Daisy disappears around the side of the truck. A moment later, a high-pitched shriek sends Lana running in that direction with me on her heels. Behind the pickup, Daisy wrestles with a man, her knife on the ground. The Lexer has her pinned against the rear door, and she’s straightened her arms, hands planted on his chest, to keep his teeth from her face.
Lana moves for a woman closing in on the right, whom Daisy can’t fight off with both hands occupied. Daisy’s locked elbows bend, and the man’s teeth near her cheek. I race forward and yank the Lexer by the back of his filthy striped shirt. It’s only after the man turns for me, silver-blue eyes wild and tattered lips drawn back from brown teeth, that I admit I’m in way over my head.
I lift my knife as the man lunges. The blade hits skull at his hairline, glances off bone, and flies out of my hand. I back away. I can’t do it. I knew that, and still I tried to play the hero. Blood roars in my ears as I stumble backward, trip over the curb, and land on my ass. The man closes the few feet with a snarl. I shut my eyes. If this is it, I don’t want to see.
Two gunshots crack. My eyes open in time to see the man hit the road with a torrent of brown jelly spilling from the back of his head. The shots’ thunder carries up and around the hills. The pleasant hills. I let out a high, reedy laugh, slap my hand over my mouth, then look to where Lana and Troy stand holding their pistols.
“That was me,” she says.
Troy turns to her, mouth agape. “That was me. You missed by a mile.”
“Nope.” She drops her weapon to her side. “I’m calling it.”
Troy holsters his gun with a grumble. “You don’t get to call it. That’s not how it—”
“Too late.” Lana crooks a finger at me. “Let’s get out of here.”
My survival is so unexpected that it takes a few seconds to get my ass in gear, even with the noises from the road now audible over the thud of my heart. I scramble onto shaky legs and run for the pickup, where I jump in after Daisy.
Troy is in the driver’s seat a moment later, Lana on Daisy’s other side. Francis points the way we came, and after passing the bodies and pillaged houses once again, we bump over a ridge trail. It takes until the preserve for me to find my voice, and it still quakes when I say, “Thank you.”
Troy meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Hey, no problem. That’s what we do.”
It’s what I tried to do—save Daisy—and I failed miserably. In addition, I didn’t think to retrieve my knife from the ground in my haste to reach the truck. It doesn’t matter; I’ve proven I can’t use it. I’ve proven myself useless. They know it as well as I do. I bite my lip hard and twist my hands in my lap. The sinking feeling in my stomach is no stranger, but it’s all the worse for having no way to alleviate it. Usually, I can go home, lick my wounds, and give myself the old pep talk. Or have Rose give me one. This time, I’m stuck—with myself, with these people.
“Why are you taking credit?” Lana asks Troy. “It was my bullet.” She leans past Daisy and winks at me.
“Jesus, woman!” Troy shouts, and the others snicker. “It was my bullet, and you know it.”
“I don’t know any such thing.”
Troy counters with another argument, and the two bicker on the trip across someone’s farmland until the pickup busts through old barbed wire fencing onto the road. The bickering is probably for my benefit, to make me feel less like a weakling, but it makes me feel worse. My brother Mike turned out just fine—married, kids, living in South Carolina. I’m the weird one. Too sensitive for my own good and peculiar enough to be an embarrassment.
We pass a white farmhouse with a small red barn set between the swell of two hills. Trees line the road and the spring grass grows lush and green. It’s beautiful land, but I can take no pleasure in it. In anything, not even my continued existence.
We’ve been out for two days and barely gotten anywhere. There are still five hundred miles to travel. Maybe I need these four, but they don’t need me mucking up their plans. As soon as I find a good place to slip away, I will. Better I die on my own than drag them down with me.
32
Craig
The two-lane road spits us onto Alhambra Valley Road, which promises a short ride to Martinez. It’s proven good on that promise so far, past a few houses and ranches that appear empty, though Francis spots a person in a tree near one hilltop farmhouse, who might be waiting for signs of trouble. We slow to ask, but the warning shot we receive draws zombies our way and gives us reason to inquire no further.
