Infected: They Will Eat You!: A Story of Family Survival in a Zombie Apocalypse (21 page)

We reached the road without issue, sweaty and tired we paused for a drink and rest. “We’ll go up this hill and turn left. We will hit the golf course. It’ll be easier walking and I doubt they’ll be looking for us there. We may find infected though.”

“I thought we were done with hills.” he came back grinning.

“Last one, promise.” I said.

We stayed low on the shoulder and when possible ran in the ditch along the road. It was not as easy as going on the black top but gave much better cover. At the turn we were in an area with thick wooded lots on either side of the road and house lined side streets. It didn’t take long for us to find a yard that backed up to the golf course. We hugged the treed edges for more cover stopping to scan the open areas.

“There.” Caleb pointed as two dark shapes moved under the trees a couple hundred yards ahead of us to the left.

“Not infected, too quick.” I said.

“New ones?”

“Maybe. Or those people. Keep low and watch out.”

We moved from tree to bush and paused each time. We were not alone and didn’t want to meet whoever,
what
ever, was out here with us.

“I don’t see them.” I said at our next pause.

“No but I smell something.” he answered.

We started to move when three shapes started toward us from our two o’clock.
Phut, phut, phut.

Two more came from the left,
phut, phut
.

We were moving and shooting making our way to the cover of the next group of trees. As we passed the two we were close enough to see that they were not human and did not look like the infected we had encountered and the smell coming from them was nauseating.

There was no stopping now we were getting off the course as quickly as possible although we were heading to more houses with more hiding places for these things. It was time for a plan change. “Car.” I said moving toward a vehicle that had run up on the curb and hit a tree.

“Keep an eye out.” I said as I checked inside and opened the door, “Keys are gone. Come.”

We ran to the next car parked in a drive way, locked.

“There.” Caleb said running up the street shooting infected along the way. He was going for a landscape company truck parked along the street. The keys were in the ignition and it started up right away. He hopped in and off we went gasping for air and looking behind us.

The truck was loud and attracting infected but that was all we saw. We got to the top of a rise in the road and I turned the truck around in a parking lot and back on the road pointing the way we had come.

“We’re close to home and it should be clear enough to go on foot. You OK with that?”

“Sure.”

“Get out and wait.”

I put the truck in neutral pointing down the hill and slid out the door. The truck rolled slowly at first then picked up speed as it headed toward the group of infected headed our way. They did not deviate their path and the truck rolled right over some and past the others turning them to follow.

Caleb and I looked at each other and grinned then took off for home.

-——————————————

We knew this area was fairly clear of infected, those other things we had no idea. We trotted along watching for any movement turning on Cherry I called home “Check, over” I puffed while still jogging.

“Roger, over.” Christine had a puzzled tone.

“ETA two, be ready, back, make it quick, out.” There was no time for a conversation and I couldn’t if there was, I was gasping for air as it was just running.

They were ready when we arrived and had us safe inside and the door secured in seconds. Caleb and I nearly collapsed when we finally stopped.

-——————————————

Christine and Jesse were listening to Caleb’s stories when I finished getting cleaned up and entered the bedroom. Christine looked up at me in dismay.

“It’s late guys, we need to get going early so let’s get some sleep.”

“I want to hear more.” Jesse said.

“You can hear more tomorrow. Now it’s time for bed.” I returned.

They lay down and Christine started telling them a story. I went to the windows and watched half expecting to see cars screeching up in front or dark shapes dashing between houses. Neither happened. Christine came in and started rubbing my shoulders.

“They asleep?”

“Caleb went right to sleep, it took Jesse a while but he finally did.”

“Is what Caleb said true?”

“Don’t know, what did he say?”

“You shot people, not just infected but people?”

“Yeah, we tried to save a couple but the guys who had them killed them. One got away and more came back searching for us.”

“People?”

“Infected walk they don’t drive cars and motorcycles and they rip you apart not shoot you. So yeah, people. Bad people. They came from the direction of the mall.”

“Maybe there’s more.”

