The LeSabre was one of those quintessential grandma cars. It even had a vinyl roof. But what it lacked in panache it made up for in cushy leather seats and a gigantic trunk. Before long Virgil was driving down back alleys. They headed west in hopes of breaking out onto a highway that Exodus claimed wasn't as bad as the rest.
Once in a while there were moans, or a zombie that appeared in the alley chasing after them, but silence ruled. Often pale, scared faces would appear in the windows of the houses they drove past. At first they would stop to see if they wanted a ride, but they never came out. After a few futile encounters, they kept driving and tried not to make eye contact with the shut-ins.
"Why won't they come out?" Chester asked. He was more pained than anyone when they didn't come out. It didn't sit well with Virgil either. Meghan could tell they were types who had a hard time handling irrationality.
"Maybe they're infected and they don't want to burden us with them," she said to give them an explanation that would make sense to them.
That's not what she thought. Maybe a few of them were being altruistic. But a lot of them were just scared stiff. They wanted to come and get a ride, but that would involve leaving their homes forever in a car full of strangers. They couldn't do it. A rat would chew off its arm to escape, but not in the length of time it took for a LeSabre to drive by. It wasn't even necessarily their last chance; maybe they had cars, or maybe they had Exodus. So while what was most likely their last chance to survive drove by, they just watched.
It was the same reason they stayed home and watched TV at night. It was the same reason they worked jobs they hated and came home to spouses they no longer loved. They were so afraid of losing something that they didn't dare try to win anything.
Where did that come from? Meghan thought. Who was she to judge those people so harshly? She'd watched a million cars drive by over the last few days, and she hadn't been that way, had she? She'd been waiting for Trevor. That was different.
But those people probably had Trevors too, didn't they? Who knows how many children or spouses or good friends weren't coming over?
How many people were waiting for the people they had left trapped at the GNC? She bit her lip and refused to cry.
But she didn't look up again either. They all seemed to understand that they shouldn't look.
After they had gone a few miles the car made a guttural choking sound and the engine died.
"FUCKING START! WHAT THE FUCK? START GODDAMNIT." Virgil flailed at the keys. The car was dead. No lights, no radio. It drifted to a stop.
Chester was pale. They were on the on ramp to get on the highway, drifting to the breakdown lane.
"What happened?" She asked.
"Uh, well, I think the alternator just died," Chester said.
"FUCK!" Virgil screamed.
"Well, let’s find another car."
"THE FUCKING CARS ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD WERE ABANDONED FOR A REASON!" Virgil screamed. Chester put a hand on Virgil's shoulder.
Meghan got out her phone. Exodus would help. She looked for parties. There was one two miles away. Six slots open. She didn't even bother to read the description. She signed up for three. They had two hours to make it.
"Look–look. I just got us another group. Only two miles away. Back into town. Just that way."
"I can't believe her stupid car broke that fast. She had the oil changed every two thousand miles for Christ's sake," Virgil sobbed.
"Virgil, Virgil–two miles. We got another group already. We're ok, we just need to move ok?"
"Two miles? Through that? They're crawling all over. Shit, we've got fifty after us right now!" Virgil yelled.
She didn't panic. She gave herself credit for that. She unjoined the group–no reason to be discourteous–and got out of the car. She got her hydration pack and stuffed the banana clips to the AK-47 in the pack. She stuffed whatever food she could in the pack too.
"Guys, we've got to move then. Down the highway, search for cars until we find one that works. You never know."
They got out of the car. She was pretty sure they were going to suggest that maybe heading back was better when the first of the zombies showed up. Five of them. She drew down on them. So did they. The first five died fast. At this range you didn't have to be a good shot to be effective.
They started moving down the ramp. She thought it was a light jog, but before half a mile was up Chester was heaving like he'd run a marathon and he came to a stop. Virgil didn't look much better.
"These... cars... look... promising," Chester said. They didn't, but she looked around. They were safe. For a while.
The cars were all empty.
"Chester, our best bet is one with a zombie in it. Might mean the driver ditched to get away from the zombie, not because the car broke," Virgil said. Chester ignored him and checked all the cars. None started. "Do any of you know how to hot wire a car?" Meghan asked. That didn't get a response. She realized the pantomime of searching for a car was more to protect Chester's honor than it was about finding a ride. She was growing uncomfortable. She could hear moaning in the distance. Virgil could too.
"Chester, we need to go," Meghan whispered.
"I can't, I can't go. I'm weak," Chester sobbed.
"You're stronger than you think. Just come. Come as fast as you can," she said.
They walked, they walked so goddamn slow. She could see the future. They were going to get run down by a horde of those things. Chester would go first. Then Virgil. Then her. Maybe it would be ten miles or thirty before they ran her to ground, but they would get her.
