The Dead Road: The Complete Collection (6 page)

Eli pulled over after another mile or so, onto a wide shoulder beside a small river. We all got out of the car, Roger and I keeping our eyes out for monsters, weapons at the ready, while Eli opened the truck and started going through what little we had. The only gear that made it back down from the camp was Eli's camera bag, which he wore on the way down our perilous climb down the cliff. The rest of our packs were either on the road where we had to make a run for it, or in the back of Roger's ruined SUV. Eli had a handful of protein bars and a half-empty bag of trail mix. We each got one bar, and a can of beer from Big Earl's fridge. I sat on the ground, leaning against the rear wheel. Amy sat on the grass nearby. I took careful bites of the protein bar, trying to make it last. Amy ate hers ravenously, finishing it in only a few bites.

I looked over at Amy. "So what's your story?"

She shrugged. "Small town girl, trying to live to see tomorrow."

"No, no, I mean, how did you end up trapped in the radio station?"

She took a sip of the warm beer. "I was with my brother and a couple of his friends from school when all this shit started. My parents are down in Philly on vacation, so Parker, that's my brother, came up from school with some friends to spend the weekend. We figured have a little party, get some beer and steaks for the grill, swim in the lake, no parents around."

"Where do you live?"

"On Cooper's Road, out in Stockton. It's a bit outside of town. We were in town buying stuff for the party when we first saw strange stuff. A car ran off the road and crashed into the side of First Witness church. People ran over to see what happened while me and Parker watched from the store window. The car had out of state plates, Maine I think. The driver looked really bad, blood coming from his mouth and nose. There was someone else in the car too, in the back seat. I don't know what happened or where they were going, but when the people got them out of the car they both kinda went crazy. They were snarling and biting. No one knew what was going on. The people kept reaching in, trying to grab at the guys from the car, pulling away other people. All in all probably ten people got bit before the cops came. They trapped the two back in the crashed car. Parker's friend was the first one to say zombies. I almost smacked him for making light of the situation. I thought he was being disrespectful of some really hurting people. Turns out he should have smacked me for doubting."

"So what happened? With the car?"

She finished her beer and tossed the can into the river. "Well the police showed up and tried to take control. They tried to talk to the guys from Maine, then threatened them with pepper spray and stuff if they didn't calm down. They were in that car hissing and scratching, like a pair of angry cats trapped in a cage. Officer Adcox opened the car door and sprayed them both with enough pepper spray that I could smell it from across the street, but it didn't do a lick of good. That guy just jumped out and tackled him down, wound up taking a bite out of his shoulder. That's when Officer Murphy shot the man dead. People were crying and stuff. They all thought Murphy shouldn't have fired, you know? Like there was a better way to handle things. But looking back, things may have been different if they shot sooner."

"Did you go home after that?"

She shook her head, "Naw. Officer Murphy started taking statements. Other cops arrived too, with an ambulance for the people that were bit. There were probably twenty witnesses, and only three police, taking down everything they all said. They had us sitting and waiting our turn. The store let us drink sodas out of their fridge while we waited, as long as we bought something to eat. We had a little picnic lunch, talking and joking, trying to keep things all smiles. That's when things went bad. The people that were bitten were feeling sicker, but the only ambulance had already left with Officer Adcox. I could hear one of the other officers calling for assistance, but the hospital's twenty miles away. They started trying to figure out how to get people there in their cars.

"I remember it clear as day. The cops were all in a little clutch, trying to plan how they were going to carry a dozen sick people in three cars when the first guy that got bit stood up. He had this look in his eyes like he was staring off into space as he moved towards the cops. One of the guys in the crowd waiting his turn to be interviewed, I think it was Frank Dooley, the owner of the bait shop, that tried to get in the way, but the sick guy tackled and bit him. The cops turned, but, then I saw everyone that got bit was standing up, groaning. Parker grabbed me by the arm and we ran to my car. Behind us we heard screaming, and gunshots. We got in the car and drove home as fast as we could. On the radio was a new story about the National Guard being called in to help with some sort of outbreak in Concord, over in New Hampshire. We knew things were a lot worse off than it looked."

I nodded and drank my beer as she talked, then set the empty can down by the tire. "What made you go to the radio station? To send that message?"

"Stockton's the only real town for fifty miles. After we got home we were listening to the radio. Parker pulled his old police band out of the garage to listen. It was like listening to hell boil up on earth. Lots of police calling for help, no one answering. The neighboring towns were talking about imposing a curfew, telling people to stay inside, but it didn't matter.

