Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
Behind me, I hear Lexi softly snoring, trying to regain her strength from giving birth. She’s so tough. I’m worried that she’s going to get an infection, just like Greg might. More or less, I don’t want to be stuck going to Dayton without them and only having pissy Noah to keep me company. Without Lexi, there’s no survival for my nephew. He’d starve to death in just a day or two. Most likely, I’d end up murdering Noah along the way and making my way alone. I look at Noah, holding his son, staring at his precious little face as he sleeps.
Turning back toward the road, I casually glance down at the fuel gauge and see that we’re under empty. I gently press the brake, bringing the truck to a halt and putting it in park. “What’s going on?” Greg asks me quietly, not wanting to wake up Lexi.
“We need to fill up,” I tell him, looking over at Noah.
“Okay,” Noah says with a heavy sigh. “Greg, watch my son for me.”
“No, I’ll get out and do it,” Greg says as if Noah is offering for him to hold a live grenade.
“No, you won’t,” I hiss at him. “Noah and I are faster. Until we fix your leg, there’s nothing you can do but sit there and look pretty.”
“We need to get something to hold him, like a car seat or something,” Greg mumbles as Noah hands the newborn to Greg who is sitting right behind me. I watch Greg holding the newborn and feel my heart swelling to three times its normal size. I want that. I want to have a child with him. The look in his eyes is so magical that I feel like everything around me is melting away in a single, quick flash of warm heat.
“Ready for this?” Noah asks me.
“Let’s do this,” I say with a deep breath.
Chapter Thirteen
Closing the door, I look behind us at the rows and rows of stalled, snowed-in cars that are completely bogged down with ash and dust. To the right of me, there’s a trailer park in view of the interstate, completely blackened and destroyed by a fire that ravaged the entire facility. Overpasses are the safest places to stop, giving a better view and only two directions we have to look for danger.
Smoke and ash is everywhere. I wonder how many people were hiding out in this city. There had to be people who were keeping silent, biding their time, hoping that help would come, but now they’re all gone, scattered into the wind. Everything is gone now and I feel like we’re trespassing on sacred burial grounds. I watch Noah retrieving the gas container while I take in the sight of the dead city. Atlanta is officially a necropolis.
I look at the cars, wondering what’s underneath all of the dust and ash. There might be supplies in the cars, locked away and waiting for someone to find them. I’m surprised at how quickly the scavenger mentality has taken hold of me. I suppose that it’s a sense of morbid curiosity that grips me, making me want to glimpse into the lives of others. Noah tries to get the gas can, but it’s not coming out easy, so he climbs into the bed of the truck, wading through the stuff that we haphazardly loaded in the truck’s bed.
“We have too much shit,” Noah complains as he tries to wrench the gas tank free.
I’m not listening to him. I don’t want to listen to him complaining right now. What draws my attention is that the windows are practically tinted in the Dodge, thanks to being stuck, stagnant and stalled for the months. I look at the silhouettes of Greg and Lexi. They’re sitting closer together and I can hear their hushed voices muffled through the exterior of the truck while Noah is preoccupied with the gas container. I wonder what they’re talking about. Probably how sick they are of Noah’s shit. Or maybe they secretly agree with him and think I’m wrong about continuing on this trip.
I try to brush it off, maybe it has something to do with my nephew. Everything has been odd, though. Even the way we all look at each other now. Even when Greg and Lexi look at each other. It’s like they’re silently communicating, like siblings usually do, like Lexi and I do when we look at each other. I hate the feeling. I hate thinking that there are secrets between us, but I can’t help but feel like something is going on. Is this how a leader feels right before a mutiny?
The feeling reminds me of this morning when I was upstairs and asleep in that little girl’s room, why didn’t they come and get me? Why didn’t Greg come to sit with me and leave the others alone? Why not let the new parents have some time with their child and come spend time with the girl that has spent the last three years madly in love with him? Maybe I’m being immature or overly sensitive, but I feel like there is more going on here than I am privy to. Maybe they’re all just worried about Lexi. It would make sense. We’re all practically family now. Some blood just runs deeper.
While Noah continues to cuss out the gas container, my eyes wander from the dusty windows to the road in front of us. At the apex of the overpass, I can see where we’re headed, but more importantly, I can see what we’re headed straight for. The first one I see doesn’t bother me too much, but I begin to notice that the air lingering around the north is hazy, like a cloud has descended upon the interstate. I look at it and I feel a sinking sensation in my stomach, like there’s something wrong and I’m just too dense to pick up on it. I look at the cloud, and my eyes dart to the single creature lurking on the road. His shoulders are back, fingers twisted into gnarled claws and his head is jutted forward. With each step, jets of dust shoot up around the ankles and the legs of the wandering killer.
