She
had moved halfway down the street and now had a few buddies with her. James
must have overturned a whole shelf of booze judging from the crash that came
from the liquor store.
The
girl’s head snapped on to the sound and she was off. The other four followed
and I could see farther down the street a few dozen more wanted to join in the
fun and were beginning to move towards the store.
I
quickly propped up my rifle, screwed on a silencer, and sat up on one knee. My
first shot took out the dead girl’s head turning it into a cloud of rot and
bone fragments. The rifle only made a small
pfft!
sound but the bullet passed right thought her head and into the window of
another shop behind her making a load crash. That got James’s attention.
“What
the fuck?!” I heard him cry out. He raced to the front of the store and took in
the now forty or so walkers moving down the street, “Oh, Fuuuu-aaaaau
ck
!”
he sort of sang out. Like I said before, James was a real character.
While
James was assessing the situation, I was busy picking off the leading edge of
the walker wave. James poked his head out of the store and saw where I was
shooting from, “I’m going out the back, dickhead, and head towards the freeway.
Once I’m clear, you head there too and catch up. Don’t get eaten!” he yelled
then darted out the back. I should have let the fucking dead have him but I
couldn’t imagine being on the road alone, exposed, and on my own so I saved him.
And now he was boogying. If I got caught and eaten, so what? James didn’t give
a crap. The best thing I could have done for the world right then was get James
in my rifle’s site and remove his head with a well-placed bullet.
Instead,
I stayed up on the roof and picked off as many of the shufflers as I could.
After about twenty minutes of firing and reloading, the wave petered out. I
waited another ten minutes just to be sure, then climbed down the rainspout and
made my way back to the highway. I could see him about a mile east of the
onramp. He was waiting there sitting on top of an RV. I saw a flash in the
sunlight and knew he had me in his rifle sight. A split second later, a bullet
whizzed by my head followed by the very loud crack of a rifle. I ducked behind
a truck and could hear him laughing in the still air. I glance around and saw
that his shot had attracted the nearby dead. A lot of them.
I
got up and started running towards him when another shot cracked out. This time
it struck a car’s side mirror shattering bits of glass and plastic into my
face. Now more dead were coming and they were in a hurry.
I
head James whooping and hollering as he shouldered his rifle, “Better get a
move on,
shit kicker,
‘cause it looks
like you’re on the menu for lunch!”
James
was right. There were at least a hundred walkers closing in on me. I pulled out
my pistols and put a silencer on each one as I moved through the tangle of
cars. All I had to do was keep my head on and keep moving and I would be OK.
Then another shot rang out and shattered the windshield beside me. I decided I
had had enough and sent a few shots back at him.
“Oh,
you mother fucker! You nearly hit me!” he said
If
I had not had a few dozen of the dead flowing around the cars behind me, I
would have hit him. As it was he climbed down off of the RV and started running
east laughing like a madman. I picked up the pace too and soon had outstripped
the wave of dead following me.
When
we finally ran out of steam the sun was low in the west, “Holy fuck, rabbit anus,
we’d better get off the street.” James said and we found a three story building
that we could climb up on the roof of.
James
was still laughing as we made our small camp and I could hear him mumble, “Best
fucking day.
Ever
!” as he drifted off
to sleep.
*
*
*
In
the morning we headed east as soon as the sun broke over the horizon. By ten
o’clock it was sweltering. I could see James was being baked alive in his full
set of fancy armor. Secretly I hopped he passed out. Finally he gave in to the
inevitable and shucked off most of his getup.
“Fuck you,” he
said to no one in particular, “Take my fucking armor, bitch!” and he tossed it
off of the side of the highway. He glared at me but I was looking far down the
highway. James followed my view and saw them too: a small group of people
headed our way.
When
they were a hundred yards away from us, they stopped. We stopped too and stood
there, each group evaluating the other. The other group had four people in it:
a man and a young woman, and two girls about my age. Each one carried a pack
and at least two firearms. Finally the man raised his hand and waved at us and
James and I did the same. Then we quickly closed the gap.
The man’s name
was Tom Fallon. I could see that he and the girls were happy to see us. I was
happy to see them too. James introduced himself and shook hands with Mr.
Fallon.
“And
whose this?” he asked, turning towards me.
“I’m
Thomas,” I said taking his hand.
“Hey,
two Toms meeting in the middle of the desert. Do two Toms make a right? Ha, ha.
