The day is warm, and the neighborhood streets are quiet and empty, and if you can manage to ignore the bullet holes in the cars and the bodies that are rotting on the ground, it might almost seem like any ordinary day. Except the moment you let that happen, you’re dead. We walk in silence mostly, always aware of every small noise we make. By avoiding the main road, we travel with relative ease. For some reason, the side streets contain significantly fewer corpses than the main roads. They seem to crowd the same places they used to crowd. I could almost believe this shows some kind of mental attachment to their former lives, but the truth is that they were likely drawn there by the last humans that survived.
There are plenty of cars parked in driveways along the road, and I debate the possibility of checking the houses for keys. The roads are so difficult to navigate that I think we might be better off traveling on foot. As midday approaches, the streets begin to seem more familiar. We reach a vast nature preserve that I recognize instantly. The woods runs along the highway through several towns, before it eventually ends at the expressway. We cross over Route 59 and follow an entrance into the preserve.
After several minutes of walking without the slightest trace of danger, I shoulder my rifle. We stop for lunch at a pavilion. I sit down at a picnic table and heat up an entree from the MRE. Since we are several miles from the road, we don’t worry about the smell of the food or the sound of our voices giving us away. Stitch discovers a tennis ball and convinces Danielle to stop eating her lunch and play fetch. For a few minutes, I sit back and close my eyes and savor the feel of the sun hitting my skin again.
The tongue of a dog lapping my face wakes me, and I open my eyes to Danielle giggling on the ground next to me. I wipe a thin film of sweat off my face and am immediately angry with myself for falling asleep.
“How long was I out?” I ask her. I get up and take a sip of water and begin to gather my gear together.
“Maybe a half hour,” she says.
I’m already regretting the time lost. It’s been a long time since we slept, but I have to keep pushing ahead. I look around at the tired, dirty faces around me and can tell no one wants to move yet.
“We can’t keep going like this,” Danielle says. “Everyone is exhausted.”
“I know,” I sigh. “I’m tired as hell too. I have to go, though.”
“How much farther is it?” she asks.
“Maybe ten miles,” I guess. I know exactly how to get home from here. The route will take me through more nature preserves and undeveloped land. It seems like the least dangerous area we’ve encountered, and I can probably make it there by myself if I avoid the main roads. I’ve been wrong about that kind of thing before. I won’t blame any of them if they decide to stay behind, but I have to keep moving. “Once we get over the expressway, it’s a lot of open farmland. We might even be able to get there before dark.”
“Then what?” asks Fletcher.
I am not sure how to respond, I haven’t thought past getting home. I can’t allow myself to think beyond that moment. “I guess, we’ll just see what we find first.”
We set out again on a gravel trail that meanders through the preserve to the parking lot that borders the expressway. The lot is full of empty parking spaces. The frontage road that leads to Route 59 looks deserted as well. The expressway is still a nightmare. Corpses wander through a junkyard of automobiles that spans the entire eight lanes of traffic.
“Holy shit,” says Kyle as he looks down upon the scene for the first time. He turns and looks at Natalie, who looks terrified. The rest of us have seen this before. We are maybe two or three miles west of the medieval restaurant. Hard to believe we went through so much to end up back where we started almost.
“How are we going to get across there?” asks Natalie. “This is crazy.”
“We can try and go down to that overpass,” Fletcher suggests, squinting his eyes to peer into the distance. The closest overpass is, at least, a mile to the west, and located near a huge shopping center and movie theater. He takes a pair of binoculars from his pack and holds them to his eyes. “Don’t look like that way will be much better, though.”
“We go across here,” I say. “There is another forest preserve on the other side. It’s the best chance we have.”
For a long moment, no one says anything.
“They’re packed together pretty tight down there,” says Quentin. He crouches down and rests his rifle across his knee looking for the best possible route across. “It won’t be a walk in the park; that’s for damn sure.”
“We don’t have the ammo for this,” Danielle says. “There’s too many.”
Fletcher returns the binoculars back to his pack and removes a cutter to make a hole in the high chainlink fence that separates the forest from the highway. “We stay together and keep low,” he says. “Draw as little attention as possible. Don’t shoot unless you have to. We can do this.”
