“What the hell was that?” asked Troy. He rose up from the seat and looked over the steering wheel. Bobby pulled himself up and looked out of the windshield himself, both of them not realizing that whatever they ran over would be behind the bus. Bobby’s blood was pumping fast and his heart was racing. He had been the only one to see that the walking figure in front of the bus had been a teenager.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Bobby as he crossed his hands and grabbed his stomach. “I think we just ran over a kid.”
Troy’s jaw dropped down to his chest and his eyes bulged out of their sockets as he looked at Bobby, stunned at the words that had just come out of Bobby’s mouth. Troy had killed in the war, but never so much as harmed a child. The men he had killed were the enemy and were dead set on killing him and his Infantry Battalion. Troy could squeeze the trigger with ease in the face of death, but a child? No sir. That was never on his agenda. Troy swallowed a lump in his throat the seemed like the size of a baseball and managed to put a few words together and said, “Do you think he’s dead?”
Bobby nodded his head slowly as he stared at Troy. They both simultaneously turned their heads and looked at the rear emergency exit of the bus. Without saying anything, they both slowly walked to the back, Bobby in front and Troy following closely behind. They got to the back and stood side-by-side, leaning on the brown bus seats. Troy put a hand over his mouth and began to shake as if it were ten degrees below zero. Bobby stood frozen as he looked at the mangled body twenty feet behind the bus.
“Oh my God,” said Troy as he trembled. “I can’t believe I just killed a kid man.” Tears started to drip from the corners of his eyes. “I’ll go to jail forever. I’ve been drinking.”
“I don’t think you’re going to jail. Besides, I don’t think anyone is ever going to notice.” Bobby shook his head and looked over to Troy. “I don’t want to be cold, but it’s not like we can get out and check on him. Look what happened to Frank—and he was in the bus. It was probably one of those crazy people anyway.”
“It still doesn’t change the fact I’m a murderer now.”
“I think you’re exempt from those laws for the time being. We can’t sit here. What’s done is done. He was probably crazy anyways. We have to keep moving now.” Bobby turned and walked to the front of the bus. “I’ll drive from here. You just sit with Betty and make sure she doesn’t freak out when she wakes up.” He sat in the driver seat and restarted the engine.
Troy nodded and walked to the front. He lifted Betty from the floorboard and laid her back on the seat. She was still unconscious. Troy was scared for a moment that he had killed Betty also, so he checked her pulse and was relieved when he felt the blood pumping through the vein in her neck. He sat down in the seat across from her and put his head in his hands. His shoulders jerked up and down as he cried quietly. He kept his head down below the seat so that Bobby couldn’t see him in the rearview mirror. He was upset that he had not only killed a kid, but that he had been drinking when he did it. He thought to himself that he would have been okay with it if the kid had been one of the crazy people, but he would never know for sure. He would be afraid for a long time, never knowing whether or not the teenager was one of the hostiles.
On the ground behind the bus, the teenager had just enough life left in him to turn his head toward the bus. He looked at the rear of the bus and let out a faint growl and hissed.
Bobby put the bus in gear and pulled away down the street, leaving short tire marks imprinted with blood on the pavement. He kept a fast pace, but slower than Troy had been. He didn’t want any more mishaps the rest of the way to Kentucky. It would not be the final stop in the trip, but Bobby wanted to see the farm he was supposed to be visiting for his news story. For some strange reason, he felt as though Kentucky was the ground zero for this whole ordeal. He hoped that the craziness had not spread across the country and that his wife and son were fine, but without a working phone or any other means of communication, he would be wondering for a long while until he would reach home. He knows that Troy will travel with him for the entire trip back to Wyoming, which would hopefully not take more than a couple of days, but could take longer if Troy decides he no longer wants to drive after killing the kid with the bus. Bobby was not so sure about Betty. If she does not flip out after waking up, she may stay along for the ride until he reaches St. Louis. She would surely get off the bus there being that it is her hometown. She may have different plans before getting that far. She may decide to sneak off the bus and go back to look for Frank after they make their first pit stop. A woman in her condition, having just lost her husband of several years, would certainly be in no condition to travel alone.
