Impassable

by Ponce, Jen

  22

  Now

  Will likes to talk. He goes on and on about everything under the sun. She thinks it’s because it chases away the memories that are always queued up, ready to remind him exactly what he’s already lost and what might yet be lost to him in Kirkland. He doesn’t mind that she’s quiet. Perhaps he’s used to it, used to meeting people who have had everything ripped away from them, who don’t have anything left to give, not even words. He tells her about his life before everything went sideways, about his job as an advocate for victims of violence, about his friend Jake who wasn’t his boyfriend, “Just to be clear,” though his eyes get misty whenever Jake’s on his mind. He talks about his mother and father and little sister. He talks about so many things until he stumbles onto something that reminds him of the mobs that hit the school in Colorado, the mobs that ate his not boyfriend Jake alive, the mobs that almost killed him and then he goes quiet.

  He doesn’t cry though. She hasn’t yet seen him shed a tear, though they’ve certainly threatened.

  She wants to tell him it’s okay to cry, but who is she to say such things? Maybe those are words of comfort from a time now lost to biting, rending teeth.

  They drive on, hopeful they’ll make it to the mountains and then through the pass today. Before everything went to shit it would have been an easy trip. Now, she expects there to be trouble, but no guesses on what form it will take other than awful. After everything else that’s happened, she doesn’t know why she can’t catch a break.

  Maybe Will will be her good luck charm, though from his stories and his haunted gaze, she doesn’t think so.

  “Do you have extra gas?” Will asks as they near Ellensburg.

  “Yes. We don’t need to stop. We have plenty in the tank and if that’s not enough, I have a couple five-gallon containers in the back.”

  “Good.” He rolls his head around on his neck and wiggles his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “You need a break? Want me to drive for a while?”

  “Yeah, would you? I have to pee and I need to stretch.”

  It isn’t the best place to stretch, not near a city, but when nature calls and all that. He pulls over on the overpass and walks to the rail to pee after they spend a bit of time making sure there aren’t any of them nearby. He calls out that he’s peeing on one of their heads, but she doesn’t respond. They terrify her, not only because of what they can do, but because of who they once were. Someone’s brother, mother, friend, lover. She’s been tempted to do terrible things to them, but in the end she’s refrained because they were once people just like Lana. Just like Jackson and Tucker.

  Will gets back in with an apology on his lips, but she ignores that too and gets them moving. A few of them are up ahead, spilling onto the entrance ramp, but she puts on a burst of speed and passes them before they can clog the road.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it?” Will asks. “How quiet everything is? I mean, not the nutters, obviously, but how there’s just no sound anymore? Of people? Used be cars going all the time, electricity humming. Now there’s just … silence.”

  She has noticed. It can eat at you, that kind of silence. It lets all the things in you don’t want to think about and there’s nothing to distract you. She never realized how modern conveniences had sheltered her from the way the world used to be. Now it’s all up in her face all day, every day, and she can’t escape the enormity of it. Everything is bigger now. Distances. Mountains. Oceans. How many times since all this started had she slapped her hand to her pocket, ready to call the boys or text them or take a picture only to remember that her cell was dead? How many times had she flipped a light switch in a house even though electricity had long since sputtered by the wayside?

  How may times had she reached for Lana only to find her gone?

  “You okay?” Will asks and she realizes she’s crying again.

  “Yeah,” she says, her voice rough. She doesn’t want to talk about it but steals herself for his questions.

  He stays quiet except to say, “I hear ya.”

  He’s not the companion she wanted to roll into Seattle with, but she’s glad he’s here, nonetheless. He provides noise and a confirmation that there are survivors of this horror. He’s her hope that Tucker and Jackson are both okay, safely ensconced with her parents who are also okay.

  Please let them be okay.

  The sign just outside Ellensburg says 109 miles. So close. She wants to push down on the gas and go eighty, ninety, hell, a hundred, why not? But she stays at an even sixty, telling the boys she’ll be there soon. Soon.

