900 Miles: A Zombie Novel (7 page)

Kyle found the lever to drop down the gate.  He pushed it forward, and the gate began to slowly lower.  We both sprinted to the Hummer and jumped in.  I
slid the keys into the ignition, and looked out the rearview mirror.  I could see the creature’s heads begin to emerge as the ramp moved further and further down.  In the reflection of the mirror, they didn’t look that different from us.

There were a few moans, but mostly a large cracking and popping sound as the handful of creatures directly under the gate were flattened as it slowly descended.   When it was low enough for the dead to begin boarding the boat, I put the gears in reverse, and smashed the pedal to the floorboards.

As we drove straight through them and flew off the ramp, we must have dropped three or four feet, but it felt like we fell off a building.  Temporarily losing control, I drove through a bush, and then straight through another one of the zombies.

As I pulled my shit together, I switched gears, and properly straightened out the wheel.  I accelerated forward and rapidly passed the small mob of the undead surrounding the boat.  They began following, but were far too slow to catch us.

Luckily, the road we were on was paved.  It was an access road of some sort, with no real houses or buildings around us.  We might have been in New Jersey, but no telling where exactly.

That was when Kyle started to mess around with the buttons on the dashboard.  At first, I thought he was trying to turn on the radio, until he flipped a button that said “NAV” on it. The built
in navigation system came to life.

It sure beat the hell out of a map.  It told us everything, including where there were
stoplights and gas stations.  A-shame it didn’t have a built in zombie detector.

Time to live off the land, or die trying.

After learning that we
were, in fact, in New Jersey, and fairly close to where I95 met I278, we decided that we needed to stay away from the highways.  Aside from being totally overrun with the dead, there was really no getting through the parking lot of cars and trucks that now filled both of these metropolitan throughways.

Back roads were the only real option.

After packing their most valuable possessions, the whole world seemed to have jumped in their cars and hit the roads.  Everybody had someplace else, or someplace they thought would be safer to go.  As we exited the access road, we came across a filling station that had a hand painted sign on a white tarp that read:

“$20 per Gallon
!”

This was crossed out with a big red X.  Below it, someone had added:

“GAS GONE!”

We drove by slowly hoping to see if there were any supplies inside, but it was obviously completely cleaned out.

As of now, there was a lack of zombies. Perhaps most of them were attracted to the boat crash, clearing the way for us.  Perhaps it was something else.

Either way, Kyle and I were taking the moment of calm to strategize.

We knew we needed the basics: food and water.  I had seen someplace that the average man would die after approximately a week without water.  According to Kyle, symptoms of dehydration included nausea, dry mouth and muscle cramps.

Those were also the symptoms of fighting off zombies, I thought sarcastically.  In extreme circumstances, confusion and weakness set in before a coma or full organ failure.  We were both coming up on almost two full days without anything to drink.  My mouth was beyond dry.

Kyle explained that, based on Urban Warfare training he took while in the army, the most effective tactic to re-supply was basically to loot and steal. Otherwise known as living off of the urban landscape, he joked.  We needed to find stores that still had supplies like food, water and most importantly, weapons.

We weren’t willing to stop just anywhere. The Hummer provided a certain level of protection, and while we were not exactly surrounded at the moment, we felt a hell of a lot more comfortable with the windows up, and the doors locked.

The streets were still relatively bare.  No people, no zombies, and no movement other than a few tree limbs that were swaying in the wind. The few remaining vehicles were abandoned.  The area looked more like the type of pit stop town that travelers would fill up with gas at, and then quickly move on. I lived in one of these towns growing up. They always had a few gas station, some fast food joints and townfolk who were less than friendly when it came to strangers.

I noticed a car that had crashed into a tree down the road a bit.  It appeared to be filled to the brim with
stuff
.  As we eased up next to it, we came to a stop. In mutual agreement, we both stepped out of the Hummer; leaving the engine running.

It would be a hell of a lot easier to find supplies that someone has left behind than to go searching for them inside various stores.  Maybe this was a lucky break.

I could hear some noise coming from inside the car. I motioned to Kyle to listen. With a small nod, he cocked his head a little, listening intently.  We both approached from different sides.  As I cautiously peered through the cracked window on the driver side door, I could see it.

A woman, now turned into the dead, was in the front seat.  Not noticing us, she was content eating away at some poor bastard that had clearly been in the passenger seat.  As best as I could tell, they had hit the tree, and she probably died immediately.  After she turned, she must have set her sights on the unconscious person next to her.  Husband, boyfriend, just plain old friend, it didn’t matter; now, he was nothing more than lunch.

Kyle came over to the driver side door where I was standing.  He tapped the door with his metal rod.  The creature quickly turned those horrible eyes on us, but it was strapped into the seat belt.  She didn’t possess the IQ to figure out how to unbuckle it.

Kyle made short work of her, smashing his rod sideways across her face.  I could see shards of broken teeth shoot across the dashboard.

I opened the back door as Kyle started to sift through the bags that were strapped to the top of the vehicle.  I was actually amazed by all the crap this person packed up.

We found a DVD player, a dozen DVDs and a whole slew of personal hygiene products including shampoos, conditioners, gels and cosmetics bags galore.  The rest of the bags were filled with clothing.  This person had packed for vacation, not for fleeing from the zombie apocalypse.

Her vanity did lead to one good thing.  We found a cooler full of healthy snack bars and bottled water.  Kyle also came across one bag with guy’s clothing in it.  He grabbed a change of clothes to replace his blood soaked security uniform, and dumped out the rest so he could keep the backpack.

