We left there with bulging backpacks and smiles all around. We were on our way back to the hotel when we came upon the most unexpected roadblock, a cow. The cow was thinner than it should be, but was not at the stage where I'd wonder when the last time she ate was. She was probably the animal from that barn that was set free. I did find it funny that whoever opened the doors probably did it so the animal could be free to run, but she stuck around anyway, and now she was going to be dinner. Matt pulled out his rifle and fired a single shot into her brain. She fell to the ground instantly and stayed there.
"Huh, well I vote that we skip the stew idea tonight and make a steak dinner instead." Matt said, rather pleased with himself. I laughed.
We went back to the hotel to find rope from our wagons and returned to our cow. We tied it up to drag it across the street and into the hotel parking lot. All twelve of us took a hold of the rope and pulled. Once our prize was in the parking lot, we butchered the cow, built a fire, and started cooking.
I noticed that Matt and his boys, while they were having a good time, seemed to be a little off. They were tense and kept making trips around the building with their guns at the ready. They said that they were worried about the smell that the cow blood would have on local dead, and that made sense to be worried, but the tension in their jaws seemed to be dispropor
tionate to the situation. It took me a moment, but it finally occurred to me that the last time we were at a hotel and there was a ton of blood in the parking lot, their mother was lying there, dying. They stayed near their wagon, even opting to sleep in there instead of a room. I didn't know what to say, so I let them be. They really didn't need someone hovering in their space while they tried to process their feelings.
All those proteins and fats were going straight to my brain and it chased out any mental cobwebs. I felt like I could think again, like I was human. Lacey and I stayed up most of the night cooking what we could of the cow to put in food storage. Cooked meat was likely to last longer, but we knew it wasn't going to last forever. At least for the moment we were doing well.
We were just packing down when the sun peeked out over the horizon in the east. The guys woke up with the dawn and went to retrieve the horses and refill the feed trailer with as much hay and feed as they could find. I imagined the poor horses wanted to object leaving this perfectly good place. I felt badly for them, they were going from a few very easy days to the return of heavy hauling. Lacey and I helped hook the horses back up to the wagon and after that was done, we both went to bed in our trailers as the guys drove the horses closer to our destination.
Every twelve hours, we stopped and made camp. The rest of Michigan was full of empty, quiet places. There were a couple of towns here and there, but the majority of them were abandoned with one or two zombie stragglers that we shot if they were too close for comfort, but otherwise we let them be. At each camp point, the kids went to tend to the horses, feeding them, brushing them, and making sure they were alright. I was proud of them that they did this without needing to be told to do it, and it seemed to actually make them happy. It took 4 days doing the on-twelve-off-twelve system, and over all, it took us 25 days to cross Michigan.
This was the slow trip that I expected, and now we were about to cross into Canada rather than risk going near the militia states.
Canadian Crossing
We approached the Canadian border in Sault St. Marie with trepidation, having the intention of crossing into the sister city by the same name in Canada. I went to Mexico when I was a teen and I remembered those serious check points. After the terrorist attack on the country on 9/11, I saw on the news that they were harder to get through. If it were just a matter of more staff checking people, I wouldn't be so concerned. Now there were bottle-necked access points that could be sealed, and I imagined that the first thing they did when swarms of undead monsters were everywhere was close the access points.
When the roads grew more congested, we had to stop to clear a path. While we were moving cars I voiced my worries to Matt.
"It's not like that up here. A lot of the time, the passages are really easy to use. Now, my big theory is that the United States entrance side will be wide open. I mean, if we heard that there was a killer virus in Canada, how many people would be rushing the gates to get closer to it? I would expect to see people leaving the United States and that side of the border crossing should be clogged to hell. We can just slide through the incoming lanes."
"What if the bridge is totally unusable?" I asked, as I tried to keep the fear out of my voice.
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, won't we." Matt winked at me and actually smiled at his pun as I rolled my eyes.
I felt sore and stiff as we kept moving cars. It was only a couple of years since we last did this, but it felt like I aged half of a century since then. When we found narrow pockets of space, we took them. I walked the horses through the maze like paths, patting the animals on their faces as I murmured nonsensical assurances to them. The closer we were to the bridge, the worse things were. We traveled along the side roads, away from the main route, until we reached to the banks of the river where we could finally see the bridge.
There was no way we were going to be able to cross it. Cars jammed both sides, bumper to bumper. It would take months of moving cars, and that was a task that, while it could be done, would take more energy than it was worth.
"Damn," Trent hissed under his breath, "It's fucked. We went all this way and now we have to double back and pray for another way. God damn it!" Trent looked like he was on the losing end of a long fight, and to be honest, he was. We all were. I wrapped my arms around his waist from behind and buried my face against his back. I stood like that for a minute until I turned my head and pressed my cheek against him. From this position, I watched the kids kick the rocks at their feet, while the adults stood with their hands buried in their pockets or wrapped their fingers in their hair, as they prayed for some kind of miracle to come.
