Dying to Live (25 page)

She darted cautiously towards the next door. Xin made towards the one opposite it, but Pete caught her arm.

“Please, don’t do that again...” He whispered, almost pleadingly. He was talking about her and Lucy going off without them. His face was sincere and he gazed deep into her eyes. Xin was confused by his level of concern but nodded back and he let her go, leaving her stood there as he went to check another door.

“I’ve got it, this one! ‘Regular non-plated and hard plate reinforced personal armour, riot gear and other protective clothing including: Kevlar and Dyneema.’” Lucy read aloud. She poked both her gun and head around the door and added, “It’s clear.”

The three of them entered another equally dauntingly sized space. It was indeed empty, aside from another body. A middle aged man lay in the centre of the room. Most of his innards were now outwards and not much was left of, what must surely have been a sizable stomach at one point. Most of the floor seemed to be smeared or pooled with wet, shiny, red blood. A bright, crimson red.

“Oh my God, there have been others here!” Xin blurted.

“What?” Lucy questioned, pulling her eyes from the body to look at her.

“Other survivors,” Xin said, wide eyed. “Living people! The blood isn’t dried and darkened like old blood should be.”

“You’re right,” Pete said. “That’s weird. You’d think we’d have seen anyone else who was here on the cameras or something.”

“What should we do about it?” Lucy wondered.

“Well, I’m not sure we can afford to search the whole base right now,” Pete said. His face was regretful and sympathetic, Xin knew he felt like they should look for them.

“Maybe he was on his own,” Lucy said. “Or some of those bodies out there are his friends.”

“Perhaps,” Xin said sceptically, rushing to help Pete who had already begun to check the shelves.

“Take whatever is the lightest, and look for anything that covers arms and legs too not just vests,” she told them before adding, “Xin, there were no dead zombies when we got here, but plenty of live ones. If he had friends with him they would have surely killed at least a couple of them. He was either alone or his buddies are out in that corridor... Unless whoever he was with just left him to die.”

“There were two bodies with gunshot wounds. They didn’t look like they’d been turned either,” Pete thought aloud. “Who would shoot normal people?”

“In that case, they could be the kinds of people we’d want to avoid running into,” Lucy reassured Xin.

Xin thought on this as they gathered up everything that Lucy said they could use. Surely the man hadn’t been part of some sick distraction. He must have been alone. Nobody would leave a man to die like that... Would they? She pushed it from her mind and was glad to leave the room.

Once they were safely back inside their armoured haven, the group allowed themselves a moment of thankful respite.

“I can’t believe we did that.” Harry shook his head and exhaled a disbelieving laugh. “If fact, I can’t believe we
survived
that.’

“We’ve survived it before, but we make a good team, don’t we?” Pete allowed himself to smile, as he leaned back and took a breath.

“Hell yeah, we do,” Frank said. He didn’t take a moment to compose himself. He couldn’t wait to be as far away from that place as possible, and needed no excuse to be driving his new favourite vehicle again. Without hesitation, he threw the car into drive and spun away from the building.

In the back, Pete was watching Xin. She was thoughtful and quiet. He didn’t ask her why. Harry called to Frank and asked if he could open the sun roof. Frank obliged and a slight breeze fluttered as they gained some speed.

It took them a while to get back across the base and to have the familiar dirt track back in their sights. It also took a while for them to each snap from their own restful silence and for chatter to start back up amongst them.

Lucy and Frank were debating the usefulness of a small grenade launcher, which Frank had packed regardless of everyone else’s protests.

“I’m telling you, at some point it will be useful,” Frank laughed.

“Oh, whatever.” Lucy was laughing too. “If anyone actually finds a use for it then I’ll...”

She was interrupted by the sound of rapid gun fire. It sounded like someone letting off a few rounds from a machine gun, and in the distance they could hear human sounding howls and raucous laughter. Lucy swivelled in her seat to look at Xin. Xin looked back at her open mouthed.

