Just as Sampson got ready to explain his reasoning behind wanting to move at night, someone seemed to have thrown another bucket of shit at the fan. The first thought through Bobby’s mind is that Sampson is right about the crazies coming in the middle of the night. But what Sampson doesn’t know is that Bobby now thinks they are all going to die if they don’t get started fighting back. Troy jumped out of bed wearing nothing but his boxers when he heard the banging of a door. He kept waiving his handgun around in the air aimlessly, with the muzzle passing by Bobby and Sampson several times before they have a chance to calm him down. “What the fuck was that?” Troy wanted an answer fast or he’ll start shooting at whatever moves near him.
A loud scream comes from the room to their far right. It sounds like a woman at first, but Troy is convinced that it was a man. “Probably that wimp Jeffrey.”
“Shut up,” Bobby quietly said, not wanting to break the silence coming from their room. Sampson peeked out the corner of the window and was able to see the reflection of Betty and Jeffrey’s flashlights blaring on the windshield of the bus.
“I told those idiots to leave their flashlights off. Probably drew the crazies in with a light on trying to read a damn romance novel or something,” whispered Sampson. Growling noise seemed to be getting closer to Bobby’s room as Sampson continued to peek out of the corner of the window. The noise seemed to be getting closer and closer, but Sampson didn’t see it coming from near the bus or near the rooms to the right. What he didn’t know was that the noise was coming from around the left of the motel.
Troy ducked down in front of the door and tried to peek out of the other corner of the window, but couldn’t get a good look because the air conditioning unit was too close to the door along with the oddly misplaced night stand that should have been placed by the bed. Troy reached over and pulled the curtain back slightly. He froze with his mouth hanging open. Bobby stood looking at Troy and noticed his finger was tight on the trigger of the gun.
“What is it Troy?” asked Sampson. “What did you see?”
Troy started to speak, but not before Bobby pulled the gun from his hands so he wouldn’t shoot off a round and draw all the attention to them. More screaming came from the room next door where Jeffrey and Betty bedded down for the night. Troy lay down close to the ground and crawled to Sampson. “There must be a hundred of them fuckers out there.”
“A hundred? Are you serious?” Sampson got quite a surprise from Troy’s answer. Bobby quickly made his way to the floor and below the window. Sampson let go of the curtain slowly as not to draw attention to their room as several meat eating, blood thirsty crazy people walked by, clearly headed for the screaming that was coming from either Jeffrey or Betty, or probably both.
“Shit,” said Sampson. “I left Carl in his room down there.” Sampson seemed visibly upset that he left the man all by himself in this wartime environment they were in. Never leave a man behind, he thought, but it was too late now.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said Bobby.
“Not when he realizes that’s his nephew is in there screaming and being eaten alive,” said Troy. “We have to do something.”
“What,” said Sampson, “and be killed with the rest of them. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like being eaten alive. No way I’m going over there and playing hero for that twerp.” Sampson stepped back from the window and knelt down next to the table in the middle of the room. Troy looked confused that Sampson wouldn’t want to help, considering Sampson seemed like the one that would be the hero the entire time through this ordeal. Troy looked to Bobby and gave him a look of confusion. All Bobby could do was sit there and look just as confused. There were too many crazies outside of the room for them to bum rush the room next door and save Jeffrey and Betty. In fact, it was probably already too late. The screaming had stopped. Although they didn’t hear Betty scream, they had to assume that she died rather quickly, or by some chance of a miracle, she may have escaped through a window in the bathroom, which would be unlikely, considering Bobby and Troy’s room had no other windows except the main window in the front.
“What about Betty?” asked Bobby. “Do you think she got away?” Bobby looked at Sampson, hoping he would have the answer to all their current problems.
“I don’t know kid. If she was in there with him, then I would say no, but that Betty woman seemed a little off. She could be anywhere.” Sampson shrugged his shoulders and stared at Troy and Bobby for a moment. They all seemed to have the same thing on their mind. Where was Betty if she wasn’t in the room? No one heard her scream. Could she have snuck out earlier and hidden somewhere else, or did she leave them all and hit the road for home by herself. They didn’t know the answer and the only way of finding out would be to check the room next door after the crazies would leave.
