The Road to Macon: A Zombie Novel (6 page)

Abe stood up and stretched again, his six foot frame was thinner than Kyle's bulkier form, and just a bit taller. He had dark brown hair and light brown eyes that almost seemed pale in the sunlight. His face was well-angled giving him the look of a model, though he would have been a poor one for Abe had little time for games, or things he considered silly. Abe was a consummate Type-A personality, he wanted things in order and didn't have patience for those who fell short. It was a terrible twist of fate that gave him a Type-B brother.

Kyle thought Abe was his great test in life, especially since they grew up in the same room, and later shared a place during university. Kyle's complete disregard for proper boundaries and organization made Abe crazy, though he had to admit the military had helped Kyle immensely. In his more generous moments, Abe knew that he himself could be difficult, and Kyle, in his frustrating way, had helped tone down Abe's rigidness, mostly by beating the crap out him growing up.

Though for all their differences, they shared both shared the same values and beliefs that their parents had instilled on them from a young age. They shared many of the same hobbies and the same odd sense of humor, getting them both in trouble more than one time. Beyond all those things, they had always had a good friendship, which helped them equally during tough times.

Abe grabbed some fresh clothes that were stacked neatly in his suitcase, and his towel hanging on a peg in the room. He pulled open his door and found a wet towel lying in a bundle directly in front of his door.

“Idiot! How long does it take to hang up your towel?” Abe complained vehemently to the empty hall. The question went unanswered as he kicked the offending towel closer to Kyle’s door. Abe had thought the new house had helped his brother even more in taking care of things, but maybe not.
Maybe he did it on purpose, just to piss me off.
He walked into the bathroom and was grateful that the shower curtain was pulled tight, in order to dry. Abe smiled. “Better,” he thought.

Abe finished getting ready for the day and was enjoying a bowl of cereal at the table. He was looking at Kyle’s pictures that were stuck to the fridge. Many of them were of him and their family, but a few of them were of him standing with his army buddies in a desert.

Kyle had come home in early January after fifteen months in the Middle East. It became apparent early that Kyle had changed. Gone was his easy smile, his stupid jokes, and his casual attitude about things. He came back tense, with an edge to all his actions. He was silent and glaring in familiar company, where before he would have been the life of a party. Abe didn’t push him to talk, didn't ask questions, Abe was, against his better nature, patient. He just spent time with him in whatever he wanted to, often just camping or surfing.

For three months Kyle stayed with him at his place, sometimes visiting their father or disappearing in the Appalachian Mountains for days. Abe would often hear moaning, thrashing, and general terror coming from his sleeping brother. He would often go to his room and just place a hand on his head or arm, which helped calm the terrors that were haunting his dreams. He never mentioned his actions to his brother, and his brother never woke from these dark moments to discover him.

Things changed one Friday evening when Abe came back from work ready for a nice weekend and found Kyle sprawled out on the couch reading a book. Abe took a look at the soda cans and candy wrappers adorning his coffee table and growled but didn't say anything.

Kyle lowered the book and looked at his brother, “I’m going to hike the Appalachian Trail.”

Abe, folding his tie, looked up at his brother who noticed what he was doing with the tie and gave the ghost of a smile.

“When did you decided this?” he asked, placing the carefully-folded tie on the table.

“Just now.”

“Okay, when are you going?” Abe asked, a little surprised at this sudden decision, but happy his brother was making one.

“Next Sunday, I’ll catch a bus down to Springer Mountain in Georgia,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“What?” Abe exploded, “In a week? That's not enough time to plan. Where is your equipment? Your tent? Sleeping bag? Do you have a map of the trail? I doubt it!”

Kyle was smiling now, “I’ll just go to the camping store and get it. No worries.”

