“Hang on guys!” Noah shouted as he plowed through the metal garage doors and out into the parking lot followed by the others in the vehicles behind us.
“What happened out there baby?” Jennifer asked as she and Sheila came running to me.
“We just lost Peter, Fallon and Vicki.” I answered grimly.
“Damn it…damn those fucking things to hell!” Noah shouted angrily as he sat in the driver’s seat with a distant look.
“Get us out of here Noah—we’ve got to continue on to our destination in Iowa; all we can do is just put this behind us—it was a mistake to stay here as long as we did.” I answered as I took a seat not far behind Noah and Christina with Jennifer and Sheila as they held Remy, Mace and Ember close.
“Okay…so keep following highway 30?” Noah asked looking at me in the rear view mirror.
“Yeah—as I said before—it will lead us back to interstate 80.” I answered casually.
“I wish that at least one of them had made it…those were the best friends I have ever had…all except Josh Randall.” Billy Kennedy stated in a melancholy tone.
“I know, but at least you made it out of there—none of the others were that lucky.” Richard answered patting him on the back as he walked over to the coolers that had been loaded inside earlier to get him a beverage.
“Yeah…I know.” Billy Kennedy answered with a distant stare.
I listened to the casual chatter of the others for a while and then I found myself drifting off into a light doze, Jennifer, Sheila and my daughters were all asleep as well and it wasn’t until about two and a half hours later when Noah’s voice woke me—he had arrived at the entrance to interstate 66 near a small town called Merrillville.
“According to this map we’ll have to take the 66 north for a short distance until we hit Gary, Indiana and then we can cut west on interstate 80.” He stated as he glanced back at me.
I got up and walked up to the front and examined the map where Christina was pointing and nodded.
“Yeah, that’s what we need to do—how are the others behind us, have you heard from them?” I asked with concern.
“Cedric checked in not too long ago and so did Melvin and Kira—they all seem to be fine so far.” Noah answered as he stared ahead at the road.
“Okay—hopefully we can make it at least out if Indiana before nightfall.” I stated as I turned and returned to the seat where Jennifer and Sheila were waiting for me.
Settling back down we all waited as the drab miles passed by and shortly before 5 pm that evening we arrived on the outskirts of the moderate sized town of Gary, Indiana; we didn’t waste any time stopping though knowing all too well what would happen if we were in one spot for very long—we got back on interstate 80 and I took over driving as Noah and Christina went to get some sleep. Jude was playing a game of cards with Remy and Mace and Ember was sleeping as Jennifer and Sheila sat down beside of me, it seemed like it didn’t take me long to get us past the Illinois state line and we were getting really close to Chicago.
“Are we going to pass through Chicago on this route?” Billy asked as he and Kayla glanced out the window near their seat.
“No—that would be too dangerous—the 80 merges and continues west from here as going to Chicago we would keep heading north.” I answered as I turned off and continued following the 80 in a westward direction as the tall buildings of Chicago could be seen in the distance.
“That’s good…I’m not fond of traveling through large cities—it draws too big of a crowd.” Noah stated from behind me.
“No kidding—it’s like we become a huge neon sign that says ‘buffet’ and every dead-head within miles starts chasing us.” Richard stated with a laugh.
I continued driving into the night and sometime around 4 am the next morning I stopped near a small town called Morris and I let Billy take over driving as I was having a difficult time keeping my eyes open; I led the way to the seat where we had been sitting and I sat down bringing Jennifer and Sheila into my arms—Remy and Mace had fallen asleep in the floor nearby with Jude and Ember was sleeping in Sheila’s arms. I glanced down at Jennifer’s stomach through her shirt and I could really see the baby bump now—I kissed her forehead and then done the same to Sheila before closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep; I woke later that morning and I got up going into the hygiene trailer where I had to take a piss—I showered shortly after in the small stall and then returned to the front of the lab truck where I went up to the front where Billy and Kayla were.
“Where are we dude?” I asked as I stared out the windshield at the countryside that was spread out before us.
“We’re getting near some place called Rock Island.” He answered as he took a swig from a coffee mug that was sitting nearby.
I picked up the road atlas and looked at it briefly and then looked back at him with amazement.
“Damn dude—you’ve nearly made it all the way across Illinois without so much as stopping.” I stated with a surprised tone.
“Yep—we’re starting to run low on fuel though, it’s down to a quarter of a tank and I imagine that the others behind us are the same way.” Billy answered as he motioned to the fuel gauge.
“Start looking for a station—we’ll have to stop again to see if we can refuel; I hope that this is the last stop we have to make before finding wherever it is we find an airfield in Iowa.” I answered as I turned and walked back to the seat where Jennifer and Sheila were waking up.
“Where are we, baby?” Sheila asked as she stretched her arms over her head.
“We’re almost to the Iowa state line—we’re gonna stop here shortly as soon as we can find a station to refuel.” I answered as I sat down next to her and Jennifer.
