The Dead Road: The Complete Collection (7 page)

Eli rounded the corner and froze. "What?" I growled, moving as fast as I could. Roger looked at me and shook his head.

I went through the door.

Amy was in the living room. She was on her knees, crying, her hands balled into fists, pounding at the floor. In the couches were three college kids, two boys and a girl. One wore a Bowdoin College t-shirt. On the coffee table was an empty bottle of whiskey, and half a dozen prescription bottles, all of them emptied. White and pink pills of varying shapes were strewn across the table and floor. All three of the kids were dead. I would have thought they were asleep if not for their gray, ashen complexions and the smell of decay. Surrounded by twenty walking corpses for days, they chose to take the easy way out.

Amy wailed. Tears streamed down her face.

The plague had claimed three more victims. I started to wonder how many others, when faced with the reality of the end of life as we know it, had taken this path. How many others lacked the courage, or the will to fight? How many more would rather poison themselves with pain medication and alcohol, or hang themselves, or slit their wrists, rather than face the reality that was outside their door. I turned away from the sight, closing my eyes, trying to steady myself. The task before us was mounting. We had to survive in a world that was trying to kill us, while our own spirits were torn to shreds by what we would have to witness.

I put my hand on Roger's shoulder. "Case the place for supplies. Food, clothes, anything we can use."  He nodded and started moving through the house.

Eli and I waited, watching Amy as she screamed and cried. We would give her some time, but not a lot, and certainly not enough. Maybe there were other survivors out there, waiting for someone like us to come along. Maybe, somewhere to the south, there was a military cordon, keeping an eye on the state lines, keeping the plague out of the rest of the country. I wasn't hopeful, but until we knew for sure we had no choice.

We had to survive until the world got the best of us, or until the best of us wasn't good enough anymore. We had to keep moving.

The mountain air felt good on our faces, driving in the setting July sun, the road shadowed by the canopy of trees on both sides.  They grew in the steep hillsides, some looking like they clung to nothing but
bare rock, their roots embedded into the mountain itself.  These trees, nestled in rocky groves between vast stretches of rich hillside soil, they were the underdogs, and yet they endured beyond all hope.

That was us.  So far we survived beyond all hope.  In a world full of walking corpses and the hungry dead, we were still going.

We were in Amy's brother Parker's Jeep.  Parker had committed suicide in the face of the ruination of the world around him.  He and his college buddies, thinking Amy was dead, watching two dozen corpses circle their house like flightless vultures, broke under the pressure.  They went to the bathroom, grabbed a bunch of prescription pills, and took them all with a liter of Jack Daniels.  They got to sit silently while their hearts and brains shut down.  No desperate sprint through an infested parking lot, not worrying about where their next meal was coming from, or if they would stumble and get eaten by the people they used to think of as their neighbors.

We took the Jeep because Eli's car was falling apart.  The windshield was broken, one of the headlights had caved in, and it was pulling to the left randomly.  Using the car as a weapon was a good idea at the time, but hitting twenty bodies, even dead ones, played hell with the integrity of the vehicle.  Roger found the keys to the Jeep in Parker's pocket.  Amy was unwilling to search the body of her dead brother.

"We should have buried them."  Amy's voice broke the silence.

Roger was driving.  He glanced at me in the rear view mirror.  Eli shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat.  I looked at Amy.  Her eyes were red and puffy, her face streaked with tears.  She kept staring out at the road.  I cleared my throat.  "We couldn't.  Digging a hole big enough for four people..."

She slammed her fist into the seat. "It was the fucking decent thing to do!"

I touched her hand and she jerked it away.  "Maybe it was, but we're all undernourished and sleep deprived.  We would have ended up laying on the ground, exhausted, our muscles burning... we would be sitting ducks."

She nodded without a word.  She knew I was right.  She knew, logically, that what I was saying was true, but in her heart, emotionally, she was wracked with guilt.  Her brother was laying dead in her parent's living room, and she couldn't reconcile that we just left him there.

Roger looked at me in the mirror again, then said, "So what's our plan?"  I welcomed the change of topic.