I could see the relief on his face when he was finally changed.  He didn’t have to say it, but I could tell that he really hated that uniform.  It was
one step higher than a mall-cop uniform, and it was a small step at that.

We walked back to the Hummer, and crawled up into the seats.  We repeated the scavenging drill over the next few vehicles we came upon.
Luckily, there were several that possessed various types of food and supplies that were actually useful.

We finished our search with having gathere
d 14 bottles of water and a backpack full of snack bars, chips, and cookies.  We also grabbed one radio that was crank operated, a plus for us as it did not require batteries or electricity.  The last car we had hit was the best.  Some campers or survivalist had left backpacks, sleeping bags, and most importantly, a portable solar panel charger.  It flipped open to expose three black panels, and was designed to charge small electronic devices including cell phones. I snatched it up with some relief, knowing that it would be useful considering my phone battery was completely dead.

The owners themselves, were nowhere in sight.  I wondered if the woman with the
ponytail back at the ferry owned this stuff.  No way that I would ever know, but I silently thanked her anyway.

I had just plugged my phone into the solar panel charger, got it set up on the dashboard to collect those precious beams of sunlight when Kyle tapped my arm.

“What scares you?” he asked quietly.

“What?” I responded in bewilderment, my brow cocked.

“I mean, before all of this, what kept you up at night?  What really gets under your skin?”

“I don’t know,” I replied with a
shrug.  “I guess, I just always thought about my job.  Losing my job, getting promoted.  I didn’t give anything else a chance.”

“So you’re afraid of losing your job?”   Kyle gave a wry chuckle. “Got news for you pal. We killed your boss.  I think you’re fired.”

I smirked in amusement. Reflecting, I decided to turn it back around at him.

“Okay, so what keeps you up at night?”

He paused for a moment, and his face turned serious.

“I don’t know if it keeps me up at night as much as I think about it from time
to time,” he said cautiously.  “Back in Iraq, before I got my wings, there was a tactical strike on this old hotel. My squad was moving in to make sure the place was clear of hostiles.  The building was torn to shit; the bodies of dead insurgents still riddled the halls.  I came across this woman.  She was blood soaked, and barely alive.  She had taken a round to the gut, and certainly wasn’t going to make it.  She was begging for the end.  I remember drawing my pistol, and pointing it at her head. All that time…I just stood there staring at her, wondering if I was doing the right thing…”

Kyle drifted off for a moment, then blinked and exhaled slowly before continuing.  “She nodded, as if to say “yes, end it
,” just before I pulled the trigger.  The look she gave me…I keep seeing it in these creatures’ eyes, almost like they don’t really want to keep going.”

I thought about that for a moment, and
said, “It makes it a little easier doesn’t it?  Believing that these people wouldn’t want to be one of these creatures.  It’s that much simpler to put them down.”

With all the chaos, I had not taken the time to think about the fact that we were killing people, what used to be human, not unlike ourselves. Even though my stomach roiled unpleasantly, I felt numb, disconnected. We both sat in silence for several minutes, caught up in our own thoughts.

Looking down at the gas gauge on the Hummer, I grimaced and gripped the steering wheel tightly.

“You know right about now, what scares me the most is running out of gas.”

Kyle leaned over to look at the gauge, and then reached out, messing around with the navigation system again.  He had it up and running in moments.

A few button hits later, three gas tank icons appeared on the screen.  We decided to go for the one that was in the opposite direction of the highway.  We would have to backtrack a few miles, but the hopeful idea was that it would be less likely to have been sold out.

On the way, we started to see the creatures lurking around again.  For the most part, they were not following us, or at least we were moving too fast for them to catch us.

Thinking back, I really wish we had paid more attention.

One of them had been a postal worker when he was alive, and still had the blue mail sack around his shoulder to prove it.  He was wearing the traditional blue and white striped shorts, although blood had run down his leg to paint his knee-high white socks a blackish red.

As we passed him, I noticed he was carrying a brown package in his left hand.  It looked like he was still trying to deliver his mail.

Mundane tasks for a mundane world.

We approached the gas station with great disappointment
, as we noticed that all the pumps had plastic bags over the pump handles.  A quick check confirmed that they were dry.

Clearly, relying on gas stations wasn’t going to cut it.

That’s when we noticed another car parked in the lot.  There was a pair of legs sticking out from behind the car as motionless as a mannequin’s.  As I pulled the Hummer closer, we could see a red three-gallon gas can.

Kyle came up with the conclusion that this guy was siphoning gas from the car.  Odd that he didn’t move or stand up.  The Hummer wasn’t exactly a stealth vehicle.  We slid slowly from the Hummer, glancing around for any of the dead.

“Hey.  Hey, Man.  You alive?”  Kyle called out. No answer.

I pulled my hammer from my belt, and left the Hummer running as we cautiously stepped down and towards the feet on the other side of the car.  I approached from the back, and Kyle moved along the front of the vehicle. Still no movement.

Then we found out why.  All that remained was the gas tank, a tube running into the tank, and a severed arm dangling from it; still clutching the tube.  The legs were not attached to a body.  They had been cleanly ripped off, while the torso, other arm and head were nowhere to be seen.  Looking up, I closed my eyes for the briefest of seconds to get my bearings.

Neither of us spoke as I crept over and peeled the dead fingers off of the tube to slide it out of the gas tank.  The cold, rigid arm fell to the pavement with a
thump.

Two days ago, I would have shit myself at the sight of a severed arm.  Today, I just touched it, and kicked its accompanying legs out of the way so I could steal some gas.  It dawned on me that this was the reality. There was no turning back.