100 Days of Death (30 page)

After an hour and a half, we came to the source of the traffic problems. A large jet had crashed on the interstate, destroying an entire section of highway. We passed the crash site and wheeled back up on the 80. It grew dark by 6 p.m. and we finally pulled off the freeway just south of Fairfield to find a place to spend the night. We discovered an orchard along Abernathy Road .

We put our SUVs back in four-wheel drive and drove between the trees for fifty yards, finally parking in a remote spot in the center of the grove. We shut everything down and just listened to the patter of the rain of the roof. After ten minutes of not hearing any moans, or any other sounds of pursuit, I started to breathe easier, actually relaxing for the first time in days.

Grace shattered my tranquility when she said, “I have to pee.”

Grace wanted to go sleep in the Rover because she didn’t like the smell of “wet dog”. Alison didn’t seem to mind so they swapped vehicles and we put the seats all the way back and fell asleep holding hands across the center console.

This morning we awoke to a misty sunrise. I let Chloe out to do her thing and Alison took Grace out to do hers…again. While we ate a cold breakfast Albert and I went over the Atlas and planned our route. Over the past few days we had not had much chance to talk. While we poured over the map, Albert admitted to me that he was feeling a little useless and had been avoiding me. I was surprised.

Yesterday, Alison had warned him that I am apparently a little dense and that Albert would have to be slightly less subtle than a nuclear detonation in order to get me to notice something was wrong. She was right. I hadn’t noticed anything. Albert told me that he knew that I could protect the girls better and I was better suited for living in this world than he was. Those weren’t his exact words, but if I were more specific it would sound like I was bragging.

Albert realized that if I hadn’t intervened in his confrontation with Karl, he would have never survived, or been able to save Grace. I didn’t know how to respond to him except to remind him that without him we wouldn’t have been able to sail out of Los Angeles, or have a means of siphoning fuel, nor had any of the other advantages that he had provided.

“Besides, Alison and Grace might not even be alive if it weren’t for you insisting that we rescue them. That one’s on you.” I finished.

Albert thought about it for a minute and then smiled sheepishly and said, “Thanks.” He raised his arms up to offer a hug.

“Don’t even think about it.” I warned.

Albert dropped his hands and studied his feet, embarrassed. When he looked back at me, I smiled. He grinned back. I clapped him on the shoulder and walked over to the Rover, where the girls were eating.

Grace finished her food and decided to chase Chloe around the car.

Without looking up from her meal Alison asked, “Really? You couldn’t just give him a hug?”

“He’s fine. Besides, if you think he needs a hug so bad, why don’t you go give him one?” I countered.

We both looked over to Albert as he absently picked his nose, and then scratched himself while he studied the road atlas.

Alison frowned and said, “You’re right, he’s probably fine.”

Driving through Fairfield today was another bad decision in a long list of bad decisions I’ve made in the last two months. As soon as we hit the outskirts of the town, we were besieged by the undead. We were lucky that there were fences and median barricades on either side of the highway, or they would have reached us before we passed.

We drove as fast as we could around the wrecked cars and pursuing creatures on the road. So many Infected bounced off the Expedition that I lost count. By the time we reached the northern outskirts of Fairfield my shakes were so bad I could barely drive. We stopped on an open stretch of road just to catch my breath. Both of our vehicles are in serious need of some bodywork.

Albert and I consulted the Atlas and saw that there was another larger town called Vacaville up ahead. None of us wanted to repeat what we had just gone through so we decided to take the back roads north to avoid any other major population areas. A route taking us up Pleasant Valley Road looked like it would do the trick.

We managed to find the exit we were looking for and had gone about seven miles up an abandoned stretch when Albert came on the radio and told us to stop. Grace had been riding with Albert and, presumably bored, had been flipping through the walkie-talkie channels. She heard voices on one of the channels but couldn’t remember which one.

We turned on four radios and all of us began going through the channels. It was Alison who caught the tail end of a transmission on channel 9, security frequency 1. I tuned to the frequency and requested that they repeat the transmission.