“I hope Carl has some common sense and stays down in his room, too.” Sampson went back to the window and peeked out of the corner just enough not to draw attention to himself. “He’s a smart guy, but that’s his nephew being torn to shreds next door.”
“Do you have to say it like that,” said Troy. “You’re going to make me sick.” Troy grabbed his stomach in pain and felt as though he was going to throw up just thinking about what the meat eating crazy people were doing to Jeffrey’s body. They had all seen what the blood thirsty crazies could do to a man, but had not seen the finished after affects or what was left of anything except for bones that had been sucked dry.
“You don’t have time to be sick kid,” said Sampson. “We have to do something. We can’t sit in this room and hope they don’t hear us.”
“What do you suggest we do Sampson?” Bobby asked quickly. All Bobby could think about was getting out of the room alive and back home to Nikki and little Eddie. He wanted nothing more than for this crazy nightmare to be over. Time seems to be moving at the slowest pace anyone could imagine.
A loud gunshot rang out from next door and caused all three men to jump. Troy nearly fell to the floor out of fear of a bullet whizzing by coming through the wall. Sampson cocked his gun and pulled the curtain back to reveal a site that they had all hoped they wouldn’t see. Bobby ran up to the window as more gunshots rang out and screaming ensued.
Carl had made up his mind that he was going to go out fighting for his nephew and he wasn’t going to allow anything to stand in his way. Betty was no where to be found and Jeffrey was clearly dead as Sampson and Bobby watched a crazy person drag what was left of Jeffrey’s body out into the middle of the parking lot. His arms had been ripped from their sockets and another hostile was in the process of removing his right leg by gnawing through it. Carl kept shooting and shooting, taking down one crazy after another until he ran out of bullets. Then he resulted to using his fists to fight to the death.
There was no reason for Carl to go out the way he was going, but the other three men figured that Carl’s nephew was the only thing left keeping him going and now that Jeffrey was gone, Carl must have had no other reason to continue on in such a disturbed and messed up world.
“This guy is crazy,” yelled Troy as he watched Carl fist fighting the crazies. “He’s surely going to die.” Carl kept fighting and fighting, taking down one right after the other, being bitten on the arms and the back as the bloodthirsty mad people started surrounding him.
“They are going to kill him, but this could be our chance to escape,” said Bobby.
“What are you talking about?” asked Sampson. Troy and Sampson looked at Bobby as he stood there holding the keys to the school bus. “You’re a smart man there Bobby. Let’s get the fuck out of Dodge.”
“I second that shit. Let’s go” Troy cocked his gun and took several deep breaths, preparing to open the door. Bobby grabbed his gun off the bed and checked to make sure there is a bullet in the chamber, ready to take down one of the hostiles as soon as they step out of the motel room.
“Here’s the plan,” said Bobby. “We have to move quick. We have—”
“No time to think kid,” yelled Sampson as he interrupted Bobby. “Let’s go.” He jerked the door open and took down the first crazy standing in the doorway that blocked their clear path to the bus. There was really no need for Bobby to explain the plan of action. They all three pretty much knew they had to get to the bus or they would be as dead as Jeffrey and soon to be Carl. They all three burst through the door way, pushing through the crazies and knocking them over like they were rushing for a last second touchdown in a super bowl game.
Carl screamed out in pain as he was being bitten on the neck, “Hurry up and get out of here. Save yourselves.” Another crazy jumped on Carl’s back and took a large bite out of his jugular vein, causing blood to spurt across the sidewalk and onto the front of the bus. He began to choke and fell to his knees. He kept fighting to the very end as Bobby fiddled with the keys to the bus.
“Hurry up and unlock the damn thing,” yelled Troy as he started empting his gun and riddling the crazies with bullets.
Without hesitation, Sampson took three well-aimed shots at the lock on the bus door and it popped opened. The three men rushed inside the bus and shoved the door closed, barely escaping the madness of the ensuing crazies massing outside of the motel. Bobby started the bus with ease after having figured out he was trying to use the ignition key to unlock the bus. He thought to himself for a moment that he was glad he didn’t break the key off in the door lock or they would have ended up going down in a bloody mess just as Carl and Jeffrey had a few moments before.