“Wow—my brother must have hauled ass to have gotten us all the way across the state in just a few hours’ time.” Sheila stated with a surprised tone.
“Indeed, it’s good that we’re making this much progress, though—the sooner we get to Iowa and find an airfield the better.” I answered smiling.
Shortly after that Billy found a travel station and pulled the lab truck into the lot beside of the diesel pumps and Noah led the way out into the lot—he checked the pumps and reported that they were working; we all stood around on guard as he fueled up the lab truck and then we got back inside and moved forward so Cedric could fuel up his diesel rig. Melvin and Kira fueled up their old pickup truck at a regular pump and then once we were ready we departed from the station not wanting to spend more time there than we had to for fear of the rampant mutations and armies of dead-heads that were all around us. Not too long after we left from refueling we crossed over into Iowa—the wind was picking up and hard rain was starting to pummel the outside of the lab truck as we continued along interstate 80 westward and it wasn’t long before it was getting so bad that Billy had to stop on the roadway because he couldn’t see through the torrents of rain.
“Damn…it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it rain this hard.” I stated as I went to the front and gazed out at the storm around us.
That was when the CB radio nearby suddenly came to life with Cedric’s voice.
“Guys—it sounds like there’s some kind of air raid siren going off in the distance.” He stated on his end of the radio.
“I think I hear it too…what the hell could it be?” Noah asked as he and Christina stood up looking out the nearby window.
“Oh shit—hang on guys!” Billy shouted as the bottom of a wrecked car suddenly flew toward us missing hitting us by mere inches.
We could hear a loud roaring sound and dirt and debris was flying everywhere as the rain continued to pummel us—that was when I looked forward and seen a massive funnel cloud that looked to be heading northeast; it had missed hitting us and it looked like the immediate threat from the tornado had passed but as we stared ahead at the area before us we could tell that t
he twister had done a nice little number on the land ahead us for at least half a mile. Billy picked up driving again and we had to slowly make our way around rubble and debris until finally we came out on the other side of the path of destruction which seemed to be like all of the other places were—filled with wrecked vehicles and medium to large hordes of dead-heads here and there; we continued on down interstate 80 for the rest of the day into the night and by then we were getting close to what had been the capital city of Des Moines.
“It looks like we have no choice but to pass through the city…this interstate doesn’t offer any other alternative routes.” Kayla stated as she looked over the road atlas.
“We’ll just have to do whatever we have to do in order to keep going—if we don’t stop for anything in the city it shouldn’t be too bad.” I answered as I sat upright in our seat next to Jennifer and Sheila.
Everyone settled back and waited—soon we were passing through Des Moines and it actually looked like part of the city had burnt to the ground a number of years back and the streets were a mess; almost every building that we passed along the interstate had at least two or three wrecked vehicles smashed into the walls and roofs and skeletons could be seen here and there as well as actual corpses.
“Man…Bowman has turned this world into a graveyard…” I stated with a distant stare.
“What I’ve never been able to figure out is what could have compelled him to do such a thing…why did he hate the world and everyone else in it so much that he would create a plague that would sweep across the globe killing people and then bringing them back as flesh-eating monsters?” Noah answered with a troubled tone.
“I’ve been searching for the same answers now ever since the beginning and I have found none—no explanation to account for his actions…all I have found is death and ruination.” Beau answered as he grabbed a bottle of beer out of the cooler in the back.
“Whatever his so-called motives for doing this were, we will find Nicolas Bowman and we will make him answer for what he has done; he has been the architect of this world’s destruction now for too long.” I stated folding my arms.
We continued watching out at the ruins of Des Moines for another ten or more minutes until we finally got out of the city and once again returned to the rural areas headed west—around midnight Billy spotted an old stretch of airstrip just southwest of a small town called Winterset and he turned off and we headed over toward it; the small airfield was well hidden from nearly all sides by thick woods—it had a sturdy looking medium sized hangar off to the left of it and Billy quickly pulled the lab truck inside of the hangar and parked it. Cedric’s group in the semi wrecker done the same as well as Melvin and Kira in their old pickup truck and once we had all stepped out of our vehicles we looked around the interior of the hangar—it was relatively clean for the most part except for a number of large blood splotches that were in one of the rear rooms; another blood trail led us to a large commercial plane that was parked toward the rear of the hangar—the whole left side of the plane was full of bullet holes and it looked like blood had seeped out through these bullet holes; I climbed up on the wing and looked inside of the ruins of the cockpit and I gazed inside quickly noticing the bodies that were piled up inside almost as if someone had done this on purpose. I pried the door off and we dragged the bodies out laying them on the concrete floor of the hangar—we counted them and there were seven in all and it looked like they had actually been survivors who had died not long before our arrival; there were five females and two males and from the look of it they had been literally pumped full of bullets—a few of the bodies had over a hundred bullet holes in them.
“Who could have done such a thing?” Jennifer asked as she and Sheila stood by my side with their weapons in hand.
“This is brutal…it’s hard to tell if they were living, breathing people or if they were dead-heads—there’s really no way to tell.” Beau stated as he paced around the area back and forth.