I leaned up in my seat so Roger and Eli could hear me more clearly.  "I don't think our priority has changed.  We need food.  Not just a meal, but cans, dry stuff, beef jerky, that sort of thing.  Camp food on a massive scale.  Enough to hold us for a couple of weeks at least.  We also need supplies.  Camping gear, ammo, more guns."

Roger nodded as he spoke, "Stapleton's.  It has just about everything we need, if it hasn't been raided yet."

Amy snapped out of her reverie, "Wait, Stapleton's?  That's in Stockton, isn't it?"

Roger said, "Yeah.  Just on the edge, on 67.  We used to shop there all the time.  Only place in Vermont you can get a fifty dollar bottle or Merlot, the country's best cheddar cheese, a brand new rifle and a full box of ammo."

"But, Stockton.  Stockton's gone.  It's a mess.  Overrun with those... things."

Roger shrugged, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "Well, may be worth the risk.  It means we only have to worry about one stop.  Otherwise we'll have to hit a few different places, in a few different towns.  A gun shop here, a grocery store there, a camping place there... that's a lot of miles to cover.  Even so the next decent sized town is fifty miles from here."

Eli nodded eagerly, "That's right, man.  We go to this place, fight our way in, get what we need, and get the fuck out.  We head for the mountains and don't look back."

I nodded, looking over at Amy.  Her eyes were wide.  She looked haunted, the idea of going to Stockton making her hands ball in to fists to contain the shaking.  "It may not be the ideal plan, but it’s the best we got."

She looked back out of the window, crossing her arms in front of her, not saying a word.

****

Roger pulled the Jeep over as we reached the edge of Stockton, Vermont.  It was a plain T-intersection where a one two-lane road ended against another, wooded hills to each side.  Roger looked back and forth.  The road to the left went in to Stockton, a layer of sparse houses and small shops selling antiques or bait, then the town center, a tight collection of shops and restaurants catering to the small population of locals during the spring and summer and thousands of skiers and outdoorsmen during the fall and winter.  To the right was a straight stretch south, twenty miles of quiet roads dotted with reclusive houses eventually leading to Interstate 91.  The road was empty, without a living soul visible to either side.  Roger looked to the right for a long time.  "We can run, you know.  Just put our foot to the floor and go, get to the highway, and put all of this behind us."

I shook my head. "What happens when we get to the highway and it's clogged with wrecked an abandoned cars?  All of those people that tried to make it on may now be a wandering horde, circling the highway like a flock of vultures.  If there's a military border it's going to be bottlenecked for at least a couple of miles, which we'll still have to cover on foot, and probably have to fight our way through.   We're on the wrong side of the wall, Roger, one that's been built to keep things in. If there is a place we can just drive through, it won't be the highway."

Eli said, "If there is even a wall.  This may be it, man.  This may just be how the world is now.  Big cities just mean more zombies, man."

"I have to agree with that," I said, "at least until we see some sign of life, that civilization hasn't just collapsed. 
A helicopter, a plane, something concrete.  I want to see some sort of proof that there's a world worth going to.  Otherwise, we're better off out here, collecting survivors.  Find a cabin or a ski lodge out there, make our own little commune for the winter."

Roger gave the right turn one more look, then put the Jeep in gear and turned to the left.  "What happens after the winter?"

I couldn't help but shrug. "We'll figure that out when we get there."  The truth was I had no idea.  If the world was truly overrun, weren't we just delaying the inevitable?  How long would it be before we, the last living humans for a thousand miles, were sniffed out and surrounded?  Even if we find no one else, how long could we four survive on our own?  We need fresh water, constant food, and wood to burn for heat.  The power was still on, but that wouldn't last.  In another few days the grid will fail without anyone manning the stations, and then the world will truly take a giant step backwards.  He prayed this was a localized event, that there would be some hope of finding civilization again, finding a place where humanity stood its ground.  He wasn't sure he was up for rebuilding society one generation at a time.

The road in to Stockton was empty.  I kept looking into yards we passed, or up driveways and into parking lots, but there was no sign of anyone or anything.  For a town that was supposedly overrun in the first day of the outbreak, it looked like all of the infected had moved on.  Even Eli noticed the odd quiet, and he looked back at me with questioning eyes.  "You think they went looking for food someplace else, man?"