Bobby threw the bus into reverse and floored the gas pedal. It was probably the first time that a school bus had burned rubber, especially in reverse. Troy and Sampson were thrown against the dashboard and windshield, cracking it with a long jagged split up the middle. The bus shook as the wheels hopped off the ground after running over at least three bodies while going backwards. Bobby threw it in forward gear and did the same thing, except this time, throwing Troy and Sampson onto the seats and the floor behind the little yellow “do not pass while bus is in motion” line. Bobby again ran over more crazies as he sped out of the parking lot and onto the main road. One crazy seemed to be braver than the others as it held onto the mirror on the driver’s side of the bus. Blood was dripping down the crazy’s mouth as it stared Bobby in the eyes. Bobby had never heard one of them speak since all of this started going down that morning, but he could see in the crazy’s eyes that it was telling him to pull over so it could eat them alive.
“Fuck that,” said Bobby as he jerked the steering wheel to the right. The crazy still held on until Bobby jerked the wheel back to the front again, all the while throwing Troy and Sampson around in the back of the bus. The crazy let go this time and fell under the wheels of the bus. A loud thump came from the rear tires as Bobby kept driving north on the highway.
“Holy shit Bobby,” said Sampson. “Are you done throwing us around like we’re a bunch of fucking school kids on this bus or what?”
“I second that,” said Troy. “Where are we going?”
“I think we should head North to the Miller farm and see if we can get some answers to what’s been going on here. Then I’m headed home.”
“I suppose we should do that,” said Sampson. “We’re only about ten miles from the farm so take it easy.”
THE CURE
The three men neared the Miller farm just as the light began to break a new day over the hills of Kentucky. A heavy fog blocked the view of most of the farmland that is spread across the southern area of the state. Sampson pointed to a small sign that identified the road as leading to the Miller farm so Bobby took the turn. The paved road quickly turned to gravel and the bus shook and rattled as they crept slowly down the side road. They parked the school bus far back from the Miller house and waited for the morning fog to clear before going any further. They were at the heart of the madness and at the doorsteps of hell on earth. Miller’s livestock had been the first to die and caused the chain of events that followed. Bobby and Sampson had both been to war, but this unknown situation made them feel unlike anything they felt in combat. The fear of the unknown. They had been fighting an enemy that had no leadership or followed any rules. It had literally been every man for himself for the past two days.
It seemed like an eternity had past when the fog finally lifted and made the house and the rest of the farm visible in the morning light. Bobby started the school bus and pulled further down the gravel driveway. At first they didn’t see much of anything out of the ordinary until they got closer to the house. The white vans that belonged to the government sat in the same position they were in when Sampson had last been to the farm on the night of the drive-in incident. He wished that he had returned to the farm and helped the scientists and the CDC personnel on that night. Maybe he could have done more to prevent the horrible incidents that followed on the next day. So many lives had been lost and Sampson felt part of the way responsible. He wondered to himself if it could have all turned out differently had he been there that night to help. It made finding a cure all that more important to him. The equipment that the Department of Agriculture had setup over the past few days had been left untouched and the place looked abandoned. The place seemed to be in some kind of a damned hole that let in no sound or any other living thing.
The three of them looked around for anyone or anything that could pose a potential threat to them. The gruesome look of the decomposing cattle in the field gave them all a weird feeling in their gut that anything could happen at moments notice. The majority of weapons had been left at the hotel near Portland and it was too unsafe to return there should anything happen. The missing personnel and the left behind equipment made them feel uneasy. Sampson wondered for a moment where his men had gone considering they were supposed to be working at the farm the morning the shit hit the fan. He thought to himself that maybe they had just wondered off after turning insane. Or they could be wondering around in Miller’s home and chewing away on what was left of Miller if he hadn’t turned into one them himself.
“Look over there,” said Troy as he pointed to the mass of dead cows out in the field. “Look at all those dead cows.” There were no flies or buzzards swarming around the cattle and the proper process of decomposition was not doing what nature had intended it to do.
“Is this how this whole thing actually started Sampson?” asked Bobby as he parked the bus in front of the Miller house. “Is this why everyone went bat shit crazy and started killing each other?” He turned off the bus and put it in park. He turned to Sampson and watched as he stared out into the field. Sampson seemed to have no emotion to his face as he peered out the window into the vast open farmland at the distant cows that had been dead for days.
