“Finally.” Crawford muttered, getting back behind the wheel.
Peter let it go as he circled around the truck and joined her in the front seat. Whitley and Smith took the crew seats in the rear, and after the doors were closed up there was only a few seconds of things shifting around and cloth sliding across the seats as everyone settled themselves and found room for gear and weapons.
“Just over half a tank.” Crawford said as she got her M-16 stabilized against the corner formed by the dashboard and door, leaning the weapon forward some so it was reasonably secure.
“Yeah. First stop is gas.” Peter nodded. “Let’s hit that little station out on 369.”
“Which one?” Crawford asked as she dropped the F-150’s transmission into drive and pulled out of the space.
Peter reached into his breast pocket and produced his Georgia road map; the same one he’d been using for the past five weeks. Unfolding it along well creased lines, he found the school and traced east along 369. “The one at John Burruss Road.” Peter said. “The camp hasn’t been pulling from it yet; so it can spare enough for us to top off our tank and the cans.”
“What kind of range are we looking at with this beast?” Smith asked.
“What, the truck?” Peter asked as he folded the map back into his breast pocket. He had a road atlas of North America — really a little book with fold out pages for the different states and regions — in one of his bellows pockets; but until they left Georgia he could stick with the smaller fanfold of paper.
“Yeah. This thing isn’t exactly small.”
“This is a late model truck.” Peter grinned. “Bet you anything we average twenty or twenty-five mpg once we get to cruising steadily.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, seriously.”
“Hummers don’t pull that kind of mileage.”
“This isn’t a Hummer.”
“Glad we’re bringing you,” Crawford said, “so we don’t miss the obvious.”
“Hummer, pickup; they’re pretty damn similar.” Smith said, pointedly ignoring Crawford’s comment.
Peter shook his head. “The Hummers weigh more than most pickups, but the problem is 80s engineering and their age. Even though they’re diesels, they’ve got nothing on a vehicle like this. Trust me, a modern gas engine is a hell of a lot more efficient than they are.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Smith said, his tone making it clear he was skeptical.
“Tank’s probably around twenty gallons.” Peter said, thinking out loud. “Low mileage estimate, twenty squared gives us four hundred miles of range. Add in another three hundred for the cans we’re carrying, and with any luck we’ll only have to mess around with filling up three or four times.”
“Plus however much detouring and panic driving we’ve got to do.” Whitley reminded him.
“And Crawford’s got a heavy foot.” Smith added.
“You want to burn some gas or donate some flesh to a fucking zombie?” Crawford retorted as she turned onto 369 and accelerated up to speed.
“Getting there alive and whole is the goal.” Peter said mildly. “But Whitley’s got a point. Plus we can’t afford to push the reserve very much; so figure we’ll be looking to top up every five hundred miles or so. Smart money’s on probably four stops.”
“Plan for the worst.” Whitley agreed.
“After we grab some gas, what’s the plan?” Crawford asked as she leveled the truck off at a steady sixty miles-per-hour.
“Well, first off, let’s keep the speed down unless we’re on a road big enough to give some space on the sides against a zombie lurching out in front of us. Say forty-five or so.”
“This thing isn’t going to mind hitting a few zombies.” Crawford said, patting the dashboard affectionately.
“The radiator might, and the windshield’ll definitely object.” Peter corrected her. “My trip, my rules. Forty-five tops on these back roads, and if you want to shade lower that’d be good too.”
“You’re such an old man.” the woman grumped, but she did let the truck’s speed start dropping toward what he wanted.
“And if you want to live to be as awesome as me you need to listen more.”
“If I ever get as old as you I’m going to kill myself.”
“That’s pretty harsh.” Smith observed.
“Live fast, die young.”
Peter frowned at her. “You know that’s a quote from a Bogart movie, right?”
“A what?” Crawford asked, giving him a curious glance.
Peter sighed. “Humphrey fucking Bogart? Jesus, what the hell aren’t they teaching kids in school these days?”
“What was he, one of the presidents or something?”
“Just drive the damn truck.” Peter said, controlling the building urge to reach over and slap the back of her head.
“Geez, touchy.”
“Don’t.” Peter warned Crawford as the F-150 approached the pair of zombies wandering in the middle of Georgia Route 20.
“Just a little tap?” she asked in a tone full of mischievous whine.
“I swear to God, if we end up having to scrounge up another vehicle because you wreck this one . . .”
“Relax.” Crawford said, cutting the wheel further to the left. The truck’s left side wheels went onto the grassy median dividing the east and westbound sides of the highway, and Peter instinctively braced himself with the grab handle mounted above him. The truck’s altered course was enough to pass the zombies safely; but close enough to knock one down as the blast of displaced air left by the truck overpowered what remained of the creature’s sense of balance.
“You’re taking most of the fun out of this trip, you know that Gunny?” she said, bringing the truck back to the right and fully back on the pavement.
“I know I’m not really interested in fucking walking to South Dakota.” Peter retorted as she put the F-150 astride the dashed divider line between the two eastbound lanes.
“That would take a while, yeah.”
“What was that?” Smith asked from behind Peter.
