Greer
closed the door and got in the other side as Tony and I got into the front,
“Let’s go,” she said and we went. We drove with the widows down and soon I
could no longer smell the blood amazed at how quickly we could get used to something
so foul so quickly.
We drove
and as we approached the city, the wrecks became more and more frequent until
we arrived at a military checkpoint so clogged with cars, burned out wrecks,
abandoned military vehicles, and bodies that there was absolutely no way we
could get around it while staying on the paved road.
“Plastic
Jesus Christ, “ Tony whispered as we neared the outskirts of the city. Ahead of
us, at the very checkpoint we had passed through going west three months ago
was the world’s largest fucking pile up I’d ever seen. Apparently as the shit
spiraled out of control, the entire city of Albuquerque, or at least, those
still left inside, decided to head west, head west in a hurry, and damn the
checkpoint. Cars, trucks, buses, jeeps, everything and anything that could move
had piled up, around, and over the military checkpoint creating a wall of metal
and dead that stretched out to either side of the highway. “What happened
here?” Tony asked to no one, exhaustion and stress making his voice crack.
“Everyone
tried to get out, saw what was coming in from the west, and tried to get back
in,” I said as I shifted into four wheel drive and pulled off the highway. We
slowly made out way around the colossal wreck and onto the frontage road until
the cars thinned out again. We made our way around the edges of the city hoping
to avoid the dead as the sun was going down.
In the
back seat, Nicky sat up and rubbed the back of her head. I had hoped she would
stay out the entire night or at least suffer temporary amnesia, but I could see
in her eyes that she remembered everything as she looked around the outside of
the truck and said, “How close are we Casey?”
“Couple
miles. The roads on this side of town have been pretty clear so we’ll hit your
place in just a few minutes.” Nicky nodded and leaned heavily against the
window watching the empty houses go by. The streets were so calm and quiet,
free of wrecks and the dead, that it almost seemed as though this side of town
hadn’t been hit by the infection.
“They
all got out early,” Tony said looking around at the neat streets and tidy
homes.
“What?”
I replied.
“They
all got out within the first few weeks of the outbreak. When things started to
get out of control. The rich just picked up and moved to a place they thought
was safe. Up in the mountains, up north, somewhere, anywhere. Anywhere but
here,” he continued, “The rest of the city will be like Grants, but worse. This
is temporary, an anomaly. The dead will eventually overrun this area. We saw
them when we picked up Nicky and Dreysi, remember? Eventually, the dead will
fill up this place too.”
I nodded
and pulled around a corner and came to a stop in front of Nicky’s parent’s
house. I wish things had turned out better after what Nicky had just been
through, wished we had found her family safe and alive, boarded up inside their
house but it wasn’t to be and as we came to a stop in front of Nicky’s parent’s
huge home, we could all see that that no one was going to be alive inside.
The
double doors in front were wide open with the left side of the door hanging
from its top hinge as though something had pulled it free and the two side
windows were smashed out as well. We all sat there peering into the deep gloom
within the house, each of us imagining what must have happened. I turned to
Nicky and began to tell her how sorry I was but she had already opened the door
and stepped out of the truck.
“Nicky!”
I said as I jumped out and stood between her and the house. Greer and Tony got
out of the truck as well, but both were looking behind me, “No one’s alive in
there!”
Nicky
just looked past me into the house and said, “I know,” and reached back into
the truck and grabbed a pistol. Behind me I could hear something moving. I
heard the scrap of the door being pushed open, the dragging sound of feet, and
slowly turned to see what had come out to greet us.
What was
left of Nicky’s little sister stood in the doorway of the home looking around
her, trying to identify the source of sound the thing had heard. Devi had been
a smaller carbon copy of Nicky; jet black hair, wide set green eyes, small,
upturned nose and a heart shaped face. Now she was a ruin, badly eaten away and
in an advanced state of decay. Most of the right side of her face, neck,
shoulder, and chest had been stripped of flesh, her stomach had been torn out,
and most of her left forearm torn off. Her cloths hung in strips and was
covered in her own dried out blood and gore. Her remaining faded eye looked
around for us, but I guess she must have been too far gone to see us as we
stood frozen to the ground.
Devi
weaved back and forth for a moment or two more, then shuffled back inside the
house leaving the door a little further open. Just inside the entranceway, I
could see the vague outlines of two more bodies that must have been Nicky’s
parents. They were either too badly eaten to come back or lacked enough bone
and muscle to move around.
Nicky
cocked the pistol in her hand and gently pushed past me. I didn’t stop her as
she walked into the house. I motioned for the others to get back in the truck.
Tony and Greer climbed in as I moved towards the front door on the house ready
to run in if Nicky needed me. I stood there in the eerie silence of the
neighborhood as it stretched out. I started moving towards to front door, heart
racing, seeing in my mind’s eye more dead inside than just Nicky’s family
surrounding Nicky and…then heard the first shot ring out, startlingly loud and
harsh in the quiet air followed by a few seconds of silence and two more shots
in quick succession.
I
stopped before the stairs of the front door. I caught a glimpse of Nicky moving
around inside, then disappear down a side hall. I waited for a few minutes then
moved towards the door again.
Nicky
stepped out in front of me before I could get inside and pushed the door closed
behind her. I let out my breath and wrapped my arms around her, “I’m so sorry.”
I noticed she had changed and now wore a long sleeve, flannel shirt.