"The thing, the disease, whatever it is, it got loose. That car crash, those guys from Maine, that was how it started here, but it was already going strong up north. We sat around the radio, drinking beer, listening, not saying a word. By four A.M. there was no more yelling. No more calls for help. We could see smoke rising from the town. See the glow of fires beyond the trees. We knew Stockton was gone. Parker started talking about how anyone would come through there, looking for help. That we had to warn people somehow, so they would go around, head south, or come to Maybridge instead, catch the highway here."

"So you went up to the radio station?"

She nodded. "My uncle Karl used to work up there, as some sort of engineer. He showed me the place one when I was a kid, showed me how things worked. I figured I could go up there, record a message, and put it on to repeat. I didn't think I'd get surrounded."

"Did you drive up there?"

She nodded, "My car was parked behind the building, but I was low on gas anyway. I was already worried about not making it all the way home. I don't care that it's still up there."

"How'd they surround you like that? I mean, didn't you seem them coming?"

She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears again. "I was too busy trying to make the equipment work. I didn't know what I was doing. I was in there for hours, pushing buttons, flipping switches. It's a miracle you heard anything at all. I put the headphones on and could barely hear myself."

"We heard you, but it was really faint. Your message saved our asses though. We were planning to go right into Stockton."

She smiled crookedly and shrugged, "Thank heaven for small favors I guess. I was up there for three days. I don't know what happened to Parker or his friends. I'm hoping they're still at home, but... I tried calling from the radio station but the phones didn't work, and my cell phone isn't getting service anymore." Her smile faded as quickly as it appeared.

"Where's home?"

She pointed, "A few miles that way, maybe ten. I'll make it on foot."

Eli scoffed, "Like hell. We'll take you there, man."

Amy shook her head, "I can't ask that. I don't know what the situation is at home. I can't ask you to go in to another group of those things. Not if home is overrun."

I stood, pushing myself up against the car to lean against the trunk next to Roger. "Things are shit everywhere, Amy, you said so yourself. We're better off grouping up, supporting one another. You said Parker and two friends are home, then we should go there. Seven is better than three. Besides, we need supplies. Food, water, ammo, gas... we can gather all of that better in a bigger group. Maybe go into Maybridge and see what's left, then make our way to one of the bigger towns, maybe even Stockton."

She shook her head almost frantically, "We can't go to Stockton. There's five thousand people in Stockton. If they all got turned..."

Roger held a hand out towards her, "Easy. We just need a plan. We need food first and foremost."

I nodded, "Exactly. Besides, what are you going to do on foot if your house is surrounded? Run away? How far will you run before they catch up without any food in your stomach?"

Amy slumped. "I don't know. I just don't want to put you guys through any more trouble. You already did enough."

"I don't think we've really even gotten started, Amy. There's a lot of bad shit going on right now, and I think there's going to be a lot of situations where we help one another, so why don't we stop worrying about the score, and start focusing on surviving another night."

She nodded. I could see her reluctance. Part of her wanted to run, wanted to turn on her heels and take off into the wilderness, to make her way home and never see us three again, but she took one step, then another, and walked to the car. She looked at Eli, "Keep heading down this road. I'll tell you when to turn."

We looked at one another with a nod, then climbed into the car.

*****

Amy's house was only a few miles away, but through the winding back roads it took us almost twenty minutes. Eli drove carefully, both hands on the wheel as he navigated the uneven pavement. The car was handling poorly since plowing through the crowd of monsters, drifting rather severely to the left, and the broken windshield provided limited visibility to the right. The blood that clung to the glass resisted the feeble efforts of the windshield washer fluid, created a smear of crimson in a pair of arcs along the glass. As we made our way through the wooded back roads Eli was forced to slow to 10 miles per hour just to be sure we didn't run off the road.

I turned to Amy as we drove, "Do you know when that group of things picked up your scent?"

She looked confused, "Scent? What are they, bloodhounds?"

I nodded, "Kind of. When we were being chased down the mountain I am pretty sure they followed our scent. We left visual distractions for them, blinking lights and such, but they ignored them to follow us."

She shook her head, "I didn't see any following me when I drove up there. I really don't know where they came from."

When we rounded the corner into her driveway, we got our answer.

The front yard was large expanse of grass, dotted with a few
flower beds here and there, but all of it had been trampled. The grass lay flat, the flowers were torn up, and swaths of mulch were dragged from the beds onto the lawn. A dozen of the monsters wandered about, circling the yard like slow-moving vultures, groaning quietly as they moved. A few seemed to move close to the front door, while others made wide, sweeping patrols through the grounds, searching sightlessly with their dead eyes. A jeep was parked next to the house, and another pair of dead things seemed to hover around it, leaning in through the open top, pawing blindly at the seats.

Roger gasped in horror, "What the fuck?" he muttered.

