Or so I thought. It was the look on Claire’s face that caused me to pause. It was a look of fear and sadness at what she was about to witness in that driveway. She was about to see her friend, someone she trusted, murder someone, and toss his body away like so much garbage. Claire knew what this world was like, but she didn’t like what it was doing to me.
I closed my eyes tightly. I didn’t like what it was doing to me either. It was consuming me. Day after day I was dying inside …fading away just like to old pre-zombie world.
I really wanted to change that look on Claire’s face.
I stood up and pulled Glenn to his feet by his collar. I threw him against one of the roll-up doors and stuck my gun in his face. He raised his hands and continued to beg for his life. He started to bargain, telling me about all the things he could get for me. I took a half-step backward, and lowered my gun. “Just go away. Don’t come back,” I said, fighting back tears. Glenn scurried away with a puzzled look on his face. He walked away so fast that he forgot his knife. I watched him go down the road till I couldn’t see him any more. I walked back to the firehouse, picking up his knife along the way. The blade was dull and gray, but it still could have ripped Claire’s throat open from ear to ear. She would have bled to death right in front of me.
I threw the knife into the weeds and walked back to where Claire was standing. She was just standing there in the semi-foggy driveway with her arms crossed hugging herself. She looked very pale, frightened, and so very small. I wondered what had scared her most, being manhandled by Glenn, or me almost killing him.
That hopeless feeling began to wash over me all over again.
I said nothing as I put my arms around her in what I hoped was a reassuring hug. She started to cry, so I handed her a clean handkerchief to dry her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Claire. I didn’t mean to scare you. Are you hurt?”
She slowly composed herself. “No, I’m not hurt. It was my fault …shouldn’t have trusted him. You told me not to trust anyone, but I didn’t listen and it almost got us both killed.”
“You were only trying to help another human being. He was just an asshole,” I said as we started to walk to the firehouse door.
Claire stopped walking and looked up at me. “I’m glad you didn’t kill him. I mean …killing the dead ones are bad enough, but you’re such a nice guy I didn’t want you to get all messed up. You know what I mean?”
Claire was such a bright girl. “I know what you mean, kiddo.”
She smiled and blushed a little. “Did you really mean all that stuff about me being one of the reasons for you to go on?”
“Every word. Now let’s go inside and have a few pancakes. We also have some packing to do.”
We walked inside the firehouse, enjoyed our last meal in our sanctuary, then packed our stuff. It was time to hit the road again.
“It looks pretty clear to me. What do you think, Tiger?” Claire handed me the binoculars so that I could take a look at our potential safe place for the night.
I took the glasses and put them up to my eyes. We were on a small hill looking down on the main street of a small town. I scanned the businesses on both sides of the street. A few of the buildings were blitzed and unsuitable for shelter, but a few were intact enough to provide some cover for the night.
The light was fading. We definitely needed a place to stay for the night. I pointed to a shop on one of the corners. “Let’s go for that motorcycle shop on the corner. It looks nice and cozy.”
“Roger, Tiger. Let’s roll,” Claire answered as she got her bat ready. There didn’t seem to be any after effects from our little battle with Glenn at the firehouse. She was still her brave, bad-ass self.
We walked towards the shop slowly and kept our eyes peeled for baddies. It had been a tough week since we left the firehouse, and we had to be ready for anything. Claire and I had been in a few situations and had escaped them all unharmed, but we were both exhausted. The number of undead seemed to be picking up. I hoped it wasn’t a trend.
There was no argument from Claire about leaving the firehouse. She knew the drill. We faced a challenge from the living and the dead. Either the zombies come to our driveway to check out all the noise we made, or Glenn brings his friends, if he has any, back to the firehouse to kill us. Neither one of these situations was not going to work out for us, so we packed up our stuff, grabbed as many MREs as we could carry, then beat cheeks out of there. As it turned out, we did meet up with Glenn again after all. However, our second meeting was much different.
Glenn had become a member of the undead army since we had seen him last. It could happen that quick. One minute you’re king of the road, the next, a meat-eating monster.
It was a day or two after we left the firehouse. I was checking out an abandoned truck looking for supplies, and Claire was keeping a lookout. The truck was a dead end. Almost all of the good stuff was gone. I was moving some old packing material around to check out an almost empty pallet when I heard Claire call me.
“John, get out here! We’ve got company.”
I ran to the door, and jumped to the road. Claire was pointing down at her feet. A hand had reached out from some debris and grabbed her ankle. “I was watching the road, when something grabbed me!” she shouted.
I looked at where she was pointing and recognized this particular zombie. It was Glenn.
Some bad guys had done a number on him. Half of his face was torn off, and his legs had been removed below the knees. The remaining pieces had turned in the night. He looked up at me with his one good yellow eye and groaned. I wondered if he knew who I was.
