Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
Inside the house, Lexi is gathering up my nephew from the drawer that has been delegated as his home for the amount of time that we’ve been here. I step into the darkness, adjusting to the swirling black. I look at her standing there in the shadows with her son, holding him close to her chest. I take a step toward her, wondering how she’s doing after all of this. I suppose there’s no harm in asking her. After all, it isn’t like we’ve had a lot of one on one time together since all of this began.
I take a step toward her and open my mouth. Before I can ask her how she’s doing, two gunshots pierce the air, shattering the illusion of peace that I thought we might have right now. I turn and look out the door to where Greg and Noah are standing. Moving toward the threshold as well, Lexi looks out the door, going slowly as she comes.
“Was that you two?” I hiss at our two loyal defenders who are staring toward the nearest intersection.
Greg turns around and shakes his head. “Not us,” he hisses back. “We need to get out of here.”
It’s not like he actually has to say it. I look at Lexi and help her out toward the Dodge. She is staring at her son, admiring him as we walk. I try not to think too much about the fact that we just heard two gunshots ring out in this town, and we thought it was completely abandoned. There are only two real possibilities right now. The first is that our two survivors from the shootout are still alive and out there trying to fight off the horde of zombies. The other possibility is that we’re not alone here and that there are other survivors here, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
While we walk, I half expect to hear the gunshots ringing out again, but with each step, the silence that washes over us is more permanent. I look at Greg, who is standing by the driver’s door. “Where did it come from?” I ask him as quietly as I can.
“I don’t know,” Greg hisses to me. “We saw two of those things rounding the corner, so we stood as still as possible, hoping that they’d just move on. Anyways, before they can actually round the corner, the gunshots ring out. Then they just turned around and headed back the way they came.”
Not good. If they’re heading back up the street, then they’re heading for the dealership, out on the road that we’re planning on escaping on. It looks like we might have a run-in with someone who has a gun. We might find out once and for all who the others in this town are.
Chapter Eleven
“I’ll drive,” Noah says definitively, as he takes to the driver’s door.
“Not so fast,” I tell him, putting my hand on the door handle. “I need you to take a seat in the passenger’s side.”
“Why?” Noah says, not amused, not letting any emotion escape his mask of a face.
“Because I want you in the passenger’s seat,” I tell him, not willing to play the game with him. I know that things are craziest right now for Lexi and him, but it’s crazy for all of us. If he’s having an existential crisis, then he’s going to have to take the crazy train somewhere else or put it into the station for just a little while longer. Once we’re safe and sound somewhere, then he can let loose. He can freak out and have the fight of a lifetime with my sister, but right now, he’s not getting his way. “Greg,” I say, turning to Greg who suddenly seems like the most pleasant man in this nightmare right now, “I want you behind me. That way we have guns on both sides. Lexi, you’ll be behind Noah so I can look over my shoulder at you.”
“Why can’t I be in the back with my son?” Noah protests.
“Because you get to be in front of him,” I fire back. “Okay, good talk, everyone, now everyone break.”
“God damn it, Val.” Noah shoves away with a pissy attitude. I watch him walk around the front of the truck and head for the passenger side while Greg helps walk my sister around to the far side of the truck. She can hardly walk on her own and Noah is completely ignorant of her needs. I want to slap him. I’m sure that I can only imagine what it is that he’s going through right now, but I’m not amused or impressed by it. I need everyone to get it together. They need to fake it until they make it.
I climb in behind the steering wheel and start the engine, listening to the whole vehicle vibrate and shake with the awakened power of the mechanical beast. I look over at Noah who is staring out the window, the hunting rifle between us, leaning against the dash. He’s holding it like it’s his sanity and if he lets go of it, he’ll slip away into oblivion. Maybe he is slipping. Maybe all the death and all the killing is actually starting to leave a mark on him. I would feel bad for him, if he weren’t a complete and utter asshole to me. I put the Dodge in drive and pull away from the five-ton truck.
