wouldn’t take us miles out of our way.
“Other side,” I said. “Gun it, maybe.”
He did, our vehicle picking up speed, rushing us by a house with colorfully painted tires filled with flowers to our left, a boxy-looking church on the right. We caromed past two intersections and then they were there, swarming the road. Dan turned hard left again, and Lana scanned the map frantically, shouting directions. I hoped to hell we didn’t run into a dead end. That would be too ironic and no one wanted to die of irony, right?
“Right up here!” Lana shouted, and Dan spun the wheel. We raced past truck after boxy truck, the houses whizzing by. “Right!” she shouted and we were smashed up against the door as he turned. Owen’s eyes were wide as he clutched the tablet with one hand and clung to Lana with the other.
There were more of them on the road, but Dan swerved around them, highway in his sights. The road in front of us glittered in the bright sun and for a moment I was dazzled by the light, then realized too late what it was.
“Glass!” I shouted, but too late. The tire blew. The SUV pulled hard to the left before Dan got us back on track and the sound of the flat rubber on the road sounded like a death knell.
“We’re going to die,” Lana whispered after a terrified look behind us.
“No, we’re not.”
Dan didn’t stop, didn’t dare stop because they were behind us and more coming. He didn’t dare go faster, either, so he held it at around twenty miles per hour
, the SUV jerking and bumping on the pavement. Off to our right, a couple miles outside of town, there was a house with a packed driveway. Four trucks sat bumper to bumper out front like a shield wall, and more cars lined the road. The windows looked like they were boarded up and a spray-painted sign out front said, “Honk if you’re a survivor!”
Dan slowed, taking a glance back himself. “We have to stop. The rim’s probably already fucked, but if it’s not, it will be.” Without waiting, he honked, honked again, and a head peeped out the front door. He rolled down Ivy’s window and leaned over her to shout, “We have a flat and there’s a horde coming.”
“Shit. Pull around to the far side. Ground’s flat, ditch is minimal. We’ll let you in the back. Hurry!” The woman disappeared inside and Dan did as she ordered, driving around the cars to ease us over the ditch and the uneven ground. Lana unbuckled Owen, then herself. I grabbed our bags and as soon as Dan slung the SUV into park, we bailed, rushing for the back door, and the little old lady who waved her hand frantically at us.
We crowded into the small, seventies’ style kitchen, and our savior locked the door behind us. She looked to be in her eighties, her fluffy white hair piled haphazardly on top of her head. “I’m Norma, this here’s Jim my husband. We have a whole mess of people, so things are crowded.”
Crowded was right. There were at least fifteen people in the living room and more, according to Norma, in the bedrooms, of which there were three. “We saved as many people as we could when things went south.” She shook her head. “Things went south so fast. One minute Barbara Stanley was looking sick and the next she was chomping on her granddaughter. The sheriff? He managed to put them down fast, had heard some reports from out east but …” She shook her head. “You don’t want to hear this stuff. Pull up a piece of floor and I’ll get you folks some water. Then we’ll all have to be real quiet so they forget we’re here.” She aimed this at Owen, who nodded solemnly, his big eyes bright with unshed tears.
We found a spot by the fridge and took the proffered glasses full of ice water. It tasted so good I asked for another and got one. We sat in silence from there on out, unable to do more than smile and nod at the people around us as we waited for the crazies to find us.
“Help!” The first calls were small ones, as if they were coming from children. Owen buried his head in his dad’s shoulder when a woman called out next, “Baby boy! Baby! I need you. Come to mama!” She sounded so sad it made my heart hurt and terrified me all at once.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” called a man, his voice pitched high. He repeated the phrase as if his brain were stuck on it, repeated it sing-song, questioning, even angrily.
When the thumps came, I jumped and Lana grabbed my arm tightly, her face pale.
Norma sat on a chair near us and leaned close, so close I could see the fine white hairs on her chin. “We have the place fortified pretty damn good. They haven’t gotten in yet.” The whisper came with stale cigarette breath, but even so I was glad she told us because I still jumped when I heard them scratching their fingernails on the boards covering the windows.
“Help! Please. In. In? Let in?”
Bodies thumped against the doors, hands grabbing, grasping, the knob rattling but not turning.
“Please!”
Please, I echoed in my head. Please stop.
“I have to pee,” Owen whispered, and one of them heard him and began banging on the back door in earnest.
Norma stood, holding a finger to her lips as she held out her other hand to the little boy. Owen looked at his daddy, and at Dan’s nod, took Norma’s hand and followed her out of the kitchen.
Dan’s eyes stayed on his boy until he was out of sight, and then his gaze did not move from the doorway until Own safely returned.
The howls died down a couple hours later, and another hour after that, there was a creak in the hallway, and the sound of shoes on wooden steps. A man poked his head into the kitchen and whispered, “They’ve headed back into town.”
The relief around the room was palpable.