It was during this calling for intervention, that Lucas wandered around the brush to the banks of the river and lifted his hand up to shade the sunlight from his eyes. He stopped his scanning, as his eyes locked on a fixed point. He was studying something in the distance, and I tried to follow his line of sight, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Finally, the suspense was too much for me and I had to ask.
"Lucas, what on earth are you so fixated on?"
He turned and smiled at me then said, "A boat."
I undoubtedly gave him a look that conveyed a mixture of confusion and skepticism; a boat was going to be less than helpful when we had wagons and horses to get across, and he had to know that. It wasn't until he pointed at a small ferry boat just off shore, maybe half a block away, floating at the end of a long line that was still attached to a wooden pier that I understood his idea. I turned to face him, and saw the large smile on his face grow as he took in my impressed expression.
"I expect that we'll have to siphon fuel from any diesel vehicle in the area, but with the bridge there should be enough trucks that ran on it to be able to get across the river."
It was a great idea. Lucas called the others over and shared his ideas with them. We organized ourselves into groups and started on the task of finding fuel, something that should be an easy task.
Of course it wasn't as easy as we thought it could be, but that seemed to be a life theme; nothing was easy anymore, to the point of being almost cliché. It had been four years since the zombies came, and four years was a long time when things are just sitting still like a time capsule. Before the end of the world, I had no idea that fuel goes rancid to the point of being unusable, just like milk. Dead gas is a horrible smell, and there really isn't anything to compare the smell to. We found more trucks with bad fuel than we did with good fuel, and even more often, the vehicles were just left running until the last drop of fuel was gone. When we found fuel that hadn't gone bad, it was most often in those little red gas cans. I wondered if the caps helped keep the decomposition rate down or if it was just luck. I was super grateful for all the people that had the thought to find a gas can before going to Canada, but the good diesel filled cans were few and far between. None of us had any idea how much fuel it would take to cross the river, and we hoped that the cans we were able to scavenge would be enough.
Our scavenging efforts had not gone unnoticed. We anticipated that we would come across the dead that were still trapped in cars that we passed, but we didn't take into account that since they had been starving for years they would become more vocal in their agitation about not being able to reach more food. We took out the ones that were the loudest about our presence, but the damage that they did by making noise was done. The dead that weren't trapped followed the sounds that the trapped made in the hunt for food. It was almost like they were announcing for everyone that fresh meat was right here for the taking, and if they couldn't eat us, someone should. In a manner of minutes, a simple fuel grab was becoming more trouble than not. As the dead grew into a small swarm, we made our way back to the wagon, firing our arrows to take out the rotting pursuers as quietly as possible.
Matt and Lucas were already at the dock, and they pulled on the rope to get the boat in a position where we could board it. There was the possibility that the boat was dead, and we weren't going to know if it worked until someone climbed in and tried it. Once they pulled it in, Matt jumped on the platform and started to check the tanks. He motioned to the rest of us in a semi-cryptic pantomime to indicate that there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. He gave up the gestures after that, probably because we were giving him bizarre looks. He leaned over the side rail and called out to us.
"Tank's empty though. I can't turn it over to test it if there's nothing in there; it'll damage the whole thing if I run it dry. But I am a little worried that we will find out that it is totally dead and have wasted gas on this."
We decided that it was worth the risk anyway, and Trent ran the fuel up the dock to put one can in the tank, and for a few moments we held our collective breath as the engine was tested. It took a few cranks but suddenly the engine rumbled to life. Matt tested the controls while the boat was still tethered to the dock and everything seemed to work just fine. We had a boat. Matt parked the boat next to the dock and Lucas and Trent tethered it down so we could start loading.
The horses didn't seem too keen on the idea of boarding a boat. The first step the lead horse made onto the floating surface made him nervous, and it was clear that he needed to be coaxed on. It was time to break out the big guns. At one of the houses we passed the day before, there were apples that were hanging on the trees and we picked them almost clean. When the horse started to refuse to get on the boat, I went into one of the wagons and pulled a few out. I cut a wedge from one of the apples and gave it to the horse. It worked. He wanted the rest of the fruit so he walked with me as I kept it just out of reach until he was all the way on. I did this with all of the other horses, and once we were all on, we took off.
The small ferryboat wobbled on the trip across the river, and I felt like every bump we hit was going to be the final draw in our little boat. When we reached the other side, I wanted to kiss the ground we landed on. We unloaded quickly, anxious to get back on the road.