“I think so, but I never got the opportunity to finish conducting the tests.” Sampson checked his gun to see how many bullets he had left just in case anyone was still around the Miller farm, particularly Mr. Miller. “If we could finish conducting the tests, then we could tell what vaccine would be needed to fight off this madness.”
“How do you know there is a vaccine?” asked Troy. He looked at Sampson with squinted eyes and bit down hard on his lower lip. It was a simplest way Troy could ask the question and he hoped for a quick simple answer that would be logical and have good reason for holding back on such vital information about a cure. If there really is one.
“I may as well let you both in on this now,” said Sampson. He took a deep breath and tried to make the words leave his mouth. He looked at Bobby then to Troy.
“What are you talking about?” asked Bobby. Bobby looked at Sampson, knowing that Sampson knew more than he was telling anyone the entire time about this entire mess. Could Sampson be behind this madness, thought Bobby.
“There is a cure for this disease that has struck everyone, but we have to finish conducting the test here at ground zero to know exactly which vaccine should be used.” It hurt to speak the words, but Sampson had no other choice than to tell the only two men left that could help him with the testing that needs to be done. Without them, the cure would be just a theory and nothing more.
Troy grabbed Sampson by the collar and raised his fist to punch him. “You son of a bitch. You knew the entire time that we were fucked, and you could have done something about it.” He reared his arm back further, ready to let his hardest punch go at Sampson’s jaw. He swung.
Sampson ducked his head and pushed Troy to the floor of the bus and put his foot on Troy’s chest. “First off, the next time you grab me, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Second, if I disclosed this information without finishing the test, people would be trying to raid every pharmacy between here and California searching for the vaccine. If they take the wrong vaccine, they die. I agreed to go to Nashville with Carl and Jeffrey because we were under a lot of pressure from the crazies up here. I needed more reinforcements, which I thought that I could get in Nashville, but I found out that plan had gone to shit when we ran into you two.” Bobby looked at Sampson and knew that Sampson had to be telling the truth. There was nothing he could have done without more help, but now they are in the same situation of having only three of them, but this time, they must continue the testing and figure out which vaccine will stop the madness. Sampson continued: “I was wrong to hope the men that I left here that morning would be able to finish the testing by themselves. I don’t know what happened to them or if they turned into crazies themselves or if that crazy son of a bitch Miller took them out with his shotgun then ate their fucking bodies. I don’t know what happened, but I do know that we can’t sit here and argue about how shit’s ended up like this. The only important thing now is that we work together to try and un-fuck this mess.” He looked down at Troy on the floor who had his hands around Sampson’s ankle that rested on his chest. “So are you with me or against me, because there sure as hell ain’t a lot of people to be taking different sides right now.”
Bobby stared at Sampson and then looked to Troy as though he was going to base his opinion about the situation on what Troy thinks. He looked at Sampson. “How sure are you that you can find the cure to this disease?”
“Pretty damn sure. Hell, if I’m wrong, at least we would have tried.”
“Then I’m with you,” said Bobby. He looked at Troy who had been breathing heavily with the cowboy boot pressed against his chest. Troy stared back at Bobby and then looked long and hard at Sampson.
“Alright,” said Troy. “I get it. Now let me up.” Sampson took his foot off Troy’s chest and helped him stand up. “So what do we do now?” Troy rubbed his chest and took several deep breaths to make up for the air he had been deprived of throughout the entire conversation.
“We’re going to finish the testing,” said Sampson. “If, and I mean if, we find a cure for this shit we’re going to raid every fucking hospital and pharmacy we can find around here. We’ll collect up as much as we can and anyone we come across in the process we’ll try to give them an injection.”
“There’s not a liquid form?” asked Troy.
Bobby and Sampson looked at Troy as though he asked what color the sky is.
Sampson shook his head and said, “Once that is done then I’ll make sure that you two have enough to take back with you for your return trip to Wyoming if that is where you’re going. I’ll stay here and do what I can. If we can give people the vaccine before it’s too late, then we can probably at least save some of the population. Not that much of it would have been worth saving anyway.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Troy with a smirk to his face.