“Who were they—do they have any identification on them?” Morgana asked curiously.
“Let’s see…” I answered as I knelt down over the body of one of the females—this one had been a redhead as her hair was smeared with blackish blood from multiple bullet holes in her head.
“Her name was Isabella McRae…19 years old…lived in Des Moines, Iowa at 36 & 46th Pine Avenue.” I answered as I found the woman’s driver’s license and looked it over.
After several more minutes of searching we found objects to identify the rest of the corpses—the remaining females had been named Ginger Austin, Karen Peterson, Shasta Thomson and Tiffany Wheeler; the two male corpses had been Justin Needles and Joe Yates. Hugo and the other Covenant One members came into the area and reported that they had secured the outer doors of the hangar on both ends and that we were safe inside for the time being; I turned and walked toward what appeared to be an office and I had just about completely opened the door to the room when a male zombie suddenly appeared out of nowhere and screamed the horrible noise that they all did—this male zombie looked like it had once been a man around the age of 29 or 30 and he was wearing a blood-covered baseball cap on his head. Further quick examination of the zombie revealed that his whole left arm up to his shoulder was covered with a tribal tattoo—I aimed my M16 at its head and opened fire killing it as it was starting to get to its feet; I then checked its pants pockets for any form of identification that it might still have and I found a thick leather wallet and brought it out into the light for inspection.
“This driver’s license says that this one’s name was Travis Law.” I stated upon the others’ glances.
As we searched around the room we soon after found several weapons that had no doubt belonged to the male zombie before he had turned—many of these weapons were powerful assault rifles and empty shell casings as well as blood from the plane was all over the area.
“Something tells me that we just found the killer of those people in there.” I stated raising my right eyebrow.
“But why would he kill them—there were some really pretty girls among them…why would he have done that?” Richard asked with a confused look.
“Beats me…all I know is that it’s a waste—survivors of this mess trying their best to survive and they get massacred by that guy; I don’t know if it was some sort of a dispute or what.” I answered in deep thought.
“There are no traces of bite marks or scratches so I don’t think they were infected.” Hugo stated as he knelt down and examined the corpses.
“I found a crop dusting plane in the front of the hangar—it looks like it will still fly.” Beau stated as he came into the room where we all were.
“Okay—let me get started with the antitoxin sample base; this will probably take me the rest of the night and into the day tomorrow so everyone just settle in and make sure none of those dead-heads get in here.” Amy stated as she turned and headed toward the lab truck.
I grabbed an old piece of cloth from nearby that was large enough to cover the bodies with and Noah and Billy helped me carry them outside of the hangar where we piled them in a spot not too far off and we set them afire—soon afterward we all settled in making places to sleep around the various sections of the hangar and several of the others stood on watch duty with their weapons ready; I was vaguely aware of the continuous work by Amy and a few of the others throughout the remainder of the night and by morning of the next day it looked like she had made some solid progress with the creation of the antitoxin sample base—she along with the rest of the Covenant One members were filling the insecticide tanks with the antitoxin sample base when we all woke and joined them.
“Morning everyone, we’re almost done here and ready to give this idea a shot…we were able to make roughly 200 gallons of the sample base and we’ve rigged the jets on the back of the plane’s wings to where they’ll spray it out in a fine mist to where it’s not all gone in one pass.” Hu
go explained.
“We also found an old truck with a loud speaker attached to the top of the cab—it looks like it was used at one time for political campaigning in the local area; it should do the work of drawing in those fuckers when the time comes.” Desiree stated with a smile as she motioned to a truck that was sitting nearby.
“Okay—sounds good…we might as well go ahead and get this plan underway; the sooner we find out if this is going to work the better.” I stated as I brought Jennifer and Sheila into my arms.
“Alright—the plane has enough fuel for an hour tops; after that you had better be finding a place to land or you’ll be crashing instead.” Hugo stated turning and handing a CB radio to Beau who nodded and climbed up into the cockpit of the crop dusting plane.
Noah, Cedric, Richard and Billy all rushed over and opened the doors to the hangar and Beau started the engine and put the plane into gear—he rolled out into the lot in front of the hangar and then picked up speed taking off into the sky above us; I wasted no time in leading everyone back inside of the hangar and we all pushed the old truck out into the lot not far off the side of the runway—I flipped the switch and loud music made up of trumpets and other orchestral music blared out from the speaker.
“That’s it—let’s get back inside and barricade the door; those dead-heads will be here soon.” I shouted and I led the way back inside of the hangar before we shut and sealed the doors.
Several long minutes passed and then we heard the loud horrible screams of the undead as a massive surge charged into the area outside of the hangar—within minutes it looked like over ten thousand had gathered outside and the music from the speaker suddenly shorted out bringing an end to the lure that had worked to bring them all there; loud banging followed as the massive undead surge piled up against the outside of the hangar and we could see the doors shaking violently as they struck them from the outside.
[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles Page 30