“There are more and they were looking for us to kill us. And, there’s something else out there. We ran into some things that weren’t human and weren’t the infected we have seen. They were fast and seemed to be working in a pack, they tried to ambush us and they smelled really bad, different than infected, putrid but sweet.”

“That’s what Caleb said. You were on the golf course.”

“Yeah. There may have been another when we crossed Fairfield road. I have to get some sleep. We have to get moving early before those people or those things get close.”

I could tell she wasn’t happy but our day’s delay had nearly cost us dearly. Now we needed to follow the plan and move on. Home was waiting for us elsewhere and the sooner we found it the sooner we could start building new happy memories.

CHAPTER SIX

“
Let’s go check out Laramie. There might be people there. The FEMA camp might be a safe place
……who’s bright idea was this anyway?”

“It was yours honey,” Christine’s voice answered over the radio, “over.”

“Yeah, well, I was wrong.”

We had brought the RV and hummer just in case but I left both
and
the family back on I-80 taking a pickup that was parked in a gas station to be “discrete.” How was I supposed to know it was a piece of junk. Now I was walking around town looking for another ride.

“There’s infected on every block. Not many but more than we’ve seen since we left home. Over”

“Be careful, over”

“I walked through a park and am heading south on ninth street. I think this is toward the university, over”

“It is, it’s seven blocks south, over”

“I don’t like this at all.” I said “I need to find a car……crap, there’s more…”

“Honey? Jeff?”

“There’s a lot of them here. I’m going to come back. If they are this thick in town there’s no military presence, none that I want to meet, over”

“Then come back and we’ll go home.”

I turned to backtrack to find infected filling the street behind me. “I’m making too much noise, they’re following me, over.”

“We’ll come get you.”

“No. I’ll make it back, there aren’t that many.”

I turned a corner westward “This just got really ugly.” I said unintentionally.

“What is it?”

I was facing a mob less than fifty feet away with infected coming from every direction behind me. “They’re having a party and looks like I’m the entertainment.”

“We’re coming to get you.”

“Not yet.” I ordered looking around, “Not sure where I’ll be. Stay put and be ready.”

Phut, phut, phut
…..I downed a few of the closer ones and started moving and firing.

“Honey……Jeffrey!!”

“Yeah.” I puffed running and out of breath.

“Are you OK? Where are you?”

“Um, I’m on the corner of Flint and, um, Third, across from a K-Mart.”

“We are coming to get you.”

“I’ll be coming up third, they’re behind me.”

We met a couple blocks away and I jumped into the back of the hummer. Christine raced out of town and screeched to a stop next to the RV.

“Laramie’s more than we can handle.” I said getting out.

“Let’s go home now!” she said.

“I see some.” Caleb informed us, “There’s a lot of them.”

“Let’s go quickly before they get here.” she insisted.

“I did see something interesting.” I said grinning walking to the RV.

“What?” Christine asked.

“A tank.”

As soon as it was light enough to drive with no headlights we drove away from home, our old home. Christine and Caleb were in the hummer, Jesse rode with me in the RV. Getting used to driving ‘The Monster’ would take some time but there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the road not that was moving at least. It took us a half hour to fill our tanks by siphoning gas then navigating our way to the beltway. I knew once we were on the road we’d have easier driving at least for a while. What it would be around 80 was still a big question.

As we approached the Jersey Shore exit I radioed Christine. “Hey, I want to make a stop, over.”

“Why? over”

“United, over.”

“Don’t we have enough? I thought it was important to leave, over.”

“It is but I have something to check out and nobody’s following, over.”

I drove up the exit ramp and parked on the entrance ramp heading back onto the highway. There were cars and trucks scattered along the road so I found a contractors truck with the keys in it and pulled it next to ours. “Caleb, come with me, you guys stay with our trucks.” I said.

“I don’t like splitting up.”

“See that Drugstore sign over there?”

“Yeah.”

“We are going two blocks that way.” I pointed to our left, “It will take fifteen minutes.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Trust me, we’ll be OK and we’ll be fast.”