“I’m driving us to Kentucky,” said Bobby as he steered the bus around stalled cars and trucks. “Just north of the state line.”
Troy wiped his eyes and looked up at Bobby, seeing his reflection in the rearview mirror. “What for?” asked Troy.
“I think it may be where this whole thing started. I don’t know if there is anything there that can help to stop it, or if there is any explanation to why it started, but I feel I need to at least check it out. Not just for me, but for my friend, Pete.”
“I understand,” said Troy, “but after that I want to head straight back to Wyoming.”
“That’s the plan.” Bobby slowed the bus down and edged it slowly between two stalled utility trucks blocking an intersection. A sign just on the other side read I-65 2 MILES AHEAD. “I’m going to need your help driving from there. Will you feel up to it?”
“I think I can by that time. Let’s just get this over with quick. I don’t want to sound like a whiney child, but I really do want to go home.”
“I do, too. I wish there was a way that I could check on my wife and son. I hope they are okay.”
“Hopefully they’ll be fine.” Troy leaned back in the seat. The tears had stopped dripping from his eyes, but he still felt like he was going to burst into tears any moment. He would be scarred for life, not only from running over the child, but also from all the near death experiences of the day. He looked down at the floorboard and leaned his head against the seatback in front of him.
Bobby drove the bus another two miles down the road and took the northbound entrance ramp onto Interstate 65. There were numerous cars blocking the lanes, but the side of the road looked to be mostly clear. They were another forty miles from ground zero.
They drove about twenty miles down the interstate and could go no further because of an overturned semi-truck. The double trailers were long enough to block both lanes. Bobby made the decision to back the bus up about a quarter of a mile to the last exit they had passed. A sign at the exit reading US31 gave them renewed hope that they could make it the rest of the way before it got too late in the day. Troy and Bobby had agreed to find a hotel along the side of the road once Bobby saw ground zero.
Route 31 was fairly clear compared to the interstate. Betty was still asleep and Bobby stayed behind the wheel of the bus for the whole trip. They hadn’t see a living soul the twenty miles they had driven on the interstate. There were more dead bodies than they had seen since the plane crash. Most had died in horrific car crashes. Some had crashed because their passengers had gone crazy and started attacking the driver, causing a chain reaction of pile-ups. Even though a majority of everyone seemed to have gone crazy, most of the gore on the interstate was a result of crashing. There were mangled bodies that had been torn into large chunks from 18-wheelers splitting cars in half. The worse that Bobby and Troy had seen was a compact car that had been flattened by an overturned bus. The driver of the compact had been squished and his insides were squeezed out like a smashed tomato. The part that had nearly made Bobby throw up in his mouth was seeing the driver with his guts hanging out of his mouth, which dangled down one side of the driver’s cheek and down to the ground like a long necktie. Troy could not make himself look at the squashed driver. He kept his head turned the entire time toward the opposite side of the interstate. Betty was the luckiest of them for having stayed unconscious for the duration of the trip. She slept peacefully with no dreams, while Bobby kept driving and Troy kept weeping over the kid he ran over.
“I think we’re only twenty miles or so from Kentucky,” said Bobby. “We should be there shortly if we don’t run into anything else crazy along the way.”
“I don’t think things can get much crazier than they already are.” Troy looked at Bobby and watched him drive.
“I wouldn’t talk like that. The last person that talked like that got eaten alive by a bunch of fucking cannibals.” Bobby looked in the rearview mirror at Troy. They stared at each other for a brief moment then looked over to the seat at Betty. She had started to awaken and was moaning as she slowly sat up. “She’s waking up,” said Bobby. “Check on her.”
Troy put his hands on her shoulders and held her up as she glanced around the bus.
