“Find highway 50,” he said. “It should be up here shortly. We wanna go east to 65 and then north.”
“That’ll take us through Seymour, right?” Drew asked.
“What’s left of it, yeah.”
“What happened there?” Dan asked, wrapping Cliff’s arm in gauze.
“I’m not sure,” Cliff replied. “But it’s all gone. City-wide fire, I think. There’s nothing at all left. I had to come all the way to Oolitic for supplies, and now I don’t have shit.”
Oolitic. That’s what it was called.
“We’ve got plenty of shit,” Dan said. “We’ll share.”
Cliff chuckled. “You’ll have to face Melanie, though,” he said. “And she’s not exactly the most pleasant person. But her parents owned the impound lot and the shed business, so we have to follow her rules.”
Dan taped the end of the gauze, finishing up the bandage. “What’s her deal?”
Cliff shook his head, grinning. “She’s got some issues,” he said. “She’s a control freak without a clue, and that dog of hers is on a fucking pedestal. She cares more about it than any of the people there.”
“How many people?”
“Six of us, plus her and her mutt. We all gathered there gradually. I came in with another guy, Max, who I met on the road. She wasn’t gonna let us in, but I told her Max was a genius and could help with technical stuff. But since we arrived, she hasn’t let him do anything, because she thinks she knows it all and Max is always wrong or something.”
“Is he wrong?” Dan asked.
“Never. Like I said, he’s a genius. But he’s a little weird and has no balls. He won’t stand up to her, and I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about most of the time, so I can’t vouch for him to her.”
“She sounds like a cunt,” Drew said.
Cliff pursed his lips, nodding slowly in agreement. “She is,” he said. “And clueless, which makes her even more dangerous than all these things out here.”
“Uh, guys,” Drew said, slowing down quickly.
Dan leaned up, looking through the windshield. “What’s up?”
Drew turned on the brights, illuminating the road ahead. Down the hill, the valley was alive with movement—lots of it.
There was a massive horde of creatures heading to the northeast.
“Jesus Christ,” Dan muttered. “There must be thousands of them.”
“Damn,” Cliff said. “How the hell are we gonna through this?”
Dan swallowed, gazing out over the horde. Though they were probably just shufflers, a large number of them like this would be dangerous. They seemed endless, like a massive swarm of locusts descending on a crop. The bulk of them was at least two hundred yards thick—way too thick to just plow through.
“They’re coming,” Drew said. “Think of something quick.”
Several of them broke off from the herd and started heading toward them. They were at least a half a mile away, and moving at a terribly slow pace, but they still had to think.
“Turn off the lights and back up,” Dan said. “Pull onto the side of the road and we’ll figure something out.”
“Guys,” Cliff said. “I used to be in the military. I can fly that drone if it works.”
“Holy shit,” Cliff said. “Where the hell did these deadheads come from?”
Dan and Drew watched the monitor on Cliff’s lap as he flew the drone over the horde. The shufflers seemed to go on forever in a vast sea of writhing, growling maniacs. Though the drone was capable of thermal vision, the shufflers themselves gave off very little heat, making the entire horde look like a galaxy of faint white dots.
Lots of them.
“It looks like they came from the southwest,” Drew said. “I’m not sure what’s down there, though.”
“Wherever they came from,” Dan said, “these have got to be the same ones that showed up in town.”
Cliff snorted, shaking his head. “Those dudes are fucked,” he said. “The ones we saw there were just the head end of this army. I’m glad you guys found me when you did.”
“Can you see any way through them?” Drew asked.
Cliff flew the drone forward, going farther south and rotating the craft in the air. The horde was thick all over, showing very few areas where they were thin. However, when he lowered altitude, those shufflers that spotted or heard the drone seemed to be drawn to it.
“Maybe I can draw them away or something,” Cliff said. “Distract them enough for us to drive through.”
As soon as Cliff finished his sentence, a faster, brighter dot appeared. The three of them leaned in closer, squinting to make out the bright form. Cliff faced the drone in its direction, flying closer. The blob was much larger, running on all fours, and looked to be striking out at the shufflers around it.
Stalker.
“Shit,” Dan said. “There’s no way to get away from that. We’ll just have to haul ass.”
A gurgling, moaning sound came from down the road, prompting the three of them to lean up and glare out the windshield. The faint outlines of a dozen or so shufflers appeared in the moonlight, all of them headed their way.
“It’s the ones we attracted with the headlights,” Drew said. “Roll up the windows. Get down on the floor.”
“Cliff,” Dan said. “Cover your head and the monitor with your jacket and fly the drone near the Stalker to draw him away.”
Cliff sank down to the floor, and Dan and Drew both climbed into the back to hide. They waited in the silence, listening for the scratching and shuffling sounds to grow louder as the small group approached. Dan’s heart beat like crazy, and he noticed the windows were beginning to fog up already.
