Norm stopped, wiping the sweat and tears off his face.
There was a suburban sitting in the median of the highway not too far from where we were. I ran over to it. The keys were still in the ignition. There were no bodies inside. I got in and backed up over to Norm.
“Come on man,” I said to him as I rolled the window down.
He walked around to the passenger side.
We headed toward Seattle.
We didn’t talk a lot as we drove. Most of the time Norm had his hand over his mouth, crying, holding back tears.
I was driving slow; amazed at the things we passed.
The destruction was massive.
It was as if the entire world had thrown up onto itself. The whole forest was sn
apped over from east to west. The highway was littered with vehicles, burned or still burning. Some cars had gone into the ditch or had fallen into large cracks that had opened in the road. In one spot we had to leave the highway entirely because a highway overpass had collapsed onto the road below.
The ground was broken and ribbed with large cracks that stretched as far as the eye
could see. The cracks looked like they had been caused by something shoving up from under the ground. It didn’t look like volcanic damage; more like a major earthquake had split the earth. The cracks were everywhere.
The air was thick with smoke. In places smoke drifted over the highway. We had to drive slowly to get through it.
Also as we drove, we saw a lot of dead people, but no zombies.
Finally I asked Norm “What do you think caused all this?”
“I have no idea,” he whispered.
I asked him “Do you even
want
to go to Seattle?”
He thought about this for quite some time then said “Yeah, I have some family there.”
“Yeah that’s where I’m from too” I said.
“What do you do there?”
“I’m a computer tech.”
He nodded.
We didn’t talk much more. There really was no reason to talk about what we did. Obviously those jobs were meaningless now. We were in the midst of a major cataclysm here. The world had been destroyed; the dead had risen and were now walking amongst us. It was like we were living a disaster movie.
I didn’t expect an answer from him but I asked “Do you think this is the end of the world?”
He said with a tearful voice: “It is for me, man. The world is over. My wife and daughter are dead. My truck and business is destroyed. My home is probably burnt to the ground…what’s left here for me?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Could you drop me off here?” he asked. “I want to get out.”
I stopped the suburban. “Sure.”
He sat there a moment, then opened the door. “The bruises,” he said. “Did you notice them?”
I thought about it for a second then remembered the people on the plane: the fat man next to me, the woman across the aisle, the zombies.
“Yea.”
“What caused it?” he asked, wiping a tear from his stubbly cheek.
“I have no idea,” I said, slowly shaking my head. “It has to be related to all of this somehow I would guess.”
“On the radio,” he said, “they said
something about a nuke.”
“A
nuke?”
I asked, shocked.
“Yeah…they were saying that everyone needed to get to disaster shelters. It was a nuke. Th
en the radio died…like my wife…and daughter…”
He looked at me for a second, nodded, and then got out.
I sat there for a minute, not really knowing what to do. Who was I to tell him he couldn’t leave? I wasn’t going to give him a pep talk and tell him that his wife would have wanted him to try and survive. I also wasn’t going to tell him it wasn’t a good idea to get out of the car because he might get eaten. I had no idea what to say to a man who had just lost everything that was important to him in the world. If the man wanted to get out and fend for himself, or even go get eaten or even commit suicide, then that was his own choice.
The door was still open. He was leaning down looking at me. He said “Every single person I’ve seen since this has happened has had a bruise on their head somewhere - except for me and you. Explain that to me.”
“I can’t.”
“How come Donn
a had to be bruised…and Janey? Why did they have to die?”
I slowly shook my head. I didn’t have an answer.
He slowly closed the door.
I decided that I needed to find my family even though I hadn’t seen them in months. I was single, living on my own. My parents and little sister lived on the north side of town. I
needed to know if they were ok.
A few more miles down I came to a destroyed bridge. It had fallen into a river below. It was called the Raging River, but it was hardly raging – it was more like a trickle. There was no way that I would be able to drive down through the mess of boulders and split earth. I had to leave the suburban behind.
Before abandoning the vehicle, I looked through it to see if there was anything worth holding onto. In the glove compartment I found a bottle of aspirin. I put those in my front right pants pocket. In the back of the car I took the
tire iron next to the spare. I figured the tire iron would be a sturdier weapon than a golf club.
I was able to hop across the river where
the highway had caved in. Chunks of the highway stuck up here and there with oddly angled steel struts sticking out of them. There was also another crumpled car down here on its top but no one was in it.
Norm had said that people were told to go to disaster shelters. Maybe that’s where all of the people went. I wondered if my family
had gone there.
There have been many conversations about what happened that day.
I think most people believed a pole shift occurred. So many people saw the whole horizon lift up, some even said they saw it flip.
But really, it was much worse than that.
As day started turning to night, I finally walked into the suburbs of eastern Seattle.