  She starts worrying when the mountains come into view and she sees snow topping the peaks. When the roads get bad, she slows down even more, cursing the loss of snow removal trucks and the people who once drove them.

  “Think we should stop for the night?” Will asks, his hands propped on the dashboard from the last time they fishtailed.

  “Yeah. Damn it. We’re so close.”

  He nods, amiable enough, and she wonders if he ever gets angry. She wants to punch the steering wheel even though she knows it will help nothing. “Maybe we can find an abandoned RV to spend the night in. I’d like not having to sit up to sleep.”

  “That would be nice. I haven’t been able to sleep in an actual bed for … I don’t even remember.”

  There has to be a few along the way and after a few more slow miles of driving they find one, a big sucker, one of those that probably cost half a million dollars new. It sits in the middle of the road on the other side of the median, its bright blue sides gleaming in the late afternoon sun.

  There are other cars around and a few of them are inside, trapped. They watch her and Will with dead-eyed interest, their fingers scratching at the windows that keep them contained. She finds herself curious about them even though she doesn’t want to be curious. How did they get in there? She knows some of them can open doors. Did they trap themselves inside? Did they die and wake up locked inside?

  She bypasses the gun for the crowbar Dan had once used to spear the eye of a woman she’d been sure was still alive.

  She still doesn’t know if the woman had been one of them or not. It still bothers her.

  “We kill the ones in the cars because we don’t know if they still have the brain function to get themselves out. And we don’t want them giving us away. So you’ll open the door, just a crack, just enough for them to get their heads out and then I’ll kill them. Got it?”

  Will nods and they study the road for a long time before getting out. First thing Will does is squat down to look under the cars abandoned on the road and she nods in approval, though he doesn’t see it.

  They are methodical and quick; they don’t give any of them time to realize their trap isn’t going to work. One does manage to get his door open, but Will dashes across the road and slams his body into the guy as he emerges, trapping his head between door and frame.

  She jogs over and jabs the crowbar into the man’s eye, milky and dusty and not a living person’s eye at all.

  “That all of them?” Will asks, though he knows as well as she does that it is.

  “Pretty sure,” she says.

  They pull the SUV up close to the RV, then do the same thing here they did with the cars, though nothing pokes its head out to get stabbed by her.

  “They could be waiting for us inside,” he says.

  She nods.

  They enter carefully, taking their time, very aware of how tight the quarters are for all that the RV is so expensive. The interior is coated with gore, on the floor, on the walls and after a quick search that turns up a couple of suicides in the back room, they leave, disappointed and a little sick to their stomachs.

  “Shoot,” he says.

  Shoot indeed.

  They pass storage units and a construction site, then find a roadside hotel modeled after a Swiss chateau. Maybe it’s stupid, but she likes the look of it. Even more, she likes the thought of a real bed.

  “Shall we
try our luck?”

  “It’s probably full of them,” he says, the first hint of despair in his voice she’s heard.

  He’s right. She knows it, but his disappointment is breaking her heart. “SUV is safer for sure,” she says and aches when his lip trembles, just a little.

  “I know.” He looks longingly at the hotel, and she’s struck by how young he is, a year or two older than Jackson, if that.

  And damn if she doesn’t want to give him something good in all this horror. “You know what? Let’s try. This time of year, they can’t have had many people. Parking lot has one car in it.”

  He nods but the shadow doesn’t leave his face.

  They have to find a way around the guardrails cordoning off the interstate from the highway that runs alongside it, then they park in front, both staring at the front door.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he says, though not with any conviction. He’s thinking of the beds too. The sheets. Of pretending everything is okay for one night.

  “I know,” she says. They take their time looking around, watching for the small movements, the flash of dead flesh, anything, but it’s quiet. When they’re satisfied, they get out and try the front door. There’s a sign that says, “Closed for the season. Come back when it snows.”

  “Promising.” They go around to the side and then back, trying windows and doors. All locked.