“Frank, get us out of here,” Pete said calmly. “Anything we don’t have with us, we’ll just have to leave behind. We can pick up things we need in town. We don’t want to still be here when those guys come this way.”

“Yes, boss,” Frank said, putting his foot down and speeding the roaring vehicle down the track; past Lucy’s long ago crashed car, past the cabin they had called home for so long now, and through the gates into the unknown of the outside world.

20.

‘It was so surreal to be off the base and travelling further away from it by the minute. It felt like I’d had an extended week at work that I was finally free from. The feeling was somewhat spoilt by the knowledge that I wasn’t going to be going home to put my feet up. Rather, we were travelling into an unfamiliar new world. It was going to be much crazier, that was for sure, and we didn’t know where we would end the journey we had set out on. We also knew that, at some point, we were going to run into more of the living dead than we had ever seen before. To top it all off, I was starting to think that I was really falling for Frank. Life was such a mess that even that was starting to feel normal. For me Frank was a huge part of that. His stupid jokes and his way of acting as though we weren’t in mortal danger every day, made me want to cling to the comfort he offered.’

“We have a long drive east ahead of us. It’s going to be a few hours before we hit the Utah state line, but we should happen upon a town before then that we can stop off at. We have a while of pretty much nothingness, though,” Lucy explained to them.

“I think the first town we come to should be Caliente,” Harry offered usefully.

“Hopefully we can pick up a map there too,” Frank said. “For now we get to sail the extra-terrestrial highway. I guess we don’t need to keep an eye out for aliens.” It was meant to be a joke, but he didn’t laugh. Instead, a slight frown creased his forehead.

“We’ll pass the black mailbox too,” Lucy added. “If anyone was curious to see it.”

“It’s almost ironic, isn’t it?” Pete smiled.

“Almost,” Xin whispered to herself under her breath.

“We should be thankful that we don’t have to go back through Las Vegas. I would hate to see the state of that place now. There might have been an evacuation but I bet nobody wanted to leave on a winning streak,” Harry thought aloud.

“Yeah, it’s probably not doing so great,” Lucy said. “Imagine the sights, though. All the lights on the strip are probably off by now. And the centurions of Caesar’s Palace, I bet there are a few zombies wearing those costumes.”

“What about the Elvis lookalikes?” Frank half smirked.

Xin thought it probably was a hysterical sight to see, but more so in a film than real life. She didn’t want to bring the group down yet again, by telling them they should remember that these were real people. Pete didn’t really join in the jokes and laughter. Harry sat on the outskirts of the conversation too. Joking seemed to be Frank’s way of coping, and in turn Frank kept Lucy coping. If this was what got them through, then Xin was happy to leave them to it. She gazed out of the windows for a while afterwards, tuning out the conversations. Lucy had been right, it was just nothingness; dusty barren land for miles, bordered in the distance by small hulking mountains. The road seemed too small for their monstrously sized vehicle. The puny, dead-looking, poofs of grass were the only thing that broke up the harsh desert landscape, peppered occasionally with cacti of varying shapes and sizes.

Frank enjoyed his task of driving. With the empty roads and lack of law enforcement, he pushed the personnel carrier to its limits and made good time. Nobody in the group so much as turned their head to glimpse the mailbox when it whizzed by. They had seen it on their way in anyway, and it seemed ludicrous now, after everything they had discovered. In fact, it wasn’t long afterwards that most of Frank’s passengers began to drift off to sleep. Lucy was the only one who stayed awake to keep him company.

“Hey, check it out.” Frank pointed, as they approached the first real junction they had encountered since they set off. After the endless stretch of straight road, which all looked the same, it was like breaking out of a time loop.

“’Alien Fresh Jerky’,” Lucy read aloud from a billboard that stood in front of them. A green face with big eyes was staring back at them, emblazoned beside the writing. “I always wondered what made it ‘alien fresh’?”

“Probably nothing, no doubt it’s just a marketing tactic to entice the nut jobs who’ve come hunting for little green men. You worked close enough to it that you could have gone to see for yourself, though. How come you didn’t?”