Abe picked up his suit jacket and the tie he had laid down and looked sternly at his older brother. He was exasperated. Kyle was always coming up with stupid ideas and just doing them without thinking. In his opinion, his decision to join the army had been too damn quick and look where that had gotten him. No, that wasn't fair. Frustrated, he walked back to his room and felt terrible for even thinking that. He wasn’t angry at Kyle, but it broke his heart to see him this way and he couldn’t help but blame the army, the country! Hell, he didn’t care who be blamed. His hurt and anger weren’t a logical thing; he had no reasoned response to his feelings. Someone that he loved was hurting and he wanted someone to blame. He uncharacteristically threw his tie and jacket on the chair next to his bed and laid down. Idiot brother. He would worry about it tomorrow.

Abe went to work early the next day, despite it being a Saturday, but was home by noon. The two of them got some lunch and then headed to the outfitter’s store to get Kyle started on his plans. They started by looking at tents. A middle-aged, overweight salesman was droning on about the benefits of this and that, while Kyle looked on, a pleasant smile on his face. That was too much for Abe. Kyle was trying to be pleasant to this fat idiot when Abe was still pissed at him.

“Look buddy, we know what we want,” Abe snapped. The idea that he would buy something from a retail store without doing his homework was repulsive to him. Buying from a retail store at all was repulsive to him, but Kyle only had a week and he knew his brother would just go and buy any random equipment. He wouldn’t!

“We want two of these single sleepers as well as…”

Kyle interrupted, “I only need one Abe.”

“I went in to work this morning and took a month off,” he said, throwing the small tents in the cart. “I can’t do the whole thing of course.” He stopped and looked at Kyle, who was staring at him with watery eyes. He didn’t need to get teary-eyed in front of the fat guy, so he turned around and started pushing the cart to the sleeping bag section.

“Don’t be too happy,” he said over his shoulder, “you're paying for me tent.”

They started their hike the last week in March, with a random group of young pot-smoking hippies, middle-agers looking for meaning, and old
Grizzly Adams
types. The weather was cold and Abe cursed Kyle’s decision to start so soon after winter. After a week, Abe’s entire body was screaming in pain. He could hardly bend down to take his shoes off at the end of the day because his back was so tight. His feet were a smorgasbord of raw skin and blisters that peeled off when he removed his socks.

After a month, he was getting concerned about losing weight. His already thin frame had lost ten pounds, and he was looking like some kind of prison camp survivor. Kyle had no apparent difficulty at all, his few months of loafing had not affected his fitness apparently. He hefted his heavier pack in the morning and would walk all day with no visible pain to his back or his feet. Kyle soon began to chat with other hikers and enjoyed the ridiculous conversations that would take place. Kyle spent one entire day talking about candy bars with a old man whose beard was down to the middle of his stomach. Abe walked behind his fast-moving brother thinking that the conversations had to get better than this.

Abe had gratefully gotten off the trail near Virginia and had gone back to work. He wasn't worried about Kyle, for he seemed to be coming out of his shell, and the walk through nature looked like it was restoring him. He didn’t hear from Kyle for another four and a half months. Then in mid-August, Kyle showed up at his house with scraggly blond hair down to his shoulders and a disgusting, food-covered beard. Abe wasn’t impressed by the look, but was content to see the smile underneath.

Abe was finishing up the cereal when the sounds of a crash came through the open front door. He quickly set the bowl down and went to take a look. A few houses down the street someone had driven a red Camry right into their garage door. It didn’t seem too bad, at least there were no fires or explosions. Abe gave a shrug and walked onto the small porch to slip his flip-flops on when he saw that some of Kyle’s neighbors were already checking on the situation. There was no absence of people to help and gawk since it was a Sunday. Abe fought the temptation to be a spectator and walked back inside to wash out his bowl.

After cleaning up after himself and his brother’s morning mess, he decided to go ahead and get some gas, just in case. He really didn’t believe in his brother’s zombie stories, but he wouldn’t look too stupid getting gas with all that was going on, right? He walked to the garage and hit the garage door on the side of the wall. The new door promptly rose to shed light on the chaos that was Kyle’s garage. Abe swore again at the destruction that was before him. Boxes, both empty and full, were scattered everywhere on the floor. Laying on them, around them, and between them were tools, books, board games, hiking equipment, and every assortment of random trash that hadn’t been thrown away.