"I can't even begin to guess."

"How close do you want me to get, Alex?  Stapleton's is only a couple of miles up the road."  Roger asked.

"Well, we don't want to just pull right up to the front door.  If the place is overrun, that's a recipe for getting surrounded, and I don't trust the Jeep's rag top to keep us safe, even if the off road suspension is a lot better for running through a mob of them."

"Stapleton's is at the bottom of a hill, around a gentle curve.  We can park at the top of the hill, get a good read on what's what.  Maybe even pick a few off from a distance."

I gave Roger a thumbs up and started going over my rifle.  It could probably stand to be cleaned, but I didn't have the supplies or equipment to do it right.  I added that to the mental list of things to get from inside the store.  I checked the side pockets of my cargo pants for ammo, counting off the rounds I had on hand.  Only thirty-one left.  "Hey, Eli, how many shells do you have left for the shotgun?"

He flipped the box on the floor open and counted.  "Looks like about twenty, man, with five loaded in."

"Alright."  Fifty-six total shots.  It was enough for one foray, but that was it.  If our next shoot out didn't end with us getting resupplied, we were going to have to fight the next wave with a hatchet and a tire iron.

Roger pulled to the side of the road as it began to slope downward.  The road curved to the right, the rocks and trees obscuring the view of anything beyond a couple hundred feet.   Roger pointed, "It's down there to the left.  How do you want to do this?"

I picked up the rifle and slung it over my shoulder as I stepped from the back of the Jeep.  "Eli and I will go up and take a look.  You two stay here, but keep the engine running.  If any trouble comes your way, drive up to us and we'll get right back in, otherwise just hang back and out of sight.  If there's a mob of those things down there, we don't need them to pick up the engine noise and start migrating towards us."  Roger nodded and put the Jeep in park.  Eli got out beside me, carrying the shotgun.  Amy stayed in the back, refusing to look at any of us.  "Amy?"  She looked at me with a venomous glare.  I could feel my shoulders slumping as he gaze bore in to me.  "Could you, I mean, just keep an eye out?  Just make sure no one's coming from behind."

She let out a deep sigh and turned in her seat to sit with her back to the side of the Jeep, resting her head on one hand, watching up the hill.  I looked at Roger.  He grinned and shrugged. "We're set, chief.  Roll up to you at the first sign of trouble."

I gave him a quick thumbs up and started to make my way down the road, Eli in tow.  We kept to the shoulder, letting the grassy strip alongside the pavement to muffle our steps.  I was still limping a bit, my left foot landing hard with each step.  Even though the cut on my right foot was doing a lot better since I bandaged it up, it still felt like I was landing on something sharp with every footfall.  I clenched my jaw, keeping my discomfort from showing on my face.  I didn't want to worry Eli any more than I already had, and the illusion that it was just a minor nuisance now was better for his state of mind.

As we made our careful way down the hill I thought about Eli's state of mind.  The last couple of times we encountered those monsters Eli's reactions were unexpected.  He flew into a bloodthirsty rage, unwilling to back down even in the face of overwhelming odds.  He fairly well trashed his car running down a pack of a couple dozen of those things, driving through them over and over again until they were nothing but broken messes on the pavement.  I felt like I had to keep a close eye on him now, to make sure he didn't run into some hopeless situation and get himself killed.  Something had definitely changed in him since our desperate climb down from the campsite, but I couldn't yet say if it was a change for the better or worse.

Stapleton's came in to view as we cleared a cluster of trees.  It was a single building with a long porch along the front, a small parking lot out front, across the street from an old gas station that still had $1.28 advertised on the sign above the pumps.  Eli chuckled and nudged me, "Looks like they haven't been open for a while, eh man?"

I smiled as I took the rifle off of my shoulder. "A buck twenty eight?  That's gotta be twenty years old now.  Hell, the last time a station out in New Rochelle ran a promo for two fifty a gallon the lines blocked up traffic all the way back on the parkway."