Here, too, the damage was overwhelming. As I came into the city most of the highway overpasses were down. I would have to walk up the onramps on almost every single exit; and even then most of the exits were blocked at the top by large cracks in the cement or by badly wrecked vehicles.
I could make out the skyline of the city every now and then in the distance. It looked like many of the skyscrapers were burning or had parti
ally collapsed. The skyline that I had come to know and love over my years in Seattle now looked unfamiliar. The Space Needle was severely damaged. It still stood, the observation deck angled, ready to fall off under its own weight. Smoke rose up into the air all over the place. Almost every building that I could see had some damage. Parts had collapsed or walkways had fallen down. Water was leaking from the sides of homes. Roofs had collapsed or had blown off. What I had seen from the top of the mountain right after the plane crash turned out to be real and not my imagination.
I crossed a damaged bridge. The river underneath was no longer there. Instead, a flow of zombies walked along. They saw me, raised their hands to reach me. I knew they wouldn’t be able to get me - I was too high above them. I watched them, lunging, falling, reaching. There were thousands of them.
All dead people. Alive now, but undead.
With goose bumps crawling up my neck, I quickly crossed the bridge. I came across an undamaged minivan
.
Inside I saw the keys dangling from the ignition. The engine fired right up. I needed to get out of here – far away from the river of undead. Once I found a safe place to park, I would park there, lock the doors, and sleep there for the night. Whenever it got light enough outside, I would need to find a gun.
Whoever owned the van had come from a grocery store before the poles flipped. There were plastic bags full of groceries in the rear. I put all of the items that had spoiled on the ground outside the van and kept the non-perishables with me.
I also found a cell phone in the van’s center console. I tried to call my parents but the phone didn’t work even though the signal was strong. I figured, if nothing else, I could use the phone as a flashlight if I needed it.
I drove the van through the destruction.
I had to weave in and out around crashes on the highway or around downed power poles, traffic signals or trees. As I came into the suburbs, I kept my eyes on the side streets for a full parking lot. It was starting to get dark, and I needed to park soon. I figured a full parking lot would be better than an empty one. I wouldn’t want zombies to take an interest in a single van.
I was still a long way from my parent’s house, and I really didn’t know the eastern suburbs that well. I never came over here. I remember that I had made a computer repair house call once in this area, but that was long ago while I had been training with another guy.
I found a
truck rental business up one frontage road. The building had been pulverized. The lot looked untouched. I quietly pulled into the back lot between two small moving vans. My headlights were off – I didn’t want to bring any extra attention to myself.
I shut off the van, locked the doors, and climbed into the back seat where I found a couple blankets tucked away. I covered myself up and quickly went to sleep.
It wasn’t long after I went to sleep that something woke me up. Something bumped the van strong enough to jar me awake.
It was pitch black outside. I had no idea who or what was out there.
The van bumped again, hard enough to make it rock.
I had the cell phone next to me on the seat. Did it dare turn it on? If I did, the backlight would definitely light me up - and maybe light up whatever was right outside the van.
Should I turn it on?
Bump.
Bump!
Quiet.
Nothing.
Heavy breathing?
Right above me, on top of the van.
I had to know what it was!
I flipped open the cell phone for one second and looked out both windows. I couldn’t see anything but my own reflection in the windows. It scared the shit out of me.
Back to darkness.
Quiet.
Listening for anything, even a pin drop.
Nothing. All I could hear was the pounding of my own heart in my ears.
Then…someone above me on the roof of the van tapped the roof two times with their finger.
“Hey!”
It was a girl’s voice in a loud whisper.
“Hey in there! Let me in!”
I threw the blanket to the side. I flipped open the cellphone. Grabbing the tire iron off the front passenger seat, I unlocked the sliding van door and jumped out into an ocean of zombies.
TARA
I only had seconds to act.
Milliseconds
, really.
Quickly, I looked on the roof of the van. I saw a girl up there
laying on her belly, her head turned toward me, her eyes glowing in the dim light of my cell phone.
“Get in” I whispered.
She slid off the roof. Her feet hit the pavement hard. One of her shoes skidded on the cement.
A zombie noticed her. His lower jaw was broken off, hanging by a thread of skin.
His eyes widened when he saw us. He lunged for the girl, missing her by bare inches. Another zombie next to him became aware of us. He grabbed for her, too. He got a piece of her shirt. She was trying to pull away, but his grip was tight. I grabbed the girl’s hand. Her palm was sweaty. I yanked her toward me. The zombie lost his grip on her shirt.
I backed up, sliding down into the van, pulling her with me. She leaned in toward me. Her forehead slammed against my chest. I reached around her, grabbed her around the shoulders, and yanked her into the van with me. When her feet were in, I quickly slammed the door shut.
The cell phone closed. There was no light.
The zombies started to pummel the
hood and doors of the van.
We sat next to each other in the dark, breathing hard.
