(Book 2)What Remains (25 page)

Ian would have loved to hear the praise of his
monstrosity. “Post office was near our house outside Richmond. I
went there the day before yesterday to steal one. The fleet manager
was held up in the vehicle bay, and he helped me with making her
zombie-proof and passenger ready.”

The chain link jingled a bit as Randall tested
the strength of its fixed installation. “This here is a wonderful
idea! I might try in on the Land Rover. Hate to screw up its paint
job, then again, I’d also hate to have one of those infected
assholes go through the windshield on a supply run.” He looked at
his watch and we went back inside to round everyone up.

In the kitchen I stood quietly with Randall like
guards overseeing a prison visitation. Plenty of tears were shed.
Hugs were given; sweet pleas for return came from the younger
daughters. Courtney gave Calise a new plush feline friend named
Sasha; she was elated to have another furry companion. We all
laughed when Brittany told Maddox that she was going to marry him.
Jenn wiped her own tears away then told everyone that we would find
a way to meet up in the spring. The way that the four kids got
along made me ponder if a return trip in the future would be
possible.

Sarah and I ushered the kids to the idling
truck. Randall offered to walk down the driveway ahead of us to do
his daily perimeter check. I wanted to believe that was why he
escorted us out, but I think he wanted to make sure we actually
left.

“We’ll follow behind you,” I said. “If you spot
something and need a hand just wave me out.”

“You keep on drivin’,” he smiled. “I can manage
whatever we come across. There is one thing you can do…” I raised
an eyebrow curiously then he finished, “Next time y’all come for a
visit I expect
you
to bring the booze.”

Inside I wondered if any of us would be alive to
meet again. We shook hands then he unslung the AK-47 from his side
and marched forward. I hopped inside, clicked my seat belt, and
popped 522 into drive.

The four of us were silent for an
uncharacteristically long period. Hitting the road again was hard
after a hot meal, a hot shower, and a night in a warm bed. Since we
had been sleeping in the attic for a few weeks beforehand, it was
easy to let one night of normalcy go to our heads. I used the quiet
time to ponder our night with the Fishers.

Having seen firsthand evidence of how survival,
beyond cowering in the shadows, was possible left me with a sense
of hope. The more I thought about Randall’s suggestion to steal a
solar panel, the more in favor of it I became. A solar panel might
be the difference between life and death if the winter was as bad
as we feared. Thinking of a long term tasks like that was
comforting in its own way; like my subconscious began to believe
that there
was
a ‘long term’ to work towards.

The roads were slick yet manageable. It had to
be in the mid-thirties, at most, so nothing melted. Road salt or
sand would have made this much snow a non-event. White
inconsistently caked the pavement just enough to make speed a
tricky balance. We had to drive slowly because sudden stops weren’t
a possibility. I was terrified that a shambling asshole would jump
in front of us, I’d hit the brakes or swerve, and lose control of
the truck. Luckily, road obstructions were few and far in between
so I saw any of the bastards long before they got the drop on
us.

Monsters still lurked randomly along the route.
There was something different about them compared to every other
dreaded time I’d seem them. Their movements were more rigid, like
the cold had slowed them down. Some had a pathetic white hue from
snow that had collected on their rotting bodies. This cold could be
advantageous if it slowed them all down like what I was seeing.

Route 58 turned into South Boston Road as we
approached Danville. There was an option to take an expressway
around the city, however, knowing that we had a larger detour
coming around Martinsville I decided to keep the course straight. I
warned Sarah and the kids that we were headed through a city area
so it could get bumpy if I had to drive evasively.

I could see a faint, pulsing glow far ahead. I
thought I was hallucinating at first, and then I knew what it was.
There was a message sign trailer on the side of the road. Signs
like this were once something I came across every day near
construction zones. We’d passed a few along the route but all were
as dark as anything else that required power. I pointlessly tried
to read the message. We weren’t close enough to tell what it said
without all of the lights functioning.