Eli gave me a wide grin. "I remember that, man.  I wound up stuck in that traffic for like an hour trying to make my way into the city.  I heard the state cops wound up shutting the sale down."

I brought the rifle up to my shoulder to peer through the scope. "Well, they tried to at least.  I don't think they got anywhere, though.  The station owner was partnered up with a radio station or something, so they were able to keep the sale on till noon.  Makes me wonder how much the station owner lost per fill-up, you know?"

Eli chuckled and nodded, looking back and forth along the trees.  I closed one eye and peered down at the store.  The whole facade was painted in these campy murals of hunting, skiing and camping, with big over-blown cartoony-looking characters smiling as they trekked through the wilderness.  The deer and fish had smiles on their faces, which just made me chuckle.  Sure they were trying to make the outdoor life look appealing, but the animals they were out there to kill just smiling along with the hunters and fishermen was just too much for me.

The far end of the store held the single door in or out.  The screen door was broken, hanging on one hinge at an odd angle, the screen ripped down the middle.  The door was open, but I could guess it was broken as well, probably kicked in by a previous looter.  Inside was dark.  "Well," I said, still looking down through the scope, "I don't think we're going to get much.  Looks like the door's been busted down.  Someone probably got here before us."

"Could be those things though, right man?  I mean, what if they broke the door, and the store's still pretty much full, except for a couple of things to kill.  That's a possibility, ain't it, man?"

I couldn't refute his logic.  I didn't see any discarded containers or bottles in the parking lot, which meant that the looters, if there were any, were either meticulous, careful, had a lot of time to take only what they wanted, or all three.  No matter what this wasn't just a smash and grab job, and unless they had multiple vehicles to load up, there's no way they got away with everything.  If Stockton was as bad off as Amy said I didn't think it would be possible to empty a place that big out without attracting a lot of attention.  I scanned the parking lot again, and then looked to the side of the building.  "You know what, Eli?  I think you're right."

"Yeah, man? What do you see?"

I lowered the rifle. "No corpses outside.  Someone looting for an extended period of time would have had to deal with at least one of those things.  So either they came and went quick, which means there's still plenty left to take, or the inside is overrun.  While that doesn't really make me feel good, that does also mean there's plenty left to take.  Either way, it's worth the risk."

Eli patted me on the shoulder, "Hell yeah, man. Lemme run back and get Roger.  You sit tight, and we'll come pick you up."  I nodded and brought the rifle back up to my shoulder while Eli trotted back up the hill to where the Jeep was parked.

I kept a close watch on all of the visible exits.  There were no windows, besides two small ones that flanked the front door, and those were still intact.  The side door, a metal fire door with no handle on the outside, looked undisturbed.  There were no alarms ringing anyway, which means there was no panicked flight out the back at any point.  The parking lot wrapped around the building, so I guessed there was some sort of loading entrance around back where trucks could make deliveries, but I couldn't see for sure.  There was no movement at the front door at all, not even a passing shadow in the darkness.

Roger pulled the Jeep alongside me, having drifted down in neutral to keep the noise to a minimum.  "Need a lift?" he said with a smirk.

"Hang on.  I have an idea."

Eli whimpered in the passenger seat. "Oh come on, man!  You and your ideas!  Let's just get down there and get some food!  I'm starving, man!"

I gave Eli a look that made him sink back into his seat, then I peered back through the scope at the store below. "I am thinking I should put a bullet into the front door."

Roger gave me an incredulous look.  "Why?"

"Just watch."  I took aim, steadied my breathing, and squeezed the trigger.  The shot rang out, echoing in the still, summer air.  I could see where the bullet hit the doorframe, sending a shower of splinters to the sidewalk.  I lowered the rifle and listened closely.

Silence.  No groaning.  No shuffling feet through the woods.  Nothing.

Roger kept his eyes on the store. "So, what am I watching?"

"Well, I figured that if there were some of those things inside, the shot would draw them out.  I'd much rather deal with them out here on open ground than in close quarters inside a grocery store, wouldn't you?"

Roger smirked, "Good thinking, actually.  I guess that's why they pay you the big bucks."

I chuckled slightly. "Yeah, make sure to send a letter to my supervisor so I can get a raise."