“I told myself often enough that I would one day, but you never expect to not have a tomorrow. I always put it off, because after living at my job for however long they asked of me, I just wanted to get home. I didn’t want to sit around explaining to the ‘nut jobs’, as you put it, what I was doing all the way out here.”

“I bet they’d have loved you,” Frank smiled at her. His attention turned briefly back to the road, as he took a turn at the junction that brought the vehicle onto the Great Basin Highway. His first thoughts were that it seemed the same, maybe a little greener than the one they had just left. A small road sign, the first real sign that they were making any progress, read: ‘Caliente 42, Pioche 68, Ely 176.’ Frank was relieved to be so close to civilization again. He soon realised where the highway’s apt name came from, as it was only a short drive before he noticed the small mountains that ran parallel to the road were coming closer and trapping the road between them. Before long he was forced to slow down a touch. The road twisted more and had become claustrophobic, bordered tightly on both sides with tall, rocky hills. Frank didn’t want his speed to send them crashing into the yellow rock face.

“Will you tell me about yourself, Frank?” Lucy exhaled almost nervously as she said the words. She had been resisting the urge to pry for a while now. Everyone knew that the past was a sore point nowadays, with memories dragging up the pain and loss that they didn’t like to think about. As a result, they all seemed to be waiting for information to be volunteered rather than digging for it. She wanted to know him better, though, and they had a little over half an hour before they would drive into town.

“What do you want to know?” He countered, his eyes flitting to look at her and then darting back to the road. His shady past was not something he wanted to go into with Lucy. He wanted to impress her and he very much doubted that importing drugs was the way to do it.

“I don’t know. Tell me about your family, you must be missing them?” She asked.

“I don’t have any family,” he told her neutrally.

“Oh.” Lucy felt a sadness spread inside of her. She wanted to ask why. What had happened, who did he spend Christmas with and who sent him birthday presents? She looked at him, his eyes focused on the road.

“I know you’re staring at me,” he snorted and rolled his eyes. “Go on, ask me.”

“What happened?” Her question was hesitant.

“I went to prison,” he told her. With a sigh, he continued. “The moment they sentenced me in that court room, I stopped existing in my parents’ eyes. I didn’t see my baby sisters again, my aunts, uncles. That was it...” The silence made him anxious. He looked at Lucy, who was staring straight ahead at the road now herself. “Luce... It was years ago. I was young and stupid, and I made some really bad choices. Please, don’t judge me for those mistakes. I really like you and this is who I am today. I’m not who I was...” He was going to carry on but Lucy reached out and touched his arm.

“What did you...? What were you sentenced for?”

“I was an accessory to the importation of illegal substances. It would have been worse, only I had never actually been told specifically what was being transported. Kind of a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ situation.”

“How long were you in for?”

“I was sentenced to four years but I only served two. Got out on good behaviour, that must go in my favour, right?”

“And did you try to contact your family... you know, when you got out?” Lucy asked him, brushing his question aside. Her mind was still trying to process the fact that Frank, the loveable doofus, was an ex-con.

“I did,” Frank nodded grimly. “It didn’t go down well. I went over to the house but they wouldn’t let me in. My mother told me that I was no son of hers and slammed the door in my face. I went around the house to patio doors just to see if I could catch a glimpse of my sisters before I left. My dad saw me, came outside, and punched me in the jaw. He told me to never come back.”

“Oh, Frank...” Lucy wanted to comfort him, to erase what had happened. “What did you do after that?”

“I stayed with friends until I got back on my feet and could afford my bedsit. In London I was lucky to afford even that. It was a bit of a dump, but hey, look at me now. The apocalypse really has turned my life around,” he smiled. “I’m living it up in the USA, going on a road trip with all my friends and I didn’t even have to fill out the awkward visa application.”

Lucy knew he was trying to lighten the mood and forced a weak laugh.

