As the wipers whisked away the woman's blood and entrails, I saw a bank and a Turkey Hill appear on the at the next intersection.
"Where are we?" I asked. I couldn't believe we'd missed this town on the maps while we were planning the route at Brian's house.
"Not sure what the town is," Rob said, shuffling through the printouts, "but our turn is just ahead."
The road curved to the right and everything shifted in the van as Brian took the turn faster than he should have. We couldn't afford to go slowly, though. Through every window I could see out of, infected were spilling into the street. Brian swerved the van left and right, not in an effort to avoid hitting infected, but rather to avoid hitting more than three or four at a time.
As quickly as we had entered the town, we found ourselves pulling away from it. The only infected remaining were standing in the rearview mirror, and cornfields stretched out before us. Following Rob's direction, Brian swung a right onto Gum Tree Road, heading east. Farms and fields again lined the road, allowing Brian to ease off the gas pedal. We were mere miles from West Chester, and no one was in any rush to find out what awaited us.
Thursday, 4:00 p.m.
According to Matt, we were about two miles from West Chester. He cautioned that if we drove any further, fields and rolling hills would quickly yield to neighborhoods spilling over with the infected. I had no reason to doubt him; east of our position, smoke drifted toward the clouds, reminiscent of the overrun cities we had passed on the bay. Brian parked the van at the foot of a long driveway leading to a farmhouse surrounded by ankle‐high barley fields.
A trip that would have taken three hours two weeks ago had taken us over three days, at the expense of three lives, including Holly. But we were finally in West Chester. And I was only a hundred miles from my parent's house in the Poconos. Still, I knew things were about to get worse before they got better.
We hopped out of the cargo van, stretching our legs, taking in our surroundings. The summer heat had begun to wane. The road we were on was lined with overgrown bushes and grasses, and dotted with hundred year old oaks, providing further protection from the sun's rays. Insects and birds sang a chorus that belied the chaos further down the road. I was so absorbed in nature's beauty that it took a moment to realize Melissa and Brian were arguing. I turned and walked toward the front of the van.
"Jason, tell him Matt's fine," Melissa said. "He doesn't need to be locked up anymore."
"Just let him get up and walk around a while, Bri," Dale said. "He's fine right now, we can at least talk about how we're gonna handle it."
Apparently Dale was trying to atone for his errant shot, suddenly supporting Matt.
"I agree," I said. "I'm no expert, but I would think if he was gonna turn, it would've happened by now. Hell, it would've happened in the first thirty seconds."
"Fine, but I don't want him anywhere near me," Brian said. "You know he's still contagious, right?"
"Yes," I said. "And Melissa, you've gotta keep a safe distance too. Whatever made him immune, you probably don't have the same genes. No kisses, no touching, no nuthin', understood?"
Melissa shook her head in agreement, grabbed the keys from Brian's extended hand and raced toward the back of the van. I followed to make sure she didn't risk her own life. She played it smart, dropping the keys in Matt's free hand and allowing him to unlock himself. Moments later he stood from the van and stretched his limbs. Aside from the pitch black eyes and sullen spirit, he seemed to be in good health.
"You know we had to do that right, for our own protection?" Brian said as he put a hand on the open van door.
"Yeah I know, I would've done the same thing," Matt said, nodding.
"So what's the game plan?" Rob asked.
"Well, we have a couple choices," I said. "First off, we need to decide if we wanna try to march into West Chester tonight, and risk getting cut off in the dark, or if we wanna wait until morning. Second, we need to solidify who's going. I don't wanna put Sarah or Melissa at risk, but I also don't wanna leave them here alone. Third, if we wait until morning, we need to figure out what we're doing tonight."
"I say we wait until morning," Matt said.
I was glad he spoke up. If we were going to successfully extract his parents, assuming they were even still alive, we needed Matt to lead the way. This whole plan would go to shit if he felt alienated from the group.
"Why's that?" Brian asked. "It's only four. We've got plenty of sunlight left to get in and get out. Why not get it done with?"