Claire walked over. “John, please put him out his misery.”
I probably should have left him like he was, considering what he tried to do to Claire. I almost walked away and left him to his own personal hell. I raised my gun, and did what she requested. I guess it was the humane thing to do. After I finished him off, I searched his body and found out he was a former prisoner. The gray trench coat hid his prisoner number on the prison-issued orange coveralls. It may explain why he acted the way he did. Former prisoners were rare. Most of them were executed as the zombie apocalypse accelerated.
Claire and I made it to the street in front of the motorcycle shop. The shop appeared to be the only business on the main street without any broken windows. The shop sold a variety of motorcycles and scooters to the general public. Old signs in the windows told about new models and low, low financing. Parked in front of the store was a small pickup truck with a primer paint job. I guess it was a company truck to pick up parts and other things for the shop.
We approached the open front door of the shop carefully. The door was about half open, and paper and debris spilled out of the opening onto the sidewalk. I took a quick peek inside. It was a wreck, but it looked empty. I gave Claire the thumbs-up sign and waved her inside, but instead she pointed at the sidewalk behind me.
I turned around and saw a zombie with two broken legs crawling towards us. The poor devil was a real mess. It was even hard to tell if it had been male or female. The face and scalp were ripped off, revealing bone and muscle tissue, and its legs were mangled. It was moaning loudly, dragging itself along the sidewalk with one good arm. The damn thing was going to alert every zombie within earshot.
“I got it,” Claire said, swinging into action. She ran past me and stepped on the zombie’s back to pin it in place. Then she swung the bat and drove it into the skull of the sidewalk zombie, almost like she was hitting a croquet ball. The creature’s head collapsed, and blood and brain matter leaked out all over the sidewalk.
“Oh ick. It got all over my shoes.” Claire dragged her old sneakers on the sidewalk to clean them off. I found it very amusing.
“Looks like we’re going to have to get you some new shoes, Claire.” I handed her my handkerchief to wipe off some of the goo.
“Yeah, maybe a darker color next time. It won’t show the brain splatter as much.”
We shared a quick laugh. It’s amazing how you can find humor in all this horror. I think we were getting a little road weary. We both needed a little rest, I think.
We got inside the store, and I locked us inside. The shop was fairly large, with rows of new and used motorcycles and scooters along the walls. Several stands in the middle of the shop had a few vehicles that were special deals. Other merchandise included helmets, gloves, jackets and shoes on one wall, and chrome parts and other accessories on pegboards nearby. The parts counter and cash register area completed the shop’s floor plan.
The store was a mess, as usual. A lot of the merchandise was spilled on the floor. Several of the motorcycles and scooters were overturned in twisted piles, and many of them were entirely stripped of parts. There was also the usual paper and other debris spread around the floor. The place smelled vaguely of gasoline and motor oil.
“Claire, go check out those shoes over there. See if you can find any that fit you.” I shined my flashlight in the general area of the clothing area. “I’ll check out the back room. Be careful.”
She moved off in the direction of the shoes, while I contemplated the door behind the parts counter. I assumed it led to a storage area or maybe a service garage. I put my ear to the door to hear for any bad sounds coming from the other side, but there was only silence. I pushed open the creaky door and entered a large service area. I stood near the doorway for a few seconds, scanning the room with my flashlight. There were several work-tables with motorcycles in various states of assembly laid out in neat rows. Tools and other supplies lay nearby, ready for use. The whole room was crammed with wrecked or dissembled two wheeled vehicles. There was also a small storage area with racks of new parts with their tags still attached. I also saw a few newly delivered vehicles standing by a big roll-up door still in their crates.
There was also something dead nearby.
I couldn’t see it yet, but the place had a heavy dead-body smell mixed with a little gasoline odor. I pulled my gun and slowly walked into the dark room. I sincerely hoped that the body I smelled was really dead and not moving. I walked down the service bays looking for anything that might jump out at me. The deeper I went into the garage the stronger the smell became. Claire and I might have to start running; there could be a zombie nest in this back room, based on the smell.
I walked to the end of the work-tables and found the source of the powerful smell. To my right, in a corner of the shop, were two dead bodies lying on a quilt. Behind them, near their heads, a custom motorcycle rested on it’s kickstand. I stowed my gun and took a closer look. It looked like a male and a female had spent their final hours together back here while chaos reigned outside. I guessed the bodies might have belonged to the owner and his wife or girlfriend. From the looks of the kerosene lanterns and the empty cans, they might have been trying to survive back here. I saw no evidence of gunshot wounds or zombie bites, so I couldn’t tell how they died. They must have swallowed pills or starved to death.
I found a tarp and covered up the sad scene. I could almost feel their panic as they huddled together back here, waiting for help that never came. At least they were together, and they were able to die with one of their prized possessions. That’s a lot more than most people got in all this mess.
