The Last Days (29 page)

I was able to contact the remnants of a few other units after we got out of town. It was the same story everywhere. Zombies had overrun everyone and they were everywhere.

I got my men up into the hills until we could regroup and work on a plan to get back into the city. For the next few days I had some fragmented communications with a few men that survived, but soon there was nothing.

Then you found us Sir!

Do you know what the hell happened? Where did these things come from? Are these things really zombies?”

“Yes I think I can answer those questions to a degree. When we get back to the carrier, I will get everyone together and tell you all what I know.” The Captain replied. “Were you able to get the positions of any of your last contacts?”

“Not really Sir. Some were in the city holed up in some of the buildings and the others were just trying to get somewhere to regroup.” The Lieutenant replied.

“I think if there any more survivors they would have done what you did and go up into the mountains. I am hoping we can find small pockets of survivors in the hills on the coast.” The Captain said. “After we spend about a week in the area we can decide what to do next. Decide where we go from here.”

“What about the rest of the country Sir? Why didn’t they send reinforcements?” The Lieutenant asked.

“Lieutenant, as far as I know, the entire country, the rest of the world is like what you see below.” The Captain said as they passed over San Diego and the naval base.

The Lieutenant stared down at the city and the base, now populated with millions of the dead. “Shit!”

Chapter 22

John drove the little Chevy along Route 30. They were now half way between Ligonier and Latrobe.

Route 30 followed the Loyalhanna Creek through a pass in the mountains that separated Ligonier and Latrobe.

They had six miles to go before they would pass by Latrobe.

John worried that the much larger town of Latrobe could be a problem. The larger population would mean more of the dead to contend with.

Now, in the mountain pass the conditions were not too bad.

The right side of Route 30 was the start of the mountain side. It started six feet from the side of the road and angled steeply upward for a few hundred feet. Nothing would be coming at them from that direction unless they were at the top of the mountain and happened to fall over the side and landed on top of their car.

John thought that could be a real possibility, but since he would never see them coming, he decided to just worry about what he could see. That was more than enough to keep him occupied.

The left side of the highway followed along the banks of the creek.

Unless the dead could swim, he shouldn’t have much to worry about from that direction either.

He didn’t think the dead could swim. He had seen them walk into the creek near his house and get washed down stream. He had also seen them walk through the water and come out the other side, but nothing that indicated that they could actually swim. Hell, they could barely walk. Animals swam so they could keep their heads above water and be able to breathe. Half the dead he had seen had their lungs and insides torn out. Apparently the dead didn’t breathe. He doubted they even needed the ability to swim. They would just keep walking in the water until they came out the other side somewhere.

The creek here was much deeper and faster moving than the creek back home. He shouldn’t have to worry about any of them coming through the creek.

He only had to worry about the dead that had followed the highway.

He swerved and dodged, trying to avoid as many of them as he could.

“Why are all these people walking on the road? Didn’t their mother ever tell them to stay off the road so they wouldn’t get hit by a car?” Cindy had asked.

John had to explain that these people were sick and weren’t themselves anymore.

Cindy could understand being sick, but it was much harder to explain why he had to run some of them over with the car and then not stop to see if they were OK.

When he hit or ran over any of the dead, she would stare out the back window at the mangled bodies in horror, not understanding why her Daddy was doing this to these people.

She understood that these were bad people that wanted to hurt them. It didn't explain why they had to run them over.

The concept of what a zombie was wasn’t part of her prior life experiences. Barb would never let her watch
Night of
the Living Dead
with John. She said it would give her nightmares.

Had she known at the time the movie would be required viewing for those who wanted to survive the end of the world, she might have reconsidered her decision.

A little zombie education might have gone a long way to help her understand what she was seeing now and avoid the horrible nightmares that went along with what their life had become.

John studied the road in front of them.

The narrow pass they had followed between the mountain peaks was coming to an end a quarter mile ahead. They would be coming out into the flats that approached the outskirts of Latrobe. Ahead, the four lane highway was surrounded by shopping plazas. Walmart, Lowes Lumber Supply, Giant Eagle Foods and a few car dealerships lined the left side of the road.

The right side was populated with restaurants, bars, grocery stores and Latrobe Chevrolet.

It would be like running through a gauntlet of the dead.

If he could get through this gauntlet, he would turn onto the small side roads and take the back country roads towards New Stanton.

The car passed Kingston Dam as they came out of the mountain pass. The next two miles could determine whether he would make it to the farm or be the end of his struggles to survive.

John tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he began to feel tense. Between getting out of Ligonier and the miles they had traveled on Route 30 through the pass, the little Chevy had been dented and bloodied, but still chugged along.

As he approached the area before Walmart, he looked down Route 30 in front of him and wished he had taken a bigger car for his escape.

There had to be hundreds of the dead on the road ahead.

John didn’t have a choice. He had to follow Route 30 at least for the next few miles in order to make it to the farm.

He did have a choice, but he didn’t want to turn around and go back to Ligonier. With how hard he had fought to get away from Ligonier, he didn’t want to go through all of that to get back into town, just to start all over again.

As he approached the dead, he had to decide. Should he speed up to ram his way through, or was it better to go slow and steady and try to push them aside before they could break into the car..

Going fast could damage the car, stranding them on the spot, but slow had its disadvantages too. The car was light. Maybe he couldn’t push through if there were too many of them piled up in front of him. If he ran them over, it could be like running through a muddy field with all the blood and slimy flesh that would be on the road. The car would slide and the wheels spin losing traction, bringing the car to a halt.