"Because we don't know what we're dealing with," I said.
I didn't want Matt to have to feel like he was defending himself. Besides, he was right. We'd be better off in the light of day.
"Who the hell knows how many of those infected are wandering the streets right now," I continued. "This is a big town. We're gonna need to take our time and allow opportunities to develop. If we start rushing, we're gonna end up with a damn block party chasing our asses back here."
Rob and Dale each agreed that waiting until morning was the safest course of action.
After a few more minutes of debate, we all agreed we would search the farm house at the top of the driveway in hopes that it was empty and would provide refuge for a night. We also agreed that tomorrow morning, Sarah and Melissa would remain at the house while the guys went into West Chester. I wasn't happy about leaving the girls behind, but if the place was safe enough to sleep in tonight, certainly the girls would be safe for a few hours in the morning. Besides, Brian wanted all the men on the mission into the city, and he had already compromised by waiting until morning, so I figured acquiescing on this made us square.
We climbed back into the van and Brian reversed, then pulled forward down the driveway, headed toward the farm house. Barley fields stretched from each side of the drive like a green, calm sea. A three‐rail wooden fence surrounded the property on three sides, all except the front along the road, which was bordered by evenly‐spaced, 50‐foot tall oaks casting a continuous shadow on the ground below. The Pennsylvania Dutch‐style farm house sat at the center of the property, two hundred yards of barley between the home and the fence in every direction. The two‐story house was built with stone, grayish‐brown in color, five windows along the second floor, four on the first, with a double front door and a porch wrapping around the entire building.
The driveway opened up to provide a small parking area to the right of the home, but Brian pulled directly in front of the main entrance before shutting off the engine. I climbed out of the side doors and helped Sarah to the ground. Melissa, Matt and Dale followed, while Brian and Rob emerged from the front seats. If anyone was home, they weren't concerned about strange cars in the driveway. The curtains behind the first floor windows were pulled to the side, revealing fragments of the interior and indicating that whoever lived here either left at the outbreak of the virus, or wasn't worried about infected guests breaking in.
I surveyed the surrounding fields. There was nothing but barley between us and the fence, beyond which trees formed another natural barrier.
Brian tried the front door, found it locked, and began looking under rugs and potted plants on the porch. Two minutes later he had found the key, unlocked the door and stepped into the foyer. I took Sarah's hand and we followed the rest of the group inside.
Brian, Rob and Dale began an inspection, covering each other as they went door to door throughout the home, ensuring there were no infected lying in wait. After the three guys finished with the first floor and took the stairs to the second, I led Sarah to the kitchen. Together we began scouring the cabinets. It appeared whoever had lived here had packed as much as they could before they made their escape. Every cabinet was barren, aside from a few spices. The refrigerator held a few items, such as cheese and vegetables in the crisper, but it had grown warm long ago and nearly everything inside featured a fresh layer of mold. I figured we'd be dining on beef jerky and Slim Jims again.
Rob, Brian and Dale entered the kitchen and stated that the house was clear. We decided that we'd split up into two rooms for the night, both on the second floor. Matt, Melissa, Sarah and I would take a room at the back of the house and the other three would take a room facing the front. This way we could rotate sleep schedules and keep someone on lookout on each side of the home.
Brian insisted that Matt be handcuffed throughout the night. Melissa started to argue, but Matt agreed it was best for everyone.
Sarah and I spent most of the evening scavenging the house for anything that might be useful, but came up empty‐handed. Rob, Dale and Brian took it upon themselves to stand guard outside. Matt and Melissa sat in the living room, paging through books they'd found in the home's library.
As the sun fell below the horizon, we retired to our rooms upstairs. Melissa helped Matt handcuff himself to an old radiator in our room, while Brian stood watching, ensuring the cuffs were adequately fastened. I took the first watch, pulling a rocking chair to the window, while Sarah and Melissa shared the queen size bed.
