Nick pulled the Camaro over onto the shoulder and put it in park. He glanced at me, studying my face for whatever reason. He turned off the ignition and removed the key then popped the trunk. He got out the car and headed for the rear. I would have preferred he kept the engine running by in this world it is best not to trust anyone. A lesson I had learned after this epidemic started over a month ago. I have always been an honest person but Nick doesn’t know that. I could hear him rummaging through the trunk. It was so quiet out here without the sound of the engine rumble.
We were out in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t much to see, just a whole lot of green grass, trees and bushes. I turned to look out the window and that’s when I saw it, a deadie trudging up the ditch on the side of the road. He was coming straight at me. My fear and my body sweat made me fuse to the leather upholstery. The deadie’s eyes were milky with red spots lurking through the cloudy haze. This deadie was a frail skeleton with dead human skin barely masking his bones, not unlike all this rest of the deadies I had seen. There was dried black blood under his nose. He had me in his sights. My mind said roll up your window you idiot but my body refused to obey. I was so tired of running, so goddamn tired of living in hell.
This deadie was quiet. I couldn’t hear the guttural rattling moans that I thought were an instinctual attribute of these monsters. The deadie held me locked in his gory gaze. He was less than twelve feet away. Panic took over me and I slid my way over to the driver’s seat. Now I could see him clearly. His mouth gaped opened and I could see the absence of a tongue.
The walking corpse’s wide eyes left me and turned toward the rear of the Camaro. Oh my god. I had regained my motors skills and in that instant I had regained my voice. “Nick!” I yelled again. “Nick!”
I opened the driver’s door and stumbled out the door. I fell out on my ass and picked myself up. I run to find Nick. I wanted to see him one last time before we both died.
Nick was standing at the trunk holding an ax. His gun was still in his waist band. “Shot ‘em!” Nick looked back at me as the deadie moved closer and closer to him, closer to both of us. The corpse sped up his dead man shuffle and he was inches away from my brave savior. “Nick!” What is wrong with Nick? Why won’t he just shot the deadie.
Just like a major league baseball player, Nick swung the ax and decapitated the deadie. The dead head launched into the air and flew to the pavement, rolled into the grass on the shoulder of the road and landed down in the ditch, the very place where it originated. The headless body hit the ground with one resounding thud.
Nick turned back at me and grinned. “Another one bites the dust.” He rested the long wooden handle of the bloody ax on his shoulder. He took a few steps towards me and stopped short of my face. His gaze was magnetic. For a brief second I fell entranced in the gaze of his pure gray blue eyes. “Baby girl, I promise I will keep you alive for the next twenty-four hours. Today, you are safe with me.” Nick gently touched my chin. “Get back in the car. It’s time to go.”
“
Okay,” was all I could mutter. I trusted his words. This stranger’s sincerity seeped into my pores and comforted me in a time when comfort was extinct.
The fearless ax man turned his back on me and grabbed a dirty towel out the trunk. He wiped the dark blood off the ax. I walked to the open driver’s door and get in. I scooted over to my seat and tried to hold on to my sanity.
In seconds, Nick returned to the car and got in. He was holding a fresh white sleeveless tank top and a pair of cut off blue jean shorts. Under the clothes he held a box of Hostess Twinkies and a big bag of barbecue potato chips.
“
Steak and lobster.” He handed the goods over. He put the key in the ignition and we quickly accelerated off onto the road. “You can get dressed in the backseat, if you like. Or you can get dressed where you’re at. I promise I won’t look.” He half smiled at me and he resembled a mischievous young boy. “Besides, I already seen all you have to offer.” We shared a smile and this time it was a full one.
I carefully changed into the clothes he provided and tossed the bath towel into the back seat. I redid my ponytail with its rubber band. Somehow it seemed to be a little loose. The jean shorts were too big. I had to fold them down at the waist because I didn’t have a belt. The wife beater t-shirt fit just fine. It was somewhat transparent and my nipples shown through but beggars can’t by picky. It was so hot. I was just happy to have on clothes that were light in all this humidity.
