Aftermath (Book 1): Only The Head Will Take Them Down (31 page)

Cautiously he poked his head just barely out of the door, looking to both sides to ensure nobody was around, before once again calling out.
“John?”, he said softly, but just firmly enough to carry a good distance around the front of the house.
Suddenly, a scuffling noise came from the truck, as the rear of it began to shake slightly, sending Andrew back a step in shock, and causing him to withdraw his M1911 as quickly as he could muster.
“That you John?”, Andrew asked, as he took aim with his pistol, lining it up with the most unsteady of aims as he prepared himself for the very real possibility that it might be someone or
something
other than his former companion.

A mere second later, a hand rose up from the rear of the truck, its fingers dyed red with blood, and its nails clutching and clawing for a good hold on the metal in front of it. Having eventually found one, a second hand appeared, again coloured by that same dark shade of red. A second or so passed this way, the two hands all that could be seen from the trucks ready bay, and Andrew’s pistol raised directly at what little of whatever was in there was exposed, until eventually, a head rose up.

The unmistakable face of Andrew’s former companion came into view, his hair matted and rougher than ever, and his entire body an odd shade of murky, blood covered red. It was enough for Andrew to relax, and for him to lower his weapon, though he couldn’t help notice that one thing was different. John’s eyes were almost grey in colour, the facial muscles completely devoid of any kind of life, and the overwhelming presence of blood the biggest red flag of all.

“John”, Andrew called out once again, as he re-raised his gun, and pulled back the hammer of the pistol with his thumb as he did, “Talk to me John”.
The figure once known as John moaned an inaudible response.
Andrew’s face went white with shock, the thought of what he knew he had to do rushing through his mind, his hand trembling violently while his finger gripped the trigger. But then, he was interrupted.
“I’m getting pretty tired of you pointing that damn thing at me”, John groaned.

Andrew nearly dropped the pistol to the ground, overwhelmed with relief and almost happy to see the man that just a few moments ago, he thought was gone for good.
“Jesus Christ John, you scared the hell out of me”, he exclaimed, panting slightly for breath, “What are you doing out here?”, he asked.
John simply raised his left arm, scantily clad in bandages which it appeared to have soaked through more than once over, whatever wound that had caused it buried deep in a sea of white and red.
“Thought it best to keep out of the house”, he said, dropping the arm back to his side.
“Whoa whoa whoa, what is that John?”, Andrew asked feverishly, his weapon gripped tight in hand.
“Relax Andrew, just a scratch, and judging by my still functioning brain I’d say it’s one I got from something other than a biter”, he explained.
“How can I be sure?”, Andrew asked.
“Well”, John started, “I’ve been here ‘bout…”, John broke off briefly to look up at the sky, “Well, five or six hours I reckon, and I’m not crawling round the floor trying to bite you, so I think I’m probably okay”, he finished.

Andrew thought it over for a moment, as if unconvinced by the reasonably overwhelming evidence in front of him – rare was it that anybody took anywhere near five hours to turn, let alone more than that – before eventually lowering his pistol, clicking the hammer forwards, and this time, holstering it.

“Where in the hell where you?”, he asked, stepping out of the house towards the truck, looking as he did to each side, just in case someone or something had materialised along the edges of the house.
“Went looking for supplies, figured it was the least I could do, considering…everything”, John said.
“And your arm?”, Andrew asked of John’s new wound.
“Got caught up while I was scavenging, all worked out in the end though”, John replied arrogantly.
“For God sake John, was it really worth it? Could you not have just waited until morning so I could have come helped? Times like this I think I should have just left you out there like I did the first time”, Andrew said angrily.
“Well sure, but just think, if you’d done that…”, John tailed off as he ducked back down into the trucks rear bay, before resurfacing with a gas canister in each hand, “…You’d be so much worse off”, he said excitedly, as a sense of achievement, coupled with an emphatic smile, spread across his face.

