The Great Wreck (44 page)

I
stayed silent. What do you tell a person who had just realized they are no
longer among the living but inhabit a decaying corpse?

“Something
in my head,” he said looking north again, “Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. Pulling
and buzzing. Think it will ever stop?”

I
had no idea what he was talking about but before I could answer, he was talking
again,
“Can you feel it? Wants me in the north. Don’t think I’ll go, though.” Then he
looked directly at me and said, “Can you help me?” he said looking directly at
me with his faded out eyes.

“Help
you?” I said wondering what he could need from me.

“Help
me, yes,” he said then drifted off again.

I
was about to push on when he held up his good arm and pointed towards my guns,
“Help me die,” he said as though finally completing his thoughts.

I
knew what he wanted so I said, “Yes, I can help you,” and before he could move
I pulled out my pistol and put two bullets in his head. He dropped to the side
of the road as I stood there looking at his now completely dead body.

How
many of the living dead where like this guy? Or the other one outside of Deming
who knew they were dead, who knew they were no longer alive but somehow were
still trapped inside their decaying body? I didn’t want to know but I could
think of no worse hell than that.

 
I got off my bike and took out a small spade
from one of my side bags. I walked around the back of the sad little shop, and
seeing no other dead around, quickly dug a small grave. I pulled on a set of
gloves, grabbed the old man by his shoulders, and dragged his body into the
grave quickly covering it with dirt. Satisfied that I had seen him off into the
next life, I climbed back on my bike and pushed off leaving the man his shop
behind.

I
peddled on for another hour, then took a break. I sat on the side of the road
watching the empty space all around me as I pulled out my radio and turned it
on. I put and ear bud in and listened to the Sandia broadcast.

“…critical
advisory.” I heard as I turned to channel ten. I felt my heart speed up and
quickly looked around to ensure the dead weren’t sneaking up on me. What kind
of critical advisory might Sandia be warning people about? I waited for five
minutes for the broadcast to begin again.

“This
is Sandia Station. If you are in the vicinity of the following cities, take
shelter immediately: Gallup, Grant, Albuquerque, Las Lunas, Socorro, Carrizozo,
Tallulah, Hatch, Las Cruces, Alamogordo, or areas surrounding these cities.
Massive migrations of dead are heading north into the Albuquerque area along
the I-25 highway and both east and west along I-40. Get off the roads and take
shelter immediately. This is Sandia Station. Please stay tuned for a critical
advisory.”

I
quickly got to my feet and onto my bike. I was still thirty miles from Socorro.
For all I knew the dead had already overran the city and I’d have to find
another place to hide. I looked to the south and could see no dead coming up
out of the desert so I pushed on.

An
hour later I crested a small rise and was able to see a mountains to the west
and I-25 stretching far to the north and south. I could also see what looked
like a long line of black snaking its way up the highway towards the south side
of Socorro.

I
pulled out my binoculars and could see the tens of thousands of dead slowly
walking north. The leading edge of the wave had already crossed into the city
past where the highway I was on and I-25 connected. I could see the airport
that was my destination for the day on the west side of the highway and could
also see that many dead has drifted across the runways on their way north.

But
behind them and to the south was the real problem. In an hour or less the main
body of dead would reach Socorro. I could stay here, out on the open with no
shelter and hope the dead stayed along the highway, or I could pour it on and
try to reach the airport before it was swamped.

I
looked around me: there was nothing for miles in every direction. I could camp
out here but there was absolutely nothing to stop a wandering dead guy from
stumbling across me in the middle of the night or worse, a sprinter locking on
to me as I lay out in the open. No thanks, I’d take my chances trying to reach the
airport.

I
put the binoculars away and pushed forward steadily increasing my speed until I
was flying along and I could see the airport a few miles in front of me. I was
going to make it. I’d have just enough time to get my gear up on the roof of
the largest hanger, one designed for the larger interstate aircraft, and get
set up before the wall of dead swamped the area.