When it started getting lighter outside, I slid up into the front and started the van. This aroused the zombies again. We were buried in th
em. I slowly drove through. They beat on the windows of the van, trying to get in. I watched them in the rearview mirror as I drove away, lumbering after us, arms outstretched, wanting to feed on us.
I decided getting back onto the highway might not be such a good idea. I really didn’t want to go back to the bridge. I knew by now the zombies would have probably
found a way up to the highway.
Staying on the side streets seemed like a
better idea. Even so, there was still massive damage and a lot of cars and downed telephone poles blocking the road. I was able to make it through by driving on sidewalks or going through alleys.
“Where we going?” the girl asked.
“I’m trying to make it to my parent’s house.”
She asked “Why?” as she slid up into the passenger seat.
I looked over at her. She was a short, thin girl wearing cut-off jeans and an oversize blue t-shirt with the number 22 in red on the front. The shoulder fabric had ripped, showing her bare shoulder. Her left knee had a big bruise on it. It didn’t look like the dripping kind like the zombies had. Her dark brown hair was tied up in a ponytail. She wasn’t wearing any make-up. I could see a dark mole high on her right cheek. She looked like she was in her early twenties, maybe late teens.
“I want to see if they’re ok,” I said.
“Where do they live?”
“Up by Martha Lake.”
“It’s underwater. Anything west of Lake Washington is underwater.”
I couldn’t believe it. My mouth
fell open. “How do you know?”
“I was on Mercer island last night. One of my friends had a wedding rehearsal dinner at
Hanuko’s
, you know, that Japanese restaurant on 78
th
?”
“Yeah,” I’d heard of it.
“When
whatever it was
hit us, a tsunami came up Puget Sound. I was driving back home. They were warning about it coming on the radio. I couldn’t believe it. People were speeding past me on the highway, trying to get away. They said the tsunami was coming in fast. People were calling in on the radio, laughing about it, thinking it was a joke. Then the news broke in and said it was true! They were talking about that and a couple planes that crashed.” Her eyes were wide. “Then the sonic wave hit where I was at, and I saw this whole bridge cave in right in front of me. Five more minutes, and I would have been on that bridge! I got off the highway! I got caught in a huge traffic jam - then another one of those sky waves hit and people and cars went flying. My car went airborne and landed on top of another car. This building right next to everyone went to pieces – bricks and stuff went flying. I ran as fast as I could away from there. There were fires and people were screaming. Some guy on a motorcycle drove up to me. He said ‘We gotta get away from the deads!’ so I jumped on the back of his bike and we went flying down the highway. We were gonna get out of town and away from the tsunami flood and all that. We almost got all the way out of town but then his bike got a flat ‘cause of all the glass we’d been running over. We stopped at a gas station. He went in to see if he could find anything to fix the flat but then these deads tore into him. They came after me, too but I ran away. I ran down this alley and hid behind some trash dumpsters. I stayed there a long time. I saw your van come into the parking lot behind me. I watched your van. You never got out so I figured you must be ok and you weren’t a dead. It got dark so fast. I could barely see. I ran over to your van. I think I bumped it pretty hard with my knee,” she said as she rubbed the bruise on her knee. “I climbed up on top of the van so none of the deads would come after me. When you turned on the light for a second, I knew you were still in there, and not one of the freaks who wanted to eat me, so I tapped on the roof of the van and here I am.”
I said “I didn’t know what to think when you tapped on the roof. You scared the shit out of me.”
“I was scared too.”
I told her about the plane crash, the fires and the river of zombies. I told her I still had the tire iron and that she needed to find a weapon as well. She said she had one. She pulled a switchblade out of her pocket.
“We need to get a gun, too.” I said.
“What’s your name?” she asked me.
“Dan Kingsley.”
“I’m Tara O’Neal.”
I asked her what she thought caused all of this. She had no idea. She didn’t say anything about a nuke – and why would she? If a nuke had gone off in Seattle, I would’ve thought that the whole place would be gone. There wouldn’t be buildings standing. There wouldn’t be trees or telephone poles with wires still attached. The whole place would be gone. Totally destroyed. To me, it looked like a massive earthquake had hit. I don’t know why Norm told me he had heard something about a nuke. Obviously, his mind wasn’t in the right place. He had been looking for his wife. Maybe he just
thought
he heard them talking about a nuke on the radio.
Tara and I needed to find somewhere safe. We needed protection. We needed to hole up and wait until this all passed. Surely FEMA must have had people on it already – but we didn’t know. The radio didn’t work - all we heard was static. Neither one of us had seen any police directing traffic. There was no National Guard patrolling the streets. There weren’t any sirens blowing, no vans driving around with loudspeakers advising people what to do. There weren’t any fire trucks, no helicopters circling. Disaster relief was nonexistent.
If people had gone to disaster shelters then they would all be full by now.