Fletcher finishes cutting the hole, and then we move through to the other side and down a small hill of thick weeds toward the highway. The uneven ground is tricky to manage, and I nearly lose my balance trying to shift the heavy pack on my shoulders. We reach the bottom of the hill and crouch behind the concrete divider that separates the easement from the highway. I can smell the overwhelming odor of the dead on the other side. Stitch sniffs the air. The hair on his neck bristles.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Natalie murmurs softly. I look past her to see Fletcher give me the nod; then he rises to his feet and disappears over the wall. I hop the barricade, and then wait as the others make their way onto the highway. We follow Fletcher through the maze of wrecked and abandoned cars. We pass by a corpse pinned to the side of a sedan by the grill of a pickup. It claws at the metal and opens its mouth when it catches sight of us approaching. It won’t be able to grab us, so Fletcher keeps out of reach of the corpse and moves past it. This maneuver seems to be the best option until the thing begins to bang loudly on the hood of the pickup while struggling to grasp at us. I turn and fire a round through the skull of the thing. After its head smacks the hood of the truck, it is quiet and still again.
I hold my position for a long moment, hoping the noise has not alerted more corpses to our presence. We have a long way to go across the expressway, and who knows how long it will take to weave through the mess of cars. I lower the gun and turn back when I glimpse something moving in the periphery of my vision that stops me cold. A corpse claws at the window of the sports car behind me. The teeth snap, and there is a dull thud as the thing hits its skull on the glass.
I feel a momentary flood of relief with the realization that the glass separates the corpse from my face. The moment doesn’t last long. As the zombie struggles to reach me, it lays a hand on the horn of the car. The blaring sound sets my heart racing.
“Shit,” Fletcher growls. He springs to his feet and begins selecting targets and firing round after round.
“Run!” Quentin urges as he stands up and opens fire as well.
I push Natalie forward and wait as she climbs over the crumpled hood of the car. I scurry over behind her, and then bring the rifle up to fire into a handful of corpses making their way toward us between the lanes of traffic. Danielle drops down behind me and takes out several zombies coming from the opposite direction.
Natalie and Kyle remain crouched between the cars. They look too scared to move. “Keep going,” I urge them, and then I climb on the hood of a taxi cab and begin firing at several corpses on the other side. I feel something brush against my leg and ready the rifle to put a bullet in whatever was about to grab me, but I look down to find Stitch. He hops down and disappears beneath the undercarriage of the next car.
I remove the empty magazine and replace it. There is only one more before I have only the handgun. We’ll never fight our way across the highway. The crowd of corpses closing in on us continues to grow faster than we can shoot them down. With every moment that passes the chances of us making it across seem to get worse. I reach the concrete median and begin to climb over to cross over into the westbound lanes, but a hand grabs hold of my shirt and pulls me back. I turn, ready to fight to free myself, but realize it is Quentin.
“Head down!” he screams and pulls me toward the ground behind the median.
I look around and try to understand what he is warning me about. From the roof of a car Fletcher throws something across the median in the direction of a cluster of corpses. Then he shoves me to the pavement and drops down beside me. A series of concussive blasts on the other side of the concrete shock me senseless. Behind the ringing in my ears, I hear a voice telling me to run. I turn around and start to pull myself over the concrete divider when I notice the street looks like a bomb went off. Several cars have exploded, and the blasts sent pieces of jagged metal flying in every direction. The skeletons of several scorched cars are smoking on the pavement, but otherwise, the road is relatively clear of the dead. Coughing on the smoke, I make a run for the other side of the expressway.
Once I reach the fence, I shrug my pack off and toss it up and over the top and start to climb. I have no idea how close any of the walking dead might be behind me. After I pull myself to the top of the fence, I can only muster the strength to swing my body over and drop down to the ground below. I land hard on the unforgiving ground. My exhausted legs buckle and I roll over onto my back and gasp for air. The incessant high pitched tone is all I can hear for a moment; then the sound of a dog barking far away.