There was nothing much to salvage except for the kerosene lanterns. There were four scattered around the quilt each with a little bit of fuel left. I was able to pour the remaining fuel into one lamp, and got it to work. Claire and I would at least have a little light during our stay.
I went back into the showroom with the lamp, closing the door behind me. Claire came up from the front of the store and leaned on the counter. “Find any thing in the back?”
“Just the usual,” I answered. “Usual” was our new code word for the horrible things we found in these abandoned structures. “Did you find any shoes?”
“Nah.” She looked down at her sneakers, stained by undead brain matter. “Nothing to fit my tiny feet. I think the owner thought all female motorcycle riders had huge feet. There’s nothing under size 9 over there”
I couldn’t help myself, and started checking out all the cool bikes in the showroom. Even though I was a car guy, I also had a passing interest in the two-wheeled world as well. My wife Gia and I had contemplated getting motorcycle licenses and hitting the open road.
None of the bikes I was looking at now in the shattered showroom were ever going to hit the road. They were going to sit here, silently rusting away, forever. I walked among the rows of dust-covered relics from another time shaking my head. They all had hundreds of dollars in chrome, leather accessories, and huge exhaust pipes. The big v-twin engines sat waiting for owners that don’t exist anymore. They just wouldn’t work in today’s world; too big, loud, and thirsty.
Claire walked over to where I was standing and touched my arm. “What are you thinking about there, Tiger?”
I ran my hand over the chrome handlebars of one of the cruisers. “I was thinking it would have been nice to ride a motorcycle, but I guess it won’t happen now.”
“Well, why don’t you try one of these bad boys? I bet we could get one of these suckers running.” Claire threw her leg over one of the bikes and tried it out. The bike was way too big for her. She had to stand on her tiptoes to touch the floor as she sat on the huge motorcycle.
“Nah, too loud,” I said, pointing to the exhaust pipes. “We’ll attract every undead sucker for miles if we crank it up. Come on, let’s eat.”
Claire got off the bike and followed me to the parts counter. Along the way, she stopped at some of the bikes to read the description tags attached to the handlebars. “Hey, check this one out. It says it’s pretty quiet.”
I looked up from my meal preparations to see what she had found. It was a powerful sport scooter painted bright silver. It had large black-painted wheels, and a chrome-finished exhaust pipe. I had to admit it was a real looker. I got our MREs started, then joined Claire to take a look.
“So what do you think? I mean, it’s no motorcycle, but it’s close. You think we can get it running?” she asked excitedly.
The scooter had a lot of dust covering its silver flanks, and the tires looked a little soft. It had a pretty big motor; about five hundred cc’s or so. The price tag read “$10,000.00” in small red type. The tag also listed the scooter’s other great attributes, like “used but not abused,” “sporty,” “good on gas,” and “very quiet and easy to ride.”
“I don’t know. It looks like it’s been sitting here awhile.” I traced a finger through the dust on the headlight. “The battery is probably dead and gone.”
“Aw, come on. This is your chance to ride. Besides, walking is so last week,” Claire said as she struck a pose by the scooter. “Lets give it a try.”
I hated to admit it, but I really wanted to try and resurrect the scooter. It would be nice to hit the open road and feel the wind in my face. Walking everywhere was getting a little stale. I turned to key in the ignition to see if the battery had any charge. Surprisingly, the lights on the dashboard and the gauges responded weakly. The silver scooter might have some life left after all.
I was convinced. “We’ll give it a try. We’re going to eat first, though.”
Claire and shared a hot meal and planned how we were going to try and get our steel-and-plastic steed back on the road. I cautioned her not to get her hopes up too high. The battery might be dead, the engine might be gummed up, or it might be too loud. We couldn’t use the scooter if it was too loud. It would attract too much attention.
After our meal, we did a quick cleanup and nursed the scooter back to life. I gathered up a few tools and a foot-operated air pump, and got to work. A service manual in one of the storage containers of the scooter gave us some vital information about servicing and troubleshooting. We spent a couple of hours working on the scooter, changing the oil, plugs, and coolant. I used a clean rag to wipe some of the dust and accumulated grime off the engine and drive belt. I also added a little fuel I grabbed from another bike on the floor. Claire finished up the maintenance by using the pump to refill the tires. The only problem was the battery. Without electricity, we didn’t have any way to top off the charge. I found a few spare scooter batteries to try if the original battery wouldn’t turn the bike over.
After the work was done and all the panels were back in place, it was time to try to start our new scooter. I turned the key to the “on” position. The lights and gauges responded, but weakly. The battery was nearly gone. I hesitated with my thumb over the starter button.
Claire grew a little impatient. “Well, it’s not gonna start itself.”
I pushed the button and the scooter started to weakly cough and wheeze. At first it didn’t sound like it was going to start, but then the engine caught and the big scooter roared to life.