I thought that maybe everyone had gone to the Century Link football stadium. Tara
reminded me that it had probably been destroyed by the tsunami since it was downtown.
Other than the stadium, we didn’t know where any other disaster relief centers were. I mean, how often does a person even think about things like that – maybe in passing when you see a sign in a hallway p
ointing to a disaster shelter? Maybe one in a hospital somewhere? Maybe in a school basement?
We could have gone to a police station. Tara said she thought there was on 12
th
street, but she wasn’t sure if it survived the tsunami, either. Honestly, we didn’t know what to do. I think we were just glad to be around someone else who was alive, not dead.
Tara said she was sorry about my parents. I told her it was ok. I wasn’t very
close to them. We had a falling out when I was 18. Ever since then, we rarely talked. I hadn’t seen them in over 3 years.
We decided to head south on the 405. Tara said she had some friends in Tacoma. Maybe the disaster hadn’t hit them down there.
Sadly, we were wrong. The floods had gone even further inland than we thought. There were many times where we would come up to a bridge and either find it destroyed or the other side would be completely underwater. We decided that we needed to go further inland; away from the ocean and the constant threat of further tsunamis.
It was a long way, but we decided Fairchild Air Force base in Spokane might be a safe zone. They would definitely have guns there.
We drove back the way I came:
over the zombie bridge. Zombies were still lumbering along down there. Some of them noticed us standing above them. They reached up, trying to get us, but we were way too high. More zombies were coming toward us in the distance. A large river boat lay on its side further to the north, damaged, crushed against the base of another bridge. The sun was glaring on the metal side of the boat.
We had to abandon the Caravan when we made it back to the collapsed bridge over the Raging River. After we scrambled down into the small river and back up the other side we got back into the Suburban which was still parked where I had left it. I kept an eye out for Norm, even though I knew he was probably
gone by now. The hotel I had slept in was nothing but embers as we passed.
From the hotel eastward the roads got clearer. The surrounding forest was now bent over from west to east – not east to west like it was on the far side of the hotel. I had no idea why though.
In one spot along the highway there had been a major rockslide. Trees and boulders were thrown all over the highway. Cars and trucks were buried. We were able to creep through the rockslide in the suburban. One of the boulders we passed was easily five times bigger than our vehicle; the road underneath smashed. We both looked up at it in awe as we drove by.
West of the town of Easton, the eastbound lanes were completely blocked by
another rockslide. I stopped the suburban, climbed up to look around. It looked like the landslide covered the road as far as I could see. A cool mountain mist started falling which made seeing very far more difficult. It would also hamper the speed we could travel. I hopped back into the driver’s seat. Driving down into the median, we headed eastbound in the westbound break-down lane of the highway. It was tough traveling, pretty bumpy too, but we made it through.
In the town of Easton, fires were small but plenty. Many of the gas mains had broken in the city. The smell of natural gas was overwhelming. We didn’t stay in town any longer than we needed to. Who knew how long it would be before the whole place would ignite –
or if it ever would.
On the other side of town, bodies in body bags were lining the highway. Many of the bags had been torn open. The bodies inside had been ravaged, or were missing.
We didn’t know if something had happened before the pole shift, or maybe rescue teams were trying to clean the disaster up as the second wave hit. Tara and I both shuddered thinking about the body bags being ripped open from the inside as the dead came to life, trying to free themselves from the plastic.
As we came into the small town of Cle Elum, I glanced at the gas gauge. It showed that we had less than a quarter of a tank of fuel left. Highway signs told of several gas stations at the next exit. We decided to fill up at one of t
hose.
The town was empty. None of the gas station pumps worked.
The last gas station was also a food mart and a five and dime slash Western clothing store.
Another minivan was parked by the fuel island outside. I guessed that the van probably needed fuel, but it turned out to be full. Whoever owned it must have just got done filling it up because the gas cap was still off. Thank goodness they had shut the pump off when they finished fueling.
We transferred all of our supplies to the minivan. When we were finished, Tara said she needed to use the restroom which was adjacent to the food store somewhere near the back in the Western clothing store. The two shops were separated by an old wooden swinging Saloon bar door.
While she was doing that, I went into the food store to see if I could find some more food; or maybe a roadmap. There was a map stand near the back by some refrigerated drink coolers. The electricity was now off so the drinks had lost their chill. By the back wall there was a rack of western shirts, jeans and a large section full of junk food. I grabbed a couple bottles of water out of the drink cooler even though they weren’t cold anymore. The junk food really didn’t look very appetizing. What I really could have gone for was a full steak and baked potato dinner with all the trimmings, but I really didn’t think it would happen.
Tara screamed.
Dropping everything, I
ran through the swinging door.
She screamed again.
Ah shit my tire iron,
I thought to myself. There was no time to go get it. I dead-headed toward the restrooms.