The Great Wreck (27 page)

And
worse, the next dead that drifted by the door turned to have himself a little
look-see in my room and spotted me standing there with my dick in my hand. He
was not amused and said so, “Bah, bah, bunga!” he said and the party began.

I
ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. I could heard the dead getting
excited now and starting to run towards the sound the first walker was making.
A second after I locked the bathroom door, the dead guy was banging on it
simultaneously letting others know where the meat was and letting me know that
the door wasn’t going to hold for very long. I watched as the door vibrated
with the thing’s pounding and saw a crack appear in the center of it. I
scrambled up on top of the toilet and pushed open the small window above it. I
pushed my pack through, then my rifle and shotgun, followed by my jacket,
ammunition belt, and utility belt. The fit through the window was going to be
close and I didn’t want anything to get hung up on the window frame.

I
got hung up on the window frame.

I
had gotten halfway through before I realized that the window was so high up
from the back of the toilet, that once my hips were through the window, my feet
had no leverage. I felt panic spill into my brain like a flood. I could clearly
visualize the dead breaking down the bathroom door, piling in and seeing
breakfast hung neatly from the window, and beginning to eat. They’d start with
my feet and calves, work their way up to my thighs where they would hit my
femoral artery. I’d bleed out, yes, but not before they started on the really
sensitive parts of my body. The pain would be excruciating and long lasting.
Then, when it was all over, I’d come back and be forever stuck here in this
bathroom window. No one living would ever even waste a bullet on me, they’d probably
just laugh and laugh before moving on.

I
pushed my arms against the window frame with everything I had but didn’t budge.
I was going to die here today. I heard the door give way and I pushed again. I felt
the first hands of the dead grab my left leg. I kicked and began to scream
while I pulled hard enough that I thought I might rupture a blood vessel in my
eyes. I felt the dead trying to get a hold of me as I kicked. If one or two
more got in the bathroom, they’d have me. But the kicking seemed to break the
hold the window frame had on me and I felt myself inch forward and the dead
pawed at my legs. I kicked hard and pulled at the same time and popped out of
that window and onto the roof of the motel. I scrambled back away from the
window and could see the tops of many dead heads moving around in the now
living free bathroom. I lay back panting, trying to get myself under control
and the shaking to stop. What a way to start the day.

I
stayed there on the roof in the early morning light in the shade of a swamp
cooler until my heart rate slowed down,
 
the panic slowly subsided, and the shaking in my arms and legs stopped.
It wasn’t even nine in the morning and already the sun was burning the day up.
I sat up and could see that the dead in the bathroom were giving up and heading
out. I could also see the dead around the motel were breaking up as well.

With
the dead moving out and James gone, I felt strangely free. What was I going to
do now? I thought I’d be terrified. I was alone and on my own. No one to watch
my back or help me fend off the dead. No one to talk to. But I had just managed
to escape a near certain death with no one’s help at all and talking was
overrated.
 

So
I thought about it. I’d wait for another hour or so and then continue to head
east. I would got to Sandia and see if anybody was really there. It seemed like
as good a plan as any. Then I remembered I had the radio. James was gone so I
could use it to see if anyone was out there, to see if I could maybe pick up
Sandia, and maybe talk to Kailee!

I
pulled the radio out of my pack and turned it on. I listened to the crackle and
hiss as I waited for the dead to leave. After a few minutes of nothing, I
pressed the send button, “Hello? Anyone out there?” then let off the
transmitter.

I
listened carefully heard a few breaks in the static. Someone responding? Maybe
too far away for my radio to pick up the signal? “Hello?” I said again when the
static returned. The static stopped completely and I thought I could hear
distant voices. I put the radio close to my ear to listen and heard a girl say,
“…Blythe…” followed by “…tower at night…” and nothing more.

Blythe.
The town we had passed through after we had made it out of Los Angeles. Was
Kailee and her family there? Was that her on the other end of the radio? I
didn’t know or care. I was just excited that there might be other people out
there. People other than James, that is.