“I got the monster’s attention,” Cliff whispered. “I’ll try to lead it away.”
The moaning grew louder. Dan froze, staring at Drew, who lay near him. He was frozen as well, and his eyes were wide. Though the windows were closed, blocking off any scent they might give off, the slightest sound could attract them. Unfortunately, his leg itched, and he focused his mind to try to fend off the unpleasant sensation. It didn’t work.
Slowly, he reached down to scratch. Drew’s eyes went wider as he watched Dan’s hand. Dan stared straight into his face, gritting his own teeth. Drew shook his head.
“Here they come,” Cliff whispered. “The monster’s following the drone, though.”
There was a slight nudge as a shuffler bumped against the Hummer. It dragged its body across the side panel, its face squeaking against the glass. Others wandered near, mindlessly seeking the headlights that had attracted them. All around them, the moans and babbling echoed like a hellish chorus, sending chills up Dan’s spine. But that was nothing compared to the growling, vomiting noise that came after.
There was a shambler among them, growling and sniffing the air as it tracked their scent. Drew’s eyes turned to Dan fearfully. He could hear Cliff working the controls on the remote, and he hoped that the creature’s hearing wasn’t good enough to detect it. One tiny sound could alert the creature, and it and every shuffler around it would attack.
But why were the shufflers aggressive now?
Something rocked the Hummer, and it swayed for a few seconds. A bang on the side panel rocked it again. Dan held his breath, looking at Drew—who looked like he was about to shit his pants. The shambler growled in frustration, banging its fists on the window. The shufflers began moaning and hissing along with it, some of them seeming to drift away.
Cliff made a ticking noise with his tongue. “The battery’s dying,” he whispered quietly.
Damn it. There was no way to safely land the drone and gather it up with the horde around.
“Is the horde following it?” Dan whispered.
“Yeah,” Cliff replied. “I’ll just fly it as far as I can and let it hover until it dies.”
The shambler banged against the Hummer once more, and then hissed in frustration before turning to rejoin the horde. Dan sighed in relief, raising his head to look out the window. He could only see shadows, but they were gradually fading into the distance. He could even see the caveman-like gait of the shambler as it disappeared over the hill.
“Holy fuck,” he said. “That was intense.”
“Now what do we do?” Drew asked.
Cliff emerged from underneath the blanket. “They should pass by in another minute or two,” he said. “Then the road should be clear.”
“What about the Stalker thing?” Dan asked.
“I think it’s underneath the drone,” Cliff said. “It tried to swipe at it a few times. I’m hovering at about twenty feet. I can see the end of the horde. It’s just now reaching the road.”
Dan lit a cigarette, enjoying the calming effect as his shaking subsided. Drew took a swig from a half pint, handing it to Cliff.
“How far is highway 50 from here?” Dan asked.
“Not far,” Cliff said. “About a hundred yards or so from where the horde is crossing.”
“Do you smell that?” Drew said, his face all screwed up in disgust.
Dan sniffed. There
was
a rotting smell in the air, which wasn’t surprising, but it lacked the usual fungal smell that usually accompanied the creatures. It was the smell of rotting meat, shit, and rancid bodily fluids. Dan had smelled it before, when he ran across the carcass of a large, dead deer.
“There’s no mold smell,” he said, looking at Cliff. “We usually smell that when the baddies are around.”
Cliff swallowed. “I saw the things when they were around the windows,” he said. “They didn’t look like they usually do.”
“What do you mean?” Drew asked.
“They weren’t covered in fungus,” Cliff explained. “They were just rotting. Some of them were no more than skeletons with a bit of meat left on them.”
Dan thought back at their encounter with the preacher. He had said that the actual dead were beginning to rise; those that had died from the initial infection. Could he have been right? If so, then that would explain why the Stalker was travelling with this horde and wasn’t feasting on them. The Stalkers didn’t like the way they smelled.
“The dead,” Dan said. “The preacher was right.”
“Looks like it’s clear now,” Cliff said. “We should be able to zoom right by them.”
Drew climbed up into the driver’s seat. Dan hopped up beside him, keeping his eyes on Cliff. “The preacher at the church in town said he thought all of the people that died in the beginning were starting to wake up.”
Cliff scowled. “Fuck, man,” he said. “This just gets more fucked up every day. It makes sense though. Those things looked like they’d been rotting for about that long.”
“Did they look like they’d been chewed on?” Dan asked.
Cliff nodded, keeping his eyes on the monitor. “Yep.”
“The Stalker was giving off heat, right?”
Cliff nodded.
“But the… others weren’t?”
Cliff shook his head.
“Fuck,” Dan said under his breath. “This isn’t good.”
“Dead or alive,” Drew said. “It doesn’t make much difference. They’re dangerous either way.”