What are the chances?” he said as he shook my hand. I like him immediately and
smiled. All the women were Tom’s daughters. Alicia Fallon, the oldest, was
twenty three. Taller than her father with straight black hair and green eyes
that looked right through us and into the desert beyond. The next oldest was
Kalie with the same black hair and piercing green eyes. She had a button nose
and dirty white skin with two pistols strapped to her hips with her jeans
tucked into the top of shin high black boots. And the youngest, Neera, looked
like a little carbon copy of her sisters. She had a shotgun strapped to her
pack and wore a set of army fatigues that had been cut down to her size.
We
all shook hands and were for a few brief minutes happy to see other people. Then
James opened his mouth.
“No
mother, then?” he said looking over the girls like he was picking out a cheap
hooker for the night.
Mr.
Fallon blinked hard twice and glanced at his girls. They all shuffled back
towards their father, “No,” he said, “She didn’t make it out of Scottsdale.”
“Well
too bad, mister. She must have been a real looker. Good things the girls got
her looks instead of yours,” James said. I could see that dead look come back
to his eyes as he looked at the women. Mr. Fallon could see it to and I knew we
wouldn’t be traveling together very far.
The
look on the newcomer’s faces said as much too. I could see the fear and
revulsion in their eyes when they looked at James. When they looked at me I
could see they were wondering why I was with him.
James
must have sensed something change as the group looked at me and quickly said,
“Well, how ‘bout we make a camp for the day at that rest stop over there. We
can swap information about what we’ve seen and be on our separate ways in the
morning.”
I
could tell that the Fallons wanted to just move on and put us a few miles
behind them but the father kept looking at the girls who all looked at me. And
we did have information about where we had come from so instead of running away
from us as fast as they could, he said, “Sounds good. We’ll swap stories and be
on our separate ways in the morning.”
There
were no cars parked at the rest stop and even better, it had a small Highway
Patrol station attached to the back with a three story observation tower. We
checked out every room, every closet, and every nook and cranny of that place
before we sealed it up. The station was completely empty.
“Don’t
see that too often. Usually you’d find one or two dead one walking around,” Mr.
Fallon said, “I guess this place was just too far out in the middle of
nowhere.”
“And
the government closed down every public place once the outbreak started getting
out of hand,” Kalie said dropping her gear and plopping herself down right next
to me. I could feel her looking at me, feel the heat from her body as she
leaned against my side.
James
looked fit to be tied and mumbled something that sounded like, “Goberment,
goberment, thinking about the pavement,” the went down stairs. The Fallons
watched him go then looked at me again. I thought they might ask me to come
with them but Mr. Fallon seemed to think better of it. I might have gone if
they had asked. Might have followed them back into the Great Wreck. But they
didn’t, not there anyways, and my wagon was, as they say, hitched to James.
So
we set up camp on the third floor of the observation tower. The five of us
unpacked our gear and looked out the windows while James wandered around the
outside of the rest area kicking cans and throwing rocks out into the great
void of the desert.
To
both the east and the west there were only a few abandoned cars on the road and
no dead to be seen walking in and out of them. Mr. Fallon had guessed right. It
was just too damn far away from everything to have had many dead reach it.
Later
as the heat baked us all into an oily sweat, we huddled around a small
conference table on the third floor of the station and shared what we knew. Mr.
Fallon started it off.
The
Fallons were from Scottsdale, a small town north of Phoenix. They had stayed
huddled up, barricaded in their basement during the initial outbreak. Mrs.
Fallon had worked in the Emergency Room of the local hospital and had gone to
work before anyone really knew what the outbreak was about. She never came
home.
Then
the sprinters came and went. Then the walkers. Then the shufflers.
After
that the dead seemed to clear out of the town. After a few more weeks of
relative quiet, Mr. Fallon had decided they would need to find others if they
were going to more than just survive by hiding out in their basement. First he
and his oldest daughter would scout around looking for other survivors, dodging
the dead, and finding supplies. Thankfully their town was small and many of the
dead had wandered off into the desert. But they found no one, not a single soul
alive other than themselves. Most people had fled during the initial outbreak.
Those left behind had soon been infected.
After
a few weeks of searching, the Fallons gave up looking and began preparing to
leave town themselves. Each night they’d pour over maps, read about dessert
survival, and clean their guns and rifles. Then they’d listen to the radio and
hope someone, anyone was out there gathering up survivors.
They
had listened to radio stations in Phoenix for the first few weeks, then one by
one they went off the air for good. If the weather was good, they sometimes
could pick something up from Albuquerque but it was rare and they hadn’t been
able to hear anything for the last week before they left. But they were getting
something from Burbank, California. It was faint and sporadic, but as they had
moved west, it was getting a little stronger and every few days they would pick
up a smattering of garbled talk deep in the static of their little solar
powered receiver.