Eli turned the engine off, parking at the base of the driveway. "That's how they were circling last night, man. When we got to the parking lot! They were moving like they were looking for you, circling around the spot where your car was parked."

I sat back with a sigh, "If I had to guess, Amy, this pack followed you from town when the outbreak first started."

Amy frowned, looking at the house. "The doors are all closed. So are the windows. Nothing's broken. And they wouldn't still be here if everyone inside was dead, right?"

"Probably not." I scanned the house as well, looking for any signs of life.

"Then we have to go in." Her voice was firm and determined.

I nodded, "Yeah, we really do."

Eli nodded as well, that same look of grim determination he had at the radio station returning to his face. I touched his shoulder and he almost jumped. "Let's not use the car this time. I have an idea."

I climbed out of the car, grabbing the rifle. My hunting rifle could hold eight rounds, one in the chamber and a seven round box, and I had another forty or so in the hip pockets of my cargo pants. I didn't have any extra cartridges, so I would have to reload by hand, but as long as I kept close by the car that wouldn't be an issue either.

I leaned against the car, watching the circling monsters carefully. I tracked their movement, watching their patterns. I counted fourteen in total. As long as I didn't miss, I would only have to reload once. I leaned down to whisper to the others. "Okay, Roger, you get out with the shotgun and cover me. If any of them get too close, you handle them."

Eli looked at me, "What's your plan, man?"

"We pull up to the edge of the yard. I figure the driveway's two hundred feet long or so. I'm going to lean over the car and take them out, one at a time. Once I start dropping them they should come our way, making them even easier to hit, since they'll be moving in a straight line towards us. I fire until empty, then we get back in the car and you back us up to the road while I reload. Then we do it again. We use the front yard as a kill zone, and the driveway as a choke point. They'll funnel towards us.  While I'm sighting them in, Roger's got his eyes on the trees to both sides. Any that get in range, he takes down."

All three of them nodded their agreement. It was a sound plan. I got back into the car and pulled the door closed quietly. "Alright Eli, pull up slowly. Try not to get their attention yet. Turn a bit so I can use the roof of the car to lean on and fire across."

He started the engine and put the car into gear. The driveway was mostly level, with a slight incline as it broke the tree line, so Eli just let the car idle and drift forward. The rocks and dirt crunched under the tires as we rolled. It sounded impossibly loud to me, and I kept my eyes trained on the things that wandered closest. One was a man in a tattered paramedic's uniform, the other a woman wearing a bright yellow shirt and a green apron. Both of them were covered in blood, their dead eyes staring straight ahead.  The paramedic paused as Eli turned the wheel and drifted into place, but didn't turn around, didn't change its path. We stopped with our front tires on the grass, and Eli put the car in park. The thing started to move again, shambling away from us along its path that it walked so many times the grass was starting to thin.

I opened my door as quietly as I could and stood up, bringing the rifle up to my shoulder. I lowered my elbows to the roof of the car, resting my chest against the top of the frame. I peered into the scope, sighting in the paramedic. The woman in yellow was closer, but she was walking away from us, while the paramedic was crossing in front of us. Roger rolled down his window, then opened his door and knelt behind it. He could shoot from the window, using the door as cover, the way we had seen police officers do it in television shows. I didn't comment that the cops do it to get cover from return fire, and it probably wouldn't do much against walking corpses. Whatever made Roger feel better.

I put my cross hairs on the paramedic's head and watched it move, studied how it sway with each shambling step. The lurching gait caused his head to remain still for a heartbeat between each step, then lean forward as it lowered its front foot. I started to count beats, tapping the trigger guard with my forefinger in time with its motions. Two beats still, three beats moving, two beats still, three beats moving. I kept counting to myself, adjusting my finger, laying it against the trigger. I watched its step. Three moving. It paused. I squeezed.

The shot rang out. A flock of bird took flight from the trees nearby. The paramedic dropped, its forehead a ruined mass. I turned to face the woman in yellow, cocking the bolt to chamber another round as I moved. She had paused and was turning towards the sound. I sighted her in. I caught the sun's reflection off of a gold cross around her neck. "Amen," I whispered, and squeezed the trigger.  The bullet entered just above her right eye. She collapsed in a heap.

I cocked the bolt as I surveyed the yard. All of the monsters had stopped moving. I could see them reorienting, homing in on the sounds that had disrupted their routine. They were turning towards us slowly, as if unsure. I took aim at a teenage boy in a tank top and fired quickly. I missed. I cursed aloud, chambering another round. I was letting my nerves get the best of me. I sighted him in and waited, making sure my breathing was even and my hands were steady. Another second and I squeezed the trigger. I saw the cloud of red mist behind him as the bullet exited the back of his skull. He took a single step and then fell forward. They were all coming towards us now. I could hear them groaning more loudly, the cacophony of noise rising as they caught our scent in the air. We were fresh prey.