Traffic congestion picked up. The interchange
detour to go around Danville was ahead. Cars clogged the right
lanes so I stuck to the shoulder on the left. We couldn’t have
hugged the Jersey wall any closer without scraping against it. Now
we were on a long overpass bridge that crossed over another
highway. I was hypnotized by the flashing sign that came from
somewhere on the right. We were almost close enough to make out
what message had survived all of this time.

“
ROFD CLOSLD
” it flashed with missing
letter sections. I could make out the solar panel running long the
top when the letters dimmed. Then the message changed to “TAKE
GRFENSBORO DETOUR”.

I slowed down to try to figure out what it all
meant. Stopping wasn’t an option because the infected were all over
the traffic jam. They moved slower than usual but were still moving
towards us.

“Babe,” I called back, “I need you.”

Sarah pulled the blanket barrier aside to come
into the driver’s cab. She look astonished by what was outside.

“Holy shit… there’s so many of them. Are you
going to take the Greensboro detour like the sign says?”

The road became more saturated with motionless
cars every inch we crossed. It all shifted towards the detour exit
leaving more room on the left. A few hundred feet past the ramp
traffic cleared leading towards two State Police cars and a pickup
truck in front of a dotting of Jersey barriers placed in the travel
lanes. There didn’t seem to be a good option left.

“I guess we can find a way to snake down there.
Can you see over the wall down to the road? Maybe it’ll be more
passable. I can’t tell from where I’m sitting.”

Sarah carefully climbed atop my gear and peered
out the window. “No,” she said with her face to the window, “that’s
not going to be a good option. There’s cars as far as I can see.
And hundreds of
them
.”

We didn’t have any choice in the matter; that
much was clear.

“Get the kids to hold onto something. I have no
idea how this is going to go.”

Sarah hustled to the back as we passed the
detour ramp. With the road emptied I moved back to the center lane.
I slowed on the approach to the curious placement of the pickup
truck before the police blockade. Inching past, I stopped
completely to evaluate what could have happened there.

Three bodies were laid like the corners of a
triangle. Two wore uniforms, the last had a tan bloodstained jacket
and quite peculiarly, none were torn to pieces. That’s what was
wrong with this scene - they hadn’t been attacked. Bodies were
everywhere I looked during this trip. I had grown all too
comfortable with seeing human remains in varying levels of
completion. The two officers and the third man were as intact as a
corpse should be after this long outside in the elements. With them
being that close to a panicked cluster fuck I’d expect them to have
been gnawed to the bone by the infected. Snow covered enough of the
gruesome details to make the three of them look as oddly unassuming
as mannequins left in the road.

I was puzzled enough to keep my foot completely
pressed on 522’s brake pedal while I tried to figure it out. The
undead motorists in the area noticed our lack of momentum, and at
least a dozen fought their cold-stricken limbs into the cleared
lanes past the exit ramp.

“Umm,” Sarah said from the back, concerned about
why we’d stopped, “Nathan? Can’t we get through?”

While I heard her, I wouldn’t allow myself to
move the truck or even respond until I understood this mystery. The
dead hobbled into view of the side mirror. It caught my attention
for a split second then my eyes returned to the mystery trio. All
three cars were dusted in white. There was something else,
something that wasn’t right about the pickup truck. I allowed us to
crawl forward slightly to get a better view.

A gap in the pile of snowy luggage in the bed of
the truck enabled me to get a peek past to the rectangular rear
window. Cracks spider-webbed the glass, obscuring most of the view.
Inside, a splash of bright blue broke up the otherwise drab
interior; it was a difference in coloring that suspiciously had no
place there. Sarah renewed her plea to move behind me.

“One second!” I snapped impatiently.

I glanced at the mirror to see we had minutes
left before the infected would reach us then I squinted hard to
make out the details. The only detail of the patrol cars that
looked unusual and wasn’t hidden by snow looked like a bullet hole
bored through the door of closest patrol car. If not for the snow
erasing what I assumed had to be a littering of shell casings I
might have figured it out sooner.

