The Last Days (15 page)

Kelly looked hesitant. “A zombie?”

“Yes, or whatever you want to call it.” Mike replied. “We’ll be OK. But I think we should hurry and move that car so we can keep moving.”

Kelly followed. A small scream escaped from her mouth as the creature slammed into the side window of the car as they approached the car.

“My God!” Kelly said right before she threw up.

She stood and wiped her mouth as she gagged and tried to keep from throwing up again.

She stared at the blood streaked windows.

“Are you OK?” Mike asked putting his hand on her arm.

“Show me want you want me to do so we can get the hell out of here.” Kelly said, her voice raspy.

Mike led her over to the front of the Mustang.

Mike put his shoulder against the hood again.

Kelly watched the creature as its head slammed into the windshield repeatedly. Finally she put her hands on the Mustang’s hood, next to Mike and pushed.

After a few seconds, the cars separated with a loud scraping sound.

Kelly stood and looked at the Chrysler as Mike continued to push until the Mustang crashed into the concrete barrier in the medial strip.

Mike stood and looked in satisfaction at the Mustang. He turned and went back to Kelly.

“Can we get away from here now?” She asked.

“I think we can get past here now.” Mike smiled.

Mike and Kelly turned to go back to the RV.

They stopped and froze, their hearts started racing as they saw Kimmy standing next to the passenger’s front side window of the Chrysler.

“I want to help too.” Kimmy yelled.

The dead creature in the Chrysler began to frantically throw itself into the side window with Kimmy only inches away.

Mike started to move forward when the center of the window gave way from all the abuse it had endured.

Before Mike could reach Kimmy a long bloody arm shot out through the hole in the window and grabbed Kimmy’s hair.

The creature yanked Kimmy towards the car. It drove her head into the window. The sound of her head hitting the window echoed off the RV. The creature struggled to push its head through the hole to bite into the feast it held tightly a few inches away outside the car.

Mike frantically grabbed the creatures arm and pulled, slamming the dead creature’s body against the remaining glass. The glass started to give and bend outward as Mike pulled.

Mike had a problem. If he let go of the arm, it would pull Kimmy into the hole. If he kept pulling he would pull the zombie and the window out of the car.

Before he could decide what to do, a large piece of the Mustang’s molding came crashing down on the creature’s out stretched arm. The bone broke with a loud crack and the gripe on Kimmy released. Mike pulled Kimmy away from the car. She was dazed and sobbing loudly.

He picked her up and carried her over to Kelly, who stood there shaking, the bent piece of molding strip hanging from her hand.

“Here take Kimmy!” Mike shouted as he pulled the metal piece from her hand.

Kelly grabbed Kimmy as Mike carried the molding strip Kelly had used to break the zombie’s arm, over to the window and slammed it into the creature’s head that was now stuck in the hole in the window.

The zombie was violently thrashing against the sharp broken edges of the window as Mike swung, pushing the end of the molding strip though its head. The zombie fell limp against the window.

Mike dragged his hands against the roof of the Chrysler to get the dead pieces of flesh off his hands.

He then went over and pulled the dead flesh from Kimmy’s hair.

Mike stood up straight and looked at Kelly. She was staring at him, her eyes showed the terror she felt as the sounds they had heard in the campground last night began to echo all around them.

From the fields beside the road and the cars around them, staggering creatures began to moan as they came towards Mike and his family.

“Get in the RV!” Mike shouted as he picked up Kimmy, who continued to cry. Blood ran down the side of her face from where her head had been slammed into the Chrysler’s window.

Mike ran behind Kelly and after she jumped into the passenger’s seat of the RV, Mike set Kimmy on her lap.

He closed her door and ran around the front of the RV.

He jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. He looked up the highway.

“We have to turn around.” Mike said urgently. “There’s too many of them on the road up ahead. If we would run into another road block we could get trapped.”

Kelly nodded as she hugged Kimmy. “Anywhere! Please just get us away from here.”