“Ain’t
nothing back there, day-o, I can tell you that,” James said, “The Great Wreck
was burning day and night. The highways clogged with the living and dead in one
big old orgy, traffic jams blocking every major highway out. It was chaos and
burning and death,” he said wistfully as though leaving LA might have been a
mistake, “We got out by piss blind luck. There’s no Burbank, no walled in safe
haven, nothing but a sea of dead. I guess they’d be glad to see you seeing as
though there can’t be anyone else left alive there,” he said.
The
Fallons said nothing.
“Where
are you guys headed?” Kalie asked.
Before
I could tell them anywhere but Los Angeles, James jumped in, “Albuquerque,” he
said, “Yeah, we heard them on the radio too and thought we’d head there, you
know. Live way from everything else.”
He
was lying of course. We had no radio and hadn’t even heard of Albuquerque until
we met the Fallons.
“We’ll
you folks sure have a long way to go,” Alicia said.
“What
about Phoenix?” I asked.
“Not
as bad the Los Angeles, sounds like, but still bad,” Mr. Fallon said, “We
stayed out of the downtown area knowing that it would be packed with the dead.
I’d recommend you do the same. There’s no government, no hold outs, no havens,
and no Green Zones. Just a burned out graveyard. There is a belt route you can take
that will keep you clear of that mess. After that, who knows? Tucson is
probable gone and after that it’s just desert until you hit Las Cruces in New
Mexico. I can’t imagine it’s any different there.”
“Well,
if you’re really going to try to make it to Burbank,” I said, “I’d head up
north into a place called the Mojave Desert, then take I-14 south. That way
you’ll avoid the west half of the LA basin and come into Burbank from the
north. The desert seems to disagree with the dead so maybe you’ll be able to
avoid them better.”
“What
do you know, Captain Pike?” James spat at me, “Could be more dead to the north.
You don’t know nothing. Just trying to impress the girly girlies here.”
An
uncomfortable silence settled over the group until Mr. Fallon cleared his
throat and said, “Well, we’ll keep that in mind Thomas. In the meantime, I’ll
take first watch so the rest of you can get some sleep.”
“Yeah,
sleep. I’m going down into the barracks,” James said and huffed his way out the
door.”
I
sat there looking at my hands, then said, “I think I’m going up on the roof,”
and made my way to the ladder and room hatch that lead to the top of the
observation tower.
As
I climbed up, I could hear Mr. Fallon whisper, “Lock the door after I’m gone.
That James is a few eggs short of a dozen and what he’s got left are completely
scrambled.”
“We
will, Dad,” I heard Alicia reply as I closed the hatch.
Up
here on the roof I could see for miles in every direction. I rolled out my
sleeping back and laid out a pistol, my rifle, and a hand axe, then stripped
down to my shorts. It was still blazing hot even as the sun approached the
horizon and the sweat was pouring off of me. I sat near the edge of the roof
and scanned the surrounding area with my binoculars and was relieved to see
nothing moving in any direction. I heard Mr. Fallon climb up on a nearby roof
and take up watch and the girls giggling below me followed by the heavy click
of a bolt locking the door to the conference room.
With
Mr. Fallon watching over us, the girls safely sealed in below, and James locked
away in the barracks, I felt safe for the first time since the whole shit storm
had taken off. I laid my head down on top of my pack and watched the stars come
out one by one as I drifted off to sleep.
I
woke sometime after midnight and sat up. Mr. Fallon had gone to bed and I could
see Alicia sitting on to roof scanning the surrounding area. Far to the west, I
could see a bright glow on the horizon. It must be Phoenix. I didn’t think the
power was still on so it must have been burning. I looked back west and saw the
horizon was glowing there too. Seems Los Angeles was still burning as well. But
above me, the stars were out in force. I had grown up in Los Angeles and even
on the darkest night you could only see a few of the brightest stars. Here, out
in the middle of the Sonora desert, the stars were crowded so close together it
looked like a glowing river arched across the sky.
The
temperature had dropped considerably and I shivered as I lay back in my
sleeping bag. I couldn’t get my head wrapped around the desert. In the morning,
I’d find a fine scrim of frost across my gear and be freezing my ass off as I
got dressed, then be roasting to death by ten as the sun turned the desert into
a furnace and try its damnedest to bake me to death. But for now it was just
cool enough that I could bury myself deep in my sleeping bag and watch the
stars.
