We drove
up the onramp, and stopped at the top. As far as I could see to the east, the
highway was nearly empty of cars and people. To the west, I spotted a blockade
that the military must have thrown up to keep people, or the dead, from heading
east.
“I
didn’t think anyone wanted to head to Albuquerque anyways,” Tony said and got
back into the truck, “People were trying to get out of town, not into it.” I
nodded then put the truck in gear and headed down the highway driving until we
approached the old man’s gas station.
I pulled
off of the highway and rolled up to the gas pump, “I hope the old guy has some
gas left or we are going to have a long walk,” I said looking over at Tony.
“We’d
better have a look around, you know? Make sure there aren’t any, uh,
folks
wandering around,” he said as he
checked the clip of his pistols, chambered a round, then got out of the truck.
I did the same and followed him.
We first
walked to the store and looked inside. The windows had been smashed out and the
place stripped bare. We then walked around the back and saw an old, rusty tank
set up on four legs behind what must have been the old guy’s house, “What do
you think? Is that it?”
“Got to
be. It’ll be empty though. The people who cleaned out the store would have
checked it,” Tony said.
“I don’t
know, it looks so old maybe they thought it’s be empty and moved on.”
“We can
always hope,” he replied as we walked towards the dilapidated looking tank.
The heat
from the sun was beating down on us as we walked up to the tank. I could feel
the heat radiating off of the rusted metal and quickly pulled my hand back when
I touched the flaky surface, “Ah! Fucking hot!”
“Thank
you. Greer thinks I am too,” Tony said and began tapping the side of the tank
quickly with his knuckle.
“Ha, ha.
Anything?”
Tony
slowly moved down the side of the tank tapping and listening to the hollow echo
inside the tank until he was nearly to the bottom, “Not looking good,” he said
more to himself than me.
“I guess
we could always try to siphon…” I said but stopped as Tony held up his hand. I
heard him tap on the metal side of the tank and produce a deeper solid thunk,
“Something?
“A bit,
let’s get the truck.”
We
jogged back to the truck and climbed inside, then drove back to the old tank,
“How much do you think?”
“A few
gallons. Maybe ten at most,” Tony said.
“We
still have the gas in the reserve cans,” I said thinking of the four, five
gallon cans of gasoline attached to the tailgate of the truck, “That should
give us enough to make it to Albuquerque. We can get more there.”
“We
don’t have a choice, do we?” Tony said jumping out of the truck while I opened
up the gas tank.
He place
the old nozzle into the tank as I looked at the cracked and fragile hose, “If
that thing breaks…” I said as Tony opened up the tank valve.
I could
hear the gas flowing into the tank and hoped there would be more than Tony
thought. I could also see and smell gas dripping from the hose and onto the
ground. Tony and I both stood there listening to the gas flow into the tank
hoping the hose wouldn’t fail completely and that we’d get more than a few
gallons out of it.
After a few
brief minutes, the sound of flowing gas slowed down until it was just a
trickle, and then stopped all together, “I guess that’s it, then,” Tony said
and pulled the nozzle from the truck’s gas tank. As he turned to replace the
nozzle, the hose abruptly broke off and fell into the dirt with a small trickle
of gas trailing out behind it. We stood looking dumbly at the thing like it was
a dead snake.
“Well.
That’s that,” I said. Tony just shrugged and dropped the nozzle as he screwed
the gas cap back on.
“I hope
it’s…” I started then stopped as I looked around past the tank, past the old
guy’s house and down the service road to where I could see a hotel and casino
surrounded by a huge parking lot and a truck stop, “Did you hear something?”
Tony
looked around as the girls got out of the truck, “It sounded like…”
Far off
towards the casino, I could just barely hear someone yelling for help, in a
tiny, distant voice.
“Casey,
there!” Nicky called out pointing along the road. I looked to where she was pointing
and saw a lone figure running towards us.
“Where
the fuck did she come from?” Tony said.
“The
casino maybe?” I thought as I squinted into the sunlight and saw that she had
spotted us and was running our way.
“Casey,
look,” Tony said point back towards the casino, “She’s bringing friends.”
I looked
to where Tony was pointing, “Shit! Get in the truck!” I yelled.
Behind the girl, streaming form the hotel
came dozens of dead. She must have been hiding in the hotel and when she heard
the sound of the truck approaching, saw us filling up the truck, and decided to
make a break for it. How could she have gotten through all those dead? I
wondered as we all jumped in the truck and speed towards her.
“Problem!”
Tony called out pointing ahead of us. I could see immediately what the problem
was; between us and the fleeing girl was another overturned semi-truck
partially blocking the lane, and beyond that a small pileup of cars blocking a
bridge that crossed over a large arroyo bed. We eked past the overturned truck,
stopped at the pileup, and looked to either side of the bridge, “Not going to
be able to drive around,” Tony said as he hopped out of the truck and looked
down into the wash.
I jumped
out of the truck and crawled up on one of the overturned car cars looking for a
way around,
“No way around unless we go
back up onto the highway and get off at the next exit.”
“We
don’t have enough time!” Tony said racing back to the truck and grabbing one of
the rifles, “Grab one, Casey! We can hold them off and give her time to get
here!”
Meanwhile
the girls had all jumped out of the truck and had climbed over the cars and
stated yelling, “Run! Run! Over here! Run!”
The girl
ran out of the parking lot and onto the road. She was quickly outpacing the
dead behind her. Tony and I jumped off the overturned car and leaned against
another stalled car aiming our rifles at the mass of dead trailing the girl,
“She’ll make it,” Tony said, “She’s got plenty of time.”
I wasn’t
so sure as I watched her pumping her arms and legs up and down, racing towards
us for all she was worth. She’d reach us maybe thirty seconds before the mass
of dead would and we’d have to get in the truck and get moving in a hurry. Far
behind her, on the second story of the hotel, I saw a figure hurl itself
through the window, followed by another and then another and then the whole
hotel seemed to erupt with dead as they poured out the window and rained onto
the street. The figures hit the pavement in what should have been a bone
shattering impact but instead quickly jumped to their feet and began sprinting
after the girl.
“Did you
see that?”
I asked Tony as my heart
jumped up into my throat.
“I did.
Sprinters?” he said.
I
couldn’t know for sure, I didn’t want to know for sure but the figures were moving
far faster than the other dead and were soon closing the gap between themselves
and the fleeing girl.
Tony and
I began to shout along with the others, “Run! Run! Fucking run!” as we heard
the screams of rage and hatred carry across the thin air.
“God
damn it! We’ve got to do something!” Dreysi screamed as we started to shoot
into the mass of dead but from this distance, neither Tony or I could really
hit anything and the dead continued to close in on the girl. The shots did,
however, attract the attention of the dead behind her and I could see that the
sprinters were going to reach the girl before she reached us.
Dreysi
ran back to the truck, grabbed one of the rifles, and quickly climbed over the
wrecks. Nicky saw what she was doing and screamed after her, “Dreysi! Come
back!” but Dreysi was already running towards the girl. Tony and I exchanged
quick, surprised glances, then took off after her.
She ran
about a hundred yards, kneeled on the ground setting the pistols down on the
ground next to her and pointed the rifle towards the masses of oncoming dead. I
watched as nestled the rifle into the crook of her shoulder, carefully aimed,
and fired. Behind the girl, the closest of the sprinter’s head jerked back and
the thing collapsed on to the asphalt. Dreysi fired two more rounds in quick
succession and another two dead collapsed.
“Holy
fuck, Annie Oakley!” I yelled as I kneeled next to her, took aim, and began
firing. Dreysi actually smiled and took out another two Sprinters as the girl
closed in on us. Tony had started firing to my right and soon we were taking
the dead out one after the other. The girl put on a burst of speed as she
closed in on us. Dreysi stood up just as the girl threw herself into Dreysi’s
arms, “Thank you! Oh, god thank you!” she said as she planted a giant kiss on a
surprised Dreysi’s mouth. Tony and I just looked at each other as the girl
tried to devour Dreysi right then and there.
We both
got to our feet and all of us ran back to the wreck. We each took turns
climbing over the cars as the other two fired back into the onrushing crowds
singling out the fast ones first. As Dreysi, Tony, and the girl climbed over, I
followed them and we all jumped into the idling truck as the dead hit the wreck
and began to swarm over it. I jumped into driver’s seat as the first of the
screaming cleared the wreck and ran towards us. I dropped the truck in reverse
as Tony leaned out the window firing randomly at the screaming thing. I
watched, amazed as the it’s forehead blew apart as one of Tony’s bullets found
its mark.
“Wild
Tony Hickok!” I scrammed out crazily as I spun the truck around.
“Piss
blind luck look out!” he yelled back.
“Piss
blind luck look out?” What the fuck does that mean? I thought as the rest of
the people in the truck screamed, “Look out!”
I looked
from Tony and out the front of the truck and saw that the broken down semi we
had passed now filled the windshield. I screamed and jerked the wheel to the
right and felt the back of the truck slide to the left. We swerved, narrowly
missing the semi but were jerked violently back to the right as the Beast rear
end collided with the front of the rig. We swerved madly to the left as the
back end bounced to the right as we cleared the semi and I got control of the
Beast again, “We’re all right! We’re all right!” I cried out like a madman and
laughed hysterically as we speed away from the site of the wreck. Behind me I
could see that the dead had swarmed over the cars and were still chasing after
us but we were too far away and gaining speed and after a few more steps, the
dead stumbled to a stop, looked around aimlessly, then retreated the way they
had come.
We
quickly passed the old guy’s house and the gas station and were soon back up on
the highway. After we had put a few miles between us and the hotel, I pulled
over to the side of the highway and looked back over my shoulder at our new
guest, “Are you OK?”
All four
of the girls had piled into the back seat and the new girl was sitting on
Dreysi’s lap. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen, with short brown hair
pulled back into a ponytail, bright green yes, and a small upturned nose. She
was dressed in a filthy pair of jeans covered in old, dried blood, worn down
cowboy boots, and an equally dirty white, sleeveless button up cowboy shirt.
She had her arms wrapped tightly around Dreysi’s neck.
I should
have looked closer. I should asked her whose blood was on her jeans. I should
have paid attention to her too pale skin and her red eyes but we had just
escaped a horde of dead after fleeing down the side of a mountain and narrowly
avoiding a head on collision with a truck so, looking back, I felt I could
forgive myself for what happened next.
She
looked up at Dreysi with a look of sheer gratitude then at me and said, “Yes.
I’m OK. Thank you! Thank you so much for rescuing me! I’ve been holed up in a
room in that hotel for weeks.”
“Do you
live around here?” Greer asked.
“No.
We’d gotten out of the city after the military left and were headed west
towards the mountains after things got so bad in the city,” she said. We all
exchanged glances with each other but decided to let her finish her story, “But
we were running out of gas so we stopped here. Before we could even fill up,
the dead came pouring in from the highway like a flood. We ran towards the
hotel, but that place was full of the dead too. Somehow we made it inside but
the dead were everywhere. I don’t remember what happened after that, but
somehow I had made it into a room and barricaded the door so those things
couldn’t get in. I don’t know what happened to the others.”