After a long pause, the voice came back. It was a deep, gruff, older-sounding voice. The man identified himself as Jim Meadows and asked who we were.

I hesitated and then replied, “Tourists.”

Jim said that he was in “a little trouble” and asked if we could help him out. He was trapped in an RV trailer surrounded by “a bunch o’ them crazy dead bastards.” I lowered my radio and shook my head. Alison, Grace, and Albert all stared at me expectantly.

“What?” I asked defensively.

“He sounds like he needs help.” Alison said. Albert nodded in agreement.

I wanted to scream. Did they forget about Karl already? We had no idea who this guy was. It could be a bunch of bikers like Wayne’s group trying to lure in unsuspecting morons like us. I was about to put my foot down and tell everyone to get back in the trucks when Jim came back on the air.

“Look, I can almost hear your hesitation.” He began. “I’d be a mite cautious if I was you too. So I’m going to go out on a limb here. My wife an’ I ain’t got any other options so I’ll tell you where we’re at and you can check it out for yourselves first from whatever safe distance you feel comfortable with. I ain’t going to try to bribe you with anything, but like I said before, we could use some help.” he finished.

Albert and Alison narrowed their eyes at me. I groaned inwardly, regretting ever stopping. I keyed the mic and said, “Where are you?”

He gave us several descriptive landmarks and I realized that we had passed his location three miles back. I told him to hang on and that we’d be there soon.

Just before I signed off, Jim said, “Please tell me you ain’t that damn National Guard unit out of Sack town.”

I told him we weren’t as I cursed myself silently for being a soft-hearted idiot.

We drove back to the area Jim directed us to, but couldn’t seem to locate him. I rolled down the windows and listened. Sure enough, I heard the faint moans of the undead coming from over a grassy rise to the west of us. We pulled off the road into a grove of trees and I instructed everyone to stay with the vehicles while I did a recon.

I took my CAR 15, binoculars, and five magazines and jogged up the hill until I got near the top. From there I quietly crawled to the crest and peeked over into the small valley on the other side. At the bottom of the hill were the burnt remains of a sprawling ranch. Halfway up the hill between the ranch and my position, about seventy yards away, was an old Airstream trailer surrounded by over forty creatures.

They banged on the silver siding of the trailer and moaned relentlessly. I got on the radio and asked Jim if he was ready to move.

“I’m a little banged up, but my wife can move, so if you have to make it in and out quick like, take her and forget about me.” Jim said calmly.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“I’m a liability if you ain’t got the time.” he replied.

I told him we’d get them both out, although I wasn’t as confident as I tried to sound. I got on the radio with Alison and gave her a list of items I’d need and asked her to bring them up to me. While I waited for Alison, I noticed that the undead below weren’t as active as ones I had encountered previously. They looked slow and lethargic.

Alison arrived out of breath and carrying my requested items; my M&P .22 carbine, my last two pipe grenades, and a fold-up camp cot. I took the .22 and sighted in on the first of the infected down below. I had no intentions of trying to shoot them all, but I did want to thin their ranks a little. I killed twelve of them and then stood up and whistled loudly.

In unison, thirty-odd heads turned my way. Several more came around from the other side of the Airstream. As one, they all wailed and trotted up the hill toward me. These monsters were definitely slower, skinnier, and more decomposed. They shambled through the high grass in a loose group. When they were forty yards away I lit the fuse on my bomb. I keyed the mic to my radio and told Jim to pull a mattress over him and his wife and plug their ears.

I threw the hissing grenade in their midst at about thirty yard’s distance and dove for the other side of the hill. The detonation was thunderous. A thick cloud of smoke billowed up over the rise, enveloping me and Alison. Debris began raining down on us seconds later. We curled up together until it stopped.

I jumped up and crested the hilltop. Somehow, seven of the creatures survived the blast. One of them was only five yards away from me. As she rose up and moaned at me, I shot her through the forehead. I located all of the others through the haze and ended their existence one by one.