Mike started the RV and started to back up the RV. His intended 3 point turn was becoming a ten point turn as he backed into the cars around him, struggling to turn the RV around.

“Look!” Kelly shouted.

Mike looked at Kelly and saw her pointing up the highway in the direction they originally had been trying to go. A small Toyota pickup truck was coming in their direction. It was driving too fast for the maze of cars it had to maneuver around and bounced from car to car.

“They look like they are trying to get away from something fast!” Mike exclaimed.

The truck traveled another two hundred feet before it crashed into two cars it had been trying to squeeze between. The driver tried to get the truck moving again. He rocked it back and forth, trying to get it loose from the two cars he had crashed into, but it wouldn’t break loose.

The rear wheels spun on the pavement sending a blue smoke into the air behind the truck.

Suddenly the doors flew open. An elderly man came from the driver’s door, his elderly wife jumped from the other side of the truck.

They left the doors standing wide open as they ran.

Mike looked at all the cars up and down the highway in both lanes with their doors hanging open. He had just discovered why all these cars sat abandoned with their doors hanging open.

The elderly couple met in front of the truck. The man took the woman’s hand as they ran down the highway. They had only gone another hundred feet before they were surrounded. The dead seemed to be coming from everywhere.

The couple was at least a quarter mile away from the RV, but Mike and Kelly could still hear the screams.

They had discovered why all the cars were abandoned with their doors hanging open. Now they had just discovered what had happened to all the occupants.

Mike hit the gas. He slowed as the RV pushed the green Camaro, the final car that kept him from turning the RV around, off the road and out of his way.

He started to maneuver the RV around the same cars he had worked his way around trying to get up the highway.

The going was slow. The urgency he felt to get away from the approaching dead fought against his need to get around the abandoned cars without damaging the RV.

He had to fight against his desire to go like hell.

He had to be patient. The dead were slow. He just needed to keep moving at a steady pace.

He started to breathe easier, knowing he had been able to get through these cars earlier, so he wouldn’t have to worry about running into a roadblock.

He pressed on. Just when he thought he was in the clear, Kelly gasped.

Mike looked down the road in front of them. The dead were swarming onto the highway three hundred feet ahead of the RV.

Beyond where the dead were staggering out on the road, the number of abandoned cars thinned out. If he could get that far, they would be able to drive faster and put some distance between them and the dead.

He had no choice but to try.

There were not any exits between him and the dead.

The terrain off the road was too rough for the RV.

Their only other choice was to get out and run.

Mike looked at the fields that lined the highway. Running was not an option, not if they wanted to live.

“Put your seat belt on.” Mike said. “We have to get through the dead up ahead of us or we’ll be surrounded. I’m going to try and push them out of the way. The RV is big enough that I don’t think there is enough of them on the road yet to keep us from getting through.”

Kelly pulled the seat belt around her and tightened her gripe on Kimmy.

Two minutes later they approached the first of the dead.

The first one hit the front of the RV with a loud thud. Its head hit the front of the hood and blood splattered across the windshield.

Mike leaned to the right to look around the blood as the air from the moving vehicle pushed bloody red streams up over the window.

Mike tried to weave around the dead, but soon there were too many dead and too many cars.

The dead started to throw themselves against the side of the RV. The sound became deafening as the thuds echoed throughout the interior.

More of the dead bounced off the hood and against the windshield, causing Kelly to scream and shield her face from the flying body parts.

The dead that managed to throw themselves against the doors and the side windows were as frightening as the ones that bounced off the hood. Both side mirrors had been smashed and now hung down against the side of the doors.

Mike tried to keep a steady speed around ten miles an hour. Fast enough to not get bogged down by the dead that pressed against the RV and slipped under the tires, causing the engine to rev from time to time as the wheels lost traction and spun on the slippery masses of blood and slimy flesh.

The speed was slow enough, Mike hoped, so that they wouldn’t damage the RV.

The blood and body parts of the dead were building up on the front of the hood. People that got upset by the buildup of bugs on the front of their car after a long trip would have died at the sight of the RV’s hood and grill.

