We reached the end of the driveway without incident, although Frank jumped a mile when a bird flew up in front of us. That was one thing I wondered about. Why didn’t the virus kill animals and turn them? For whatever reason it was, I was grateful. Human zombies were hard enough to deal with. Zombie everything else was a world without a chance. If that happened, you may as well strip naked, cover yourself in barbeque sauce, and holler for the zombies to come to dinner.
We headed north towards the main road, and didn’t see a whole lot of activity. I did see the telltale marks of infection throughout the neighborhood. White flags hung limply from scores of mailboxes.
Frank complained about the walk, the weight of his pack, the weight of his weapon. I didn’t say anything, letting Sarah deal with it.
She was direct in her methods. She poked him in the back of the head with her rifle and hissed at him to be quiet. “A zombie can hear you a quarter mile away, dumb ass. If you want to die fine, go walk into that house and die.” She pointed to a house on the side of the road. There had to be at least ten zombies inside, all of them clawing at the window, trying to get out. They were all in various states of decay, and more than once I wondered why we left them there and didn’t deal with them. I guess since they weren’t an immediate threat, they could stay there a while until we decided to root them out or burn the house down. Most of the houses in the area had zombies in them. Turns out when people got sick, they got their families sick and didn’t even know it. Families died by the thousands, and those that didn’t get sick, got killed by their revived relatives. The infected were effectively trapped in their homes unless they accidentally broke a window and got out, since they didn’t know how to operate doorknobs.
Frank looked at the zombies and shuddered. “No thanks, I’ll be quiet.”
Sarah snorted “Right.” She didn’t believe him, but she didn’t have to. I think she looked forward to hitting him again.
I kept us moving pretty well, we stayed in the center of the street. High fences lined each side of the street, but I did not want to be rude and rouse any zombie playing in its front yard. I didn’t need a gauntlet of zombies to run through as we tried to make our way to safety.
After about an hour of walking and stopping, checking our surroundings and listening for ghouls, we reached the first crossroads. We were in a largely empty area, save for cars here and there, so anything coming after us would be exposed for along time. We rested for a moment and I used the time to look at the several five-story condo complexes near the road. They were relatively new, and still had fairly cleared fields surrounding them. An idea poked its way into my head, and I waved Sarah over. Frank was on his back, wheezing and making whistling noises with his nose.
“What’s up?” Sarah asked, only her eyes visible on her head.
“Check out the condos.” I said, pointing to the buildings.
Sarah looked. “What about them? They’re nice and all, but what about them.?”
I pointed to the bottom of the structures. “They have no ground floor. You could actually sleep in peace there without worrying about an attack at night. All they have are garages down there. And look over there.” I pointed to the small grove of trees and grass growing near the edge of the complex. “I’d bet my knife there’s a water supply there.”
Sarah looked at the complex and then back at me. “What are you saying? You want to move everybody?” She seemed incredulous, like I was crazy.
“Let’s face it. We can’t stay in that school forever. Sure we’re there now, but it was never meant to be a permanent place. I think we need to seriously consider coming to this place, cleaning out the zombies, if there are any, and starting life again there.”
Sarah shook her head. “Starting life again? John, this is about survival, nothing more. The world we knew is gone, and we’re not getting it back.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “I can’t believe that, Sarah. Yeah, we’ve taken a hell of a hit, but this can’t be it. We can’t end this way. What about the kids following us, what about the world they inherit? They can’t live the rest of their lives in a school. That’s like living in a cave. What if the zombies last twenty years? Fifty? We have to take our world back. One way or another, we have to take it back.”
Sarah looked at me for a second, then placed a hand on my arm. The physical contact was like a jolt, and I nearly jerked my arm away, I was that surprised. Sarah generally avoided contact with people unless she respected them, and that respect usually meant you had to kill around fifty zombies single-handed.
“I can see why they wanted you to lead them, John.” She said softly.
“Oh yeah, why’s that?” I was seriously curious to know why they wanted me to be the leader.
“You never stop looking forward, no matter what gets thrown at us, you keep going forward. Thank you.” Sarah’s voice was as gentle, and I was pretty sure she smiled behind her scarf. With Sarah you never could be sure. She could be pulling a knife on me as well.
“We need to get moving. We have about five hours of daylight left, and I want to see what I can see.” I regretted ending the relatively nice moment I was having with Sarah, but I needed to do some things. I walked over to Frank and kicked him in the foot. “Rise up, Wheezy. We’re not done yet.”
Frank grumbled and rolled to his feet, but he was smart enough not to say anything with Greer standing behind him. We crossed the road and headed up to the overpass, figuring it to give me a good idea as to the nature of the road. Since a major intersection was just a few hundred yards away, that should give me clear idea of what to expect on the road.
We climbed the over pass and looked out on the interstate. For the most part, it was empty, with a few cars here and there. The cars were empty, and I guessed they just ran out of gas. The highway had a fence running alongside it, which limited access by the zombies. The problem came from the on and off ramps. There wasn’t any real protection there and I could see even from that distance there were many cars that looked like they had been attacked. Not a pretty way to go. It seemed like a bunch of ghouls had just wandered into some stalled cars and the slaughter began.
I was looking east when Sarah, who was looking west, got my attention. “We’ve got movement.” She said, pointing towards a car that was slowing moving down the road. I could see it had a flat tire and was not going to make it much further. It was being chased by a group of about six zombies, and they were going to catch it the second it stopped. I sighed. Here we go. Frank started squirming and grabbing at my pack. I elbowed him in the gut and he backed away.
“Come on, Frank, we have work to do!” I called as I jumped the guard rail. I slid down the hill, bumping my shin on a root that I didn’t see. I could hear Frank groaning all the way down, muttering to himself and generally being a nuisance. He rolled the last five feet and landed on his face. I managed to see that and reminded myself to tell Nate when we got back. Karma’s a bitch, Frankie. Sarah set herself up on the overpass, resting her rifle on the rail and providing cover for our efforts should it prove necessary.
The car was sliding forward, and I could see that two of the tires were gone, and the car was rolling on rims only. I could see three people in the car, and the vehicle wasn’t going to make it another fifty yards. We were about three hundred yards away, so we were going to have to move. I ran forward, unslinging my carbine and making sure the safety was off. Frank stumbled along behind me, trying to keep up. I’m sure he would have stopped, but the fact that Sarah was behind him with a rifle trained on his ass probably motivated him better than anything I could have said.
As we ran the car finally came to a stop about a hundred yards ahead of us. The zombies, seeing their meal finally stop, let out a collective moan and shuffled a little faster forward. The people were about forty yards from the zombies and had about two minutes to live. I moved as quickly as I could, noting that Frank had fallen behind. The doors of the car flew open, and a man and woman got out. The woman dashed to the rear of the car and opened the door, intending to get the back seat passenger out and moving. The man never looked back, he just ran towards me. The woman screamed at him, but he ignored her and kept running. She struggled with the back seat, and I could see she wasn’t going to make it. I tried to run faster, but I knew I wasn’t going to make it, either. The man, a smallish specimen, ran right past me and didn’t stop until he reached Frank, who was about twenty yards behind me.