Dan pursed his lips in thought. The prospect of the actual dead coming back to life was even worse than a host of moldy infected. There were likely billions of them roaming around now, making the whole world even more dangerous than it was before.
But what could have caused it? Why now, after all these months?
Drew started up the Hummer, keeping the engine in idle as he pulled back onto the highway. He left the lights off, rolling slowly along with his foot off the gas. The sound of the horde could still be heard in the distance; their cacophony of growls and moans sending chills up Dan’s spine.
“Shit,” Cliff said. “I lost the monster.”
“Whaddya mean you lost the monster?” Drew snapped.
“I mean I can’t see him at all. He’s not underneath the drone anymore.”
Dan crawled into the back seat, glaring at the monitor. “Spin around and see if it’s coming our way.”
Cliff struggled with the controls. They were becoming unresponsive as the battery continued to die. “Damn,” he said. “It’s the remote, not the drone.”
The Hummer was suddenly jarred by a massive impact, sending Dan sprawling against the door behind him.
“What the fuck!?”
Drew shouted, stepping on the gas.
The screeching sound of the Stalker overpowered the engine’s roar. The sunroof’s glass shattered, and white, spindly tentacles slithered in, wrapping themselves around Cliff’s neck. Dan grabbed the nearest gun he could reach, pointing it upward and firing. The blast was deafening, and the creature howled in pain.
Cliff grunted and groaned against his attacker, pounding the tightly wrapped tentacles with his fist, desperately fumbling for his knife. Dan fired again as Drew howled in rage and sped up, swerving. The creature howled again, and black slime splattered down into the cab. Dan steadied and aimed for the tentacle, just above the level of the sunroof. He fired, severing the foul appendage with the blast.
“Let go fucker!”
he screamed, firing again.
This time, the creature’s howls faded into the darkness behind them, and Cliff slumped back down into the seat, gasping for breath and clutching his throat. Dan peeked up through the sunroof, scanning the road behind them.
“We’ve got problems,” Drew said.
Dan turned ahead, seeing that Drew had turned on the headlights. Shamblers and the undead were rushing back onto the highway, right in their path. Dan raised his rifle and fired at the nearest shambler, blasting its head into a cloud of filth. The sound of bodies hitting the bumper was deafening.
“Speed up,” Dan shouted. “Don’t stop.”
Drew gunned it. Dan dropped back into the cab, grabbing Cliff by the arm. “Are you alright, man?” he asked.
Cliff nodded, still choking but getting shallow gasps of air. Dan rose up through the sunroof again, slapping another mag in the M4A1. Drew was swerving all over the road, obviously perturbed by the horde behind them. However, the way was clear from here on. Dan looked back, seeing the faint outlines of the shuffling stragglers that tried to follow them.
They had gotten away.
Dan settled back down into the seat, leaning up into the driver’s cab. “We’re clear dude,” he said to Drew.
Drew was silent, but let off the gas, gradually slowing down to a more steady and manageable speed. Ahead, the sign for highway 50 loomed ahead. Drew slowed, rounding the turnoff with a slight squeal, and continued on.
“Take a left on 65 when we get there,” Cliff said, finally able to speak. “We’re outside of town. I’ll let you know when we get there.”
“Right, right,” Drew gasped.
“That was fuckin’ close,” Dan said, clapping Cliff on the shoulder. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, man,” Cliff said. “We lost the drone, though.”
“That’s alright. It served its purpose.”
“Dude,” Drew said from the front seat. “Find me a fuckin’ beer.”
Dan fumbled around in the back, finding four cans stuck together with plastic rings. He broke one off and handed it up, then offered one to Cliff.
“Natural Light?” Cliff said with a grin.
“Better than nothing,” Dan said, handing one over. He cracked one open himself, and the three of them chugged happily.
“Oh damn,” Cliff said. “That’s better than I remember.”
“Sadly, it will eventually run out,” Dan replied.
He leaned back in his seat, raking his hair back with his hand. Outside, the moonlit landscape passed by, and he watched the horizon for any odd shadows or signs of movement. He thought back at what the preacher in Oolitic had said about the dead, and about the mutants dying off. He was likely right—about the dead, at least. But there were obviously still stalkers around, and probably worse.
“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen, Cliff?” he asked.
Cliff shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, as far as… monsters go. We’ve seen mutant coyotes, horses, other things…”
Drew glanced at him through the rear-view mirror, probably wondering why he had not mentioned the Robert-thing. Dan briefly wondered that, too, but kept quiet.
“Mostly just the infected humans,” Cliff said. “The moldy ones that stumble around, plus a few of the quicker ones.”
“No animals?”
“Not that I know of,” Cliff said. “Our place is pretty isolated. We haven’t had many encounters, but I’ve heard strange things in the woods around us. Max says he’s seen some dogs that got infected. Travis, too.”