Part II – Run Like the Devil

“The time for sleep is now
It’s nothing to cry about ’cause we’ll hold each other soon in the blackest of rooms ” – Death Cab for Cutie

I found my first evidence of my family a couple of days after I escaped from Vegas. That was a nightmare, let me tell you. I still have bad dreams about it. I don’t know what the deal is with these people – whether they’re alive or dead. I do know they’re wicked fast and hungry as hell. I encountered my first one in the parking lot of a sporting goods store. I hit him hard, in the head, and he collapsed. I don’t know if I killed him or just knocked him out; I just know he was trying to kill me.

I made it down the road a few miles before I came to a pileup on the highway. It looked like a bunch of folks were trying to leave the city and – well, you can figure out what happened. Take a herd of panicked people, put them behind the wheel of their cars, and what do you get? Mayhem. I stopped the truck well away from the mess and got out to investigate. Maybe my car was in there somewhere, and if it was I owed it to my family to try to find out what happened to them. I saw several cars that looked like mine, but none were. Funny enough, though, all the cars were empty. I saw blood; I saw wrecks that looked like nobody could have survived; I saw deployed airbags – but no bodies.

I remember thinking of a line Captain Kirk said in a Star Trek movie: “This is damned peculiar,” right before the bad guy almost blows up the Enterprise. I had that feeling then, and I didn’t like it one bit. I could feel eyes on me but couldn’t see or hear anyone out there. The city had fallen silent by then – no planes taking off or landing at the airport, no engines running, no music…the electric billboards were still on, advertising lawyers and the like, but they don’t make any noise.

At that moment I felt like the last man on earth.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye the same time I heard shuffling footsteps. I turned back toward the truck; this time there were three of them. They looked just like my unfriendly acquaintance from earlier – bloody yellowed eyes, full of hatred and anger, mottled skin…I noticed a smell about them this time though. They had an acrid scent to them – like stale urine and old sweat. As they stood there staring at me, I realized one of them looked familiar.

“Colleen?”
No response.
“Colleen what’s wrong with you? What the hell happened here? Where’s Shawn?”

More staring, and a chill crept up my spine. I started backing away slowly, tightening my grip on the bat in my hand. They stood between me and the safety of the truck. I really didn’t want to fight, and they looked hostile. Then they took the choice away from me. All three of them charged me at the same time. I sidestepped one, ducked underneath the other’s arms, and felt the third – the one I thought was my friend Colleen – grab hold of my hoodie. Her grip was like iron. She snarled and went to bite me; I rammed the butt of the bat into her face, crushing her nose and cutting her cheek open. That black ooze I saw on the other one spurted out, staining the front of my shirt. It reeked of stagnancy and decay. It smelled like death. I bashed her face again, harder, and felt her grip slacken. I pulled away right as the other two came within swinging distance. I choked up on the bat and swung at one, catching it in the side of the head. I saw his skull flatten out and he dropped like a stone. The other one grabbed onto me, and I swung the end of the bat into his stomach. I’d hoped he would crumple, but he held fast, almost pulling me on top of him. I went to my knees as I drove the bat into his skull, punching a hole into his cranium. He stilled immediately, and I proceeded to vomit all over the place.

After what felt like the entire contents of my body lay on the pavement and body in front of me, I managed to stagger to my feet. I’d cut my knees when I fell and was bleeding. I cast a quick glance around, saw I was alone, and went back to the truck. I felt exhausted. I’d barely slept for days as I rushed home, eaten less, and now I’d had to fight…what? Zombies? Sick people? Cannibals?

WHAT THE FUCK WAS GOING ON??

I rinsed my mouth, changed my shirt, started the truck, and froze. There was a mob behind me. They were silent as the grave, and staring at me with those hate-filled eyes.

I had two options: plow through the mess in front of me and possibly destroy my best mode of transportation for the moment, or put the truck into high reverse and run down whichever ones didn’t get out of the way.

“May the gods forgive me,” I whispered as I stepped on the clutch.

to be continued…