"Eli!" Roger hissed. I looked down at him. He was pointing towards the parked jeep. I looked.

A second group was coming around the house. There were at least ten more around back that I couldn't see before. A rivulet of cold sweat ran down my spine. I shivered. "Shit."

"We gotta go, man!" I heard Eli say. "There's too many!"

I leaned forward to take aim. "Not yet."

I scanned the front yard and picked the closest one, an older man with a gray beard and a fishing cap on his head. I leveled my sights at the center of his face and squeezed. He dropped. I swung around to the left, taking aim at a middle-aged woman with wide hips and a kitten on her pink t-shirt. I squeezed. The bullet hit her in the chest. She didn't seem to notice. I cocked the bolt and fired again. This time she fell. One shot left. I aimed at a boy, probably eleven years old, his sandy blonde hair a matted mess, caked in gore. He moved quicker than the others, almost scampering forward on his spindly legs. I squeezed. The top of his head burst like a balloon. I climbed back into the car hurriedly.

"Go, go! To the bottom of the driveway!"

Roger got in and slammed his door shut. "This is fucking crazy, Alex. There's too many!"

I reloaded the cartridge as quick as I could, pushing the bullets into place one at a time. "We can do it. This is our only shot at getting inside that house."

Eli spun the wheel and backed up. The tires spun, kicking up a cloud of dirt as we moved. As the back tires hit the street he spun the wheel, pulling so we were at an angle to the driveway again. I pushed the refilled cartridge into place and chambered the seventh round, then stood up, leaning back over the top of the car. I could see shapes moving through the cloud of dust. They weren't people any more. I couldn't see faces or clothes, just gray forms in the summer haze. Somehow this was easier. I fired my first shot as Roger was getting into place. Fired again within a few seconds. Two more hit the ground. Six dead. Eighteen to go.

It became an automatic process in my head. My body moved on its own as I took aim. I pulled the trigger confidently each time, and each time another monster fell. The next five shots were all kills. None of the things had reached the driveway yet. Thirteen to go. I knelt down behind the car to begin reloading. Eli was fidgeting, watching the driveway with wide eyes. "They're getting close, man."

I shook my head, popping the reloaded cartridge back into place. "I got this." I stood up. They were at the top of the driveway, moving towards us. Shuffling feet kicked up more dirt as they moved. For a moment I saw them as a group of people, like they were standing in line at a grocery store or a bank, waiting their turn patiently. I swallowed down the mouthful of bile that rose up and put the thought out of my head. Peering at them through the scope I could see their grotesque faces, their blood-stained hands and mouths, their white, dead eyes. They were not people. I pulled the trigger.

They were barely a hundred feet away. Roger took aim and started to fire as well, taking down the ones in the middle of the pack as I worked from the sides. I killed six more with my seven shots. Roger killed four. Three left. I got back in the car. "Back us up, Eli. Give me some room!" Roger got back in his seat and started fumbling with shotgun shells, reloading as fast as he could. Eli hit the gas and backed us out onto the road. He drove in a straight line for about fifteen seconds then stopped. I reloaded and got out of the car again. I took aim at the base of the driveway. I couldn't see them anymore, the trees along the road getting in my way. I waited.

Roger got out of the car, this time remaining standing, looking back and forth, keeping a sharp eye out for any that may have gotten through.

The last three stepped out onto the road. I fired. One dropped. Roger fired. Another fell. One left. I cocked the bolt. Roger pumped the shotgun and fired. The thing fell. I took a breath. We both looked back and forth, scanning the tree line. There was no movement. We had done it.

Roger turned to me and smiled. "Fuck yeah."

Amy got out of the car and sprinted up the driveway. "PARKER!"

I winced and got back in the car. "Roger! Let's go!"

He got back in and Eli hit the gas. Amy had cut through the trees, running in a straight line form the road to her front door. We could see her climbing the front steps as Eli drove up to the house. The driveway was littered with bodies. I tried to ignore the wet, crunching sounds as we drove over them.
Nothing but dead animals,
I told myself.

Amy used her keys, pushing the front door open. She was inside before we pulled up behind the jeep. I could hear her yelling Parker's name. Then she screamed. It was a keening wail, a blood-curdling noise that made all three of us jump. We piled out of the car, getting up to the house as fast as we could. Roger went in first, shotgun in hand. I was last, limping on my injured foot, taking the steps one at a time. Eli went in ahead of me. I could hear Amy crying. Roger had stopped. He lowered the shotgun.