Then
I heard the static break again,
 
I
listened hoping to hear that distant voice again. This time an old man spoke,
his voice gray and dusty but coming in clearly as though he was nearby, “Listen
up
boy
! I am King Ahg. You’re in my
desert now,” he said and laughed a high pitched giggled that started high and
got higher, “The dead are mine sonny, son, son. The desert is mine, The wrecks
are mine.
And
,”
 
he said with great emphasis, “The women are
mine! Don’t let me catch you poachen’ or you and I will have words,” he said.
The radio filled with static as King Ahg fell silent. It reminded me that yes,
there were other people in the world and some of them would be like James.

I
looked at the radio and reached to turn it off when I heard one last person
come across the desert air, “I’m on the moon! Good luck, suckers!” followed by
silence. That was enough insanity for me in one day and I turned the radio off
and geared up.

The
dead had moved off in search of something less difficult to catch so I made my
way to the edge of the roof, found a drain pipe, and shimmed down to the ground
floor. I turned north and caught the freeway where James and I had walked off
it the day before and started walking.

After
a few hours, the sun was high overhead and the heat was laying waste to
everything around me. The asphalt of the highway shimmered, the desert around
me shimmered, and the small town I was in shimmered in the unrelenting heat. I
had sweated through my already filthy and oily cloths, I had used up nearly
half of my water, and had only made a handful of miles. And I was exhausted
having used up much of my energy escaping the motel room.

I
had reached the eastern edge of the Phoenix suburbs and was standing in a town
called Chandler. Behind me, the Wreck still burned from the fire I had set off
and I could smell the greasy smoke from the burning fuel. In front of me was
the vast, blameless desert that lay between Phoenix and Tucson and beyond
Tucson, even more dessert.

I
didn’t think I could walk across that, at least during the day. Somewhere out
there, I’d run out of water and that would be it for me. Dead from lack of
water. I’ve read that’s a very painful way to go. Maybe a better way to go
compared to being eaten but it’d still be painful and I’d still dead. I needed
a new plan.

I
couldn’t drive a car. My dad was just beginning to teach me when the infection
broke out. And with all the dead cars jamming most of the freeways it wouldn’t
be practical. I couldn’t ride a motorcycle. No one had ever taught me how and I
didn’t feel like breaking my neck learning how to ride. Then there was the gas
issues. How would I get gas to keep it running? And then there was the sound
issue. Motorcycles were loud and basically screamed to the dead, “COOOOOOME!
EEAAAT!
MEEE
EEEEE
!” continuously. So motorcycles were out. I did however know
how to ride a bicycle. Bikes were quiet. Bikes didn’t need fuel. I could do
most of the maintenance on a bike myself or just replace the whole thing if
something broke that I couldn’t fix. And bicycle shops were everywhere.

So
I stumbled down the onramp after scanning the area for dead and entered
Chandler proper. Apparently the dead didn’t like the heat either and had sought
shelter within the buildings of the town. I walked up and down the streets
until I found a phone booth that still had an honest to god phonebook hanging
in it. Do you know how rare those fucking things are? Well I just found out
after walking across most of Chandler looking for one. I couldn’t find a single
one in any public area and had to start looking in stores, fast food joints,
post offices, and finally bars. I’d poke my head in and check out the interior,
count the dead, and get right back out. If there were only a few, I’d take them
out and look around for a payphone. If there weren’t any payphones, I’d just
look in the offices to see if there was a phone book handy. I did this for
three hours. Three solid hours of roasting my ass off walking into building
where I could count on there being at least a few dead and, usually, no
phonebook.

I
finally found one in the back of a strip club. Yep, a strip club. And not one
of the nicer ones from the looks of it. I crept in checking the place out for
dead strippers, found none, but did fins a pay phone far in the back. I
nervously picked up the phonebook, standing there in the half gloom waiting for
the dead to rush me and looked up a bike shop. In the back rooms, I could hear
things beginning to move around as I quickly flipped through the wore out and
tattered pages, dragging ripped and half eaten feet around as they sensed
something tasty was nearby. I could imagine just exactly what was back there as
I scribbled down a few addresses and boogied out of there as fast as I could
and into the clean, hot light of the day.