It happened like she knew it would. Fifty or sixty of them appeared shuffling behind them, gaining. When the zombies saw them a howl went up and the speed picked up to a slow jog. She matched the pace and shouted encouragement to Chester and Virgil. That lasted for a mile before Chester gave in. Chester was making a valiant effort. Given his weight and fitness, it was a heroic effort, but it was doomed. He was too weak. Sobbing, he fell to his knees, and got the one rifle he hadn't thrown away over the last few miles. He got back up to his feet and looked at them.
"Go. I'm done. But maybe I can keep them busy for a while." He half crawled over to an open car. He got in and shut the door. The windows were smashed. He locked the doors. Virgil and Meghan just stood as the horde closed the distance, only a few hundred yards away.
"Go godamnnit ! Don't make me waste this!" he shouted. They stood. He pointed the gun at them. "I'm fucking serious. RUN."
"Chester–thank you. I haven't known you for long, but I know you aren't a coward," Meghan said.
"You're a shining knight my friend," Virgil walked up to the car and put his hand through the open window. "God bless you. I think I'll be seeing you in heaven soon enough, but maybe you've saved this woman. She hasn't even started sweating yet."
Chester took his hand and looked Virgil in the eye. "Just make them pay for it, whatever happens."
"I will."
"Go."
They went. They didn't run for long before they heard Chester's gun. She looked over her shoulder. He was shooting straight. They were dropping as they swarmed the car. The shooting went on for a long time. After a few quiet minutes there was one last faint shot. Meghan didn't tear up this time, at least not on the outside. She wouldn't have given Chester the time of day before this, but that was the bravest thing she'd ever seen. She gave a salute to Chester and looked back at Virgil. He wasn't doing a whole lot better.
He saw her looking at him. He stopped running. "You should go on."
"No I shouldn't."
"I can't keep this up much longer."
"I don't know where we're running to. As far as I know Chester got most of the ones who were on us. We might be safe," Meghan said.
"Only in the new definition of the word that means that we cannot currently see anyone who wants to eat us alive."
"Let's walk for a bit and find a car." They did the walking part, but not the finding a car part. The few that were out here were wrecks, or had some mysterious problem, or no keys. She nibbled at a candy bar. Virgil took a sip or two from her pack. They ambled down the highway. They came on a car with a zombie strapped into the driver’s seat. The keys were in the ignition. Looked like the owner had tried to off himself. His whole cheek was gone and a pistol bounced around in his lap as it grabbed for them, but somehow he had botched the job.
Virgil raised his gun and fired. The zombie's head exploded. Virgil turned towards her, strange expression on his face. Then blood began to gush out of his neck.
"You are fucking kidding me," he said as he fell to his knees.
"What happened, oh my God what happened?" She yelled as she ran to Virgil. The blood was coming in tremendous amounts, just gushing out of him.
"Ricochet. A fucking ricochet. Chester is going to be pissed. I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the Saints, and to you Father, that I have sinned exceedingly, in thought, word and deed: through my fault..." he said before his eyes rolled back in his head. He had fainted or died, she couldn't tell which. The wound gushed blood, then trickled, then stopped. Meghan cried this time, but she also tried to start the car. Her heart leapt when the radio came on, and died when the engine sputtered and refused to start.
Virgil had died for a car on E. She looked back and raised her gun. She put one through his left eye. He would have wanted it that way.
Weeping she took a big swig from her hydration pack and started running for real.
She had about eight pounds of water and a rifle on her back, so she wasn't making personal best time. But after an hour she made it farther than she had in the three hours since the LeSabre died.
An hour later she was still going strong when an SUV appeared on the horizon. When it got close she started waiving her arms and put a thumb out. It zoomed past. Her heart almost broke at that moment, but then the brake lights came on and the car pulled over. She sprinted in her joy.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hidden Treasure
James could see them simmer and plot. Having seen them in action he knew they could be sly and cruel when they wanted to be. Even outnumbered they were dangerous. It wouldn't take too many fuckups by his fellow prisoners to put them back on bottom. God knew if there was one thing his brothers were good at, it was fucking up. If they had set out to fuck up, they wouldn't be as good at it as they were on accident. It was a natural talent, like charisma or perfect pitch. The more you tried to imitate it, the less you could do it.
So he found some other prisoners, usually older men. Bricks was one; a fifty-five year old black guy who claimed his nickname was from his boxing days. His enemies claimed he was called Bricks because he was so dumb. James thought Bricks seemed quite a bit sharper than he appeared. His massive arms and scarred knuckles indicated Bricks was telling the truth. In any case he had influence, and he agreed that the situation was too precarious to put up with the prisoner's normal bullshit. The prisoners he deemed most dangerous received visits. Bricks told them that they were to save any acting out for the cell blocks, away from the soldiers.
