The best thing we found inside the houses was the bedding. Sleeping in the back of the van was going to be uncomfortable with it loaded with supplies. Bottled water was also a great find, as it saved us the trouble of having to find a water source and boil it ourselves. The only other things we brought with us from the homes were flashlights, a hatchet, and a pair of binoculars.
We left Weston in late morning and made it into central Kentucky just before dark. Driving around the cities was pitifully slow as the roadways were littered with the vehicles of those who had attempted to flee only to get bottlenecked by military roadblocks. Most vehicles had broken windows. The occupants' mangled corpses lay nearby. Those who hadn't been dragged to the pavement were splattered across the insides of their cars. Cars that had left the line of traffic were riddled with bullet holes. It was clear the Chinese knew the outbreak was coming and tried to keep people inside the city. Such an incredible waste given that the roadblocks were also overrun. Soldiers' bodies were strewn among piles of chopped-up zombie corpses. We wondered whether the soldiers had been killed because their lasers ran out or they were overcome by a never-ending mass of fearless attackers.
We drove into the countryside well west of Louisville, and decided we wouldn't stop until we hadn't seen a ghoul for at least half an hour. That would leave a pretty good cushion between us and the zombies lumbering along the roadway. In the end, it didn't matter. We hadn't been asleep for two hours before pounding on the outside of the van woke us up. We decided to keep on driving. We drove in shifts: two slept, one drove, and the other watched for zombies and our driver falling asleep.
We approached eastern St. Louis shortly before dawn, and our surroundings changed dramatically. Abandoned
towns and paved roads gave way to bombed-out military bunkers and barbed wire barriers lining the rutted dirt roads that crisscrossed the landscape. The zombies walking aimlessly outside our windows no longer included Chinese civilians and Americans. They were all Chinese soldiers.
“We better stop,” Dr. Trowbridge insisted. “We don't want to enter the front until daylight. It's safer that way.”
“Why?” Alex asked.
“It'll be easier for the Chinese to capture us if we don't know where they are.”
“How are we going to get past them?” I asked.
“I'm not certain, but we'll find a way.”
We waited until an hour after sunrise, then entered eastern St. Louis carefully. After nearly a decade of war, the city was in ruins. Most of the buildings had been toppled or gutted by explosions. Others had been reconstructed as bunkers hidden beneath the rubble. The binoculars proved essential as we scouted each section of the city's remains before determining that it was safe to enter. The closer we moved to the river, the fewer zombies we saw.
“Where the hell are they?” I asked. “I thought you said there were millions of soldiers stationed along the river.”
“There were,” Alex replied. “I don't know where they went. If they've succumbed to the disease, they sure aren't here.”
Alex was right. There weren't enough zombies considering the massive number of Chinese soldiers stationed in the area. Then we saw the river. Things started to make sense. Massive craters lined our side of the shoreline. Pieces of Chinese soldiers were everywhere. Yapping heads flopped about, and torsos dragged themselves along the ground. Zombies, not soldiers, had been annihilated.
“Did you notice how all of the bunkers were empty?” Dr. Trowbridge asked.
“Yes, and the vehicles, too,” Alex said.
“What do you think happened?” Celeste asked.
Dr. Trowbridge curled his hand in front of his mouth. He studied the river as if it held the answers.
“They wanted to get across,” he said.
“The freaks?” I asked.
“Exactly. When enough of them had succumbed to the disease, they didn't have a food source on this side of the river. When they saw the soldiers on the other side, they lined the shoreline.”
“What soldiers on the other side? I don't see anybody,” I said.
“They must have been aware of the disease. Perhaps they retreated after bombing this side. No need to monitor the front when your enemy is already dead.”
“I think you're right about them wanting to get to the other side,” I said. “Look in the river. See that? Oh, there's another one. And right up there, there's three more.” I pointed at the bloated corpses twisting and turning in the river as the current dragged them downstream.
“What do you think is happening on the other side?” Celeste asked.
“I'm not certain, but we better go and have a look.”
We searched several empty bunkers and found two gun chargers, a rocket launcher, and ammunition. Then we drove along the waterfront and found the hull of an old apartment building that still had the fire escape attached. We parked the van underneath the iron staircase and climbed to the top of the ladder. Dr. Trowbridge and I used the binoculars to scan the city on the other side of the river. Just like on our side, St. Louis was in ruins. Even the Gateway Arch was destroyed. All that remained were two mutilated stubs protruding from the ground. Through the binoculars, I saw groups of US soldiers roaming the streets. When I focused in closer, it was clear they'd turned.
“You see them?” I asked Dr. Trowbridge.
“Yes, I see them. Sorry, everyone, but it looks like our soldiers have succumbed to the virus as well. I don't think we should cross here. There's too many of them.”
As far as we could see in both directions, the massive eight-lane Poplar Street Bridge was the only bridge that still spanned the waterway. The others had been blown to bits. I could see a massive barricade in the center of the bridge and a vast horde of US soldier zombies roaming the other side.
“I don't think we could cross here even if we wanted to. If we did make it across, we'd never make it through the city,” I suggested.
“Do you think there are other bridges intact?” Alex asked.
“There won't be many, I know that,” Dr. Trowbridge replied.
“Um, guys, looks like we have a problem,” Celeste said, looking down at the van, which was surrounded by several dozen zombies. They groaned and held their arms in the air as if they might be able to reach us.
“I guess we attracted them by coming up here,” I said.