I push myself upright and see Stitch digging in the dirt at the base of the fence. Everyone else is still climbing over the top, so I grab the chainlink and pull it up as much as I can until he can squeeze his body underneath. I collapse back on the ground and watch the others climb down the fence. For several minutes, we all rest on the ground and stare back at the expressway. The walking dead continue their slow pursuit of us, and they converge on our position on the other side of the fence. The first of them to reach the barrier has a face that is charred black on one half and still smoking. The smell of burnt, rotting flesh motivates us to find the strength to get up and start moving again.
After half an hour, the ringing in my ears finally begins to subside but leaves me with a splitting headache. I squint my eyes and pinch at the bridge of my nose as if I could squeeze the pain out of existence with my fingers.
“Here,” says Danielle. She nudges my arm with a bottle of aspirin. I take it and down a couple and thank her when I hand it back.
Our pace has slowed since crossing the expressway. Aside from the exhaustion, the nature preserve on this side of the highway doesn’t have any trails to follow. We have to push through marshes and fields of tall grass and densely wooded acreage.
“These fucking mosquitos, man,” Kyle whines and slaps at an insect on the side of his neck.
“At least, it’s just the bugs trying to bite your scrawny ass out here, college boy,” laughs Quentin. “I’d take that any day.”
The sound of crickets begins to fill the air as the sun drifts downward toward the western horizon. We stop when we come upon a small stream about a hundred yards from the road. I drop my pack and bend down to splash my face with water.
The forest preserve ends up ahead, and we’ll have to take to the street as we head towards town. It will be too hard to move through the woods in the night, and the road runs through a sparsely populated stretch for the next several miles. We scout the street to be sure it is clear. No sign of anyone, alive or dead. It doesn’t seem right. Though there aren’t many houses or businesses along this stretch of the road, it was used by lots of people traveling between towns and would get congested during rush hour. Amanda usually took it to get to work from Abby’s school. The last thing she said was that she was stuck in traffic. It just didn’t make sense, and I felt more anxious now than ever about what I might find ahead.
“You okay?” Danielle asks me.
A million different scenarios play out in my mind now as I wonder what might have happened to my family. As desperate as I am to find them, I dread facing the likely outcome that I may not find any trace of them. I may even find something much, much worse. These thoughts cause me to slow down, and when I look up to respond to Danielle, I realize I’ve dropped well behind.
“Yeah,” I lie.“Just a little tired.”
Danielle looks at me long enough that I can tell she knows something else is wrong. After everything we’ve been through, I still have a hard time telling her what bothers me. It’s not in my nature to willingly show any sign of weakness, even when it’s obvious. She seems satisfied when I force a smile on my face and decides not to pry any further.
“These houses are amazing,” she says to change the subject.
“Hold up,” Fletcher interrupts. “We got something up ahead around the bend.”
I try to squint into the bright setting sun to see. I can’t tell what it is, but a long metallic object appears to be blocking both lanes of the street. That would explain why there are no cars at all. Whatever it is must have been here since this whole thing first started.
Fletcher removes the binoculars from his pack and peers into them. “Looks like a semi truck,” he reports. “Overturned.”
He passes the binoculars to me, and I take a look down the road. The giant tanker lays sideways across the pavement. I spot two corpses in police uniforms stumbling around in front of it, but the street is empty otherwise. There’s no telling what might lurk behind it. The safe bet would be to get off the road here and hike through the woods again.
“Want to go around it?” Fletcher asks.
“Let’s get a closer look first,” I suggest.
We approach the truck cautiously, eyeing the woods surrounding the road for any movement but the scene remains quiet. All I can see on the road is several empty squad cars and the tanker. The police officers notice us as we close the distance, and we draw them away from the truck before taking them out. Usually, a tanker truck like this would be carrying fuel or some chemical, and we have to assume it could still hold something hazardous.
I creep along the front of the truck and poke my head out to look down the street. More squad cars barricade the street a hundred yards up the road. Behind the police vehicles is a line of cars as far as I can see. Amazingly, the area seems free of the undead, so I wave to let the others know it’s clear before I move around the corner of the truck. I take a couple of steps, and then I spot the long shadow on the ground from something standing on the other side of the diesel engine. I jump back on the passenger side of the truck and hold my hands up to get Danielle to stop before she comes any closer.