The car had bucked and protested when he had run over three of the dead back in the pass. Trying to run over and push hundreds of the dead out of the way seemed to be more than the little Chevy was capable of doing.

Either way he was facing the real possibility of being stranded and surrounded by the dead.

Stranded, it would only be a matter of time before the dead forced their way into the car.

From what he had seen in Ligonier, it wasn’t a pleasant thought.

He drove on slowly approaching the dead as he thought what he should do.

The dead began to turn their heads in his direction. They had seen their car coming. The movement had attracted their attention. They all turned and started moving in his direction.

John decided going slow was not going to work.

He pressed down on the gas. He fought the urge to floor it.

He had hit a deer one day on his way home from work.

It was only one deer and he was only traveling fifty-five miles an hour. His truck ended up looking like it had been hit by a bulldozer.

He would be colliding head on with hundreds of these creatures and the little Cavalier was in no way as sturdy as his pickup truck. Neither of his options seemed likely to succeed. He hoped he had picked the option that would at least give them the best chance.

He watched the needle on the speedometer slowly reach thirty miles an hour. He eased off the gas. He hoped thirty wasn’t too fast or too slow.

The Night of the Living Dead
hadn’t given him any insight on how fast one should be driving when they collided with the dead. It dealt with being boarded up in an old farm house while surrounded by zombies as they tried to break in to get you.

That part would come in handy if he could get to the farm. Right now he was on his own.

They tightened their seat belts.

The first contact jarred his spine as they hit four of the dead. The car shook and rocked. Barb and Cindy gasped as the dead rushed to collide with the sides of the car.

Barb’s window cracked as a bloody face crashed against the window, then disappeared as the car plowed forward.

The windshield was bloodied, but had managed to remain in one solid piece so far. This was only beginning.

He began to second guess his decision to not turn around when he had the chance.

John glanced at the speedometer. The car was now down to twenty-five miles an hour.

The next three they hit hand fallen down onto the road before he hit them. He couldn’t swerve. If he did he would have hit the hundreds of bodies that were pushing into each other as they came from the sides of the road to get at the car.

The car bounced as it ran over the bodies. Their heads would have bounced off the inside of the roof had the seat belts not restrained them.

John heard what sounded like an explosion as the car bounced up and down over the dead on the road.

The rear right of the car sank down. The sound of metal scraping on the road vibrated throughout the car.

One of the dead creature’s bones must have been thrust through the rear tire causing the tire to blow out.

The speedometer was now down to fifteen miles an hour and dropping.

The dead were now all around the car, banging on the sides and windows. The sound of their groaning and the pounding on the car was terrifying. All the windows were now cracked and the windshield was so slimed John could barely see outside.

The car slowly plowed through the onrushing dead bodies. Thankfully the car was front wheel drive. The front tires were still inflated and managed to find traction on the rare places on the road not covered with blood and body parts. The back of the car was being pulled along despite the loud vibrating sound of metal against concrete.

The dead continued to bounce off the front of the car. The car continued to slow with each crushing collision with the creatures.

The back window was still clear, unlike all the others. John could see black smoke pouring out from the back of the car. He didn’t know if it was from the remaining rubber on the rear rim that was being ground into the road, or if the little engine was burning up from the abuse.

The engine temperature light had been flashing bright red since shortly after the first contact with the dead.

John floored the gas pedal. It did little more than keep the car moving through the dead at slightly under ten miles an hour. The front wheels spun and jerked as they lost and regained traction on the roads slippery surface.

Bodies bounced over the hood, up over the windshield, across the roof and off the top of the trunk.

Barb and Cindy had stopped screaming a while back. They now just sat stunned, staring straight ahead, fear in their eyes, afraid that looking at the dead along the sides of the car would encourage them to try harder. Or maybe they were just trying to look invisible and hope the dead wouldn’t see them if they didn’t move.

John had decided approaching the dead at a high speed or at a low speed, that neither was a good choice.

If he lived through this, the best way to go would be not to run into them at all.

Suddenly the car pushed out of the other side of the mass of dead bodies.

One hundred feet ahead the next wave of bodies slowly approached.

The next wave of the dead was now at the intersection of Route 30 and Route 817. Route 817 was the main route that went into Latrobe. John couldn’t see down Route 817 from where he was, but he was sure there were more of the dead, many more coming out of town from that direction.

The car was in no condition to take on the next wave of the dead that were only seconds away.

The car protested as John turned the wheel sharply to the right and went into Latrobe Chevrolet’s parking lot. Thick black smoke was now pouring out from under the hood and from the sides of the car near the doors.

Barb started to cough when smoke began to shoot out of the vents on the dash and into their faces.

The car chugged and sputtered as the engine finally gave out as they were halfway across the parking lot.

The dead were coming from every direction.

They had one chance. Get into the car dealership.

This was where John worked. He remembered he had his key ring in his right pocket. As the head mechanic, he had a key to get into the building.

If they could make it to the side door by the service department, he should be able to get in the building through the employee’s entrance.

“Get out of the car, follow me and run.” John shouted as the dead moved closer.

Barb jumped out of the passenger’s door, but Cindy was too terrified to move.

John rushed to the back of the car. He cringed as he grabbed the bloody door handle and pulled the door open. He quickly wiped his hand on the back of the passenger’s seat before pushing the release button on Cindy’s seat belt. He pulled Cindy out of the car and began to run. Barb desperately followed.

When they reached the door at the employee’s entrance, John thrust Cindy into Barb’s arms.

He pulled his key ring out of his pocket and nervously fumbled through the keys.

He finally found the right key and struggled to get it in the lock.

There was only ten feet between the dead and his family when the door opened.