“
Have you ever killed any freaks?” He asked.
“
No, I never killed a person, before.”
“
Baby girl, those freaks aren’t people.” He had a valid point. “I killed a lot of ‘em.” He proclaimed without any remorse.
“
Kill or be killed.” I chimed and he glowed with respect for me. Silly how one random cliché could impress a guy I barely knew. Actually I didn’t know Nick at all.
I tore into the bag of chips and noticed the speedometer. Nick was driving about ninety miles an hour. It didn’t seem like we were going that fast. He didn’t make me nervous in the passenger seat like so many men made me feel in my past. I smashed a few chips into my mouth, no need to eat like a delicate flower. Those days were long over. I tilted the open bag of chips toward Nick. He looked over at me, then down in the bag before pulling a hand full of chips out and tossing them into his mouth. I opened the box of Twinkies and opened the plastic on one single Twinkie. I handed the first one over to Nick. He took it without even glancing at me. I opened a Twinkie for me. I took a drink from the bottle of water he had given me earlier and I passed the bottle over to Nick. He took a swig. The man had saved my life. I felt certain we could share our mouth germs and I wouldn’t be any worse for it. A sudden calm washed over me, for the first time on a long time I felt safe. I tipped my head out the window and let the hot highway wind blew over my face. Nick and I sat side by side, eating, drinking and cruising the highway. Happy to be alive, for the moment, possibly for the next twenty four hours.
CHAPTER 2
Finally we were in Eola, Illinois. There was an old haggard sign on the side of the road that clued me in to this fact. I had never been out here in the boonies. This was as podunk as ever. I was a bright lights big city girl. I was born in Chicago and I had a loft apartment downtown. I owned a condo in Los Angeles as well. I was filthy rich for a twenty three year old and I spent my money on loads of materialistic possessions. It’s funny how just a few months ago I wore only designer clothes and shoes, Jean Paul Gaultier dresses, Christian Louboutin pumps and Birkin handbags.
All the couture gowns in my spare bedroom that I converted into a walk-in closet now mean absolutely nothing. If my friends could see me now, in cut offs, t-shirt and Nikes. They would gasp. Who am I kidding? My friends, family, ex-boyfriends, colleagues, my agent and my publicist are all dead.
Nick drove us down a two lane dirt road. There were corn fields to my right and corn fields to my left. A beautiful brown horse galloped beside us. The sight made it seem like the world was normal and the dead hadn’t risen and taken over the world. Before this pandemic the world wasn’t perfect but it was a fairytale compared to the way it is at the present time. In a flash everything can change and there is no remedy or antidote for the horror.
We stopped at a small lone house on the corner of some back road. On second glance it wasn’t a house at all. It was a United States post office. We pulled in front of the post office. We stopped right behind a muddy green Cadillac Escalade. The post office was actually a small Victorian styled two-story house. The windows were boarded up for obvious reasons. It didn’t look much like any postal facility I had seen. The only way you could tell was the plastic sign out in front above the door. Nick pulled a walkie-talkie from under his seat. He turned it on.
“
It’s Nick. I’m here. Open up.” He said holding the walkie to his lips.
“
You made it back.” A male voice on the other end of the walkie surmised.
“
Nine lives.” Nick said to the faceless male.
“
It’s all clear,” said the voice.
Nick clipped the walkie to the belt that held up his jeans. “We’re here. Roll up your window.” I did as I was told. Nick grabbed his gun off his lap. “You ready to meet the survivors?”
“
Yeah,” I said through nervous teeth.
“
By the way, what’s your name?” He grinned and his eyes squinted at the corners.
“
Jesse.”
“
Jesse, you got a last name?”
“
Bordeaux.” I told him my name was Jesse even though my name is Franjessca. I thought about lying about my last name but someone like Nick wouldn’t recognize me. In this world, I’m nothing special. I’m just some girl he picked up on the highway and I want to keep it that way. Now it doesn’t matter anymore. We all are in the same bruised and battered sinking ship.