Farther on, the occasional Lexer turns to watch us pass with vacant eyes. The woodlands close in, then open up again. Many large lots are fenced, something for which their owners must be grateful. Rose has a fence, and I’d bet anything Mitch went over there at the first sign of trouble. They’ll figure out how to survive this.
The road turns north. A new housing development sits a few hundred feet after the turn, surrounded by a chest-high rock wall. It might’ve been a decorative touch pre-zombie; now it’s a lifesaver. Troy slows at the mixture of cars and fencing that block the ungated entrance, where a man sits on a lawn chair in a pickup’s bed. He’s somewhere in his sixties, with white-blond hair and permanent sunburn across his cheeks. The kind of guy who’s been outside much of his life.
When Troy rolls down his window, the man eyes us warily, though he doesn’t lift the rifle set across his knees. “We only need directions, if you don’t mind,” Troy calls. At the man’s nod, Troy pulls into the circular driveway alongside the truck. “How’s it going?”
“I’ve had better weeks,” the man says.
“Tell me about it. Say, we’re trying to get to Martinez, to the train tracks, then over the railroad bridge to Benicia. You think we can make it?”
The man jaws a wad of gum for a few seconds, then shakes his head. “Not without a tank.”
“I’m fresh out of tanks.”
The man finally smiles. “You and me both. We’ve got a roadblock up a ways to keep out traffic. When you get to that, turn left. You’ll see a yellow farmhouse all the way down. Go across their land, and you’ll hit the trails in the regional parks. Shadow the road north ‘til you can’t go farther because of the parkway. Unless it looks different than it did a week ago, you’ll have to walk the trails north about two miles to the rails, but I can get you that far on wheels.”
“Farther than we would’ve gotten. Thanks.” Troy puts the truck in gear, then stops. “How are you set up? We have extra food in the back that’ll go to waste if we have to walk.”
“Pretty good. Have food and all that, killed as many of those dead motherfuckers as we could. These weren’t our houses, but they are now.” He hooks a thumb at the For Sale sign, which advertises homes starting at over 400K. “Don’t think they’ll be selling them anytime soon. You keep your food. I’ll be up that way soon, and I’ll find it if you leave the truck behind.”
“Fair enough. We’re much obliged for the help. Stay safe.”
The man’s face hardens, though it isn’t directed at us. “I’ve got a daughter pregnant with my first grandson. You can bet your ass we will.”
Troy lifts a hand as we pull off. The man observes our leave and then resumes his watch. He looks like he’s planning to sit there through wind and snow and a hurricane, all to protect his family.
Lana leans to smack Troy’s shoulder. “That was nice, offering him the food.”
“If I didn’t, you’d beat me to it and take all the glory. Again.”
“Troy,” Daisy says, “we all know you’re not a total douchebag.”
“I don’t know where you got that idea,” he says. “Gonna have to work on that.”
All four of them smile. They’ve become a tight-knit group in a short span of time, or maybe they knew each other before. I would ask, but I don’t want to know any more than I do or like them more than I do. I’ll cross the bridge with them, then bide my time until I find my own way.
Once we’ve jostled and jolted over what m
ight be every grassy knoll in California, the man’s directions deliver us where he said. We retrieve our packs from the pickup before we start on a narrower trail. Our boots are loud on hard-packed dirt rutted by years of bike wheels and horseshoes, and we walk the grass in loose formation. After a couple of minutes, a spot on my heel begins to burn. These boots were not made for walking, or maybe they need to be broken in. Either way, it’s a shit time to discover that piece of news.
Less than a quarter mile later, the park descends to a road—two car-lined lanes that parallel the raised parkway just beyond. Lexers congregate a hundred feet down the road, and Daisy sets off in a crouch, steadying herself on car bumpers as she crosses. The others follow, and I take up the rear. The prospect would’ve terrified me earlier, though I don’t care now. Death is bound to happen sooner than later, and I can’t obsess over it every second. In my case, it’s likely the sooner, the better.
I make the opposite sidewalk without embarrassing myself (a first) and slip behind the others into a squared-off tunnel hollowed into the underside of the parkway. Our steps echo softly on concrete as we make our way toward bright sunlight on the other side. The paved trail slopes down, easing the burn on my heel, but it soon turns to a treeless uphill dirt track. I sigh and plod behind the others. The only positive is that it’ll take zombies a year to climb the godforsaken thing.
It feels like hours of trudging through the same long grass, the same dust. I didn’t think to look for a watch to replace mine, and I have zero concept of time once again. My throat crackles with every swallow. When the others speak, I can only grunt or nod. Daisy and Francis are younger, but both Troy and Lana have years on me, and they’re merrily trotting along.
The sun is atrocious, blinding my eyes and beating down on my head. Rose hates the glare of overhead lights, and I come to the conclusion that the sun is the most fucking infuriating overhead light of them all. The thought makes me chuckle to myself. I need to get to Eugene if only to share it with her.
Sixty years later, we summit a ridge. The land around us dips and swells in shades of green, dotted with stands of bushy dark trees. In the distance are the buildings of Martinez. Troy inhales through his nose, spinning in a circle. “Nice view. Let’s take a break.”
I drop to the earth like a stone, grab my water bottle, and allow myself enough to not die of dehydration. After a quick snack of crackers and fruit snacks, the others stand, and I haul myself to my feet.
“Maybe halfway there,” Francis says. “Then the tracks.”
My burgeoning blister goes from burning to raw, and eventually the heel of my sock dampens and then sticks to the inside of my boot with every step. The blister has popped, kindly reminding me of an additional item I overlooked: Band-Aids. I can’t ask for one without sharing another instance where I’m not as prepared as them in both supplies and abilities.
Twenty more years pass, and we mount another incline to find the water of the mile wide Carquinez Strait sparkling in the sunlight. In the distance, the bridges cross the water, and Troy hoots with joy before we keep moving.
“Looks like it’s all downhill from here,” Francis says.
“Never thought I’d be glad to hear someone say that,” I mutter. Lana giggles and the others grin at me. Normally, I like to make people laugh, but my sense of humor has taken a beating in the past month, and my fragile good humor has popped with my blister.
The trail descends into the welcome shade of a wooded ravine, where we stop short at a rustling in the bushes. Fifty feet ahead, a Lexer moves in the underbrush. The woman, clad only in a ripped shirt and underwear, steps onto the trail and staggers forward. Her thighs are mangled, the pink inner flesh not yet gray. Her lower legs are drenched with dried brown blood, as though she bled out when her attackers bit an artery.
Francis jabs under her chin, then pushes her off his blade into the brush. The trail becomes a path through a small meadow that deposits us in an empty graveled parking area. After making use of the vault toilets, we cross a cracked and pitted two-lane road to the train tracks. They’re not fenced as we’d hoped, but with four tracks, they’re wide enough to see anything coming.
“Mile and a half to go,” Francis says.
I hold back a groan. That’s only the distance to the bridge; we still have to cross the fucking thing and figure out where to go from there. My heel is wet and bloody in my boot. Each time it hits the ground, I wince at the scrape of raw skin and wet sock on leather.
As we near the town, industrial buildings surround us and waist-high fences appear on either side—easy enough to vault if necessary, yet they’ll keep Lexers off the tracks. Though we try to step silently on railroad ties, loose gravel crunches under our feet. Eventually, the fence on the right becomes a wall, and a narrow bridge passes overhead, connecting to a pier on the strait. The two center tracks rise on an embankment while the outer two split off at ground level. Immense steel holding tanks appear, each several stories high, and the familiar yellow and red Shell Oil logo marks the area as a refinery.
High on the tracks, we have a clear view of tank after humongous tank. To our right, an immense network of silver catwalks, piping, and silo-type structures resembles a futuristic city. Tanker cars sit below, ready to ship their fossil fuel goodness to various points. That won’t happen now. And though I miss many of the delightful things fuel supplied—electricity for one, Ubers for another—the thought doesn’t exactly break my heart. Maybe Mother Nature is finally having her revenge.