“Fine. Jesse, stay close to me.”

“Caleb, come.”

We drove across the overpass and made our turn. The streets were littered with vehicles and bodies just as in Williamsport. I could see the gated doors of United still securing the store. Unfortunately there was a group of infected huddled in the road out front.

“We’ll take those out then I’ll back up to the door. I saw a chain in the bed, we’ll hook it up to the door and yank it off. We want suppressors mainly, they are in the case on the left at the far end. Understand?”

“Yep.”

Quickly the infected were downed and we were yanking the door off the building. That noise brought a half dozen infected staggering around the corner. Caleb stopped them while I made sure the building was empty.

“Get the suppressors.” I was pointing at the case, “Then anything else you think we can use.”

A quick pass around the store showed that their inventory was low or locked away in the vault and the ammo was gone. We ended up with eight suppressors four more AR’s an arm load of pistols and over a dozen scopes. And we were driving off in twelve minutes.

“That’s a smash and grab.” I joked

It took less than ten more minutes for us to unload and drive off. All in all it was a very productive stop.

By the time we had gone ten miles the parked cars along the road had become more numerous. Not all were to the sides as they had been around town. The east bound lanes however were virtually empty so at the next opportunity we switched over.

“One good thing about the way the world is now is that we can drive and shop about anywhere we want.” I said to Jesse.

“Yeah, and if we want to go fast there’s nobody to give us a ticket.” he added.

Highway 80 was much more jammed with cars but by driving on the ‘wrong side’ we were able to navigate around most of the blockage and making decent time traveling about forty miles an hour. We stopped every hour or so to stretch our legs and switch passengers. At two o’clock we pulled over for lunch.

“We’re making pretty good time, we should be in Ohio in a couple hours if we keep up this pace but it may get more crowded and dangerous up ahead.” I said.

“Why’s that?” Jesse asked.

“Cities and more people. The roads could be blocked and there could be more infected.” I answered.

“Oh.”

“We still have a lot of light left so I think we should keep going and look for a place to spend the night once we are in Ohio, that way we will be going through Akron and those places early in the day.” I continued.

“That sounds fine.” Christine agreed, “That hummer is hard for me to drive and I’m getting tired.”

“It’s pretty clear here do you want to drive the RV?”

“Nooooo, the thought of driving that scares me. Speaking of scared, how’s Joey doing?”

“He’s doing well, most of the time he sleeps in the corner by the back bed. It would be good if you learned to drive this, it’s not hard on the highway. Once we get on flatter roads maybe…..” I shrugged, “Let’s get going.”

We were seeing more infected and more cars and from time to time we came across camps along the road but never any living. It wasn’t clear if these were the drivers of the cars camping or travelers who were perhaps scavenging. None looked recent. During our fueling stops Caleb and Jesse would climb on the roof of the RV to watch for danger. I noticed a competition building as they took turns shooting infected at distance. Christine did not appreciate the contest but decided to let them go.

“They are laughing.” she said.

“At each other, not at the misfortune of the infected people. They are keeping a safe parameter for us and honing their skills. It’s OK. It may even be important and from what I can hear Jesse is winning.” I raised my eyebrows and smiled.

It was in deed the case, Jesse generally won at sniping his long distance shooting was exceptional and the more he practiced the more confident he became. When he became strong enough to actually hold a rifle and aim it he would be formidable, for now he needed a stationary position and bipod.

“We’re still making great time, I’d like to get midway between Youngstown and Akron today and stop for the night. At the rate we’re going that should be a few hours before dark. We can find a warehouse of car dealership of something to pull the trucks into so we are protected and not easily seen.”

“OK, just let me know.”

Once back on the road things started slowing down quickly. We were approaching 19, the highway connecting Erie to Pittsburg and every lane was jammed with cars. At times we were moving cars out of the way, some started and could be driven, others had to be pushed, or we were driving in grass to get around the blockage. It took three hours for us to reach the Ohio boarder, a distance that under our previous pace would have taken a third of that time.