After a mile the RV looked like it had been driven through a bloody car wash that used blood and ground flesh instead of water. The white RV decorated with blue stripes was now mostly a grisly looking pattern of black and red splatters.

The smell that came in through the vehicles ventilation system burned their noses and stung their eyes.

Mike could barely see through the windshield.

The sound of the dead crashing against the front of the RV began to drop off until the thuds mercifully stopped.

Mike could see they had finally had made it through the horde of the walking dead.

He took a chance and hit the window washers.

The blue liquid sprayed against the windshield and mixed with the red of the blood.

The wipers sprang to life a second later and for a moment Mike couldn’t see a thing as the blades ran over the windshield, smearing blood and chunks of flesh across the windshield in front of him.

Mike pushed the fluid button in and held it, sending a continuous stream of blue liquid over the glass.

Finally the window began to clear enough for Mike to see in front of the motorhome.

He could once again see the road enough to continue driving.

He could also see the stream of steam the shot out from the front of the vehicle.

He swore under his breath at the sight of the white steam coming up over the hood, taking on a reddish glow as it passed over the blood that covered the hood.

The RV had gotten them through the dead, but it would no longer get them home.

He only hoped it would get them someplace safe so they could figure out what to do next.

Mike drove as he watched the temperature gauge move higher. The needle was now in the red zone on the gauge and moving higher.

Chapter 14

Mike drove west on Interstate 64, looking at the scenery he had looked at earlier today when they were driving east on Interstate 64 to start their journey home.

Then they were hopeful their nightmare was behind them.

Now the nightmare was back. Not only was their nightmare back, it was getting worse. Now their safe place of refuge and only means of escape had become a casualty of the nightmare. As their RV died around them, so did their chances of getting home.

Mike had stopped at that bloody slaughterhouse that had been a gas station and taken gas from an abandoned truck so they would have enough gas in the RV to make the three hundred mile trip home. With the extra gas, Mike felt confident that his pride and joy, the twenty-five foot 1998 Coachman motorhome, would get them all home. Over the years they had many fun adventures in the old RV.

From the smell that was now permeating the interior of the vehicle, the blood splattered body and windows of the RV and the smoke and steam that was pouring out from under the hood, Mike knew that this was the end of the line for his RV.

However with all things considered, Mike had a lot more serious things on his mind to worry about.

His family was running for their lives. What good would a perfectly good RV do if they were all dead?

They had a number of problems to solve, the first problem was to coax the RV to run long enough to get them someplace safe so they could then try to solve the other problems facing them.

Mike held his breath as they drove along the interstate, dodging the abandoned cars.

The sound of the engine had changed.  The engine was now starting to emit loud knocking sounds.

Mike wasn’t a mechanic but he knew this wasn’t good.

The engine wouldn’t run much longer.

Mike eased off the gas hoping if he slowed down the engine would last a little longer.

Kelly sat upright in her seat. “I see an exit!”

“Good.” Mike said. “I don’t know how much longer this thing is going to last. I was starting to worry we were going to get stranded out here on the interstate.”

The RV chugged closer to the exit.

As they approached the large green sign along the road, it identified the exit as exit 161.

The next sign made their optimism at seeing the exit sign sink to the pit at the bottom of their stomachs.

The sign read. North:  Eight miles Carter Caves State Park,

South: Graham three miles.

They had traveled back to where they had gotten onto the interstate this morning. They were back to where they had started. Square one.

Mike pulled off the exit and turned south. “Let’s try this way. I certainly don’t have any intentions of going back to Carter Caves State Park.”

“What’s in Graham?” Kelly asked.

“No Idea!” Mike answered. “All I know is Carter Caves isn’t in Graham.”

“Do you think the RV will run long enough to get us to Graham?” Kelly asked.

“I don’t know but I’m not going to try to push it that far.” Mike replied as he scanned the small two lane road as it twisted around through a wooded area.

“Where are we going?” Kelly asked sounding concerned as the RV began lunging in a jerky motion.