  “We could break a window, then block it up tight once we’re in,” she says.

  “I know you’re doing this for me,” Will says. “And you don’t have to. I can sleep in the SUV, same as you.”

  She ignores him and steps back, looking at the balcony above her head. “Think you can climb up there?”

  He cranes his neck, then looks at the side of the building. “Could you pull the SUV around?”

  “Sure.” She does, parking it right under the balcony. He makes the climb look ridiculously easy and in seconds he’s upstairs. His smile of triumph makes her smile.

  Then one of them appears behind him. “Will!” she shouts.

  His eyes go wide and he turns, but not fast enough. He goes down along with the creature attacking him. She can’t see them, she doesn’t know what’s happening. He has a knife on him, though, and she tells herself he’ll be okay. He’s got to be okay.

  “Will!” She scrambles on top of the SUV and straightens. She can see him on the ground, the crazy on top of him. “Will?”

  The crazy doesn’t move, but Will does, and she sags in relief.

  “Are you okay? Answer me, kid? How’re you doing?”

  He gives the zombie a shove and kicks at it to get it completely off him. He doesn’t answer her, though, just pushes himself up to standing, head hanging.

  His wrist is bleeding.

  It’s fine, she thinks. Scraped when he fell. No big deal.

  He lifts his hand slowly and her stomach drops when she sees the bite. She sways, grabs the railing to keep from falling off the SUV while he stares at the wound that will end his life.

  And then he begins to cry.

  23

  Then

  That morning, I was up early. Sleeping in a room full of people during the zombie apocalypse was comforting, true, but it was also noisy. After the fifth person sneaked by to get a glass of water from the kitchen sink, and the second group of four went out for a pee break, I was awake.

  Norma was already up fixing coffee and oatmeal for everyone for breakfast when Dan came over to me, followed by an older man he introduced as Evan.

  “He and his family, plus another group wanted to know if we’d be all right caravanning with them. I told them you guys took me in, so I thought it fair we discussed it together.”

  I nodded. Lana was still asleep, but Ivy was up, so I waved her over.

  “We have to get to Billings and Dan here said you’re headed toward Alliance way and after that, Seattle. Don’t suppose we could tag along with you? Safety in numbers, and all that.”

  I shrugged. “You have your own vehicles I take it. Because we don’t have room in our SUV for you.”

  “Oh yeah. We have a minivan and Isaac has a car. We’d need gas but I see you all managed to find some to carry with you. The van has a lot of storage space, too. We just need to get home. I have family …” Evan dropped his eyes. I knew exactly how he felt. The not knowing. The worry. The guilt.

  “I don’t see why not. Dan? Ivy?”

  Dan shrugged. “More eyes for lookouts and fingers to pull triggers would be all right with me.”

  “Sounds fine,” Ivy bit out, her glare for Dan, who ignored her. I got the feeling Dan didn’t give a shit who he annoyed as long as Owen survived.

  I understood that, just as I understood Ivy’s annoyance. It was probably a good thing we were dropping her off soon.

  “All right then. I figure we should hit the road soon if it stays clear of them.”

  Evan nodded and said he’d get everyone ready who was planning to go.

  I went to Norma. “Is there anything I can help with before we go? I’m so grateful to you and your husband both for taking us in.”

  “Of course, my dear. Jesus would have us do nothing less.” She took my hand in her soft, wrinkled ones and smiled at me. “I’m just glad you’re okay and I pray you make it to see your boys safely.”

  “Thank you.” She pulled me into a hug which I accepted gladly and when I pulled away, I was smiling. “Now, are you sure you don’t need help?”

  “Naw honey, I’m all right. Been cooking for a large family forever now and this is just the same. Sure are grateful for the food you shared, though. Looks to be a hard winter if things don’t get better.”