I needed to go to the bathroom myself and worried that with this many people I’d never get the chance, but Norma must have known what was on my mind because she said, “We have another bathroom in the workshop. We go out in sets of four, all armed. Quick, quiet, in and out. One of us keeps watch in the attic. It’s not the best system, but it works. You’re also welcome to wait in line in here, too, but I think most folks are glad to get out, even for a brief time.”
“We’re all getting stir crazy,” a man said from the doorway between the kitchen and living room. “Been cooped up here a couple days now. Ran out of gas right outside of town. Norma and her family saved us.”
“Us too,” several more murmured.
Thank goodness for Norma and Jim, because we would have been toast without their generosity.
“Think a group could stand watch while I change the tire? Put on the spare?” Dan asked. Owen sat on his lap eating a granola bar and looking shell-shocked. I felt bad for him. For them both, but Owen especially. He’d lost his mother, his home, his safety in a shockingly short amount of time. And how did you explain the zombie apocalypse to a kid his age?
“I’ll help,” I said. “There’s a lot of stuff to unload to get to that tire.”
He nodded his thanks and I rose, groaning at my stiff joints.
“I’ll go too,” Lana said, so I pulled her off the ground. “It’ll be faster with all of us helping.”
“The rim might be ruined,” Dan warned. “We had to drive on it quite a ways before we got here.”
“In which case, you can use one of our trucks if you need too. We have plenty. I assume you all are headed somewhere, what with all the gas on your roof.” This from Jim, who had on bib overalls and a genial smile that would have made him Santa material had he a beard. His rosy cheeks and twinkling eyes certainly hinted at some magical ancestry.
“I need to get to Alliance,” Ivy said. “My daughter and grandchildren are there.” She still hadn’t deigned to look Dan’s way, and I wondered how long she’d stay pissed with him. “These ladies are headed back to Seattle to get to their kiddos.”
“Seattle! Oh my, that’s a long trip.” Norma’s hand fluttered to her chest and then she paused when someone poked their head out of the trapdoor to say that it was all clear. “Okay, go on. Mitch, James, and Anna will keep watch for you but you have to be quiet. They have wicked sharp hearing.”
Dan nodded and we trudged outside. Mindful of her admonition to be quiet, we took our time unloading, being careful not to let things clink or clang as we emptied the back so Dan could reach the spare. Once it was out along with the jack, he carefully lifted the car and took off the tire. “Rim’s toast,” he whispered.
Lana rolled the ruined wheel to the side of the house and left it lying on its side while Dan put on the spare. Once the jack was stowed once more, we loaded everything back into the back except for a couple boxes of food.
“What are you doing?” Dan asked quietly as Lana and I hoisted the boxes.
“Sharing. They were kind enough to save us, and I doubt they have enough to feed all those people for more than a few days, tops.” I started toward the house and he grabbed my shoulder, not hard, or I would have kicked him. Still, it pissed me off and I turned, eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I just don’t think …” He looked over at the house and realized we had an audience, though I doubted they could hear what we were saying.
“What?” I whispered again, knowing what he wanted to say and hating him a little for it.
He shook his head, looking annoyed, and waved us on.
Waved us on, as if he had any say in the matter.
The ass.
We brought in the boxes and put them on the table as Dan went to Owen without another word to us. Norma clapped her hands quietly when she saw the canned goods and she was so thrilled, I went back outside and got the cooler. The food in there would go to waste soon
enough anyway, and by god Dan could suck the dick I didn’t have if he thought differently.
“It’s so generous. Thank you. We’ve been worrying about how we were going to feed everyone.” She looked guilty, as if it were somehow her fault she hadn’t anticipated the zombie apocalypse and a house full of refugees. “We’ll get dinner started and maybe you can tell us what you know about what’s going on. There isn’t much on the radio. Emergency broadcasts or DJs trying to pass on what news they can, but they don’t know much. The sheriff heard talk of parasites, but what does that mean, exactly? The CDC has been quiet, he said. And now he’s quiet.” She trailed off, looking troubled.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t know any more than you do. We were in Omaha when things started going crazy. We know bites are deadly. We heard on the radio that spit, semen, bodily secretions spread it. We know the dead retain some semblance of brain activity because they can call out, they can talk, they can sing, but those are just lures to trick you into letting them get close.”
Her kind eyes were gazing at me with such horror I had to stop. I couldn’t be the one to add to her nightmares, though I supposed I already had.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Me too, honey.” She squeezed my hand with her paper soft one, and I resisted the urge to fall into her arms and cry.
We heated up cans of beef stew, green beans, and ramen and had the best peach cobbler I’d ever eaten for dessert. When it was time to sleep, we used a couple pillows from the car for our bed and slept on the floor beside the fridge. It wasn’t comfortable but I felt safe with all the people around me, most of whom lived either in town or on nearby farms. They’d come for a celebration that had ended in tragedy, but they quietly celebrated their survival by taking care of each other and us. Their kindness gave me hope that we’d see our boys again, that despite the horror that had descended upon us, there were still people in the world who would help a few desperate strangers in need.