Behind us, in the rearview mirror, my dad’s truck remains, dying here where we found refuge and the means to move on. I feel like we should have taken the battery, just in case. Heck, we should have taken the radiator just in honor of Marko and his sacrifice. A lot of people have died for or around that truck. I hope the fanatics track us to this town and I hope that they recovered their truck. Maybe then they’ll have some sort of peace. Maybe then they’ll abandon this insane hunt that they’ve had for my father and his stolen goods. Maybe. I won’t hold my breath. In fact, I think I’ll be checking over my shoulder for the rest of my life to see if there’s a white truck with a black cross on it behind me.
Next to me, Noah lets go of his rifle just long enough for me to take a corner and for it to shift momentarily and my heart begins to beat faster and faster, looking at the rifle slip. He catches it in time and I look at him. “Is it on safety?” I ask him.
“What?” Noah looks at me with unforgiving eyes. I’m not sure why he’s angry at me, but apparently I’m the one who knocked his ice cream cone out of his hand earlier. Maybe I kicked his dog before all of this happened and I don’t remember.
“Is the safety on your rifle?” I ask him.
“Not this again,” Greg mutters, and I hear him click the safety on his shotgun.
“Are you kidding me?” Noah shakes his head in disgust. “You know what, Val, it’s not on. Because you want to know why? What if whoever is armed out there comes running out of a house and opens fire on us? While you are still living in the perfect world and banging your feminist drum where there’s no chaos and no anarchy, I’m here in the real world. I’m here in the real world where it’s gross and gritty and there are madmen everywhere. So when madmen come charging me, I’d like to lift up my rifle and blow them straight to fucking hell and I can’t do that if the safety’s on. So I like to keep the safety off and to keep my finger off the trigger just so I don’t shoot a hole through the windshield.”
“Hey, Noah, lighten up,” Greg steps up, trying to defend me.
“Lighten up? Are you serious?” Noah turns around and looks at Greg with such disappointment that I think he might actually believe that he has laser vision. “Am I the only one who has any fucking eyes right now? Everything has gone to hell and I’m not talking about the world, I’m talking about this plan. If any of you had a clue right now, you’d tie up Wonder Woman here and turn this truck around. We should head back to the beach house with the others and survive for as long as we can.”
“My father came to us, Noah,” I tell him angrily. “My father came to us and while he was dying, he told us to go to Dayton. If there’s anything worth fighting for right now, it’s Dayton. If that means getting our hands dirty and doing what’s necessary to get there, then I think it’s worth it; because our only other option is to head back where only death is waiting for us. I’m not ready to give up, Noah. You might be, but I’m not.”
“I’m not talking about giving up,” Noah snaps at me. “I’m talking about being rational right now. We’re on a wild goose chase. We’re running around blind, trying to grab our asses and yet you think that there’s something admirable or worthy about your cause. You’re delusional, Val.”
“My father wouldn’t send us to Dayton if it was a lie,” I tell Noah.
“Fuck Dayton, fuck this trip.” He looks at me and with all the malice and venom he can muster he finishes the sentence, even though all of us know exactly what he’s going to say, “and fuck your Dad.”
I look at Noah with such horror and disgust that I don’t even know what to say to him. How could he be like this? How could he be so hateful? I know that Lexi and he don’t have the best relationship and I know that they’re having to deal with the whole parenthood moment right now, but that’s a low blow. That’s a blow to everything that I believe in. Doesn’t he see how arrogant, how cruel that is? I look away from him. I can’t stand the sight of him. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about him. I want to scream and spit at him. I want to explode all over him and kick him in the face. I want him to just be gone. I don’t want to ever see his face again.
But he’s in the seat next to me. The road is long and I’m not sure what to do with this man. I look over my shoulder at Lexi, who is still holding my nephew, staring out the window, not even paying attention to the exchange that’s just happened. So be it. Fine, I’ll be the one who just gets attacked by the sarcastic little jerk.
Shake it off
, I tell myself. I blink back the tears and look out on the street as the sun peeks up over the hills and the daylight is officially here, bathing all of us in its golden light. In the burning light of the early morning, the whole town looks completely forgotten. For some reason, it makes me feel like it’s part of some dream that a person was having when they suddenly died in their sleep. Like the dream is just frozen, rotting away as dust settles and everything burns. There’s no people, no thought here, just the horrors that linger, preying on all that’s left.