Nick opened his car door and I did the same. He held his gun down but in a television actor cop position. I followed closely behind him as we creep to the back of the house. When we reached the back yard the garage door automatically opened up into the ceiling. We entered the two car garage. The garage was full of mail. The mail was pushed off to both sides of the garage and in the middle was a mail trunk with a big United States Postal symbol on the side, that odd blue eagle.
As soon as we stepped in the door, it shut behind us. I couldn’t believe how anxious I was to meet real people. I had spent two weeks alone, hiding from deadies. Nick and I walked to the back of the garage and he opened the double doors. A muscular bald man was standing inside the door with a gun strapped to his waist. He was decked out in a tan t-shirt and brown and tan camouflage army pants with brown boots, the desert G.I. Joe. He was a fair skinned man and his nose was red from sunburn.
“
Nick, Nick, I see you brought back a stray.” The solider said as he looked me over with his emotionless eyes.
“
What up Joe.” Nick nodded as I followed him in. G.I. Joe’s name was actually Joe, lucky guess. Joe the solider, locked the door and we all went into a room at the front of the house slash post office. The room was cleared out of most its furniture. There was a sleeping bag on the floor. There was a woman asleep in an old fashioned couch. I scanned the room trying not to be obvious. I noticed the windows were boarded up from the outside and now I could really see them from the inside. Only a hint of light filtered in from the tips of the windows.
A pale pretty red haired woman of about thirty was sitting at a small card table eating an apple. Across from the woman sat a very good looking man with chiseled Italian features, his hair was dark almost black. He held a walkie-talkie in his hand and sat it down on the table as we entered.
The woman stopped eating carefully and noticeably assessed me. I wished I was wearing better clothes.
“
Oh great, one more mouth to feed,” the woman sneered.
Nick walked over to the woman and looked down on her from his six foot one menacing frame. “Michelle, shut your mouth.”
Michelle complied but pouted silently with a big chunk of apple in her mouth. The handsome Italian man stood and reached out to shake my hand. “Hi, I’m Mark. That sleeping teen over there is my daughter Kaitlin.” He pointed to the girl on the couch under the pink Hello Kitty blanket. I couldn’t see her face. Her wavy raven colored hair covered her face.
“
I’m Jesse.” I said as I shook his hand.
“
Welcome.”
“
Mark is a doctor.” Nick added. I wasn’t sure why.
“
Plastic surgeon,” Mark gushed and then shrugged his profession off.
“
Hang here.” Nick said as he walked off to the back of the house with G.I. Joe.
“
Have a seat.” The doctor offered me his chair.
“
Thanks.” I took his seat although I didn’t want to sit anywhere near the redhead. Now she had a front row seat to assess me even closer. I had the urge to reach out and slap her. I smiled to myself when the thought came crashing through. This new world can bring out the volatility in anyone and I am not immune.
The doctor took a seat on the couch next to his daughter. He raised his daughter’s legs and placed them in his lap. “So Jesse where did Nick find you?”
“
Interstate fifty-five, I was running from deadies, those zombie creatures.”
“
Did you get bit?” Michelle asked with a smug condescending scowl.
“
No.” I snapped.
“
How can we be so sure?” She challenged.
“
You can’t.” I gave her a look that could kill or at the least hold her at bay. Michelle stormed out of the room and headed toward the kitchen. Was she going to tell on me?
After infinite minutes of silence, two new guys came down the stairs. I had a seat right beside the staircase and I could see their faces when they noticed me. One was a young black guy but he was very pale. He was short and had light brown hair closely cut to his scalp. Where his hair was closer to brown, my light brown hair was closer to blonde. He was dressed in gray-blue shorts with a stripe down the outseam and a white t-shirt. For a guy he was kind of pretty like a girl. His eyes had permanent natural eyeliner on the lower eyelid. Lagging behind him was a young Indian guy. He was an Indian native of India not Native American. He was sporting a gray t-shirt and long khaki shorts. He was dark with black hair and the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow.