Infestation Chicago: A Zombie Survival Series (Volume 2) (2 page)

Chapter 2 – 1000 Miles

             
As the sun hung in the sky, David had a bad nagging feeling wash over him. The car was louder than before. David noticed it started almost thirty minutes after they had left Iowa City. He feared it might die at the worst time possible but it had gotten them this far. It sputtered occasionally and seemed to be having difficulty going faster than thirty miles per hour.  Destiny sat in the passenger seat beside David, calmly leaning her head out of the window watching the long road in front of them. The road stretched on for as far as they could see. Trees lined each side of the road with small gaps in-between them, occasionally showing a farm or a field of some kind on the other side. Holiday was sprawled out on the back bucket seat sleeping, with his sheriff hat covering his face. Occasionally he would say something incoherent. David held the steering wheel of the 1977 Plymouth Volare Station Wagon very tightly. He had never learned how to drive, living in Lone Tree. He had never had the need for it.

             
“Destiny, How much farther until the gas station?” David asked staring at his fuel gauge before quickly returning his gaze to the road ahead. Destiny brought her head inside and opened the glove compartment. She pulled out a folded up old map which was badly wrinkled and worn.

             
“Ten minutes or so?” She replied unsure. “I think we are here.” She placed her finger on the map and paused for a moment. “Or maybe we are here?” She said sliding her finger on the map and sounding even more uncertain than before. “Yeah, definitely here.”

             
“I will pull over and check,” David said snappily. “Holiday!” he shouted in a failed attempt to wake him up. “Holiday!” He shouted louder causing Holiday to sit up quickly.

             
“What’s wrong?” Holiday said alarmed.

             
“Nothing,” Destiny said reassuringly, “We are pulling over for a minute so be on guard.” Holiday nodded in agreement while picking up his shotgun from the floor. David slowly pulled the car to the side of the road and shut it off. The quietness made him uneasy. Even while living in the country his entire life, it was never as quiet as it was now.

             
“Let me see the map,” David said while Destiny still searched the paper for any clues as to their whereabouts. “Please?” David said appeasingly.

Destiny handed him the map
and crossed her arms reluctantly admitting defeat. 

“Wow, this map sucks.” David said trying to cheer her up. “No wonder you couldn’t tell where we were.” He was just being nice; he instantly knew where they were once his eyes looked at the map. “About ten minutes, seems right.” He said handing the map back to her.

              “Two seconds,” Holiday said before jumping out of the car without his shotgun, “Gotta drain the mongoose!” He yelled and jogged into the nearby tree line.

             
“That’s real charming sheriff!” David yelled back.

In the bush Holiday grunted loudly as he unzipped his jeans
. He mocked David’s words under his breath before tilting his head back, closing his eyes and finally relieving his bladder.

             
A loud snap in the trees forced his head forward and eyes to open widely. He stared around at the trees cautiously while shaking his privates quickly as if it would help him finish faster.

A zombie lunged out from a tree right beside him. Its arms swung past him as Holiday flew back with a loud scream
barely seeing it disappear again behind the tree

David and Destiny rushed out of the car and were at Holiday’s side within seconds. Destiny had both her pistols in her hands, only one had any bullets left. David held the massive pistol given to him by Holiday
back when everything started. He himself only had two bullets left.

Before leaving Iowa City, the private security of Trinity Corporation had taken almost all of their ammo and supplies. The group was lucky to be allowed to keep anything, especially their weapons.

“What is it?” David asked Holiday while looking around the trees. Holiday, covered in piss, stood up and zipped his fly up.

“Over there,” Holiday said quietly while pointing toward a nearby tree. “
On the other side of that tree.” David and Destiny, with their guns raised, slowly approached the tree Holiday pointed to. The zombie again emerged from out behind the tree and swung wildly.

David, Destiny, and
Holiday were suddenly overcome with grief at what they saw. A young woman hung from the tree by a rope around her neck. She had turned into a zombie. Her clothes were badly torn and covered in dirt; her face was missing parts of flesh and what flesh was left had sunken down next to nothing. On her chest was a baby carrier covered in blood. Thankfully there was no baby in it, but the group knew what had happened.

Holiday lowered his head with sadness which was quickly replaced with a delightful shock. At his feet was a pack of smokes, probably belonging to the woman hanging in the tree. He reached down and picked it up. Inside, to his continued surprise, was one cigarette. It seemed like it was in good shape. Thoughts raced through his mind about when he had last had a smoke
- the craving had never left even after all these years. He scooped the cigarette out of the pack and stuck it in his mouth. He searched his pockets for his lighter but then remembered David last had it. He grunted with disappointment as he remembered back to when David had lit a homemade Molotov to kill the flying horrors in a tree outside of his house.

He never saw
his lighter after that. “David,” Holiday said, “What ever happened to my lighter?” David and Destiny both looked at Holiday stunned.  “Oh don’t give me that ‘bad for my health speech’, do you have my lighter still?”

David shook his head in disbelief that Holiday was so calm about what they all just saw. He pulled out Holiday’s lighter and threw it softly at him. “Much obliged son.”  Holiday said with a smile on his face. After a few quick clicks of the lighter his cigarette was lit.

Holiday let out a harsh cough as he inhaled the smoke. Apparently it was not as good as he remembered. The cigarette was stale and who knows how long it had been there. He threw the lit smoke on the ground and stomped on it.

“What are we going to do with her?” Destiny asked David. Holiday walked up beside them still slightly coughing before answering her question for David.

“Why should we do anything?” Holiday said cold heartedly. “We can’t waste the bullet.” He continued.

