We had neglected to bring our MRE’s from the SUV so dinner was pretty sparse, half a
kit-kat
bar apiece. We took turns keeping watch but in my off time I had no trouble sleeping. The next morning we took a few minutes getting ready but all we really did was go to the bathroom and stretch. We made our way back to the highway and started the final leg of our weapons journey.
Finally I brought up the subject I had carefully avoided.
“What about the Livingston’s” I asked.
He didn’t look at me “I promised we would stop by, give them the opportunity to join us, which is what I am going to do.”
We drove on a bit further and he didn’t add anything so I asked
“What about their daughter and her friends.”
“Then I will deal with it, it was my doing, I killed them.”
For some reason I was upset but for the life of me I didn’t know why
“But they were awful, they deserved it!”
“Yes, they did.” then he added “but people get a little prickly when family are involved.”
I was feeling a bit light headed and couldn’t get this all straight in my head
“And if they want to kill you?” He paused “Listen John, no matter what happens this is between me and the Livingston’s, I need you to promise me that you will not get involved.”
I started to complain but he cut me off “PROMISE.” he said. I finally nodded just as we topped the rise and their gas station came in to view.
But where the neat but old fashioned station once stood there was scarcely more than a few blackened beams and a large pile of rubble covered in soot and ash. “Oh damn.” OMT said. We pulled over to the side of the road a hundred yards from the wreckage. We watched for a minute or two so I asked what he wanted us to do.
“I don’t want to separate but I don’t want to leave the truck alone.” he muttered.
He ran his fingers over his rough beard and shook his head,
“We have to check on them.”
He looked at me and I could tell he was distraught,
“John, can you keep watch here?”
But before I could answer there was a knock on the passenger side door and the silver gray hair of Mr. Livingston was just visible over the edge. “OH SHIT!” I said. OMT had been just as startled as I and he hung his head and shook it for a minute.
“Roll your window down John.”
I laughed a little nervously as Mr. Livingston climbed up onto the running boards so he could peek in
“Oh good! I was hoping it was you two, but I wasn’t sure because of the new truck and all.”
OMT looked at him, bracing his left arm on the steering wheel,
“Mr. Livingston, you should not have just walked up to us, you never know who might have been in this thing.”
“Oh don’t be silly boy, those monsters don’t drive trucks.”
I thought to myself ‘
but some monsters do’
but I said nothing.
“Mr. Livingston not everyone we have encountered has been, well, friendly.”
“Really?” he ask, seeming genuinely shocked.
“Really” I added.
OMT changed the subject,
“So what happened to the gas station?”
He shook his head sadly, clearly remembering a very unpleasant event.
“It was the
things
, the Z’s you called em, but let’s get up to the house and we can talk a bit more in private.”
Mr. Livingston told us to drive on down the service road about a half mile, take an unmarked gravel road, go past a railroad crossing and then bear to the right when it splits. Their house was right up the hill. We did as he asked and by the time we got there both Mr. and Mrs. Livingston were waiting for us on their front porch. OMT parked the Freightliner and we got out, we were invited in and we sat around a coffee table and Mrs. Livingston produced some homemade corn muffins and coffee, the corn muffins were good but to be honest I had not learned to drink coffee yet so I just had water. We told them about our adventure and Mrs. Livingston covered her mouth when we told them about the road block and how those men who chased us died. They asked OMT if we had seen anyone on our trip that resembled their daughter, he shook his head sadly and said
“No, we didn’t see anyone like her.”
They both looked so sad and all I could do was look at OMT and think ‘
what a liar
.’
OMT asked again what happened to the gas station and Mr. Livingston began his story. It seems that a neighbor, Mr. Collins had come down to the station in a terrible rush, the things were coming across his fields and heading right at his place and if they went straight on they would be at the gas station in 20 minutes. The two men barricaded the store as best they could and waited. Mr. Collins had an old .38 revolver and Mr. Livingston his 12 gauge. They hit the place hard; at first they just explored but when they got close it was as if they could somehow sense or smell the men inside. The creatures were fast and didn’t resemble people at all. One of them got in and bit poor Mr. Collins on the shoulder before the two men were able to kill it. Mr. Livingston shoved one of the commercial refrigerators over onto the floor and it landed with a crash, but it had wedged between the counter and the door, making it impossible for the creatures to get in that way but they knew the burglar bars on the windows wouldn’t keep them out long.
Mr. Collins was suffering terribly and the wound on his shoulder looked like it was boiling, terrible smelling pus was oozing through his shirt and in less than 10 minutes Mr. Collins was unable to stand. He was burning up and the arteries and veins near the wound had turned black under his skin. Mr. Collins was in his early 80s and they had known each other for more than 40 years. He said he couldn’t last long and he begged Mr. Livingston to leave him there and that he would create a distraction, take as many of the bastards with him as he could. Reluctantly Mr. Livingston agreed. They set up a make shift bomb, two full canisters of propane, the big ones they use on BBQ grills, fuel additives, bottles of gin and vodka, anything that might explode was piled just below the biggest window, where they thought the monsters would finally break in. They shook hands, Mr. Livingston giving his friend a bottle of whiskey for the pain, and he told him that he was sure they would see another soon enough. Mr. Livingston first opened the valve on one of the propane tanks then stood by the back door and waited. It didn’t take long, the creatures finally tore the window bars away and they seemed to fight to be the first ones in. They had all gathered there like sharks in frenzy. Mr. Livingston jerked the rear door open and made a sprint for it, he heard his friend fire once then twice and then there was a tremendous explosion. That was it and here they were.
“At least those damn things are not fire-proof” he said.