We had a welcoming party. The noise of the boat engine drew the attention of the dead. We went into high alert mode, and fired on the horde. We needed to get going through the pack, but we couldn't risk the horses or ourselves in the process. Those of us that weren't trying to steer the horses, climbed on top of the wagons and fired on the crowd of dead, like we were playing a reenactment of Cowboys and Indians. When we ran out of arrows, we had to break out the guns. It still felt weird to give a rifle to Drew, Liam, and Abigail. I still saw them as children. Drew and Liam were 14 years old, and Abigail was almost 11. They grew up in spite of the end of the world, and were surprisingly good at the whole shooting thing.
So this was Canada. I was not impressed with my first visit. It didn't look any different than the United States, and the zombies were not more polite than the American version, they just wanted to eat us.
We pushed through the horde until we were finally clear of our welcoming party and started back on the road. It felt unreal to be back on track after our detours. We estimated that it would take thirteen days to reach Ottawa after we crossed the border, and we were more or less right. By the time we reached there, we were about out of supplies. The large wagon was almost empty, and was becoming more of a hassle than an asset. We were so close to the end of our journey, but we were facing a major issue that might prove to be our failing point. We had been on the road for two and a half months and we were tired. Something as simple as the lack of ammunition felt like the end of the world to our tired brains.
We found an outdoor sporting goods store to hopefully replenish our ammunition. We found a couple of boxes of .22 bullets and a few packages of arrows, but that was all of the ammunition that we could find. Trent took a few packages of tent poles to make into more arrows. Lacey and I were trying to find the freeze dried camping food, but every last packet had already been taken.
The lack of resources was really bringing us down. We decided to set up camp and go on a hunt, but we didn't have a whole lot of hope that we were going to find anything beyond more zombies. Indeed we found more zombies, but what we also found gave us hope.
We found a camp of people. Trent, Drew, and I were off on our direction looking for food, and were only coming across squirrels and rabbits. It was better than nothing, and I reminded myself of that often. We pushed deeper into the woods looking for something else to hunt when we heard the unexpected sound of laughter. At first we were concerned about the idea of new people. We were so used to our isolated existence that we were nervous about interacting with them. We crept along until we found their camp, and as we watched them, we realized they were a lot like us. There were a mixture of people in tents, and we saw children playing a game of tag.
I pointed out to Trent that it might freak them out if they discovered a group of people watching them, so we cautiously let our presence be known. The group was understandably apprehensive at first, and the men immediately took a defensive stance. Here we were, a cluster of strangers that stumbled on them, and they didn't know if we were alright any more than we did them. It helped that we were a family unit that stumbled on them, and after a little bit of awkward attempts at an introduction, they accepted us into their area. Trent explained that we were part of a larger group and he convinced them to let him go for the rest of them. Trent kissed me on the cheek and whispered that he'd be right back. It took less than ten minutes for the sounds of several feet walking across the ground towards us as Trent returned with the rest of our group.
The camp had food. They just killed an elk and they invited us to join them in a meal. It was the best meat I ever ate. We talked about our goal destination and they offered us advice about where to cross the border. We spent the night near their camp.
Trent and I talked late into the night about what we needed to do to reach New York, and what we were going to need to cross the last 450 miles to make it to our destination. Food was our biggest concern. We decided that in the morning we were going to talk to the other group about what we needed to trade. In the morning, after talking to the rest of our friends, we decided that we really didn't need the big wagon anymore. We needed food. We approached the group that we met and asked them if they would be interested in a trade. When we offered the large wagon, something we decided we were going to abandon anyway to condense our load, their eyes were filled with surprise. They offered quite a bit of perishable food, including some of the elk from the night before, in exchange. We noticed that they had a case of peanut butter and several rounds of bullets, so we asked if we could have it thrown in the trade. It would be nice to have something that wouldn't go bad if we needed to stretch resources for longer than we wanted to. They agreed, if we gave them one of the two horses that we used to pull the large wagon.
We didn't need both of the horses. Two horses meant two to feed. DaWayne wanted one so we could use it as a scout horse, but the other wasn't really needed for our survival, so we agreed to the exchange. I thought a lot about what we just traded. This group didn't have any solid structures and this wagon was going to offer them someplace to use as a house, and with the horse, we were offering them a way to move that house if they needed to. With that horse they were going to be able to cover a wider area to hunt. On the flip side, we were going to be able to move easier with one less wagon, we were going to be able to see what was ahead instead of stumbling on it as a group, and there was one less horse to feed the dwindling feed supply. To make the largest difference, we had food, a lot of food. We had about three weeks of food for a journey that should only take two weeks. It couldn't take any more than that, in two weeks, the boat was leaving, and another one wouldn't be back for four more. From what I understood about New York, we wouldn't last those four weeks, so this was an all or nothing sort of deal. We had to push it. I wanted to be there with a couple of days to spare so we could scout out where we needed to be to make the 9:00 ship-out time.