Mike spotted a dirt pull off spot a hundred feet ahead. He guided the RV off the road and into the pull off spot. He encouraged it to move a little further and pulled behind the patch of trees at the end of the pull off.

He reached out and turned off the ignition. The RV stopped shaking as the loud knocking sound from the engine ended.

Mike looked at Kelly. “I think this is as far as we can go in the RV. I think it’s done.”

“How are we going to get home?” Kelly asked as the RV began to feel cold around her.

“We need another vehicle.” Mike said.

“How?” Kelly started to ask.

“We just passed hundreds of abandoned cars.” Mike said. “From what the roads look like, I was thinking if we had a smaller more maneuverable vehicle it might make it easier to get home. I love this RV, but it just wasn’t going to make it through all that shit.”

“Do we have to go back up there?” Kelly asked. “Why didn’t we try to get a car while we were up on the highway?”

“I was afraid if we stopped the RV wouldn’t start again.” Mike replied. “If the dead started to swarm around us we would be trapped. I wanted to get us somewhere safe first, then I could go back and see what I can find that still runs.”

“We are all going to go together, right?” Kelly asked.

“No. I’m going to do this by myself.”  Mike said. “It will be easier if I go myself. I can move around without being seen easier if there is only one of us.”

“We don’t want to stay here by ourselves!” Kelly said nervously.

“I don’t like it either, but I think it’s the best way.” Mike answered. “While I’m gone, I would like for you and Kimmy to pack some clothes for us and get all our food ready to go. As soon as I get back we’ll move all the stuff into the car and go.”

“Where do we go from here?” Kelly asked.

“To find a gas station.” Mike said. “I need a map. I think we should take the back roads out of Kentucky to avoid what we saw up on 64. I think the roads around the larger cities and towns might all look the same. The only road I know in Kentucky is Route 64.”

“This scares me Mike.” Kelly pleaded.

“I know. I’ll try to do this fast. Just get our things together.” Mike smiled. “Just don’t make any noise. If you’re quiet, nothing should bother you.”

Kelly nodded nervously.

Mike opened the door. “I’ll make this as fast as I can.”

Kelly just looked at him.

Mike stepped outside the RV.

It looked more horrific than he expected and smelled even worse.

He started to reach for the door to close it, but decided against it. He raised his foot and kicked the door closed.

Mike walked around to the front of the RV. He wanted to see how much damage running into the dead had actually done to his RV.

As he rounded the front fender, he noticed both of the headlights had been smashed. The spaces where the head lights had been were packed with gray flesh. Blood ran from the headlights like a bleeding open wound.

The grill had been smashed and pushed back into the radiator. Four long bones protruded from the radiator. No wonder the RV had died so fast. A small hole would have eventually done in the RV. Colliding with the dead had first obliterated the grill and then the radiator. A heavy layer of bloody gray flesh packed the front of the radiator around where the four bones pushed through. The bones had probably pushed through the radiator, come out the other side and cut the fan belt.

Oil dripped from the frame under the front bumper. Some part of a dead body apparently had punctured the oil pan.

The dead had done quite a job on his RV. The hood was dented numerous times. Only the bumper had managed to do its job without being destroyed.

Too bad the dead didn’t have the decency to just bounce off the bumper.

Mike looked closer at a round object wedged in between the bumper and the grill.

He jumped back when two eyes opened and stared out at him. The lower jaw was gone, but the top of the head had remained intact. The eyes followed him as he moved back to the side of the RV.

Mike went back to the rear of the RV and opened the compartment door and took out the full gas can he had set inside back at the gas station.

He was grateful the back of the RV was not as disgusting as the front and sides. The only damage was to the bumper where he had backed into a few of the abandoned cars when he tried to turn around. That and some bloody hand prints. He didn’t know how they got there and he didn’t want to know.

Mike picked up the gas can and started back down the road.

Fifteen minutes later he was at the intersection with Interstate 64. He stayed in the grass and down off the road so not to been seen by whatever was watching.

He moved carefully along the bank. Three cars sat on the road about two hundred feet up the road.