Martinez had been a second tier member of a gang that had disappeared in the 80's. He had been at the end of his thirty-five year crack sentence when this all went down. The day he was supposed to get out he had been forced to stomp his best friend's head in when he turned. Somehow he didn't seem all that surprised by zombies.
"De que tocan a llover, no hay más que abrir el paraguas," he said with a shrug. James didn't speak Spanish, but he assumed it was something fatalistic. Martinez hadn't been a power player before this, but everyone above him was dead. But he agreed to keep the Latinos in line. The same strange rules of politics had made James the unspoken head honcho of the white prisoners. The two surviving Aryan Nation guys bitched and moaned. James gave them the dead eyed smile that had been getting bullies to back down since elementary school. Or maybe they remembered Demarco. Prison was a lot like high school, with lots of petty bitching and plotting over the smallest thing. Except being popular wasn't about the football team. It was based on power, which was based on money, which was based on drugs, which was based on violence. The most popular guys in Penitentiary High tended to be the most psychopathic, because they were the best at violence.
The problem was that these days the guys who were the best at violence was the Army. The Army did not give a wet shit about the politics and scorecards of the prisoners. If anybody did something to make them care, they would suffer for it.
The prisoners were the gophers for the Army; they did the laundry, they cooked the meals, mopped, ran errands and messages. They were not given guns at all for a few weeks. Sgt. Andrews watched them, read their files, watched them some more. Some of the more trustworthy prisoners were given some bolt action rifles and taken along on patrols. More and more prisoners merged into existing platoons. Only a few of the older men and the more useless younger inmates were left on permanent maid duty. James was one of the last to get taken. He was merged into an ersatz platoon made up of random guys the 52nd had somehow picked up during the chaos outside. There were two guys whose specialty was manning anti-aircraft radar towers. Three Air Force guys whose expertise was fighter jet maintenance. Six guys from the National Guard who hadn't found their unit. The 52nd had found them trapped in a stalled Suburban, trying to get their commanding officer to send a rescue party. Their commander hadn't thought they were worth the effort, and gave them to the 52nd.
In spite of their ineptitude, or perhaps because they were expendable, they were given the most dangerous job. They were the decoys.
The prison was a way station and quarantine stop for civilian survivors. The army sent out patrols; usually airborne drones, because that was cheap on precious aviation gas. They looked for crowds of zombies, fires, or any other sign that real humans were still around. Then a patrol went out, usually consisting of two Hummers full of soldiers and one empty Stryker. The Stryker was an eight-wheeled beast designed to fend off machine gun fire and RPGs. The zombies presented no threat to it at all; it was the escape vehicle.
One Hummer would post half a mile away from the zombies. The decoys, James included, started blaring the Jefferson Starship's Greatest Hits. It was the only CD they had. They would scream, yell, shoot off a burst from the .50 cal. Anything to attract the attention of the local zombies, get them turned their way. Once they had the attention, they piled into the Hummer and moved another half mile, music blaring. This way the other guys in the other Hummer could wipe out any lingerers and get the civvies in the back of the Stryker with a minimum of drama. Once they gave the ok, the decoys took off in any direction except the one they really wanted. Then they looped back to base once they lost the bulk of their zombie tail.
That was the plan as it was explained to him by Sergeant Andrews. His complaints about the bolt action Russian rifle she had given him were ignored. She pointed out that if he wanted more than twenty rounds of ammo, he could go find some on his own. It didn't seem like a stupid plan, and he was in the military now so there was fuck all he could do if it had been. So he sat in the back seat of the Hummer as it left the gate, now studded by machine guns and a flamethrower or two. The perimeter gate was kept white-glove clean; no zombies were allowed to build up. Some of the other prisoners’ whole job was to patrol the chain link fence for lurkers and give them a quick stab in the eye with a short spear. Ammo was not to be used except in an emergency.
"The army is going green," Sgt. Andrews like to joke. "Now we're all about weapons with a low carbon footprint."
It wasn't a good joke, but Sgt. Andrews said it at least twice a day, and laughed harder each time.
James could recognize an anxiety joke when he heard it. She was scared. Six months ago the Army had a budget of six hundred and fifty billion dollars. Now it struggled to keep people supplied with bullets, like some tinpot dictator. Not a good sign.
Outside of the gates James felt very strange. He couldn't separate the shock he felt leaving prison from the shock he was pretty sure he should be feeling at seeing what he was seeing.
Figures stumbled at the end of empty fields whose crops had fallen to the ground unharvested and now were turning to rot. The roads were empty except for broken down cars, many with bodies inside. Some of them looked him in the eye with the same look of hunger he had seen in Dick's eyes before he caved in his skull.
It was quiet. Not prison quiet, where there was always some mumbling or electric hum so constant you tuned it out. This was quiet. There was the noise of the Hummer, and that was it. No planes, no horns, no cars. No hum of civilization. It was like being in miles on some nature trail no one had used in weeks. Pure quiet.