  I didn’t think things were going to get better, unless these zombies or crazies or whatever they were froze and died this winter. God, I hoped they did, but I had my doubts that I didn’t share with her. We would all know soon enough, and I wasn’t going to risk being the one to wipe the hope from her eyes with my suspicions.

  Evan was joined by his wife Jean, their two kids Lizbeth and Olivia, a couple of brothers named Isaac and Jude, and Jude’s girlfriend Paisley. They stowed their things in their vehicles while a couple from Norma’s group kept watch and then we discussed our plans. We let them know we had to stop in Alliance for Ivy, and we talked about how to safely drop her off and get gas.

  “If we had guns, it would make things a little easier,” Isaac said. “Me and Jude know how to handle them, but we didn’t bring any on this trip. Paisley can shoot like hell too, ain’t that right?”

  She nodded, preening a little under his praise.

  Dan glanced at us, then said, “We have rifles, a shotgun, and a handgun. Ammo too. I want to make sure everyone knows how to shoot but for now if you guys want to be in charge of some weapons, we’d be glad for it. You too, Evan. Jean.”

  “Jean can shoot,” Evan said. “I’ve never been keen on guns, but she used to do it for competition in high school.”

  “So each car will have at least one weapon and some ammo. I figure when we stop, we can circle the wagons, so to speak. Get out on the inside so the cars offer some protection. Gas getters get out on the outside. Make sense?”

  Paisley and Jude both looked a little confused, so Dan drew out his idea in the dirt, making sure everyone understood the plan.

  “Sounds easy enough. We’ll do it and see if it works. If not, we’ll try something new.” Like the rest of us, Evan’s head was on a swivel, watching out for any of them who might have been nearby. “Think we should hit the road though before we draw them back here. No use in putting Norma and her family in danger.”

  “Right. Let me get the guns and then we’ll go.”

  Dan passed out a rifle and shotgun along with the ammo, keeping one shotgun and the handgun for our car. Once that was done, we were on the road again. We weren’t able to go fast, which frustrated Ivy all to hell. She was already picturing hugging her daughter and grandchildren, I knew, and her eyes were constantly going to the clock on the da
sh.

  “How long now?” I asked her when we passed Hyannis.

  “Less than an hour. Well, probably an hour since we’re riding on the damn donut.”

  Anything over forty miles an hour was bad news, so we were taking our time. I didn’t know if it annoyed our new companions but decided it didn’t matter. They chose to come with us and they could choose to go on ahead if they didn’t like the pace.

  “We have to find a replacement wheel. Maybe at a dealership if its not too bad in town,” Dan said from the back where he sat with Owen. He’d charged the pad at Norma’s and his son was watching movies again, headphones on. His dad held an open bag of snack crackers for him and every so often, Owen would dip his hand into the bag and poke one in his mouth. Watching him in the rearview was fun, though distracting, and Lana would nudge me when I forgot to look at the road for too long a stretch of time.

  “That’s how they’re always screwing up in zombie shows,” she murmured. “Take their eyes off the road a second and blammo, zombie chow.”

  I rolled my eyes but minded the mild reproach and stayed focused from then on out.

  Ivy sat up as soon as we saw a sign for Alliance. “Big railroad town,” she said, and directed us off the road to the left. “I’m hoping since they live south of the railroad, they have fewer crazies.”

  She said it like she wanted me to validate her, so I did. “Plus, you talked to her just a couple days ago and she was doing all right.”

  “Right. Right.” She nodded and kept doing so as if the movement were some sort of spell to make it so.

  The train yard was huge, and I imagined it had been noisy when everything was running, with train cars banging into each other and train horns announcing their approach. The trailer park sat off to the left, and she directed us to turn onto the first road, a pothole infested dirt road, to be precise. Evan and his group filed in after us, all of us taking it slowly.

  To our right, a bright yellow car sat in front of a trailer, a woman and two kids trapped inside, their milky white eyes following us as we drove by. I was glad they were trapped in the car, but it disturbed me to see the two boys, a bit younger than my own, clawing at the windows when they saw us.