Fuck
that. I vowed never again to go into a strip club for as long as I lived.

Then
I pulled out my map, located me, then located a few nearby shops.

I
walked to the closest shop about a mile off of the freeway, Tim’s Bicycles and
Scooters. No luck. Apparently Tim had sealed his shop up tight before either
retreating out of the city or being eaten and I didn’t want to waste time
cutting through the thick steel chains that held the roll down gates in place.
I’d come back if I had to but there was another shop just a few blocks over.
I’d try that before trying to break into Tim’s.

Avery’s
Bicycling however, was wide open and fully stocked. So long, Tim! I will not be
patronizing your store today! I walked into the front door and let the smell of
clean, new bicycles wash over me. I looked around trying to decide which bike
would be best for my purposes in the post-apocalyptic world of mine. And, of
course King Ahg’s.

I
found a sleek tricycle made for adults. It was black with three off-road
wheels, two in the back and one in the front. It was an incredible machine with
gears and cables and joints going everywhere. I fell in love with it
immediately but had to let it go. Too wide, too heavy, and too many moving
parts. Plus it was too low to the ground. I wanted something where I sat up
high and could see around me.

The
next bike was another tricycle, this one for beach cruising. Like a regular
bike you’d sit upright on the seat. I threw my leg over the seat and tried it
out. It was so comfortable and if I got tired, I could just stop and sit. It
would be like carrying along my own chair. But the back was so wide that I’d
have trouble maneuvering around dead cars where traffic had piled up. Not a big
deal once I was out into the dessert but a deal breaker here in a city.

So
I settled on a regular mountain bike. I found a black one that was the right
size for me, then in a burst of inspiration, I found a narrow, two wheeled cart
that I could attach to the back wheel of the bike and load up with extra water.
Genius! I attached the trailer to my bike, picked up a deluxe repair kit, an
industrial lock with a chain, and extra bike supplies, then headed out to the
street to give her a try.

The
bike rode like a dream! Even with the trailer behind me, I was able to move
around in the streets and between the wrecks of cars with no problem at all. I
stopped at the first gas station and filled up my pack with bottled water,
filled my camelback, and then the trailer with six gallon jugs of water. I was
set.

Riding
the bike would allow me to move faster through the desert but the heat was
still likely to kill me or I still might run out of water. The next part of my
plan was more difficult and sent cold terror pouring into my chest. I needed to
get out of the heat and to do that I had to travel at night, but nights were
now pitch black with all the power grids failing across the southwest. And,
much like I was planning to do, the dead seemed to move around at night more
than the day.

So
to be able to see where the dead were, wrecks in the road, and other obstacles,
I needed night vision goggles. I could probably find a pair in a sporting goods
store but I wanted something that would take the beatings I was going to
subject it to on the road, with a battery that would last longer than the
commercial models, and give me the best view of the night time world.

The
only people who had something like that were the military or the police. And if
there was one thing I had learned from my days in the Wreck, wherever the
military and the police were, the dead would be there in force.

I
pulled my bike over into an empty trucking parking lot and pulled out my map.
The Chandler Police Department was close by. I’d have to go into a place most
likely filled with dead, find where they stored their equipment, get what I
needed, and get back out. It was late afternoon and I’d still have to find a
place to hole up not only for tonight but for all day tomorrow since tomorrow
night I planned on trying out my new plan.

I
folded up my map, mounted my bike, and peddled over the police station. There I
saw that one of the front doors were missing guaranteeing that the dead would
be inside. And if I were really lucky, a sprinter or two. I set my bike
alongside the station’s wall, set most of my gear down, and pulled out my
silenced rifle. I then strapped on two silenced pistols and hoped it would be
enough as I quickly and quietly trotted across the street and up to the
station’s front entrance.