His heart was racing and he focused his eyes on his feet. He wanted to be back behind the fence, back in his cell with the door locked. This was not what he wanted, this was not how he was supposed to get out. He was supposed to go to a party with his family at Chuck E. Cheese, then go back to his basement room at his mother’s house. The open spaces unfolded into infinity, an infinity of gibbering cannibal monsters. The empty fields and trees were full of menace, and here they were voluntarily driving out into that hostile void!
Sweat beaded on his brow and he began muttering something. He didn't even know what he was saying but it was half prayer, half begging to go back to jail.
The Air Defense guys hadn't been too happy either, but he became aware they were looking at him with contempt. He tried to straighten up and pretend he wasn't afraid. He did keep his eyes in front, and he ignored everything he could. He kept his eyes down even when the other men stared at something with horrified fascination. Even when something snarled and smacked a bloody hand on the windshield. Even when the truck rolled over something that made a vomitous crackling squishy noise. Even then.
After what seemed to be forever, they broke off from the other Hummer and Stryker and headed up a gravel road. A farmhouse was exhibiting an unusual concentration of zombies, a red flag for real humans trapped inside. They ended up in a field with a few nonplussed cows. He could see a milling crowd, but at this distance it was hard to distinguish individuals. They cranked up "We Built This City" and started waving their arms and shouting.
The response was immediate. The crowd around the house atomized and they began heading their way. His rifle, which still reeked of cosmoline, seemed even more inadequate as the mass moved towards them. Even the most relaxed of them got tense when the horde closed in. The other Hummer appeared from behind a tree. Soldiers, equipped with silenced .22 rifles, leaned out of every window. The pop was inaudible over the blaring music, and the few zombies who had remained dropped in a few seconds. The Stryker backed down to the porch, door still closed. The soldiers piled out of the Hummer and took cover. One reached towards the door and knocked on it.
This was the most dangerous moment in the rescue. There were people in that building, but who knows what state they would be in. They might be so paranoid they would open fire on their rescuers. Or maybe they would be so fixated on keeping their collection of Star Wars cups that they refused to leave. Maybe they were just flat out crazy and couldn't tell the difference between soldiers and zombies anymore. That's why the policy was to knock and talk instead of busting down the door. If nobody responded, they'd slide a red piece of paper under the door. The paper said to put it in a window or somewhere visible if you wanted to be rescued. They'd check back one week later; no paper and the house was written off as dead.
The survivors in this house were quite sane though. They ripped the door off its hinges when they knocked. Person after person lunged at that Stryker carrying whatever they could. Duffel bags, bulging grocery bags, sofa seat cushions filled with canned food, guns. They crammed into that Stryker like it was a clown car and the Stryker and Hummer were back in the wilderness in three minutes. The horde was none the wiser.
It was back in the truck for them too, and then a hectic drive back. It was harder than it looked to lose contact with the horde. It is hard for civilized people to understand how far sound travels in the wild. In a truly silent place you can hear the whisk of a man's pants as he walks from hundreds of feet away. It was a lot harder to lose them than they thought, and they ended up winding around country roads for hours before they got back. The Stryker must have had some delays as well, because it was still unloading when James pulled himself out of the Hummer.
James could see the people lined up next to the Stryker, naked. They were getting the same probing he had received when he had been drafted. Their belongings were Army property now. Anything more useful than a teddy bear or used underwear was confiscated. They didn't seem to mind. They had been trapped and desperate and now they were safe(ish). James felt a momentary flush of shame for his earlier fear. If he'd had the choice he was sure these people would still be trapped in their house. He smiled and waved at them even though none of them were looking at him. He promised himself he wouldn't panic next time.
James went on several more expeditions. His agoraphobia never went away, but he learned to channel it into an intense focus when he was in the field. After a month the expeditions petered out; they had rescued who they could, and the world outside became truly dead. At first he had been a little relieved, thinking he wouldn't have to go out anymore. That was not the case; in fact the new mission was way, way worse. The new mission was to scavenge.
James asked Sgt. Andrews what they were supposed to scavenge. The survivors hadn't brought in anything more interesting than cans of kidney beans and .22s.
"Well, it's pretty simple really–there was a massive amount of hoarding. Of everything. Food, guns, ammo. If we went down to the local Bass Pro, you wouldn't find a single gun, bow, machete, knife, or a scrap of clothing. Same thing with a grocery store, or any other store that sold anything that we'd want. But most of that stuff disappeared, and it disappeared into the houses of people who weren't immune. There's millions of zombies sitting on arsenals and enough canned goods to feed a family for a year. They turned before they had the chance to use it. We've been scoping for houses that are barricaded, but don't have a herd around them. Odds are they locked themselves in with their gear and then died. That kind of house is the best chance to get quality salvage."