She wrapped
her arms around me, “I’m so sorry, Casey, I didn’t mean for it to happen…”
“Shhh,
shhh. You don’t need to apologize to me,” I said feeling her shake against me.
“I just
couldn’t leave them in there like that. I had to… I had to put them down.”
“I know,
I know,” I said, “But we need to get moving now before more come.”
Nicky
just nodded as I lead her to the truck. As we climbed in I could see a few
figures drifting out of the surrounding houses and into the street around us.
Nicky’s shots had attracted attention and it was time for us to go.
We
slowly drove away before any of the dead spotted us and headed towards Tony’s
house. We kept to the outskirts of town avoiding the major roads and highways
until we reached Tony’s house. Tony’s folks lived in another wealthy part of
Albuquerque but much closer to the middle class and poorer parts than Nicky’s
parents so as we got closer to his place, the chaos and destruction that had
swept the city after we had left became more evident; burnt out buildings,
abandoned and wrecked vehicles, parts of bodies, and, of course, the dead were
everywhere.
“We’re
going to need to get off the streets, Casey. Turn left here,” Tony said as we
stopped again to avoid a large gathering of dead. Running into the dead became
more frequent. Some of them were scattered around, others grouping together,
and some that were so many, like the ones down the street from us now, that we
had to back up and find another way around. This was the fourth time we’d had
to take a different route. Since we had left Nicky’s house, we’d come across
more and more of these huge groups of the dead massed together forming a solid
wall of bodies with no way through.
The sun
was getting lower in the sky behind us and we had to get to Tony’s or find
another place to stay. I turned left and cruised down a back alley free of the
dead. Tony pointed up ahead to another street and said, “Left, then right.”
“Are you
sure you know where you’re going?” I asked. I had completely lost my bearing.
I had
grown up in Albuquerque but with all the destruction, nothing looked the same
but Tony seemed to know what he was doing and just nodded and replied, “Right
here. Go up a few more blocks, then turn left again. That should get us there.”
We
passed through poor neighborhood, a large warehouse district, past middle class
houses, then finally, back into the rich suburbs, “Here we are,” Tony said
pointing to his house. His house was surrounded by a high, cinderblock wall
with the driveway blocked by a heavy steel gate. Tony jumped out of the truck
and unlocked the gate, swinging it wide to let us drive in.
We
pulled into the driveway and I shut off the engine as Tony closed the gate and
locked it back up. The low fuel light had come on some time ago and for the
past half hour I kept expecting the engine to sputter and die leaving us
stranded in the middle of some burned out neighborhood with the dead wandering
around just waiting to bump into us.
It
didn’t matter what we found inside, we were going to have to stay. We had
almost no gas and the sun was going down. The only thing worse than running out
of gas was running out of gas in complete darkness.
We
stepped out of the truck and looked around. A few dead drifted about down the
street and towards the south, I could see a large group of dead blocking off
the road. That must have been the group we had detoured around. Christ! There
must have been thousands of them. We quickly followed Tony to his front door
and while he got out his key, I looked around at the windows. Tony’s parents
were rich but they didn’t show it off as much as Nicky’s folks did. The house
was a small ranch they had had been built in the fifties with a large yard
surrounded by a high cinderblock wall. When the surrounding areas declined and
break-ins became a problem, Tony tried to get them to move up to Sana Fe or at
least move out to the west side of town, but like Tony, his parents were
stubborn. Instead of moving, they had installed bars in the widows as the
surrounding neighborhood declined, put a solid gate up at the end of the
driveway, and hunkered down.
Greer
locked the gate at the end of the driveway as Tony opened up the door. We all
crowded in and I closed and locked the door behind us, “Mom? Dad? Anyone home?”
Tony called out as we all nervously fingered our guns. Silence filled the
house.
Tony
walked into the kitchen and grabbed a flashlight. He covered the end with his
hands and we began searching the house sticking close together. We searched the
bedrooms, the bathroom, and the upstairs and found nothing. All the windows
were intact and closed, as well as the doors. Tony looked out the back windows
into the yard and found it as empty as the house.
“Tony,”
Greer called out form the kitchen when we had finished checking the house, “Look.”
She held in her hand a piece of paper that had been pinned to the refrigerator.
Tony took the note and read it.
Dear Tony,
Things
in the city have gotten too bad for us to stay. The people on the television
say that the government in going to ban travel soon so we are heading to your
Uncle Bill’s cabin up in Taos. We got your message and are so relieved you made
it out of town. We don’t think we can make it to Mount Taylor so we decided to
head north instead. If you are reading this message, things must have calmed
down and we’ll be home soon. We love you and stay safe.
Love, Mom and Dad.
I patted Tony on the shoulder and he
set the note down, “They got out, old man. I’m sure they’re safe.” Tony just
nodded and sat down at the kitchen table. Greer sat next to him and took his
hand while Nicky sat on the couch in the living room and stared out the window.
I walked to the front of the house and looked out from between the curtains as
the sun slipped below the horizon. There seemed to be more dead in the streets
now and a few even bumped up against the gate in front of the house.
After a
while of watching the street, I sat in a chair across from the couch where Nicky
had stretched out and had fallen asleep. I was glad that she was out for a
while. Tony and Greer had talked at the table in low voices then finally got up
together, “We’re going to get some rest in the back bedroom. You guys can take
the spare bedroom across the hall from us. There’s probably not any power but I
wouldn’t turn on any lights anyway since it might attract attention.”