The bullet hole, the cracked windshield, and the
untouched bodies: this was a shootout. As the State Trooper units
held the blockade this truck had tried to get through. Whoever
drove the truck was so determined to get past the troopers that he
was willing to engage in a gunfight that killed them all. I
imagined being there, imagined what would have driven me to react
the same way.

What would make me react the same way?
I
thought while I stared absently at the blue object in the back of
the truck. It was the only piece I couldn’t figure out.

“Daddy, I’m scared,” Calise whimpered. “Can we
go? Please?”

Then I knew. My little girl’s plea from the back
of our truck made my mind put the last piece in place. It was a car
seat. The truck had a blue car seat in the back and its driver was
willing to fire upon State Troopers because of it. Thank God the
cracked windshield kept me from knowing whether the car seat was
occupied or not. I wished that my imagination had left well enough
alone rather than filling in the gaps like it often did.

I hit the gas. The tires spun for a moment in
the snow then we moved. In the mirror I saw the closest monster
lunge at the truck. There was some satisfaction in seeing the
infected man land face down in the inch of snow then flail about
like a toddler in a tantrum.

“Sorry guys,” I called back when I heard the
collective gasps. “I had to find a way around the roadblock. We’re
moving again.”

522 again proved her worth with a tight turning
radius as I weaved her around the Jersey barrier blockade. Each
piece of the roadblock was positioned in a way that would have made
speeding through impossible. Anyone who approached would have to
clear the State Troopers first, and I witnessed how that turned
out. I had to slow to the point of nearly being stopped in order to
snake through the wall.

On the other side we had clear sailing. It was
actually surprising to see how much of a difference there was
between the crippling traffic congestion leading up to the forced
detour and the empty roads afterwards. South Boston Road quickly
changed to the aptly named River Street, which followed the Dan
River through Danville city limits. Danville was practically a
ghost town along River Street.

So much of the route we’d taken had clear
indications of past chaos. Burned cars, smoldering frames of
houses, whole and partial bodies, still corpses and hungry ones; it
reaffirmed that the world went to hell so fast that no one had time
to act. River Street wasn’t like the other areas we’d been. It felt
like Danville residents tried to prepare, tried to combat what was
coming. My attention was split between the road in front of us and
anything else that might unravel this mystery.

A storefront caught my eye. It was boarded up so
thoroughly that any signage was blocked so I couldn’t even tell
what kind of store it was. Neon green spray painted graffiti
sprawled across the wooden storefront. I let up on the accelerator
enough to read what it said: “GONE TO SAFE SIDE”.

“Safe side?” I muttered curiously to myself.

About a mile later I knew what happened in
Danville at the onset of the thirty-third mutation. We approached a
large intersection with North Main Street. I stopped the truck to
look at the landscape and Sarah came out of the back.

“Alright, is something wrong this time? You
scared the hell out of the kids a little while ago so start
talking, mist…” she stopped mid-sentence after seeing the view
ahead.

To our right North Main Street continued to be
as empty as River Street had been. However, our left side was
another story. I saw the remains of a major parallel bridge
crossing the Dan River. It was completely emptied of cars, which
told me the bridge collapse must have been intentional. A few feet
past the intersection on the right facing the river was a long
rectangular sign that presumably had the name of the bridge posted.
Whatever it was I couldn’t see past the painted sheet that was
draped over it. Its dripping lettered message said, “CLOSED PER
SAFE ZONE ORDER.”

“They tried to cut off access to the city,”
Sarah said, obviously attempting to absorb the same shock I was
feeling.

“Do you think that means we’re in the ‘safe
zone’?”

She pointed across the river. “Look on the other
side.”

So much of the Dan River had been hidden from
view before this point because of trees or structures. This was the
first truly open area we’d been where I had a clear view of the
other side. I stared across the rough waters trying to focus on the
details beyond them. When I saw what my wife pointed at I instantly
wished I had kept driving instead of appeasing my curiosity.