Destiny, appalled by Holiday’s attitude, pulled out her combat knife and walked up to the zombie. It was still swinging its arms attempting to reach them. Destiny pushed its arms to the side and attempted to plunge the knife into its head.

She missed and the knife cut the rope holding the zombie up!

Destiny found herself suddenly trapped under the
weight of the zombie. Her knife lying beside her, she was powerless to do anything but hold the zombies head up enough to keep it from biting her. It growled and snarled ferociously while snapping its jaw attempting to bite her anywhere it could. David quickly tried to control the zombie away, as he had done before, but nothing happened. After a few seconds David raised his gun to fire it but Holiday grabbed it out of his hand. David looked at him outraged

“What are you doing?!” David yelled, but Holiday ignored him. He ran to Destiny’s side and bashed the zombie with his foot sending it flying off of her into a tree. Then he threw the gun back at David
speaking one word at a time so as to be completely clear while he spoke:

“
Can’t. Waste. The. Bullet.” Destiny jumped up and once more attempted to drive her knife into the zombies head. This time it worked. The knife slid into the head like it was a honeydew melon. The zombie stopped snarling abruptly and laid there motionless.

Destiny rose to her feet and quickly walked back to the car, without saying anything and without her knife. Holiday walked
to the zombie and quickly pulled the blade out of its head before turning and joining Destiny in the car.

David stood there for a moment stunned. Holiday was acting odd, even more
so than normal. Also, David had failed at controlling the zombie off of Destiny. He still didn’t fully understand how his ‘gift’ worked but it was clear he needed to practice controlling it, and fast.

“Come on son!” Holiday yelled from the backseat of the car as he started to lie down, once again covering his face with his sheriff hat.

David didn’t know exactly why Holiday was acting strange, but he thought he had an idea. The group had been through so much already and when David returned from killing his father, it was all supposed to be over. Instead, the group now has to travel all the way to New York City and face who knows what horrors along the way. David did the math before they left, 1000 miles from Iowa City to New York City. As he walked back to the driver side of the car, David began to think he should be doing this alone.

The sound of the car grew louder and louder as they drove. Almost ten minutes had passed since they saw the woman hanging from the tree. Destiny hadn’t said
a word since, Holiday just snored, or spoke in his sleep and David’s eyes watched the road. It felt like it had been an hour if not longer. The sun was beginning to set and David had hoped they would be at the gas station before dark. ‘Any second now’ David kept thinking to himself. ‘Where is the gas station?’

             
Just as the last ray of light vanished from the sky, the car suddenly and sharply jumped. Holiday in the back seat nearly flew forward onto the floor from the jolt. The car let out a few wheezing sounds before a cloud of white steam billowed out from under the hood. The car quit on them, just as David had feared it would. David guided the car as best he could to the side of road. Destiny sighed loudly with disappointment while Holiday searched out the windows beside him to see what, if anything was around.

             
“How much further is it? Do you think we can walk it?” Holiday asked, gripping his shotgun tightly.

             
“Might have to,” David said throwing on the emergency brake and opening the driver side door. “Hope it isn’t too far.” He continued.

             
“I can barely see anything out there,” Destiny said peering down the road as best she could. “Way too dark, do we have a flashlight still?”

             
“No,” David said quickly as he stood outside the car and loudly closed the door. “Trinity Corp Security took our only one.”

The doors on the car were very heavy
. When Destiny and Holiday exited the vehicle and attempted to close their doors quietly, it was louder than David would have liked.

“Everyone listens for anything,” David strongly commanded. “They can’t see in this any better than we can.” A long pause followed before he let out one more word, “Probably.”

              Destiny began to worry about every little sound she heard. The footsteps of the group raced in her mind until she was nearly convinced she heard a horde running toward them.

             
“I can’t do this.” She said quickly and stopped moving.

             
“Yes you can baby,” David spoke softly trying to reassure her as well as listen to everything around him. Like Destiny, his mind was playing tricks on him too because of the darkness. “Just keep going and listen carefully.”

Destiny began moving, trusting in David like she always had. Only seconds passed before Holiday suddenly shouted out, “Down!” Immediately the sound of wings and chirping filled the air. Flying Horrors were overhead. Small fuzzy ball-like creatures only attracted to electricity
. In Iowa City they held the group ‘hostage’ in David’s house because the helicopter coming for the group was destroyed by the flying horrors.

“Good thing the car did break down.” Destiny whispered. “Those things would have ripped us apart.”

“Same with the flashlight,” David whispered back.

“Shut it!” Holiday whispered loudly. “Can you guys hear something else?” Holiday was
referring to the sound of distant thumps off in the distance. Small flashes of bright orange and white lights flickered through the trees.

“I hear it, and see it.” David said walking cautiously toward the trees. He stepped as quietly as he could around the trees until he was on the other side of them in a large sod farm field. He could see the lights easier, and they lit the field up slightly around him.

Off in the distance, very far away, small explosions lit up the night sky. “What is over there?” Destiny whispered as she walked up behind David. Overhead they could see the swarm of Flying Horrors heading toward the explosions.

“People trying to fight back I guess.” David replied. Holiday also emerged from the trees and stood beside David.

“Let’s get to New York so they have a fighting chance then.” Holiday said in a low almost monotone voice before turning around and heading back through the trees. The Flying Horrors were now far enough away they could no longer be heard.

“Wait,” David said in a normal level voice while turning toward Holiday. “We should stick to the field, it might–” David was cut off as a gunshot rang through the air and a bright flash appeared where Holiday had entered the tree line.