I
drank from my pack while I peddled on and noticed a thin layer of dust
stretching across the northern horizon. What could that be? I rolled to a stop
and put my feet on the pavement and felt a very light vibration. An earthquake?
Must be, I thought and got ready to roll forward.

Then
the dead began screaming.

I
looked to the south where the dead were still a few miles away and could see them
starting to run north screaming at the top of their lungs. I pushed off and
started peddling as fast as I could towards the airport. The dead already there
were screaming as well and running with the others. Had they spotted another
living person? It didn’t matter. What matter was making it to the hanger with
enough time to get on the roof before the dead spotted me.

I
passed over I-25 and ate up the last mile to the airport. I passed through a
broken down fence just as the dead hit the south boundary a half mile away.
None of them had spotted me yet but they would be here in a few minutes as they
pressed up against the fence and began breaking it down with the sheer weight
of their bodies.

I
made it to the hanger just as the whole south fence came down and the dead
poured in. As I rolled in, I could see a set of stairs that ran up the inside
of the hanger all the way top the roof. At first I thought, Great! It would be
easy for me to get my gear up on the roof instead of having to haul it up with
ropes. Then I realized that the dead could just as easily make it to the roof.
I quickly looked at the nearby hangers as the dead closed in on my spot. I
couldn’t reach them in time. It was this building or nothing and I had only a
minute or so to decide.

I
made a decision: I tied ropes onto the heaviest packs and set them at the
bottom of the stair well. Then I tossed the ropes up as far as I could then I
grabbed what I could carry and still move quickly heading up the stairs after
covering the bike with my tarp. I hit the base of the stairs as the dead began
to surround the building their screams sounding like the continuous roar of a
jet engine. I made it up to the second landing then opened the outer pocket of
my backpack and grabbed a claymore. I didn’t know if this would work. Maybe the
explosion would knock down the first set of stairs or maybe it would take out
the entire stairwell or maybe even knock down the entire wall of the hanger. I
didn’t know but there was no way I was going to leave these stairs intact. With
so many dead pushing into the surrounding hangers, eventually some of them
would find their way up to the roof.

I
set the timer mode on the claymore and punched in thirty seconds. I hit the
start button, grabbed my gear, and raced up the stairs as fast as I could
counting down from thirty in my head.

At twenty five
the claymore went off. The concussion threw me off of my feet as the entire
stairwell rocked back and forth. I felt the metal under my feet drop out from
under me and I had just a second to wonder if I had killed myself when the
smoke and heat billowed up from below. I grabbed onto the hand rail closing my
eyes tightly and waited for the entire structure to fall to the floor of the
hanger where the dead would arrive seconds later to find me, a fresh snack with
my legs broken and unable to run.

I
guess I had counted too slowly in my head.

The
stair way swayed back and forth but didn’t collapse any further. I opened my
eyes and looked below me at the heap of twisted and burnt metal. The claymore
had worked. The bottom two landings had been reduced to a pile of twisted
metal. It had almost worked too well and brought everything down. I comforted
myself by telling myself that the fall would have killed me as I got to my
feet, grabbed up my packs, and carefully made my way to the next landing. Here
the platform felt solid and I could look down and the chaos I had created. A
few small fires were already guttering out but the sound of the explosion had
gotten the attention of the dead.

They
swarmed into the hanger and within minutes had covered the entire floor of the
building. None had spotted me but my guess was that as soon as I moved, they
would.

I
was right.

As
soon as I began to walk up the final flight of stairs, I head a scream and
looked down to see three sprinters staring up at me frantically looking for a
way to reach me. This was the first time I had seen a sprinter and not
immediately ran in the opposite direction. I watched as they screamed and spit
and ran in circles trying to reach me.

I
actually laughed and said, “Fuck you!” and flipped them the bird. Hearing my
voice drove the entire crowd of dead into a frenzy scarring the shit out of me.
I resolved not to yell at the dead again and made my way up the stairs and to
the roof top.

I
opened the access door and closed it behind me cutting off the screaming from
the inside of the hanger only to be nearly overwhelmed by the screaming coming
from outside. I hoped the dead moved on. I didn’t know if I could handle the
screaming for hours on end.