Abe started to get angry but then just laughed. He knew it was stupid to get angry since his brother would never change completely, and at least he wasn’t the one who had to pick up after him anymore. He looked through the mess to spot three, 5-gallon red gas containers. On the side of each of them were the words written: GAS. He picked the containers up and set them outside. He seriously wondered if he could hit the garage door button near the back and still navigate the mess in the garage quickly enough to get outside before the metal door slammed down on him. He just made it.

He packed the spare gas cans in the back of his old black F-150. He wasn’t in the business of buying new cars, oh no, such a waste of money. But his truck was well taken care of, as were all his possessions. He had, along with the gas cans, even packed Kyle’s camping equipment next his own that was already stored in the back of his truck. He drove by the little accident and had seen people talking on the lawn. He threw his finger up in howdy and drove on past.

The little country store that Kyle had referred to was only a few miles from his house. It was a former house that had been converted to a little country store. Its white wood siding had retained very little of its paint however, and this just added to its rustic redneck charm. There was only one pump at the station, and it was one that would have been better off in an antique shop. It was made of a heavy metal that had been painted white and it had small black numbers which would actually flip when gas was pumped.

He pulled up to the empty pump and started getting the cans out, when an older white gentleman in old jeans and dirty white tank top walked out. He also had a NASCAR ballcap on that immediately reminded him of a trip that he and Abe had taken with their father a number of years ago. Neither of them had ever been to a NASCAR race and their father was always asking them to go. So they did. It was a completely new experience for both of the brothers. It looked to Abe like a country bomb exploded and spewed out deep country folks all over the place. After a few minutes, both of the brothers noticed that they were getting strange looks as they walked around the various venues outside the track. It took a few minutes before he realized that it was because both of them had University of North Carolina hats on, not racing hats.

"It can't be because we don't have NASCAR apparel on can it?" Abe asked his brother, doubting his own conclusion.

"Na, can't be, but everyone else sure has it on," Kyle said, looking around like a fish inside a fish tank.

"Well, it probably won't hurt to support one of these drivers," Abe said, wondering how much a hat would cost them.

"I can't believe we're getting peer-pressured into buying NASCAR apparel just because we don't want to stick out."

"When in Rome," Abe responded.

Abe's thoughts were pulled back to the present when the old-timer walked over to talk. “How ya doing?” the older guy asked neighborly.

“Good, how about yourself?"

“Fair to middling,” the man answered. Abe almost didn't understand what he was saying since his accent was so thick. “Needing some gas?”

“Yeah, gonna store some up, with all that’s going on and all.”

“Yeah, heard about it on the TV, but been quiet around here so far.” The man was leaning on the gas pump with his hands stuck in his back pockets. Abe thought the guy just wanted to talk. The old fella stuck out his arm. "The name is Jeremiah, been working here for over ten years."

"Abe, nice to meet you," he said shaking the man's hand, who pumped it vigorously.

"It's not short for Abraham is it?" asked the old man of Abe's name.

Abe laughed, "It is actually, only my mom called me Abraham, and then only if I was in trouble."

"You can't go wrong with a name from the good book." He reached around and pulled out a small book. Abe assumed it was a small Bible that Jeremiah was making his point with.

"Unless it's Beelzebub," replied Abe smiling. The old man gave him questioning look, then roared out in laughter.

"No, that surely isn't a good name,” he said, between bouts of gut-shaking laughter. "Beelzebub, oh boy, that's a good one!" He reached over and smacked Abe on the shoulder.

"Beelzebub, gonna have to tell Martha that one."

"Yeah," Abe laughed. He didn't think his joke was that funny but you couldn't keep laughter in when someone like old Jeremiah was busting a gut right in front of you.

When the old man's laughter died down, Abe asked him about gas. "You don’t have any more of these gas cans for sale do you?" He knew that Kyle wanted some more, but he wasn’t going to buy more than two, that was getting just crazy.

“Not new ones I don’t, but I have some used ones that are all right, and they have only held gas. Can give them to you for a couple of bucks.”