Chapter 32: The I94 II

“I’m home!”, John called out, dropping his bag of tools on the floor and kicking off his boots, as he made his way through the front door, “Anybody here?”.
Nothing but silence responded, not a creaking floorboard, nor a spoken word.
“Michelle, Hayley?”, John yelled again, “Anybody?”.
Eventually, some moments afterwards, the sound of life finally burst into the room, as the glimmering blonde hair of a young girl came bounding through the door at the other end of the hall.
“There she is!”, John yelled in excitement, crouching down onto one knee to arrive at eye level with his daughter.
But his daughter stopped dead in her tracks, not moving more than a foot past the open door, instead simply staring at her father, teddy clutched in both arms.
“Hayley? Come here, come give your old man a hug”, John said gently.
Suddenly a smile formed right across his daughter’s face, as she came running over and jumped into the arms of her father.
“
That’s
what I needed!”, John said happily, his eyes drifting closed, content at the warm embrace of his daughter, “Now where’s your Mother?”, he asked.

No sooner had he finished speaking than another set of feet emerged in the distance, this time belonging to John’s wife Michelle, who now stood where her daughter had just moments before.
“And there she is too!”, John said, daughter still clutched in his arms, rising up onto both feet to be at eye level with his wife, who began to walk over.
Michelle was a beautiful woman, hair as blonde as her daughter’s, her smile more infectious than anything John had ever laid eyes on, and her face prettier than anybody he’d ever known.

“Hey sweetheart”, John said, kissing his wife briefly before pulling away to place Hayley back on the floor.
“Hey baby, you have a good day?”, Michelle asked.
“Bout’ as good as it gets. But who cares, I am done for the weekend which means its road trip time!”, John exclaimed happily.
“Now that is exactly what I wanted to hear”, said Michelle, smiling, “You sure you have everything?”, she asked.
“Sure am, need a few bits of food but I’ll get them on the way, for now, you two need to go pack!” he started, “And make sure you-“
“Mr John?”, interrupted Hayley.
“Don’t interrupt baby you know that, and why are you calling me-“, John started to ask.
“Mr John?”, said his daughter again.
“What is-“, again John tried to speak.

“Mr John!”, came the voice again.
Suddenly the world changed, John’s eyes attempting to adjust to an abrupt switch in brightness, the barely lit and warm hallway of his home immediately replaced with the cold interior of a Ford, hurtling along an empty highway. Quickly John looked around, confused beyond all measures at what had just happened, and trying his hardest to come to terms with the brief but wonderful time he had spent with his family.

“Mr John”, said Andrew’s daughter, apparently for the fourth time.
Confused, John turned in his seat, looking back to the young girl, only a couple years older than his own by the looks of her, and tried to calm himself from the dream he had been so deeply entangled in.
“What is it sweetheart?”, he asked, cursing his choice of words as they left his mouth.
“How did you get that thing on your cheek?”, she asked.
“What thing?”, John questioned, raising his hand to clutch at his cheek, forgetting for a moment the deep wound that had only recently began to scar over, the pain of touching it too much for him to take without at least wincing. “Oh, that”, he said.
“It looks sore”, asked the girl, “Did one of the sick people do that to you?”.
“No no, not one of them”, John started, smiling slightly as he remembered the real inflictor of the damage, the man currently driving the truck. “It was… it was just a stupid thing, I fell and caught it on some glass a few days ago, no big deal”, he lied, smiling slightly so as to reinforce his words, before turning back into his seat.
“Thank you”, Andrew said quietly.
“Don’t mention it”, John responded.

“Hey I meant to ask you”, John said after a few moments of silent driving, “Where are you folks headed?”.
“Chicago, hopefully”, Andrew replied, “They broadcast a message every day, saying they’re safe there”.
“Yeah I’ve heard it, Donald played it out for me. How you reckon’ you’re gonna get in?”, John asked, referring of course to the broadcasted requirement of accessing the supposedly fortified city by boat.
“Not sure yet”, Andrew replied, hesitating for a moment before asking, “Any ideas?”.
“Not particularly, must have been thousands of them moored along the coastline before, not sure how many’ll be there now mind you, probably the first escape route everyone thought of”, John suggested.
“Well, we’ll take you to the outskirts of Milwaukee”, Andrew started, John’s ears pricking up as he spoke, “We’ll drop you off, and then we’ll head over to the coast, see what we can find”.
“I thought-“, John started.
“You got us the fuel that’s gonna’ get us there, least we can do is take you close, not exactly out of our way”, Andrew replied.
“Thank you”, John said, happy to hear that he could at least put off the search for a vehicle until he got closer to the city.
“Don’t mention it”, Andrew replied.
Both men chuckled slightly at the sense of Deja-vu.