I
heard the creak and scrape of someone opening up the trapdoor in the roof. I
didn’t think it was James coming up here or one of the dead but I slipped my
hand over the grip of my pistol all the same.
“Thomas?”
I heard a female voice whisper, “It’s me, Kailee. Are you awake?” she said as
she climbed up on the roof and quietly closed the hatch.
“Hi
Kailee. I’m awake,” I replied.
She
stood fully upright and stretched her arms into the night sky, “Oh my God it’s
beautiful up here,” she whispered. She was wearing a white tank top, a pair of
cargo shorts, and her hiking boots. Between the light of the stars and the glow
on the horizon, I could see perfectly in the dark.
“And
secure. Nothing can get to us,” I said.
I
could see her silhouette against the stars and could see her head turn towards
me, “You’ve been out in the middle of this a long time, haven’t you?” she said
and walked over to where I was laying.
“Almost
since the start,” I replied realizing for the first time that I was clad only
in my boxers. At least I was under the covers of the sleeping bag. I thought
about it a minute, then said, “Almost a year, I guess. My parents were killed
within the first few weeks. I couldn’t stay in our house, so a friend of mine,
Pix, and I hit the streets trying to find any place that was safe. We ran a
lot, picked up James, then Pix was killed, and we decided to get out of LA,” I
said in a rush.
Kailee
had brought a pillow with her and set it next to me, then sat down on it,
“We’ve only been on the road for about three weeks. Are you really heading
towards Albuquerque?”
“I
guess we are now,” I said, “We’d never heard of it until your Dad said
something.”
“We
thought so,” she said, then added, “You know your friend is crazier that a rat
on crack, right?”
I
laughed at that, “He’s not my friend, he’s just…”
“Someone
else, right? So you’re not completely alone out here? I get it but he’s in love
with the dead, he’s in his element out in the crazy, out in the wreckage of
society,” she continued and took one of my hands in hers. It was so warm, her
hand, and to feel another human’s touch was so good, “I don’t think he wants to
find other people or a safe place away from these things, he just wants to play
in the fire and kill. I can see it in his eyes. It doesn’t matter if those
things are dead or alive. And you,” she said, “Your just someone to talk to
maybe, someone to watch his back while he has his fun. You’re there to help him
out if he gets hurt or gets in a bind. If he ever figures out he doesn’t need
you, he’ll kill you.”
Kailee
wasn’t completely right about James but she was close enough. And still I knew
I was going with him.
I can’t really
tell you why. Force of habit? Loyalty to James? Fear of going back to the
Wreck? Codependency? I guess it didn’t matter.
We
sat there in silence for a few minutes, then Kailee stood up. I watched her as
she unzipped her shorts and drop then to the floor, then kick off her boots.
She knelt down beside me and crawled into my sleeping bag. I was so shocked I
could just watch as I felt my heart race.
She
said nothing but as soon as I had pulled the sleeping bag flap over us, she
crawled on top of me and pressed her lips against mine slipping her tongue
between my lips. I felt her hands slid across my chest then tug at the top of
my shorts, pulling them down and wrapping herself around me. She reached down
between my legs began to stroked me up and down rapidly. I moved my hands up
under the thin cotton of her tank top running my fingers across her nipples. I
could hear her whisper “yes, like that” as I gently cupped her breasts.
I
rolled on top of her as she pulled my shorts down to my knees. I had absolutely
no idea what to do but Kailee seemed to. I maneuvered between her legs and
pushed her tank top up over her breasts. They were small and pure white with
pink nipples. I saw her reach down and grab me running the head of my cock over
the cotton of her panties.
I
could feel the heat pouring off of her from between her legs, felt that
incredible friction of my head on her panties. She pulled her panties to one
side and placed my head at the opening of her lips. I slid in just a bit. She
moaned as I entered her. It was so hot and wet. She laid back flat and arched
against me, sliding me inside. I leaned forward and slid the rest of the way
in.
She cried out softly
and I could feel her nails dig into my back. I started moving in and out of her
slowly but I could already feel my orgasm building. I did my best to hold back,
to give her as much pleasure as I could but them she started to move against me
faster and faster until I could hear and feel my hips slapping against her. I
started pumping her as hard as I could and felt the rush of my orgasm getting
ready to sweep me away.