“Gunny panicking.” Crawford said.
“Crawford fucking off.” Peter said at the same time.
“Hmm, whatever.” the Guardsman grunted. Peter turned his head and caught sight of Smith settling back down against the rolled up t-shirts he was using as a makeshift pillow. The man had decided to sack out for a nap about half an hour ago, at Peter’s encouragement. Some of them sleeping now would make for fresh drivers later when it was time to swap out.
Peter wanted to keep rolling as steadily as possible. Stopping just so they could all sleep struck him as dangerous — not to mention unnecessary — compared to simply staying on the road so they could get to their destination that much quicker.
“I can drive.” Whitley offered.
“I’m fine.” Crawford objected immediately as she reset the cruise control for sixty and held the truck steady in the middle of the lanes.
“You’re bored.” Whitley corrected her.
“Some, yeah. So what? It ain’t like this is exactly the most stimulating thing in the world you know.”
“Yeah, yeah; poor you.” Peter said as mildly as he could manage as he returned his attention to the road atlas. “No radio stations, no music, boo fucking hoo.”
“I’m a little surprised we can’t pick up at least
something
.” Crawford said, reaching for the dashboard radio again. Turning it back on, she adjusted the volume control and punched the scan button.
“Hello, zombie apocalypse?” Whitley said. “All the media packed it up weeks ago.”
“Seriously, not one ham radio guy hanging out in his little hideout with a generator and his transmitter?” Crawford complained. “Or some semi-organized group looking for extra hands to help carry the load? We could pick up some intel about the area.”
“Watch the road, not the radio.” Peter said, reaching to turn the set back off. “I’m not kidding about what I’m going to do if you wreck us and I decide it’s your fault.”
“I’ll help him.” Whitley said.
“Cool, two on one might actually be kinda of interesting.” Crawford laughed confidently.
Peter lowered the atlas and gave her a steady look. “Just remember I already stopped your ass once smartgirl.”
“Hell you did.”
“You didn’t get by me did you?”
“You got lucky.”
“Luck, experience, whatever. Winning’s winning.” Peter said as he lifted the atlas again.
“We’re making pretty good time aren’t we?” Whitley asked, pointedly changing the subject from whether Crawford was good enough to defend herself against both Peter and Whitley taking her on.
“Not too bad.” Peter nodded absently as he went back to studying the foldout he’d pulled from the book of maps. “We keep this up and I think we’ll make Cullman before noon.”
“Cullman?”
“Just a town.” Peter shrugged, answering the unasked question. “You know as much about it as I do.”
“Where is it?”
“North of Birmingham, south-southwest of Huntsville, and sitting right on I-65. I’d guess the location is probably the only claim to fame it’s got.”
“Sounds charming.” Crawford said.
“Let’s hope it was small enough to not have produced enough zombies to be a problem.”
“What I want to know is how you can be so interested in the map when we already know where we’re going.” she asked.
“I’m marking detours.” Peter shrugged again, and indeed his pencil had been busy since he’d begun intently studying the atlas. He would love to be wrong, but Atlanta’s roadways hadn’t fared all that well in the outbreaks. Assuming most of the asphalt between here and there might have similar problems might not be all that wrong.
Whitley cracked open the top of her canteen as she spoke again. “What’s after Cullman?”
“Hmm?” Peter said absently. “Oh, uh, hopefully nothing except the western Alabama border, then we’ll be into Mississippi.”
“Isn’t South Dakota in the northern Midwest?” Crawford asked.
“Uh, yeah.” Whitley said as Peter studied a portion of western Mississippi.
“So why aren’t we going northwest then?”
“Because I’m concerned about crossing the Mississippi.” Peter answered.
“It’s just one more hick, redneck, and now zombie filled southern hellhole.” Crawford sniffed. “Big deal. We can handle it.”
“No,
the
Mississippi.” Peter corrected her. “You know, the fucking river?”
“What about it?”
Peter sighed. “Have you ever seen a big river?”
“I’ve rafted the hooch.”
“Jesus Crawford, ignorant much?” Whitley sighed.
“Hey, just because you’ve traveled more than I have—” Crawford started, sounding annoyed, but Peter cut her off.
“The Mississippi is a major river; major as in really fucking big. So big, in fact, that there aren’t nearly as many bridges across it as it sounds like you’re assuming.”
“People get from the east coast to the central and western parts of the country all the time.” Crawford pointed out in what she clearly felt was a reasonable tone. “Some of them even come back this way.”
“Not anymore they don’t.” Smith said. “And I’m trying to sleep, remember.”
“So fucking sleep then. And my point stands; one side, then the other; it’s a river and you cross it.”
“Yeah, over bridges. And you’ve already seen how bad the interstates are.”
“I thought we were up here in the sticks on this dinky little back highway because you wanted to avoid getting near any bigger cities.”
“Yeah, and also because I don’t want to get cut off by a major roadblock. Most of the evacuations were via interstate, and anytime a zombie problem got out of hand . . . you saw how bad the roads in Atlanta and north of it were.”