I fell asleep almost instantly, and didn't wake until the first rays of the sun began to cast their light over the farm. The girls and Matt hadn't moved throughout the night and, thankfully, it appeared we hadn't been discovered by any of the infected venturing away from the city.
Friday, 6:15 a.m.
After kissing Sarah goodbye and watching her fade from view behind us, I regretted leaving her. I knew in my head that I needed to help Matt get his parents if I expected his help finding mine; and the fact that he might have a cure coursing through his veins inspired me to ensure he didn't die. Still, part of me wanted to run back to Sarah, scoop her up and figure out our own way to the Poconos, everyone else be damned.
The first mile of the hike was without incident. Route 842 was lined by trees on one side and fields on the other. There was no activity in the fields, but Matt cautioned us that just beyond the tree line to our right were sprawling neighborhoods. He said they were big homes, and likely the kind of people that had the resources to flee or bunker down when the infected began to spread, but we had no way of knowing for sure. We walked in silence, single file, Brian in the lead, Matt right behind him, close enough to whisper in his ear. Occasionally Brian would raise his fist, signaling us to stop. Most likely he was hearing a deer or groundhog in the woods. Each time, we waited a few minutes, rifles aimed in every direction, before we would begin walking again.
I hadn't learned much about the behavior of the infected, but everything I knew was bad. They were about as fast as the average human. Luckily, we were all pretty fast as well, but I would have rather been dealing with the slow, shuffling zombie‐types from so many movies.
They also seemed to have a pack mentality. The first few days in Maryland, we had mostly encountered groups of three or four. The past few days, on the beach near Aberdeen Proving Ground and in Conowingo, the infected had attacked us in herds of dozens or hundreds. Perhaps as they wandered around, the groups grew larger. Or maybe those larger recent groups had started out in more populated places. Either way, I knew if we saw one infected, there were more nearby.
After passing a number of driveways without incident, Route 842 curved to the east and became Miner Street. We would need to turn off Miner onto Price, where Matt's parents lived three blocks from the campus. This part of the city, surrounding the university, was much more residential than the road leading into West Chester. Houses dating to the 1950s had been built on top of one another, but at least the campus should be mostly desolate. School had ended for the students in mid‐May.
The problem with entering a residential area, though, was the number of potential infected, even if they did skew toward the senior citizen age range this time of year. Miner Street bent north and a hundred yards ahead I saw the sign for Price Street.
Brian left the road and we hugged the houses as we inched our way toward Price. At the third house, on the corner of Miner and Price, Brian peered around the end of the home's brick wall and looked down the street. He swung his head back behind the cover of the wall and muttered "fuck" under his breath.
I moved forward, past Matt and Brian, chest‐to‐chest with both men as I tried to stay close to the wall. Tilting my head around the corner, I gasped. Down Price Street, beginning about a block from our position and continuing as far as I could see, infected covered the road. They stood silently, seemingly unaware of each other, heads cocked to the side, swaying airily, arms and hands held chest high. Inches apart, some shoulder to shoulder, there must have been hundreds, if not thousands, just waiting for the slightest provocation.
And we were about to provide it for them.
Friday, 7:15 a.m.
The five of us worked our way back along the wall to the home's front porch, which provided a small enclave in which we were hidden from view in three directions. Huddled together, I could hear our hearts beating, pounding. I had known getting to Matt's parent's house would be risky, but this was beyond my worst fears. There was no possible way we could skirt so many infected. And if it was this bad on the outskirts of the city, surely it would only be worse the further into town we went.
"This shit's not gonna happen," Rob said, looking at Matt. "There's no fucking way we can get to your parent's place if the streets are crawling like that."
Matt nodded his understanding. I knew he wouldn't expect us to go into battle against a thousand infected.
"What about the sewers?" Dale said. "Pull off a manhole cover?"
"You know what's down there, man?" Brian said. "Tight little space, crawlin' through shit. On top of that, where the hell you think we're gonna pop up? In the middle of a damn street. Surrounded by those fucks. No way."