“How far out are we?”, John asked, unsure of their exact location thanks to his period of slumber.
“No more than thirty minutes I reckon, from there it should only take you another thirty once you’ve got a vehicle”, Andrew explained, “Maybe a little longer if we keep running into this sort of thing though…”, he added, his eyes inspecting a huge grouping of vehicles up ahead.
As always, the presence of vehicles on the roads heading into the city were rare, but often the overwhelming number of cars and trucks that had tried to escape along the roads leaving, had led to big crashes, sometimes spilling out onto both sides. Up ahead was no exception, with a sea of collided metal reflecting the morning sun straight at the Ford, the various shapes and sizes of vehicle spreading well across both carriageways and the grassy verges on each side.
“Looks like we’ll need to go through”, Andrew announced, “Think I see a route”, he added, pointing towards a reasonably sized gap in the traffic, itself appearing to curve through as far as they could see.

Sure enough, as the truck arrived at the front of the gridlock, both John and Andrew saw a snaking and seemingly drivable route through the traffic, their elevated seating position enough to show them a good distance along its path. Without either man saying another word, Andrew began to follow the small corridor.
“Eyes inside sweety”, he said as he looked into the rear view mirror and noticed his daughter, eyes wandering into the cars alongside them, occasionally catching glimpses of the undead, still restrained by the very seatbelts that were supposed to have kept them safe.
Hannah obliged, looking back to the truck’s rear foot-well.
“Too much bad for them to see, not enough good to show them”, Andrew said lowly.
“Not sure that was much different before all of this”, John replied, smirking slightly.

The path the truck began to navigate, although painfully slow, cut perfectly through the densest areas of traffic, carving a route almost too perfect to believe, something John had struggled with from the first moment.
“I don’t get this”, he said suddenly, “I think some of these have been moved”, he added, clearly confused.
“What are you talking about?”, Andrew asked dismissively.
“There’s glass on the floor, along the track, like the cars were moved after crashing”, John explained, only half convinced himself, “It’s like they’ve been arranged to make this path”.
“Maybe so, maybe the last people did that so they could get through?”, Andrew said.
“Maybe”, John replied. “Or maybe they’re trapping us”, he said abruptly, his mind working overtime to inspect the environment around the truck.
“Who is ‘
they’
?”, Andrew asked, almost laughing at what he was sure was just another of John’s over-the-top theories.
“Bandits”, John said simply. “Let me out here, I’ll meet you at the end of this”, he instructed, as he grabbed hold of the door handle and opened it slightly, forcing Andrew to slam suddenly on the brakes.
“What!?”, Andrew said confused, “There’s nobody here, you’re wasting time!”, he insisted.
“Time is the one thing I don’t have to waste”, John said as he climbed out of the truck, “But I’m not risking it”, he added, looking back at Andrew before closing the passenger side door.

“Where is Mr John going Daddy?”, asked Hannah.
“He’s just taking a walk baby, don’t you worry”, Andrew replied, placing his foot back onto the accelerator and moving off once more.
Up ahead, the path continued to weave, getting narrower and narrower as it did, but still appearing to be passable at all visible stages. It did seem odd to Andrew that it stretched for so long – most through-passages of this type ran dry after a hundred or so yards – but judging by a lack of alternative routes around the huge number of vehicles, this appeared to be the only way they’d make it any further along the I94, a road Andrew knew was the quickest way to get to the coast, and on to Chicago.

Suddenly a thought clicked in Andrew’s head, and quickly he reached for the radio, flicking it on to the one station it was ever tuned in to.
“…date is”, rang out the radio, as the pre-recorded voice broke away, and was replaced by another, “Thursday the seventh of August, twenty fourteen”.
Relief coursed through Andrew’s body, so abruptly concerned that he had yet to check the radio all morning, and now so happy to hear that their destination remained very much intact, or so it at least appeared. Smiling slightly, Andrew leant over and flicked off the static filled message, followed by a quick check into the rear view mirror to ensure his wife was still sat in the rear, happily taking care of their daughter.