I peer slowly around the bumper and watch the shadow on the ground and wait for it to move. It remains perfectly still. That’s when I realize that it’s a living person, and they are hiding. Whoever is back there could be afraid of us, or this could be a trap. I look back over to Danielle, and I point to my eyes, then to the front of the truck to let her know I spotted something there. I try to think of some hand gesture to explain that they seem to be alive, but it seems too complicated. She steps back towards the rear of the tanker and I wait a moment and consider my options.
“Hey there,” I call out. When I don’t get an answer, a bad feeling begins to set in. “I know you’re behind the truck. I can see your shadow on the ground.”
At first, there is still no response, so I cautiously peer around the edge hoping I don’t get my head blown off. I can see the shadow has shifted and is now pressed up against the truck and looks to be holding a weapon. This situation isn’t going to end well.
“You alone out here?” I probe again and wait for a response. I look around to the tree line across the road for signs of anyone else, but it seems quiet. The person behind the truck likely saw us coming and knows I have company. I can understand being afraid because you’re alone and outnumbered, but I can’t understand why I am getting no response.
“We’re not getting off to a real good start here, man.” I try a little laugh, but it sounds as forced as it is. “This doesn’t have to end badly. I’ll come out, and we’ll just talk this out.” I peer around the corner again, but the shadow at the back of the truck remains motionless. At least, I haven’t been shot at so far. I take that as a pretty good sign.
“I’m going to come out now, okay?” I call out. I wait for a few seconds then shoulder my rifle.
“Okay, friend,” the man says. His voice sounds too calm, measured. And he called me friend, which assures me the guy is totally psychotic. I immediately have second thoughts about trusting someone that isn't as anxious as me.
I raise my hands up to my shoulders with my palms spread and step slowly out around the vehicle and keep my eyes glued to the shadow. The shadow suddenly shifts when the guy pivots around the corner of the truck pointing some kind of submachine gun right at me. He hesitates when he looks at my surprised expression. Then something off to the right catches his attention, and he turns and raises the gun. I look on as several bullets burst into his upper body, jerking his shoulders and causing him to stumble backward. He stands there for a moment stunned, then lets out a yell and makes a desperate move to fire his weapon. Before he can get a shot off his head jerks back and his dead body falls back to the pavement.
Another shadow appears and approaches casually. Danielle emerges with the assault rifle in her hand and stands over the body looking down at the young man that she just killed. I walk over to her and watch her expression change from fearful to angry. Fletcher walks up alongside us and looks down at the body on the ground a moment, then pats Danielle on the shoulder. “Nice shot,” he says and walks away.
Quentin pauses and glances down as well before he puts an arm around Danielle and leads her away. Natalie and Kyle emerge from the rear of the truck. I watch as they walk past and Kyle turns pale at the sight of the body. I linger for a moment and look around as though I might find an explanation somewhere in the trees or the sky or the earth, but things like this just happen now. I pick up the gun next to the body on the ground and follow the others up the road.
“That guy was alive,” Kyle says.
Quentin turns and throws an aggravated look in Kyle’s direction but says nothing.
“I can’t believe we just shot somebody and left them in the road back there,” Kyle goes on. “Doesn’t anyone see how wrong that is?”
The lack of a response from any of us only seems to infuriate him. Somehow he feels he shares the responsibility because he stood by and did nothing.
“I can’t be a part of this,” he insists.
Quentin swivels around, his face filled with rage. He seems like a different person altogether. He grabs Kyle by the front of his collar and pulls him close. “If you want to you can go back there and bury that fucker. I don’t care. But that guy would have shot you down and left you in the road like it was nothing. You better learn that, college boy.”
Kyle tries hard to swallow and nods his head anxiously until Quentin releases him. He gives Kyle a hard stare until I lightly push him on as I walk past. We continue down a slight decline in the road towards the endless line of cars.
“You see that?” Fletcher calls back.