I left the binoculars with Alison and asked her to keep a lookout. When I approached the trailer I knocked politely on the door. After a long moment the door opened outward and Jim’s wife Marion looked down at me apprehensively. She is in her late fifties, slim, and reminds me of a grade-school teacher I had once had a crush on when I was little. I introduced myself and told her that she and her husband were safe now.

She smiled at me sadly and said, “None of us will ever be safe again in this world, but thank you for the sentiment. Come in.”

Jim Meadows was sitting on the floor, propped against the wall. He looked exactly as I had imagined by his voice. He is in his early sixties, lean and rugged, and looks as tough as boot leather. His eyes twinkled when he grinned up at me.

My own smile turned to a frown when I saw the gunshot wound high in his chest. The wound had been dressed, but was seeping blood still. I didn’t even know this guy and I was already concerned for him.

“Damn son, I can’t wait to play poker with you.” he said.

I asked him how bad it was, and he told me it was a through and through, missed the lung, and hurt some, but he’d been shot four days ago and was still “kicking”.

I helped Jim out of the trailer and after a brief argument (which Marion won) he reluctantly laid down on the cot I brought. Marion took the back and I took the front and we lugged him up the hill and down the other side to the vehicles, resting a dozen times during the process. Marion refused Alison’s offer to help carry the cot, stating that she was used to having to care for her wounded husband and that this was nothing new.

Somehow I believed her.

We made Jim as comfortable as possible in the back of the Expedition and drove away quickly, as the explosion had attracted six more stumbling pathetic creatures.

We found an abandoned farmhouse back behind a grove of trees off the main road and pulled both of our SUVs inside the adjacent barn. We are staying in the barn, as the house is partially burned and collapsed.

Over dinner I assessed our new guests. They are both good people. “Salt of the earth”, as my dad would say. Jim seems stable, even though neither of them had eaten a decent meal in days before we found them.

I know that rescuing Jim and Marion was the charitable, “humanitarian” thing to do, but I can’t help but think that they are just more mouths to feed and will probably be more trouble than they are worth. I would be worried about burning in hell for these thoughts except that I am already in hell, so how much worse could it get?

DAY 67

Today we stayed in the barn most of the day. Jim’s gunshot wound is pretty serious.

This morning he coughed up blood. He sustained the wound from a small platoon of renegade National Guard troops when he wouldn’t lead them to a group of people hiding out somewhere up in the hills. I don’t know the full story, but the Guard unit has been looting everything within fifty miles. They are the local thugs.

On the other side, there is a compound full of folks just trying to survive all of this. Jim and Marion know them pretty well, and for the most part, I guess they are pretty decent people. Their leader is a guy named David Kester. I don’t have any other details about them yet.

As for our new companions, Jim is a former Marine and retired forest ranger. Marion used to be a biology professor. They were living in Arizona when the plague happened, and came out here to find their daughter and her husband. So far they have not found her.

We are pretty safe here and everyone has agreed to stay until Jim gets better. I am going out to recon the area and see what the surrounding terrain looks like. I will be back later.

The area around here is hilly and remote, with groves of trees scattered about. I found a stream and the water is cool and clear.
I also shot a deer and cleaned it out where it fell. I have not dressed an animal since I was in high school (I spent a summer working for a farmer shooting rabbits to thin their overpopulation). As I was hauling the carcass back to the barn I thought that this wouldn’t be a bad place to live.

It had been difficult convincing Alison that I would be better off going out alone, but in the end, she really didn’t have a choice. I took Chloe with me and assured her I would call her on the radio if I needed help. The truth is that I just wanted to be alone. The issue of me being responsible for other people reared its ugly head again and I wanted to take some time to deal with it my own way.

When I got back to the barn with the deer, Jim instructed me on how to smoke it with a charcoal grill we found and two sheets of aluminum siding we turned into a crude chimney. Alison and Grace found carrots and cabbage in a garden behind the house, so tonight we made venison stew.

Albert, Alison, and I set up watch shifts for tonight. I just got off of my shift and as I walked past the area where Jim and Marion are sleeping I got concerned when I heard his ragged breathing. I don’t know if Jim is going to make it or not. If he doesn’t I don’t know what we will do with Marion. I hope Jim makes it.