The Dead Road: The Complete Collection (2 page)

We left the headlights on as we walked away. It would be a beacon for any other survivors, and hopefully something to distract the things in the woods. We were hoping they would see the lights and shamble in that direction, instead of worrying about three figures making their way through the darkness. Roger left a note on the back window, written with soap like old used car dealers would advertise a sale. It was an arrow, with the word "TOWN" above it, pointing down the road we had headed. It was enough that anyone alive that saw it would know someone else alive wrote it, and wrote it after the accident.

We each had our packs. My rifle was the only firearm among us, but Roger and Eli fished out the hatchets we used to collect firewood. I know they felt better with a dangerous weapon in their hands, but the idea of getting close enough to one of those things to bury a hatchet in their head was enough to make me shudder.

We walked in silence for a while. Roger
lead, using his familiarity with the road to guide us downward. Unfortunately knowing a winding dirt road behind the wheel is a lot different than knowing one on foot. We could still see the faint red glow of the SUV's tail lights above us when Roger took his first spill. It was just a slip, a misjudged step in the darkness that sent him skidding a few feet in the underbrush. When he stopped his slide he looked back up at us with a sheepish grin, "Woops."

Eli shook his head and snickered a bit. It was like a pratfall, breaking the tension for a moment. It was good to see Eli cracking a smirk. I was worried that the episode with Jake was really going to send him off the deep end, but it looked like he was doing alright. The priority was survival now. When you can put it in that kind of perspective, to know that your life was in the balance, it got a lot easier to put aside the more distracting emotions.

Roger pushed himself back onto his feet, then we heard it. It was faint, but distinct - a low groan echoing in the darkness. Eli tensed. My eyes went wide as I scanned the shadows, trying to make out something moving, an irregular shape among the trees and rocks. Roger looked up at me and whispered "Alex." I raised a hand to silence him. I heard the groan again, this time closer. The trees rustled in the wind. It was impossible to tell where it came from. Sound carried strangely out here, and the darkness made it even worse.  I cocked the bolt of my rifle.

"Alex," Roger hissed. I shushed him with my left hand.

The groan sounded again.

"Alex!" His voice raised again. He was almost at talking level, that kind of whisper you think no one in the movie theater can hear but instead disrupts everyone. I glared at him.

"I'm trying to figure out where it's coming from, damnit! Shut up!"

Roger pointed behind me, up the hill.

I turned around. It was only a few feet behind me. It was a woman once, a hefty, country stock woman wearing flannel and denim that was caked with mud and gore. Her mouth was a dark stain holding a mass of gnashing teeth. I startled, letting out a surprised yelp. The jump made me lose my footing. I stumbled, falling onto my hands and knees to keep from pitching backwards down the hill. The thing lurched. It landed on me, pushing my chest into the ground. I could feel it grasping at my pack, trying to find bare flesh to sink its teeth into. She was too heavy to just roll over. I felt like a turtle, trapped by his own shell. My hand was on the rifle, but from this angle I couldn't bring it to bear. I felt myself screaming, but all I could hear was the thing's frenzied hissing and snarling. I felt cold, dead fingers at the back of my jeans, pulling my shirt out from underneath. Roger shouted something. I heard shuffling on all sides. Panic gripped at me. There were more of them!

Something landed heavily on top of me. I heard Eli grunt. Cold wetness fell against the small of my back. The thing stopped moving. I saw its foot twitch as the last of its animating life force left it. Eli put his foot against its side and shoved it off of me. Without her weight pinning me down I felt like I could breathe again. I pushed myself up on all fours and looked over at the thing to my side. Her head was caved in, and foul ichor, shimmering black in the darkness and running from her eyes and mouth. Eli offered me a hand up. The hatchet, still clutched in his right hand, was sticky with gore.

I looked into his face. "Holy shit." It was all I could think to say.

He patted my shoulder. "Yeah, man. C'mon. Let's get moving before more of them show up."

I could feel the cold and damp patch of blood on my back. I started unstrapping my pack. "I need to change this shirt. If they can track us by smell, I can't have the scent of their blood and brains all over me."

"Smell? You think they can smell us?" Roger's voice was quavering. He hadn't found his strength like Eli had, not yet.

"Well I doubt it's sight. It's dark out here, and that one walked away from the light to come for us. I can still see your truck from here."

"Maybe she..." Roger looked down at the bleeding carcass. "Maybe it heard us."

I fished a pair of cargo pants out of my pack. The black fabric was sturdy military surplus, almost canvas. It was too hot to wear these during the outing, but the new turn of events made me a lot less worried about sweating and more worried about keeping someone from biting through my pants. "If it heard us, then that's more reason to stay quiet, isn't it? Eli, cover me while I change." Eli picked up my rifle and started looking around, peering wide-eyed into the darkness. I started unlacing my boots. "And Roger, would it have killed you to say 'behind you'? I mean, saying my name over and over doesn't make me turn around, does it?"

Roger sighed, hanging his head. "Yeah, sorry about that."

I yanked my boots off one at a time. My socks were wet and smelled rank. I pull them off as well, rolled them into a ball, and tossed them into the woods. "We gotta start talking like we're in the army or something. Short sentences, nothing that isn't important, and conveying as much information in as few words as possible. 'Alex, behind you' is a lot better than saying 'Alex' and waiting for me to say 'What?' you know?" I pulled out the plastic bag of rain gear, and fished out my last pair of clean socks, then stood up to push my jeans off.