He doesn’t need to be more specific for me to understand. As we approach the cars, we see dozens of dead bodies on the pavement and in the grass. Fletcher stops at the first one of the corpses and bends down to examine it. He uses the barrel of his rifle to roll it over. The smell hits me, and I cover my mouth and nose with my forearm.
“Look at that,” says Fletcher gesturing at an entry wound in the forehead. He stands up and moves on to the next one. It also has been shot in the head. “Somebody already did all the hard work for us.”
Moving past the police cruisers blocking the road, I see hundreds of other bodies among the abandoned cars on the road.
“God damn,” gasps Quentin.
“We missed one hell of a party,” Fletcher notes as he nudges another corpse over with his boot and finds the same wound as the rest.
Something about the scene bothers me, but I can’t figure out what it is yet. I look over at Fletcher and notice he seems perplexed as well.
“Who do you think this was?” I ask. “The cops?”
Fletcher shakes his head. “No, this happened recently. There isn’t a walking corpse left anywhere around here. Somebody was cleaning up.”
“That’s good then, right? Someone is taking this place back,” I say. The thought briefly fills me with the hope that maybe it won’t be as awful here as it was everywhere else we’ve been. But when I look back at Fletcher, he cringes at my optimism.
“Somebody might be taking it back from the dead, but that don’t mean they’ll be interested in sharing it. Maybe your friend back there had a hand in all this, but he wasn’t alone.”
I scan the trees and the road again, but there isn’t anything to see except the endless line of useless cars and the countless bodies of the dead. I can’t shake the feeling someone is watching us, and I suddenly wonder if we should be out in the open.
“But what do I know,” Fletcher smirks. He must sense my unease as he tries to lighten his tone to express less concern. “I been wrong plenty of times before.”
I nod, and I look around the quiet road again, but I don’t feel a sense of relief at all. A feeling of dread claws at me and won’t let go. I can’t even figure out what it is about walking down this road that is paralyzing me. I stop suddenly and turn around. I realize I walked right passed Amanda’s car. The black BMW looks like every other high-end SUV, but I had spotted the parking tag from her school district hanging from the mirror as I walk past.
“What’s up?” asks Fletcher.
“That’s my car,” I stammer.
My legs go numb when I stare at the shattered windows, the blood splatter on the rear panel and the open passenger door. I try to will myself to walk over to it and look inside. With each step I take towards the car, I recall my memories of Amanda more vividly. It’s so intense I almost expect to see her sitting behind the wheel when I lean over and look inside. The sight of the empty seat and the dried blood on the leather is enough to suck the air out of my lungs. I have to turn my head away from it and then I spot her cell phone on the ground. I pick it up and stare at the bloody fingerprints on the cracked screen. The shock is too much for me after everything I’ve gone through to get here. My hand starts to shake, and I drop the phone. I can’t seem to find the strength to stand any longer, so I sit down on the passenger seat of the car.
“Blake,” a soft voice calls to me. “Blake.”
I try to answer, but I can't find the words. The moment seems endless and surreal. Firm hands grab me by the shoulders, and suddenly Danielle’s face snaps into focus. She pulls my head to her chest and hugs me, and I close my eyes and let myself imagine for one last moment that Amanda is alive and here and everything hadn’t gone to hell.
I open my eyes and give Danielle a little nod to let her know I haven’t totally lost it. It still seems difficult to draw air into my lungs, as if my body no longer has the will to function. I look back and take in the empty seat in the back of the car. A small pink jacket on the floor catches my eye, and I pick it up. I try to ignore the flecks of blood on the sleeve. Abby wasn’t in the car when it happened, I tell myself. It’s not her blood. Holding the jacket reminds me that I still have a reason to keep going.
I get out of the car and carefully fold the jacket and tuck it inside the top of my pack. I pull it onto my shoulders and adjust the straps for a couple of minutes. No matter how much I mess with it, the pack seems so much heavier than before. Stitch runs over to me, circles my legs panting excitedly. He turns and sprints back down the dark road to the rest of the group sitting on the bed of a pickup truck. They silently sip from their water bottles while they wait for me. No one says anything to me because there isn’t anything to say about it. This is just the world we live in now, and we just keep finding ways to go on into the darkness.