Dead Highways (Book 2): Passage (3 page)

“What makes you think she’s even in misery?”

“They may not feel pain like us, but maybe they do in another way.”

“Like how they communicate?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe. It’s just … hard, ya know, cause she’s just a little girl.”

“She almost killed Olivia. She’s not a little girl anymore. She’s not human. Not like us, anyway.”

I nodded. “I know.”

I’d aim for the heart. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot her in the head, not after seeing what had happened to Diego. It was hard enough to build up the courage to shoot her at all—to put her out of her misery, as Peaches had said. But I thought of it more like giving her peace.

As I raised the gun, I remembered thinking a day or so ago that the best part of this new world was no more bullshit laws.

This was the worst part.

Ten minutes later, we made it back to the highway. We stayed at the edge of the woods and peered out at the clogged up lanes, the endless line of abandoned vehicles, where every so often, an infected person would stroll by, heading west toward Orlando, with their arms down at their sides like drones. 

“Where are they?” Peaches whispered. “I don’t see the cars.”

“Neither do I.”

“Do you think they left us?”

“I hope not. But I wouldn’t blame them if they did.”

“We took too long.”

“Yeah, we took
way
too long.”

“It wasn’t our fault. We almost died back there.”

“I know. But as far as they know, we
did
die. That’s why I wouldn’t blame them if they left. But I don’t think this is the right spot anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think we got a little off course heading back. I remember there was a Mack truck in the right hand lane, next to where we left the cars.”

“There’s lots of big trucks out here. How do you know it’s not one of these?”

“This one didn’t have a trailer. It was just the truck. I think it was a dark blue color, but that might be hard to tell at night. Come on. Let’s go further west. It’s probably not far up.”

We skirted along the edge of the woods, careful and quiet. I kept a close eye on the infected walking the highway as well as looking out for any that may still be wandering amongst the trees. I didn’t need the flashlight anymore, so I shoved it into my pants pocket. No longer blocked by tall trees, the moon provided enough light to raise my comfort level a few notches.

A quarter mile down the highway I stopped, knelt down, pointed. “There. Isn’t that Ted’s Jeep?”

“I think so,” Peaches whispered.

Beside the Jeep, a few clicks up, was the Mack truck I had remembered.

However.

“Where’s Robinson’s car?” Peaches asked.

Just what I was wondering. Robinson had left his squad car in the grass just off the highway, in front of Ted’s Jeep. It was no longer there.

I sighed. “Dammit.”

“Could they all fit in one car?”

Robinson. Ted. Bowser. Aamod. Naima. Jax.

“Would be a tight fit, but I suppose they could.”

“Or … what if…?”

I glanced over at Peaches. “What if what?”

“What if some of them didn’t make it back?”

I sighed again. “That’s a possibility too.” I looked back out at the highway, at the now empty spot in front of Ted’s Jeep. “How about we get a closer look?”

As we came into line with the Jeep, we stumbled upon the first of the bodies. A female. She had her head down in the wet grass, bullet holes in her back. A few feet away lay another female face down. I counted at least three more bodies leading up to Ted’s Jeep, all of which had numerous bullet holes in them. Despite the fact that I was reasonably sure the infected wouldn’t have used weapons, as they had shown no desire to in previous encounters, I turned each of the dead over just to be sure none of them were our friends.

“That’s a lot of bodies,” I said, kneeling down next to the Jeep. “Some were definitely Aamod’s work. So maybe they
did
make it out whole.”

“Not completely. They left us.”

I noticed something along the front of the Jeep. I leaned out to get a better look.

“What is it?” Peaches asked.

I leaned back, rested my head on the passenger door. “Someone is sitting up against the front bumper.”

“Someone? Who?”

I shrugged. “How should I know? I don’t recognize them. Doesn’t matter anyway. Whoever they are, they’re dead now.”

I checked Sally’s magazine, counted how many bullets I had left.

Four.

Not good. Not good at all.

I slipped the magazine back into the gun. Olivia woke up and fussed a little.

“Gotta keep her quiet,” I whispered. “Now is not the time.”

“I’m trying my best. What do you want me to do, reason with her? She’s a few days old.”

“Just … I don’t know … do the best you can.”

I didn’t have any useful advice. She was right, and I was frustrated.

I glanced back over at the person sitting against the front bumper and, in a state of shock and awe, watched as the head moved up and looked around momentarily before resuming a resting state.

I tapped Peaches on the shoulder to get her attention, and then whispered in her ear. “They moved.”

She quickly pulled away from me. The icy look on her face could have scared off a hungry polar bear.

“But you said…”

I put my left index finger over my mouth, which meant
shhh
, not so loud darling.

I whispered not-so-sweet nothings in her ear again. “I know what I said. I was wrong. They’re alive.”

This time she appropriately whispered back in my ear. “We need to get out of here.”

I nodded. “Peek around the corner and tell me if you see anyone.”

While she peeked, I kept my eyes on the sleeper four feet to the left of me, making sure he didn’t move again.

Peaches was about to whisper something to me, and then went back for a second peek, like she wanted to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.

“There’s more,” she finally said.

“More?”