Poor Mrs. Livingston was choking back tears as her husband told the story and it was all I could do to not cry myself.
“He was a hero.” he said.
OMT and I both nodded, there was no denying that and there was nothing left to say.
Day 12
We spent the night with the Livingston’s, I slept on a couch and OMT slept in a rocking chair near the door, the Thompson machine gun in his lap. After breakfast we talked again and OMT reiterated the invitation for them to join us at the lodge, but this time it was Mrs. Livingston who spoke,
“Boys, we really do appreciate you asking but we just can’t go anyway right now.”
She looked to her husband whose expression seemed almost apologetic before she continued
“It’s Janae as well as our boy, Darnell, we have to wait, and he is in the army you know.”
OMT said “Yes, mam, I know he is.”
Before he could continue she went on
“Our boy is very clever and I know in my heart he is still alive and he will come home.”
The tiny, thin black woman with her grey hair wrapped in an old fashioned scarf suddenly looked like the strongest person at the table and I knew that there was no way we were going to convince her otherwise.
The discussion went on for another cup of coffee then OMT drew a map for them, showing them how to get to the lodge. He then went out to the truck and returned with our radio and with a semi-automatic shotgun. He told Mr. Livingston that it was a Stoeger 3500 and it took 3.5”, 3”, and 2.75” twelve gauge shells. He gave him a box of 3.5” slugs and two boxes of 3”magnum buck shot. He said he could mix them in the magazine anyway he pleased and that it would even use any of his 2.75” shells he had left over for his old gun. All I could do was shake my head at all the crap in OMTs head. He said that once he got to the private road, not to come up until he spoke to one of us on the radio, he said he would tell everyone about them in case something happened to him. Mr. Livingston first shook OMT’s hand then he turned and shook mine, just like I was full grown. Maybe in our new world I was.
We left that morning and made good time back to the exit but we had a little trouble finding the private road. It seemed that my sister had taken her assignment quite seriously and the turn off was quite hard to see even though we knew where it was supposed to be. OMT had me stay in the woods about 20 yards from the truck, just to keep an eye on it. He made his way up towards the lodge, wandering in a zig-zag manner up the hill. I was impressed with how meticulous he was but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t just walk up the road but eventually he disappeared behind the tree line.
I sat back and waited, my M-16 across my lap as I sat with my back against an old Elm tree; it was the first quiet moment that I had all to myself since this all began. I could just see the Freightliner parked on the near side of the road; I could see the road a little bit front and back of it as well and everything seemed quiet. My mind wandered a bit; I thought about the people we had lost, especially Mom and Billy. My stomach felt queasy as I thought about them and I had that feeling you get when you are starting to have a head ache. I thought about the Caulfields’ and that woman, what was her name? It upset me that I couldn’t remember it even though I had only met her once. I thought of Cpl. Jones and Blue and Pvt. Jackson. I even thought about
muscles
and
droopy pants
and the girl I now knew as Janae and all the others that were with them, how we had killed each and every one of them. I thought about their anger and their fear and their pain. I thought about the men we had killed the day before and how we had smeared their corpses on the asphalt like beef on sandpaper.
Suddenly I started to laugh, I knew it was crazy, but I couldn’t stop. People were the only ones who did this to themselves, animals didn’t do it; even the Zs didn’t do it. Just us. I laughed as quietly as I could; I laughed until tears burned my eyes and washed my cheeks. My head hurt as much as my heart and my sobs consumed me.
I heard a car coming down from the lodge and I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt. I rose from where I sat and walked over to the freightliner keeping my back to the approaching vehicle. I recognized the sound of our Humvee. Something in me had broken, snapped like a guitar string turned too tight and for that moment I really didn’t care if it was OMT and my friends or not. I didn’t care if I lived to see one more day or not; we were all dead.
A few moments later I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned to see OMT. He looked at me and I felt that he could see through me, that he knew what was in my heart.
“Are you okay John?” he asked me.
His eyes were small and dark brown, something I had never noticed before, and the brows were wild and crazy but he was focused on me intently. I knew he was trying to be kind, I knew at that moment that he actually cared. How sad at that moment I no longer did. I could not keep his gaze for long though so I turned and walked away, his hand falling away as if in slow motion. I wondered if I had hurt the old man, but it was not inside me to care; there was nothing inside. I thought at that very instance my heart was burnt black and turned to ash.
I don’t remember reaching the lodge or Elaine or Lucy speaking to me. I don’t remember Mrs. Driscol taking my gun away or her and Elaine putting me to bed. I don’t know how long I lay there, staring at the ceiling or when or if I ate. All I do know is at some time later that day, perhaps even that evening, I slept.
Day 13
Sometimes people break; they can’t go on to face another day. The walls close in around them; the air grows thick and unbreathable. The very voices that they need to hear the most merely swirl around them; a mad song of mumble words that hammers at their temples; makes them dizzy and they vomit; bile and despair sour on their tongues. That is what happened to me and I had no reason to believe that anything would ever be different.
While I lay nearly comatose the others listened to OMT’s tale. He told them everything he could remember while they unloaded the cab of the Freightliner. They took the rifles, shotguns and handguns from the bags and sorted the weapons and counted the ammunition. There was a reading room on the first floor and it was converted to an armory, each and every weapon was checked and checked again. He explained to them how the Zs were changing, becoming not only faster and harder to kill but smarter too, showing tactics and strategies. They tried to absorb the new information, process it in an intelligent manner but there was no simple way to do this except to just accept it. They were the enemy and there was no room for compassion, hesitation or mercy anymore. If humanity was to survive they would need to be just as brutal as the monsters we were to fight.