Crawford shrugged languidly. “So if it’s a bridge we’re looking for, why not just head northwest? There’s got to be a bunch of them in and around Memphis.”
“Because I want to get across the damn river as soon as possible so we’re a little freer in our route selection.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense.” she said in a tone only a few steps shy of being snide.
Peter ignored that — it was irrelevant, and calling her on it would only lead to hours of bitching as she sulked — and gestured at the atlas page he had folded out. “Again, there aren’t as many bridges across it as you’re probably assuming. I want to start checking them here and we can go north as necessary until we find one where we can make a crossing.”
“What, we’re assuming the zombies have blown up all the bridges?”
“Crawford, I know you’re not as thick as you’re making out.” Whitley said in an annoyed voice.
“Hey, I’m driving. I need to know where we’re going.” Crawford shot back.
“Some of us are trying to sleep.” Smith said again.
“Keep trying baby.”
“Knock it off.” Peter ordered before anyone could respond to Crawford’s latest jab. “Again, interstates, wrecks; I’m not counting on major bridges like that being any less of a mess than the rest of the major highways. In fact, odds are they’ll be worse since anyone who was trying to flee over the Mississippi would have been funneled into one of the available crossings.”
“Can I say I told you so if we get to the first bridge and roll straight over?”
“No.”
“Come on,” she pouted, sounding clearly put out, “that’d be very fair after the little lecture about how tough crossing the Mississippi’s gonna be.”
“Still, no.” Peter told her.
“Boring.” Crawford said, turning the radio back on and punching the scan button again.
Peter ignored her and the crackle of empty frequencies as the radio dialed through them automatically seeking a clear signal. He was used to DOD and DMA maps; which usually had river crossings clearly marked. After all, there was a reason so many battles throughout history had been fought at or over bridges. But even on the civilian sourced map he was still finding them without
too
much difficulty.
Less than a minute later Crawford spoke again. “Hey, check this out.”
He glanced up in annoyance, ready to vent some frustration at her inability to just endure the ride without dumping her boredom on everyone else, when he saw what she was looking at.
Up ahead, just to the right of the rural highway, the trees thinned out to reveal a building. The sign marked it as a roadside bar, but the parking lot and state of the structure itself showed it had been turned into some sort of a holdfast since the outbreaks had started.
Even from a distance, Peter saw the windows had been boarded over. Vehicles were parked all around the building in a nose-to-tail line that was an obvious bid to add a barrier to keep unwanted visitors from getting too close too easily.
It was also pretty obvious, even this far out, that all that effort had been for naught. The structure had attracted an enormous horde of zombies. And whatever had happened, it had to have been somewhat recent or the horde probably would’ve dispersed itself for one reason or another.
“Think they got out?” Whitley asked quietly as the truck drew nearer. Peter shrugged slightly, and for once Crawford didn’t have anything clever to say.
As the distance narrowed, Peter was able to pick out more detail. He didn’t bother trying to take a count — it didn’t matter — but it seemed clear a standoff had occurred. Whoever had been behind the fortifications had fought hard and piled zombies up like cordwood, but the monsters had gotten in.
Some of the barricades on the doors and windows had been beaten down; he saw zombies wandering in and out seemingly at random. Bodies were visible around the circular line of cars and trucks; some of the clumps and piles were tall enough to be easily seen even though they were between the walls and autos.
“Do we need to take a closer look?” Crawford asked when they were about ten seconds from the turnoff from the highway to the bar.
“No.” Peter shook his head. The area looked deserted except for the zombies. The truck’s engine had started to draw the creatures’ attention; some of them were beginning to turn in its direction. “Just keep going.”
Crawford kept driving, drifting a little to the left even though none of the zombies were close enough to get to the highway before the truck got past. Peter returned his attention to the atlas as they left the scene of the failed standoff behind. The only thing he could do was keep heading to a group that could make a difference, and to do that he needed to get from here to there.
As the miles rolled past, he traced out what he thought — hoped — was a reasonable route that was mostly due west, all the way over to Arkansas. Even though it would
definitely
give Crawford something to mouth off about, he actually was hoping his concerns about possible problems with the river crossing would prove to be unfounded. Putting up with Crawford’s crowing about how easy getting west of the river was would be a small price to pay compared to what he was afraid of.
But, he was still working his way through the foldouts; tracking north along the Mississippi and marking other crossings.
Just in case.
* * * * *
“Looking good so far.” Crawford said as she steered around a pair of abandoned cars. The going was tight here; with concrete barriers guarding either side of the road as it rose from ground level to meet the bridge ahead. But Crawford managed to slide the F-150 past the cars without unduly damaging the truck.
“What about that shit over there?” Smith asked.
Peter glanced again at the sprawling collection of buildings to the right of the roadway. Signage they’d already passed indicated it was some sort of casino, which was borne out by the enormous amount of blacktop parking and lack of anything even remotely industrial.
The problem was the buildings and parking lot had a very healthy population of zombies populating them; easily threatening four digits in number. The creatures were wandering around aimlessly amid the vehicles present on the blacktop, in and around the buildings, and spilling out into the moderately landscaped grass and grounds surrounding the construction.