I
set my equipment down and walked to the edge of the hanger and peeked over the
high wall: the dead stretched from the southern horizon to the north now and
were spreading out far to the east and west. Had I stayed out of Socorro,
eventually they would have ran over me as the spread across the valley. I
shivered at the thought as I watched them running for all they were worth to
the north. What the fuck were they doing? I looked a little further over the
edge and saw the dead inside the hanger were starting to move north again
having lost sight of me. In a few hours I’d go and get the last of my gear that
I had tied ropes to and tossed up to the third landing, but for now I just
wanted to rest.

But
first I checked the roof for any other way the dead might get up. I found a
water spigot that, to my surprise gushed out water when I turned the valve
handle. I’d have to boil the water before I drank it but at least I wouldn’t
die of thirst if I got stuck up here for long. I walked the entire edge of the roof
and was satisfied that the only way up was through the door that I jammed shut
with little wedges of metal that I hammered into the space between the door and
the jamb. Then I set up my netting in a corner as far away from the door as I
could to block out the heat, unrolled my sleeping bag, and stripped down to my
shorts. I pulled out the radio and jammed the earbuds into my ears blocking out
the worst of the screaming and listened to Sandia giving updates on the dead
migration until finally, I switched it off. I didn’t need anyone telling me to
take shelter or that there were a bazillion dead eighty feet or so below me. I
could hear them and I could smell them. I drank my water and from time to time
would poke my head up over the wall only to see more dead streaming in from the
south. Eventually the stress and exhaustion took over and I fell asleep and the
oceans of dead passed beneath me.
 

I
woke up sometime after the sun had gone down. A breeze blew the netting up and
down in gusts and I actually felt cold as the sweat of the day evaporated off
of my skin. I pulled the earbuds out of my ears as I got dressed and noticed
the dead had stopped screaming. I looked over the edge of the building in the
fading light and could see they were still there in all of their hundreds of
thousands but now they were just walking north quietly grunting, groaning, and
moaning.

I
briefly listened to the Sandia broadcast but nothing had changed: the dead were
still migrating north and travelers were advised to seek shelter. I unsealed
the doorway to the stairwell and made my way to the third landing. A large
group of dead were still inside the hanger but the back hanger doors were open
and they were slowly trickling out. I quietly moved down to the third landing
and quickly pulled up the packs and water jugs that I had to leave behind when
I had gotten here earlier in the day. I successfully got all my supplies up and
onto the roof without attracting the attention of the dead and completed the
setup of my camp. By the looks of it, I’d be here awhile.

I
broke out my night vision goggles and strapped them on. Looking out to the
south I could see the dead moving around and walking north. To the east and
west, the dead had spread out beyond the confines to the valley and over the
ridge I had been on earlier in the day. To the north, I saw the same with tens
of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dead moving away from
Socorro.

I
switched over to the infrared setting. I did not expect to see anything but the
dim outline of the dead. I scanned the crowds looking back along I-25. I knew
James wouldn’t be there. The dead were everywhere so, even if he had survived
Las Cruces, he would be holed up somewhere just like I was. Even so, I scanned
the highway back to the horizon and stopped cold when I spotted a heat
signature moving among the crowds of dead. I switched over to the night vision
setting and zoomed in but at this far away, all I could see was a group of
indistinct figures moving among the crowds of dead.

I
switched back to the infrared setting and could see more figures moving north
among the walkers. What the fuck? Who could be out there walking with the dead
without being eaten? I spotted a few more figures moving north with the crowds
and one really close to my location. I zoomed in as far as I could and was able
to make out the form of a little girl. She was wearing jeans and a button up
shirt holding the hand of one of the dead. She looked to be about eight and
seemed to be alive. At least her body was giving off a heat signature. I felt
my flesh crawl watching her walk amongst the eaten and badly decayed dead,
holding their hands as they moved north. What could that mean? How was it even
possible? I slid below the wall of the roof and pulled off my goggles.