A hiss is followed by the clinking of rocks on rails. Below us, three Lexers clad in orange safety vests attempt to climb up. Even I can tell they’ll never make it. “Sucks for you,” Troy calls to them, and is answered by frustrated groans.
Up ahead, the elevated freeway curves toward the tracks before it splits for the northbound and southbound Benicia-Martinez bridges, with the southbound road passing over the rails. Hundreds of cars sit motionless in the sunlight. The traffic jam continues onto the mile-long bridges and then for as far as I can see. Maybe all the way across. Maybe all the way to Oregon.
With every few steps, I make out more details—open doors, the broken glass of a truck’s windshield, and zombies. They wander the road or stand in a daze, waiting for something to catch their attention. Something like five delicious humans traipsing along the train tracks, no doubt.
Our tracks hit ground level. I don’t like it. Nor do I like the Lexers who watch us from the pedestrian walkway of the freeway, even if there is a fence atop the concrete border. Rattling metal and eerie moans drown out the whoosh of wind off the water.
Though it’s obvious the Lexers can’t get through, everyone speeds up. Francis squints at the freeway, bouncing his knife by its leather-wrapped handle. It’s fifteen hundred feet to the water, where the tracks turn to bridge, and it feels like forever. I look over my shoulder. The three Lexers down the tracks still follow, and they’ve picked up a few friends along the way. Now that we’re at ground level, it doesn’t suck so much for them anymore. The suckage is firmly in our court.
When we reach the southbound freeway overpass, the zombies above lose their shit entirely. Howling moans mix with hisses and groans. The fence creaks. There’s no time for a reprieve in the shade under the freeway, not with the others coming up behind us. The railroad bridge sits five hundred feet away, a continuation of our two tracks on a framework of rusty-looking trusses that cross the water.
We step into the sun, eyes on the roadway to the northbound bridge. It’s similar to the southbound road but for one very important detail: there’s no fencing above the concrete side. Rotted bodies crowd the space, some bent double over the edge while they eye their out-of-reach meal. Behind them, dozens more push forward for a view.
“Well, shit,” Troy says, slowing to a stop.
The first body takes a nosedive to the ground. It lands with a thud a hundred feet away and lies there for a few moments before it lifts its head. Still alive, or whatever, though one leg is bent i
n three places. It begins to drag itself toward us as more bodies plummet to the dirt, sending up clouds of gray dust. A shadow appears on the ground to my right, growing larger at an alarming rate, and I jump when a body crashes to dirt two feet away.
There’s no fence on the inside of the southbound road, either. In the time it took for me to comprehend this fact, to fully contemplate the figures leaning over the roadway above, five more have taken the plunge. I grab the nearest person—Lana—and yank her forward by her arm.
“Move!” I yell.
Daisy is the first to heed my warning, and she runs with no hesitation. Troy lucks out when a Lexer falls on either side, both missing him by inches. Francis isn’t as lucky: one collides with his shoulder, sending him to his knees in the dirt. Lana rushes over and drags him out of range by his coat.
Falling zombies drum the earth in time to my heart. A few are up on their feet, miraculously unhurt. The plan was to scope out the railroad bridge and assess the best approach, but that was before it started raining zombies. We race for the bridge, leaping the ties over water seventy feet below and not slowing until we hit a quarter of the way across, where rounded trusses soar overhead.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” Troy says, panting. His hat has disappeared, and his hair is wet with sweat. He glances behind at the few Lexers following. “That was a learning experience. You all right, Francis?”
Francis nods, lips set in a line. I think he’s less all right than he lets on, and it’s probably much worse than a blister, since he now carries his knife in his left hand. Francis’ fortitude makes me glad I haven’t bitched about my heel, which our run has turned to a constant throb-burn. I do my best not to limp, only wincing every fifth step.
The railroad bridge is half the height of the vehicle bridges on either side. The vehicle bridges from which Lexers continue to fall, landing in the water with giant splashes that ripple outward in waves.
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 29