She
placed a hand on my lips and said, “Wait, wait. Take my legs and put them on
your shoulders, like this…” and helped me maneuver her legs up over my
shoulders. I slipped out of her for a second and almost blew all over her
thighs but managed to hold on. She then pulled her panties up to her knees,
grabbed me, and slipped me back in. She whispered up to me, “As hard and as
deep as you can,” she said and pulled the pillow over her face.
I
lost all control as I forced my cock as deep into her as I could. I heard her
muffled cries from under the pillow as I rammed in and out. I felt her clench
around me and felt a flood of heat around my dick. I pounded her until I felt
my own load blow as I bore down and came in her again and again. Finally, I
spent myself and relaxed holding my forehead against her legs. Then I let them
spread apart and slowly lowered myself on to her.
Kailee
pulled the pillow away from her sweat covered face, “My god. Was that your
first time?”
I
nodded and lay between her hot and wet thighs feeling my erection fade,
“Yours?”
She
shook her head and said, “I lost my virginity when I was younger at a co-ed
slumber party and have had a few partners since but nothing like that,” she
replied as she ran her hands through my hair, “You’re an animal,” she breather
but added quickly, “In a good way.”
I
smiled and we kissed. Kale had locked her legs around my waist and I,
unfamiliar with post coital etiquette stayed there, my now completely exhausted
erection still deep inside of her, “You could come with us?” she asked shyly.
“I
can’t go back. The Wreck is…” I trailed off. The Wreck was hell. The Wreck was
the end of the world. We spent months just trying to survive long enough to get
out. I couldn’t go back, “I just can’t go back.”
Kailee
nodded then smiled up at me, “Then I’ll give you one more thing to remember me
by,” she said and started to rock my back and forth. At first I was so
sensitive I tried to pull out but Kailee had me locked in tight. After a few
minutes I began to feel myself stiffen up again. Kailee giggled as she felt me
getting hard, then started to breath heavily as she moved her hips up and down.
She started to buck against me harder and harder pulling my forehead down to
hers. She came and let out a sharp little gasp and again I felt that liquid
heat pour over my cock again, “Sorry,” she whispered, “That one was all about
me,” and giggled again, “Now for you. Roll me over.”
I
pulled out of her and rolled her onto her belly. She grabbed my pillow and
slipped it under her hips forcing her rear into the air, then she grabbed the
head of my penis, slipped me into her from behind, and closed her legs tightly
together. She looked at me over her shoulder, her dark hair hanging in her
eyes, “Fuck me!” she whispered.
I
jammed myself into her and she gasped and grabbed her pillow crying out as I
rammed in and out of her. I could feel her clench against me as I drove in
deeper and deeper, watched as she bucker her hips back against me, saw her
slick ass cheeks move up and down as I plowed her again and again. I blew so
hard in her I nearly passed out. She cried out in ecstasy so loud I didn’t
think the pillow was any help at all and wondered what her sisters thought
below.
I
collapsed on her feeling the slick sweat and oil of her skin, felt her open her
legs and wrap them around mine, felt her breathing heavily beneath me as we
recovered. After a few minutes, I rolled off of her and pulled on my boxers.
Kailee pulled up her panties and snuggled against me. I don’t know how long we
stayed like that but eventually I fell asleep. When I woke up, the eastern
horizon was beginning to lighten with the dawn and Kailee was gone.
I
got up, brushed my teeth and got dressed. Then I packed my gear and waited
until I could hear the sounds of the Fallons below getting packed up before I
opened the hatch and climbed down the ladder into the observation tower.
The
three girls had gotten dressed and Mr. Fallon was making breakfast over a camp
stove. The three girls looked at me smiling and giggling while Mr. Fallon, with
a slightly confused smile on his face asked, “How did you sleep, Thomas?”
This
caused the girls to dissolve into laughter as I blushed and mumbled back,
“Good, Mr. Fallon. Real good.”
Just
them, James came in and started laughing hysterically, “Whee ha! Yes sir that
is funny!”
The
laughter died down but James didn’t seem to notice. He giggled and tittered for
a few more minutes as we all sat around the store watching the dehydrated eggs
and canned corned beef hash cook. After we ate, we finished packing up our gear
and found ourselves standing back in I-10 in the early dawn light.
Mr.
Fallon stuck out his hand to me, “Well, Thomas, good luck,” he said and pumped
my hand up and down twice, “And to you, James. You folks should get a radio.
Maybe we can talk for a day or two.”
Neera
and Alicia shook my hand next as Mr. Fallon shook James’s. They gave him a
brief shake then retreated behind their father. Kailee didn’t bother shaking my
hand, but instead wrapped her arms around my waist and planted her lips against
mine.