“What did you expect? They can see us from half a mile away,” Alex grumbled. He started climbing down the fire escape.
“Geeze, what's gotten into him?”
We all had our rifles, but Alex led the charge. He jumped down from the bottom rung to the van, turned on his laser, and dispatched the majority of them before Celeste could even get her laser going. Once she did, Celeste finished off the remaining ones. We followed them down and got in the van.
“Boy, you weren't kidding about pulling your own weight, were you?” I prodded Alex. He smiled back at me and shook his head.
We drove north along the eastern edge of the river, searching for a bridge to cross. We were several miles north of the city and still hadn't found one intact when the shockwave from a massive explosion rattled the van. Alex slammed on the brakes, and we all leaped out. A massive mushroom cloud rose over the city on the other side of the river. Another explosion detonated a mile or two closer to us. The shockwave that quickly followed knocked us to the ground and blew the windows out of the van. That explosion was followed by another and another. We sat silent on the ground, watching in awe as four bulbous burnt sienna mushroom clouds crowded the sky above the city.
“The Chinese are using nukes again?” I yelped. The other three were much calmer. War was desensitizing.
“No, those are conventional weapons,” Dr. Trowbridge responded. “If they were using nukes, they wouldn't need four bombs.”
“We would also be covered in radiation burns by now,” Alex added.
“Why are they bombing the city? Are they retaliating for getting wiped out along the river?”
“The Americans are doing it. They're trying to contain the plague. That's why they aren't using nukesâthey don't want to sully their own soil,” Dr. Trowbridge explained.
“Well, thank God we didn't try to cross that bridge,” I said.
“Indeed.”
We drove a good hundred miles northwest along the river. Every bridge, large and small, was destroyed. On both sides of the river were bombed-out bunkers, half-submerged hulls of sunken ships, wandering zombie soldiers, and abandoned vehicles. Things grew more desolate the further we traveled.
“Stop the car, Alex,” I said.
“What's the matter?” Celeste asked.
“Look, we need to cross this river, and if the last hundred miles haven't taught you anything . . . they blew out all the bridges. So, unless we're going to head back to St. Louis to become cannon fodder, I think we need to swim across.”
“Swim across?” Alex gasped.
“Either that or we can drive all the way to Canada searching for a bridge.”
“What about the van and the food?” Alex asked.
“We'll just have to resupply on the other side.”
“You'd think there'd be a boat around here somewhere,” Celeste observed.
“Would you let your enemy across the river keep one afloat?” Dr. Trowbridge asked. “I think Royce is right. The further we go, the more time we're giving the outbreak to spread. We need to get the cure in the right hands before it's too late.”
“Where though?” Alex asked. “Where are we going to be able to swim across?”
“I saw a place back at the last bend that had a big shallow sand bar on the other side. If we swim across there, it can't
be more than a few hundred yards to the bar. Once we reach it, we can stand and walk the rest of the way. There were some military vehicles near a bunker about a mile south of that. We can drive one of those,” I said.
“I'm in,” Celeste said.
“How about you, Al?” I asked.
“Let's do it,” he said.
We parked the van half a mile north of the bend. We knew it wasn't smart to eat before swimming, but we didn't know when our next meal was going to come. So, we ate a bit, and chugged as much water as we could. Our guns were made out of some lightweight composite material, but still heavy enough that we decided they were all the other three would carry for the swim. I was a strong swimmer so I carried the pair of binoculars. We stripped down to our skivvies so we wouldn't sink under the weight of our waterlogged clothes. Then we strapped the weapons tightly to our backs.
Alex and Dr. Trowbridge looked hilarious in their underwear. Both were ghost white and covered in body hair. The weapons on their backs completed the odd look. Celeste was a different story. I tried to keep my eyes off her, but it was practically impossible. She looked amazing standing there in her government-issue white cotton panties and bra. They looked like they were designed for an eighty-year-old woman, yet she still pulled it off.
“Who knew this big ugly thing would get us this far?” I asked, patting the side of the van. Anything to shift my attention away from Celeste.
“It's a shame we have to leave all of this food behind,” she said.
“It is a shame. Though, we just gotta find some friendlies on the other side, and we'll be eating again soon.”
The muddy brown water of the Mississippi was far more intimidating once we stood alongside it. We watched carefully as it swirled and pulsed downstream.
“You're all strong enough for this, right?” I asked the crew. They nodded without taking their eyes off the river. “It's going to take you about ten minutes if you keep up your stroke. Try to keep an even pace and your head down. You don't want to spaz for three minutes and then panic because you find that you aren't even halfway across. And don't worry about moving downstream. We're in the perfect position for that as long as you keep your stroke up. If for some reason you can't, go ahead and ditch your gun. We'll find you another one on the other side.”
“Why don't we all just ditch our guns?” Alex asked.
“Because it's another mile to those vehicles and you know there's going to be freaks waiting for us on the other side.”
We waded into the water as far as we could, took a good long look at each other, and then started swimming. The cool water was refreshing against the summer heat. The weight of the gun wasn't bad at first, either. The water near the shoreline was calm and gentle, and the pressure of the gun on my back just made it a bit harder to get my head above water to breathe. As we swam out into the center of the river, the force of the current increased, and the water grew cold and choppyâa lot choppier than it had looked from shore.
Alex started to panic and tried to get rid of his weapon. He struggled against the straps, splashing about frantically. Celeste and Dr. Trowbridge were keeping a good pace so I told them to keep going. I went after Alex.