I held them up to look at them as best I could in the darkness. I could see the wet stains along the back, a bloody mess from the waistband down to the knee. Held at arm's length I could still smell the foulness. It was the same kind of smell that comes from rotten meat. I tossed them aside as well, and stepped into the fresh pants.

"Alex?" Eli's voice was shaky.

I turned to look up at him. I had it on the tip of my tongue to chastise him, to ask him what we just talked about. I wanted to start again about how we had to use the right words quickly to convey the information needed. To explain how it was useless to just say my name and wait for a reply when something important was happening. I wanted to say all of it, but I didn't.

In the shadowy haze I could make out silhouettes, backlit by the red glow of the brake lights above us. Humanoid figures shambled towards us. The red light creating an almost demonic visage. They made no sound other than the shuffling of their feet against the dirt. There were over a dozen, converging on us slowly. Eli took a step back towards me, looked at me with a fear stricken gaze, and the took off in a run, bolting down the hill as fast as his legs would carry him. Roger followed a moment later. I grabbed my pack and followed, but it only took two steps for me to realize that I made a critical error. My boots were still laying on the road.

The things were coming directly at us. They were not veering off to investigate the awful-smelling jeans. The one at the front of the pack took a stiff, awkward step past the body of one Eli had killed with his hatchet. However they sensed us, they knew we were alive, and that meant we were food. I hesitated a moment, calculating in my head if I could make it to my boots and back out of their reach before one of them got a hold of me. From below I heard Eli shout "Alex! C'mon man!" I turned from the cluster of shambling things and ran down the hill.

At first I didn't notice that my feet were bare. I slung my pack as I ran, taking bounding steps down the incline, my system flooded with adrenaline and endorphins.  My feet slapped against the dirt with every step. I could hear the cluster of things up the hill, shambling and groaning. It seemed they got louder the closer they got to us, or perhaps it was frustration as their prey once again slipped away. all I knew at the time was I had to run. I had to get as far away from those things as I could.

Trees blurred by me as I ran. I didn't notice the rocks and sticks I was landing on with my unprotected feet. Somewhere my body was registering the pain, but my brain didn't process it, didn't let it interfere with the base instinct to get away from those things. I ran until my legs felt like rubber, and each breath burned in my lungs. I regretted every day I skipped going to the gym. I regretted every fast food cheeseburger I ate instead of packing my own lunch. I couldn't hear the shambling and groaning anymore, but if it was because I had gotten far enough away, or I just couldn't hear over my own pulse pounding in my ears I couldn't say.

Further ahead I could see Eli and Roger stop themselves at the edge of an embankment. The road turned to the left, and directly in front was a small rise of earth, and beyond that a sudden drop. We called this curve "The Hook," and had joked about skiing or snowboarding down this road just to make this jump - not that any of us were good enough to do it. There was a reason we came up here in the summer, and stuck to our home cities for the winter.

I slowed my pace and stopped beside them. I was out of breath, and my feet were really starting to regret my decision. Roger was at the edge of the drop, peering down into the black nothingness below. It was a dark night, and aside from the tops of the trees below it was like staring into an abyss. Roger shook his head.

"What's the matter?" I whispered.

He closed his eyes for a moment before he spoke, like he was weighing his words carefully. I had seen him do this countless times when on an important phone call. It was his way of collecting himself before delivering bad news. "If we're at The Hook that means almost nine miles down to the lot where your car is parked. I thought we were closer."

My heart sank. "Nine miles?  Back at camp you said five."

"Well, I was wrong. I thought we were down further. It's probably five as the crow flies, maybe less, but the road heads north for a while along this ridge, before it turns back to the east."

I peered into the distance. I saw a gap in the trees off in the distance, a break in the sea of leaves that swayed below us. A tiny point of light glowed in the middle, barely visible through the canopy. I convinced myself that beacon of light was the parking lot. That the winding country road that led back to Stockton and then the highway was just beyond.

Eli didn't turn around. His eyes were glued watching up the hill. "What if we climb down?"

Roger shook his head. "I'm no rock climber. We'd never make it."

I turned to Roger. "I'm not sure we'll make it on foot. I don't think those things up there are going to get tired. We've got ten minutes, maybe twenty, until they're on us again. If we go down we put miles between us and them. They can't climb, or at least, I really fucking hope they can't climb."

Eli nodded as he spoke, "Yeah, man. I mean, there were too many. We can't just keep running. We gotta lose'em, and we can't do that running along a road."

I smirked a little, "I don't think I'm very good for off-road either." I gestured to my bare feet.

Eli winced, "Aw, shit man, what happened to your boots?"

"I was changing my socks when that cluster found us. I didn't get a chance to put them on again, and it was too risky to go back for them."

Roger threw up his arms, "Christ, Alex! You're going to hike nine miles in bare feet?"

I shook my head and dropped my pack. "No, I'm going to climb down, and then hike five miles in bare feet."

Eli nodded again. "Fuck'n A." He dropped his pack and unzipped the top, pulling out his camera bag and slinging it over one shoulder. "Time to lighten the load."

Roger watched us with a look on his face of utter disbelief. "You guys are crazy!"

I took my rifle from Eli, then kneeled down to start fishing in my pack for my extra ammunition. "Roger, we don't have time to argue. If you wanna take the long way, go. Stick to the road, go as fast as you can. If you make it, then, give us as much time as you can, then get out of here."