“Just tell us what we need to do,” said Bobby. Bobby took off his seat belt and stood up between the aisle and the front seats of the bus, breaking the yellow
DO NOT CROSS
line with his heels. He put his hand out for Sampson to shake. “Thanks for being honest with us about this Sampson.” Sampson looked down and shook Bobby’s hand. Troy hesitated then reluctantly put his hand out for Sampson to shake. Whether Troy wanted to or not they were all in it together until the very end, which seemed all to close. They shook hands and everything seemed fine for a moment until the silence was broken when they noticed an old man drinking beer and bloody all down the front of his shirt and walking staggered toward the bus. As the old man inched closer to the bus it made the mood much more uncomfortable for the men inside.
“Who the fuck is that?” asked Troy. He raised his pistol and pointed it out the window at the old man. He pulled the hammer back and placed his finger tight against the trigger. With anymore pull the gun would certainly go off, sending a bullet deep into the man’s chest or his head, whichever place Troy unknowingly aimed.
“That’s old man Miller,” said Sampson. “This is his farm.” Miller staggered across the gravel driveway and even closer to the bus. He was clearly drunk, but the three men didn’t know whether Miller had changed into one of the crazy people or if he had been hurt by one of them. The blood covering the front of his shirt didn’t give comfort to the situation. It could be from ripping away someone’s jugular with his bare teeth or he could have spilled blood from a crazy he killed, or maybe both. Miller staggered out of the driveway and into the front lawn. He tripped over a log laying in the front yard as he wobbled toward the bus and fell face first on the ground. He lay there and didn’t move.
“Do you think he’s dead,” asked Troy as he kept his gun pointed at Miller.
“I’ll go check,” said Bobby. He checked his gun and opened the door to the bus.
“No,” said Sampson as he grabbed Bobby’s arm. “That’s not a good idea. What if he’s just wounded or pretending?”
Bobby looked out the window at Miller’s body lying in the grass. “What if he’s hurt and needs our help?”
“That’s a good point,” said Troy, “but what if he’s just pretending like Sampson said?” The three of them leaned against the inside of the bus windows with their knees on the seats.
“I don’t think he’s pretending anything. We haven’t seen one of those crazy assholes pretending anything since all this started to happen. All they do is eat and eat until they’re fucking dead.”
“Good point,” said Troy. He shrugged his shoulders and looked to Sampson.
Sampson doesn’t like the idea, but it clearly is going to be two against one on this decision. “Alright, just be careful. Troy and I will cover you from in here.”
“Okay,” said Bobby. He checked his pistol once again, forgetting that he had already done so. He felt his legs shaking and his heart started beating quickly. It reminded him of having to take the chance of stepping on an IED in the war. You didn’t know if it was an IED or just a bag of trash or an old tire. You never knew until it took off the legs of your best friend.
Bobby stepped out of the bus and walked around the front. He kept his left arm brushed against the grille of the bus and slowly walked around toward where Miller lay in the grass. Sampson and Troy provided cover by holding their guns out of the bus window. They kept their fingers glued to the trigger and slightly pulled back.
“Stay to the right, Bobby, so we can get a clear shot,” said Sampson. “Don’t want to shoot you in the back. Not after we made it this far.”
“That wouldn’t be a great start to my day now would it,” said Bobby as he kept his gun pointed at Miller and walked even slower. The leaves on the ground made the slightest crunching noise under his shoes with each step. There was no escaping the sounds of nature when man interfered.
“This is crazy,” said Troy. “We should just shoot him anyway.”
“If he’s not one of them, then that would be murder,” said Sampson as he took better aim at Miller’s body. “You don’t want to murder anyone do you?”
Troy looked at Sampson, “Haven’t we been murdering people for the past two days?”
“That doesn’t count.”
Bobby inched closer to Miller’s body that seemed to lay lifeless on the ground. He stepped closer and closer until he was only an arm’s length away from Miller. The breath coming from Bobby’s mouth was so heavy and warm it seemed like little clouds of smoke coming from his lungs and out into the coolness of the autumn morning. He leaned down and reached his arm out slowly to touch Miller’s neck for a pulse. His heart raced hard and his breathing seemed to be playing catch up. He held his other hand tight around the pistol in his hand.
Sampson and Troy watched with much anticipation and felt that it was taking too long for Bobby to figure out if Miller is dead or alive. They were both ready to shoot either way.
Bobby’s fingers nearly touched the side of Miller’s neck. He could feel the warmness of the old man’s body on the tips of his fingers, as he is now only an inch away from finding a pulse.