“More people in the road, between the cars.”

“How many?”

“Four that I can see.”

“Sleeping?”

She shrugged. “Or dead.”

Before I could wrap my brain around what any of that meant, Olivia started fussing again.

Fantastic.

Peaches rocked her, calmed her down, but this time the sound was enough to get the person at the front of the Jeep to do more than simply raise their head. They slowly turned and glanced around the corner at us. It was a man, I now saw, a salt and pepper-haired, goatee wearing, construction worker looking dude. 

I raised Sally, but that didn’t dissuade him, as he crawled around the Jeep and lunged at us. The bullet I sent twisting through his forehead, however, stopped him instantly—but not without a price.

Confucius say,
loud noises bad.

Peaches peeked around the back end of the Jeep. “Jimmy, they’re waking up.”

“How many?”

“All four of them.”

Fantastic.

And I now had only three bullets left.

“Stay down and follow me.”

I crawled over the guy I’d just shot and looked around the front of the Jeep. Not seeing any infected, I scurried out, hunched over to keep a low profile, and stopped beside the Mack truck. Peaches followed, slower than I would have liked, but she also had a baby to tote around. As we sat against the side of the truck, two infected passed behind it going toward the Jeep.

We continued around the front of the truck and nearly tripped over another infected man just waking up. He grabbed my left wrist and tried to pull me to the ground. I had Sally in my right hand, and almost did to him as I had done to the other sleeper. A head shot. An instakill. But then thought better of it. If we were gonna have any chance at escaping, we had to be as stealthy as possible. So I smacked him on the top of the head with the butt of the gun until I felt his grip on my arm loosen and his head go limp.

“Go back to sleep,” I said, like the budding action star I was, and then motioned for Peaches to follow me to the other side of the truck. We went, still hunched over, right into the path of two more infected.

Fantastic.

“Should we try to make a run for it?” Peaches asked.

No way.

Not even if she didn’t have Olivia on her arm. Not even with these fancy, multi-colored, New Balance running shoes on.

At best, four or five infected knew of our presence. If we started running, the number could grow to a dozen—to fifty—to a hundred. In no time, we’d be chased by an unstoppable horde, with nowhere to go. I certainly didn’t want to run back into the woods, and the nearest town was at least ten miles away. I couldn’t run that fast, or that far, and it would only take a few of them having better endurance than us to seal our fate. Everyone who has seen the movie Zombieland knows the first rule of surviving is
cardio
, and mine sucked.

So with that, I said goodbye to the three remaining bullets as they left Sally and made a home in the bellies of the two infected. After, the gun went
click
. The slide stayed back. Thankfully, the infected dropped to the pavement, wondering what in the hell just hit them, bleeding and clutching their new wounds.

Now what?

I looked up at the big Mack truck next to me with the driver’s side door open.

A moment later, we were climbing inside. I locked the doors, ducked way down, and cautiously peered out the windows to see if anyone had seen us.

Peaches carefully crawled into the back. “There’s a bed back here,” she whispered.

My eyes felt swollen from lack of sleep, yet sleeping was the last thing on my mind.

“Just stay quiet,” I whispered back. I still held Sally tight in my hands, finger around the trigger, even though she had no love left to give.

I waited, sure that one of the roaming infected would figure out where we had went, and then we’d be trapped, surrounded, as they ripped the doors off their hinges, or more likely, just waited us out. But no one ever did. Many passed by, noticed their buddies dying on the ground, and then went about their business.

Onward.

Somewhere west.

I climbed into the back with Peaches and nestled down into some trucker’s home away from home. The bed smelled like feet, and it was dark back there, but for once I was happy having little light.

Let there be darkness, for a while.

Let it protect us.

Let it keep us hidden.

Let us live through this night.

Peaches fed Olivia, and before long, the two of them were bundled together, asleep. I told myself I’d stay up, watch over them, but at some point sleep took me. All the while, Sally never left my hand—my one and only.

My security blanket.

When I woke the next morning, I was covered in sweat. No, I hadn’t had a nightmare. The sweat was the result of the morning sun blasting through the truck’s big windows, gradually increasing the temperature inside the cabin. It had to be close to ninety degrees. To make matters worse, the cabin smelled less of feet and more like shit—like hot, steamy, nose-plugging shit. And I had a pretty good idea who crapped themselves during the night.

I lightly shook Peaches. “Hey, time to wake up.”

Peaches sat up, crossed her legs. “What time is it?” 

I checked my watch. “Almost eleven a.m.”

“Wow, we were asleep like—”

“Six or seven hours.”

She rubbed her eyes, smiled lightly. “I’m still tired.”

“I couldn’t sleep one more minute in this heat.”

“I guess I’m just used to it, ya know, missing the occasional power bill.” She lifted Olivia up and sniffed her diaper. “Looks like somebody needs a change.”

“While you do that, I’m gonna go up into the front … see what I can see.”

I climbed up into the front seat, ducked down, and looked around for infected. Unfortunately, the coast wasn’t clear. A steady line of people, at the rate of about one every thirty seconds, passed by the truck.

Peaches stuck her head in between the two front seats. “So...”