All these cars had seemed to be a lot closer together when he was driving the RV. Of course walking, he was moving a lot slower, painfully slower.

As he approached the three cars, he began to hear the groaning of the dead. They were working their way down Route 64. Slowly but steadily they were coming.

Mike wondered if they were still trying to follow after the RV. If so, they were persistent bastards.

Regardless why they were coming, they were coming and Mike would have to find a car fast before they came much closer.

He hoped one of the cars on the road above would run.

If not, he knew he would be running. He didn’t like the idea of trying to escape the dead on foot. He especially didn’t like the idea of Kelly and Kimmy on foot fleeing with the dead closing in.

He moved closer to the cars up on the road, looking up at them from the high weeds.

He looked at the three cars. The first one he saw was a Ford Explorer SUV. An SUV would be good. He would be able to get off the road and drive through the fields if he had to, if he ran into any more jam ups like he had earlier today. That was the benefit of taking the explorer, if it still ran. The bad part of an SUV was the crappy gas mileage. At ten miles a gallon, he would be constantly stopping to find more gas. If the rest of Kentucky was anything like it was around here, that could be a problem.

The car next to the Explorer was an old Buick. As far as Mike was concerned, there were no good points to taking the Buick, unless it was the only one that would run. That would be a big plus.

The third car was a dull green Toyota Prius. It wouldn’t do well if he had to go off road.

But the plus side was it could take him the whole way home on less than a tank of gas. That fact alone made up for any negatives the Prius might have.

If it would run, Mike decided to try for the Prius.

He wished one of the cars had been a Subaru. He liked Subarus. They had the best of both off road abilities and mileage, but since a Subaru wasn’t one of his choices and he didn’t have time to look further up the highway, he ran up the hillside and towards the Prius.

As he ran up in the middle of Route 64, he knew the dead had seen him. The volume of the creature’s groaning grew.

Mike quickly looked off into the fields around him.

The dead coming down 64 were still far enough away that they didn’t worry him too much yet. It was the ones he couldn’t see that concerned him. The ones that seemed to come out of nowhere and swarm over the highway, like the ones that he had to force his way through with the RV. These were the ones he worried about now.

So far, the fields were clear.

Mike ran over to the Prius and looked inside. The car was sitting with both front doors hanging open like all the other cars he had seen today. The car was in park, but the ignition was still on. The lights across the dash board were all lit up.

“At least that meant the batteries weren’t dead yet.

Mike leaned in further and looked at the gas gauge. It was empty.

That didn’t surprise him. People fleeing for their lives were not concerned about shutting down their car before running. When zombies were about to sink their teeth into you, saving gas all of a sudden no longer seemed important.

Mike reached in and switched off the ignition switch. He ran back and took the cap off the gas tank. He had a three gallon can. He poured a cupful into the car and stopped.

If the car didn’t run, he would need the gas for the Explorer or the old Buick.

He ran back up and turned the ignition switch. The lights on the dash lit up again, but nothing else happened.

“Shit.” He said to himself. He was really hoping the Prius would run. Then he remembered, the Prius starts out and runs on electricity first. The engine doesn’t kick in until the car reaches ten miles an hour.

Mike tossed the gas can on the passenger’s seat as he dropped into the driver’s seat. He put the car in drive and hit the gas pedal. The car quietly started down Route 64. At ten miles an hour the engine came to life. Mike drove to the exit and off of 64. He stopped in the underpass under the interstate and put the rest of the gas from the can in the car.

He was back at the RV in a few minutes.

He saw Kelly glance wide eyed out the window from behind the driver’s seat.

Mike stopped the car next to the back of the RV, next to the RV’s gas tank.

He opened the back of the Prius before running around to the back door of the RV. He opened the door and stuck his head inside.

Two very scared girls stared back at him.

Mike smiled. “If you girls would load the car, I’m going to drain some gas from the RV and then we are leaving. OK?”

The girls didn’t wait to be asked twice. They started picking up the piles of clothes and food they had made and started running for the car.