I keep my eyes open for any sight of whoever fired those shots, maybe two men with two guns. I’m picturing the fanatics, but this is the wrong way, toward the wrong bridge. All of this is nothing more than conjecture and assumptions. I look down the alleys, seeing cluttered choke points where people pushed dumpsters together or tried to build barricades against the flesh-eating horrors that were taking over the town. Most of it is exactly what Greg and I saw when we were sneaking through, but it’s all from the opposite perspective. I try to imagine what this town was like at the end. Were they all bonded together, standing as one? Did they break down, start suspecting their neighbors of having stockpiles of food? Was it all-out war or did they try to survive in a community as a unified front? I don’t know, but I think the answer lies in the corpses that Greg and I put in the street this morning getting the truck back to the others. I think they turned into the flesh-eaters. I think that they didn’t make it in the end. It’s a sad, cold thought, but that’s how the world is now. It’s all one enormous sad thought.
As we approach the bridge, I give up my search for the survivor or survivors who took the shots. There’s no signs anywhere, not even footprints in the dust that don’t look half dragged. The shuffling zombies are the only ones who leave footprints and trails like that. Whoever was responsible for those shots is probably long gone and all I can think of is a missed opportunity. We could have ended this little battle with the fanatics once and for all, or we could have met someone or some people who have weathered this just like the rest of us and are still out there, fighting the good fight.
Crossing the bridge, I look at the dealership and immediately hit the brakes, skidding to a stop on the dusty, dirty road and staring at the scene before me. My heart is flash frozen, stuck in mid beat as I look directly at the rows of dusty, abandoned cars and feel everything inside of me shattering as my heart swells in hoarfrost, building up into an enormous iceberg and crushing everything inside of me. It breaks free and shatters the rest of my organs, just leaving me hollow and cold. I look at the sight before me while the others start to stir.
“What the fuck is so interesting?” Noah grumbles, and I ignore him. I can ignore him all the way to the end of time.
“Val?” Greg leans forward and whispers at me. “Val, what’s the matter?”
“The truck,” I tell him, nodding toward the dealership where there’s a hole amidst the rows of parked cars. I can feel the warmth vanish around Greg as he leans forward again and takes a better look out the filthy windows at the sight in the dealership’s lot.
“What the hell are you two so fascinated by?” Noah looks over his shoulder at Greg. “Mind sharing?”
“The truck,” Greg clarifies for me. “The truck we drove there is gone.”
“What?” Noah looks at the parking lot.
It’s gone and the horrifying implication of that fact is what keeps me here, frozen in this moment and completely baffled. Those gunshots were not phantoms banging in our minds like I’d started to assume. No, those were actual gunshots and where the truck used to be, there are now two bodies and a tire on a wheel. I shiver at the sight of the wheel, lying there in the middle of the road by the two half-naked, emaciated bodies of the zombies.
“How is that possible?” Greg mutters, bewildered by what we’re looking at.
“Who cares?” Noah snaps. “Why aren’t we moving?”
“Because when I left that truck there, it was surrounded by those creatures,” I say to him.
“Someone stole the truck and shot two of the zombies,” Noah shrugs, still not getting why it’s a big deal. “Who cares? Let’s get going.”
“It’s a big deal because the tire was flat,” Greg chimes in, rescuing me from this stupidity that has begun to smother me. I look over at the tire sitting between the two dead creatures. “Whoever stole the truck had time to remove the tire and replace it with a new tire. That’s impressive, especially if there’s a horde of bloodthirsty killers surrounding the truck.”
“Well,” I say, looking at the road full of shambling creatures heading in the northern direction. “Whoever they are, they’re heading in the same direction that we are. Maybe we’ll run into them later.”
“Yes and maybe they can tell us the fascinating story about how they changed a tire that one time,” Noah says to me. I look over at him and wish I could punch him in the face and get away with it, but I’m afraid that he’ll actually try to use his rifle on me if I did hit him. I don’t want to die out here. I refuse to die until I’ve seen what’s in Dayton. Taking my foot off of the pedal, I press the accelerator.