“Where—am—I?” asked Betty. She squinted her eyes and held one of her hands to her forehead. “My head hurts.” She looked at Troy and shook her head. She was stunned at this strange man that was sitting beside her. “Who are you? Get away from me!” She jerked herself loose from Troy’s arm that was draped over her shoulders.
“Relax lady. It’s me Troy.” He tried to grab her hand to calm her down. “You passed out.”
“Let go of me,” she said as she quickly stepped over his legs and into the aisle of the bus. “Where’s my husband? Frank. Where are you?” She looked to the back and to the front. “Frank.”
Bobby kept switching his attention from the road to the rearview mirror and back to the road again. “Calm down Betty. Take a seat before you fall.” Bobby looked back to the road just in time to miss a stalled car. The swerving of the short yellow school bus sent Troy sliding against the sidewall, banging his head on the window. He let out a loud groan when his head made contact with the glass. Betty was thrown into one of the seats and fell to the floor.
“Where is my husband?” Betty jumped up from the floor as Troy jumped into the aisle to keep her from running to the front.
He grabbed Betty by the shoulders and shook her. “He’s dead woman. He was pulled out of the window in front of your own eyes. You watched it. He’s dead.”
Her mood changed immediately. She looked Troy in the eyes and her mouth hung open like a child watching the ice cream man speed away without ever stopping. “He’s dead?” She knew Frank was dead, but she asked anyway. She started shaking her head and sat down in the seat. “Frank is dead...My sweet husband is dead.” She dropped her head down into her hands and started to cry. Troy sat down beside her and held her closely and comforted her.
Bobby watched and listened to the grieving woman in the rearview mirror. The road was mostly clear the further north they had gone and no one normal seemed to be close, except for the large police vehicle sitting on the southbound side of the road. Bobby looked closely to see the lettering across the top of the vehicle. It read KENTUCKY STATE POLICE. A closer look gave Bobby the answer to the question he had been asking himself as he drove closer.
Yes, there are people alive in there. I see the driver watching me. He looks normal from here. God I hope they are normal.
Troy and Betty watched without question as Bobby pulled the yellow school bus to the side of the road, keeping a good distance from the police vehicle just in case Bobby’s decision turned sour.
The three men in the police vehicle stepped out with their weapons in hand. They stood watching as Bobby stopped the bus and turned off the ignition. Bobby decided they should get out of the bus and meet the only normal looking people they had seen since Nashville.
NEW FRIENDS
“My name is Sergeant Carl Anderson and this is my nephew Jeffrey,” said Sergeant Anderson. “and that’s Mr. Sampson right there.” Sergeant Anderson extended his hand to welcome Bobby, Troy, and Betty to their group. They all shook hands. They were all happy that they had finally come across more people that seemed like they were normal.
“Where are you headed Sergeant?” asked Troy.
“You can call me Carl. I don’t think there is much need for titles right now.” Carl chuckled. “I don’t think I’m going to be writing any tickets for awhile from the looks of this mess. We were headed to Nashville to in hopes to find reinforcements to handle our situation in Franklin, Kentucky. Nashville was the closest major city to us.”
“Well,” said Bobby. “You won’t find any reinforcements in Nashville. It’s complete chaos down there.”
“What do you mean chaos?” Sampson asked. He tilted his hat back and put his hands in his pockets.
“We’re the only normal people that came out alive. We had four, but—”
Betty interrupted and said, “My husband was killed by those bloodthirsty sons of bitches.” Bobby frowned and felt pity for Betty. She seemed to no longer be mourning Frank’s untimely death, but instead she had the look of revenge in her face and the sound of it in her voice. She’s ready to start engaging the fight against the hostiles along with the others now.
“They took him through the window of our bus and mutilated him,” said Bobby. He looked at Betty and hoped that his words wouldn’t upset her anymore than she had been on the bus. She didn’t seem to mind at this point.
“We’ve seen the same thing in Franklin and in some spots on our way down here,” said Jeffrey. “What were you guys heading north for?”