He’s not alone.
He’s not even close to being alone. Out of the haze, I see the other silhouettes manifesting in the plumes of dust, like phantoms and wraiths in a foggy cemetery. I look at the gray wall behind the emerging horrors and realize that there are more of them there than I could possibly count, to kick up that kind of a dust cloud. As the ash continues to drift out of the sky, I watch them, all of them poised and ready to kill. The closer they get, the more I begin to feel like we’re absolutely trapped. I look behind us and see all the cars shoved together on the street, crammed against the concrete barriers. It’s going to be a tight drive to try and reverse all the way back down the overpass. But, that’s not what worries me the most. I see more trails of dust that way as well, lazy trails that coil up into the air, slithering toward the heavens. That sinking feeling in my stomach is getting stronger and stronger.
Inside the truck, I can hear the intense, muffled conversation of Greg and Lexi. I have no clue what they’re talking about, but I know something that will get their attention. I look to the back of the truck where Noah is standing tall, frozen with terror as he looks directly at the rising cloud of impending horrors. I feel like we’ve officially taken our first steps into a nightmare.
“That’s a lot of fucking zombies,” Noah breathes with a hint of worry in his voice as he stares at the multitude that is now emerging from the veil of gray and white. “We need to go now,” Noah says as he takes a careful step back in the bed of the truck, looking at the approaching creatures. “Like, right now.”
“I hear you,” I say, rushing to help him get the container out of the bed of the truck.
Twisting open the gas cap, I watch the approaching horrors, listening to the breeze carrying the snarling and the shrieking that climbs up higher and higher, until it reaches my ears and makes the panic come climbing up inside of me until my soul is consumed with the terror. I take a step backwards and listen as Noah drops the gas container, his eyes still watching the monsters as they draw closer and closer. One of them lets out this deep, howling roar that makes me think of some sort of demon making its presence known after escaping from hell. I look at all of them, climbing over the tops of cars, some of them looking a lot more muscular or meaty than the gaunt nightmares that we faced in the small town or in Jacksonville.
I reach down and grab the gas container that Noah dropped, and quickly lift it up and start filling the gas tank. Noah reaches for his holster at his side and pulls out his revolver, pointing it at the monsters that are making the climb up the overpass. One of them, a great hulking brute, is leading the charge. Whatever clothes he’d been wearing before all of this are left as long shreds and tattered wisps that hang from him. A hood is pulled up over his head as he walks, the frayed remains of his pants swinging as with each step. I look back to the gas container, trying to keep my hands steady as I pour, hoping that Noah has enough bullets in his pistol to drop a few of those creatures to buy me some more time. He’s become a great marksman, his years of playing videogames finally counting for something.
At my feet, the large puddle of gasoline spilled when Noah dropped the can sends tendrils of fumes wafting up into my face, making my eyes water. I hate the smell of gas. I finish off the gas container, wondering how many gallons Noah had spilled when he dropped it. I toss the gas can away and grab another three-gallon container out of the back of the truck, hoping to fill it up as much as we can before those things get to us.
A hand is pounding on the window, trying to get our attention, no doubt it’s Greg trying to warn us that there are a lot of flesh-eating demons heading in our direction. Noah ignores him and keeps his eye drawn down the sight to the creatures that are clambering over the cars, slamming into them and roaring, letting us know that they’re getting closer and closer and that they mean to rip us apart. Where’s the cops? Where is anyone who might take care of these things? Where is the military? Did everyone fall victim to these things? I stick the nozzle into the gas tank and start filling it up as quickly as possible. They’re coming closer and closer and a lot of these things look like they could bolt at full speed with the drop of a hat. The ash keeps falling and Noah’s head is coated in gray, along with his shoulders and the arm that’s extended with his pistol trained on the closest horror.
The bang that emits from his pistol sends up a thousand shrieks and roars from the mob of creatures as one of the monsters on the roof of a truck crumples forward, taking the shot in his abdomen. The horde turns on the creature and starts ripping him apart, not bothering to wait until he’s dead to shred him to pieces. I finish with the second gas tank and drop it, tightening the cap on the gas can and shutting the guard. Noah fires off another round and I can hear my nephew screaming inside of the cab of the truck, before he fires a third bullet into the crowd that is not slowing, despite the three tasty victims they savagely feed upon.