There was a brief silence in the wake of their conversation. It was broken by the groggy stirrings of their comrades. Xin was the first to awaken, just as the vehicle broke free of the Great Basin’s confines. The Caliente Field Office loomed before them. It was the first building they had seen since they left the base. A sign that read ’24 hour towing’ was another welcome hint of normal life, life in the real world.

Frank followed the road around, past an RV park and would have worried that they were heading back into the void of endless highway, had he not spotted the small, white, church spire poking out above some trees.

“Hey,” Harry’s voice cracked with sleep, “Slow down. There’s a store just up here.”

“Pete, wake up,” Xin said softly, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“Wha...?” He moaned sleepily, scrunching his eyes and stretching.

“We’re here,” She told him.

Pete groaned as he opened his eyes and cracked his neck. “We can’t be, I feel like I only shut my eyes for ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes? Please, Sleeping Beauty, you’ve been out for hours,” Frank snorted.

Pete was too tired to be equipped with a witty comeback. Instead he made a rude gesture into the rear-view mirror.

“So, tell me about this store I’m looking for,” Frank probed Harry. “Is it easy to spot?”

“It’s a Family Dollar. It’s right by the church,” Harry said.

“Is it likely to be busy?” Pete asked, with an eyebrow cocked.

“Naw, this whole town only has a population of around a thousand people. It’s almost a ghost town,” Harry said. His words were backed up by the absence of any sign of life. There were no shuffling undead to be seen and no living either.

“You seem to know a lot about this place?” Pete asked him.

“I know some,” he replied. “I worked a case here a few years back. The president of the F.L.D.S church was part of a polygamous sect that was marrying underage girls off over at one of the motels. It was a disturbing case... They’re the kinds that always stick with you. The guy was even on the FBI’s ten most wanted, for a while.”

“Is it this church?” Frank asked, as he rounded a slight bend and the church came into full view on the left. On the other side of the road, a railway line ran parallel and a couple of old transport containers stood abandoned on its tracks. A pretty sidewalk ran between the road and the tracks, interspersed with benches, thriving planters, small trees and a strip of grass that made the town look much more welcoming and friendly.

“That’s the one,” Harry nodded. “Pull in here.”

Frank turned into the carpark of a small chain store. The orange and red letters stood boldly atop the building, above the doors. The store had already been ransacked.

“Well, this is something that we hadn’t considered,” Lucy stated. She was staring at the automatic sliding doors, which were open and broken.

“Don’t panic, there’ll be other places we can check. We mainly just need water,” Pete assured them.

“Should we check in there anyway?” Frank asked.

“It seems like an unnecessary risk. If people came raiding, then they probably cleared it out. Besides, it’s getting late now,” Pete was saying, as the grumbling noise of a car engine came into earshot.

“What the...?” Harry wondered, craning to see through the small window in the back of the truck.

“There’s a car pulling in,” Frank hissed.

“Keep calm,” Pete told him, as he placed his hand to the holster of his handgun. “If they want the car or our supplies they’re gonna have a hard time getting at them.”

When the car pulled up beside them they saw that the driver was only a young man. He looked like he was in his early twenties. He had a chiselled jaw, prominent cheekbones and an easy smile as he leaned from his window and gestured for Frank to roll the window down. The young man’s arms and neck were littered with tattoos, but he looked skinny and unthreatening.

“It’s okay,” Pete told him. “Do it.”

Frank flipped a switch and, before the tinted window was fully down, he picked up his handgun.

“Hey there,” the young guy called to them, in a pleasant, rumbling voice. “The scouts saw you coming in. How many you got in there?” He looked thoughtful for a second and then quickly added, “Any of you been bit?”

“Five of us,” Frank told him. “None of us are bitten.”

“Oh, good. That’s good,” he nodded. “We already secured the town, so we can provide you with food, water and a place to rest if that’s what you need,” the stranger told them. “You won’t find it in there, though. We moved everything out so that we could avoid any fighting.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Frank asked cautiously.