Rushing to the driver’s door I pull it open, not wasting another second looking at the approaching nightmares that are going to want to rip the flesh from my bones with their putrid teeth. Inside the truck, my nephew is screaming at the top of his tiny lungs. Greg is looking at him with a distraught expression on his face while Lexi feebly tries to comfort and quiet him. I look at Greg who has switched spots with her, now sitting behind Noah and looking from my nephew to the front window.
“That’s a lot of them,” Lexi says with a nervous tone to her voice.
“It’s a freaking army,” I say, starting the engine and seeing the needle spike all the way to just under a half tank. That’s not as much as I would like to have put in there, but it’s still enough to get us well away from these things. We’ll be able to fuel up once we’ve put this city behind us, and that’s all that matters right now. I look at the hulking brute, standing in the middle of the road. He’s stopped, his chest and shoulders heaving as he watches the truck, his eyes a little too cognizant for comfort. “Everyone get ready for this. It’s going to be tight.”
“Keep the windows up,” Noah tells everyone, digging out the box of bullets that he had stuffed in his pocket, quickly reloading his revolver and dropping the three spent shells on the floorboards. Grabbing the gear selector, I pull it down to drive, glaring at the hulking brute who is equally preparing for what’s about to happen. Maybe this is how their decline begins, cognizant but crazed.
Slamming my foot on the accelerator, the whole truck careens forward angrily and charges toward the mob that is now standing on the hoods, roofs, and trunks of every car that’s flanking us and filling up every inch between the banks of cars. This isn’t going to be pretty. I lay on the horn and lean back in the seat, bracing myself for whatever’s about to happen. The immense zombie that stands tall enough to look me in the eyes takes a step back, filling the space in front of him with several other, gaunt, grotesque horrors that are snapping and clacking their jaws together ravenously, awaiting the feast. I watch as the brute grabs one of them and hurls him straight at the front of the truck.
I wince as the freak slams into the hood of the truck, denting it, before rolling to the side and flying off. The front of the truck slams into the wall of flesh and bone, filling my ears with screams and thuds that make me a little queasy and uncomfortable in the deepest, most terrifying sense of the words. Several of the monsters lose limbs, hands, arms, feet all rolling over the hood while we tear through them. As the first wave of nightmares rolls over the hood, I can hear them slamming and diving onto the roof, clawing at the side of the truck and diving into the bed of the truck while we keep pushing deeper and deeper into the horde, picking up momentum as we push down the overpass. The wheels of the truck jump and bob as we churn dozens of the monsters underneath us.
Hands slap the windows, dragging bloody fingers across the dusty, murky glass, making it look like we’re truly in the middle of a horror movie. As the monster that is writhing and twitching in front of me on the hood rolls off, drawing several toward him to feed on, I spot the hulking brute, gripping the brush guard that is slick and glossy with blood and gore for dear life. His hood is still on and his gray fingers and arms are all straining, flexing to keep ahold of the guard as he tries to pull himself up onto the hood.
My nephew keeps screaming while my eyes are closely watching the enormous foe. I notice that the hood he’s wearing isn’t intentionally gray from the ash, but that he’s wearing a white, stained sweatshirt with a black cross crudely painted down the front. This thing was one of the fanatics. I feel a terrible clarity inside of me spreading out, numbing everything around me. These things were the religious fanatics who were here when my father passed through. He burned the city and they were left alone and this is what happened to them. I feel a sickly question rising up inside of me. It spawns dozens then hundreds of other questions that can’t possibly be answered right now, so I keep my foot on the gas pedal as we continue to slow, pushing against the multitude and the tires spinning on the corpses of those that we’ve churned underneath us. There’s someone walking on the rooftop and others are clambering into the bed of the truck, trying to figure out what to do next. They’ve officially worked themselves into a pickle, but the fact that they’re back there with all of our gear makes me nervous what they might be tampering with. The truck pushes deeper and deeper into the army and the dust of the commotion whirls around all of us. I hear a loud thud, and watch as the hulking brute gets his footing and leaps up and onto the hood, baring his teeth at me and roaring.
I feel the terror in me reaching uncontrollable levels and I want to scream and shout at the thing that’s coming closer and closer with each passing second. I keep my foot on the gas pedal, ripping through the horde as quickly as we can, but I’m fishtailing on the blood and gore beneath us that has turned the ash and dust into a slick of macabre mud. The truck catches traction again and lurches forward, launching us closer and closer to our destination, but compromises the footing of the brute who slams forward, smacking his head into the windshield and transforming it into a spider web of fractures and white lines. I let out a scream that barely makes it over my nephew’s commotion.