Stage 6 (21 page)

We all glanced at each other, eyebrows raised at this heroic idea.

I said, “Why not?”

Kevin cheered, and high fived Emily. A little surprised, I realized Kevin had been changing a lot lately. He seemed more open and fun then the serious pessimist we had first met. I found myself actually liking him, regardless of our past differences.

He asked me, “Hey Jack, you want to do the honors?”

I grinned and bowed as low as I could in my seat, and replied, “Why thank you, I would love to.”

We performed another awkward seat-change, and suddenly I was in the seat of power: the driver’s seat. I put my hand on the key, and looked around.

I asked, “Are we ready?”

Emily said, “Yeah!”

Kevin whispered something to Shawn, and then Shawn asked, “Hey Jack. Let’s go?”

I laughed and yelled, “Let’s go! Who wants to step out and get their attention?”

Emily said, “I’ll do it! Just be ready, I don’t want them getting too close to me...”

Kevin whistled and said to her, “You’re going to be zombie bait? You got more guts than me.”

She smiled and said, “I know.” She opened the door and jumped out yelling, “Oh zombies! Over here!”

She jumped up and down a few times and whistled loudly. The Infected turned to see her, and then started to approach slowly. She began to move towards the door when suddenly one of them took off at full sprint. We were only ten feet away from the bus, and in a few short seconds the Infected bounded across that distance and reached her as she shrieked frantically and jumped in the car yelling, “GO!”

I hit the gas fast, and the tires squealed as we shot off like a cannon. We roared past the bus, and the group of Infected broke off and started to follow us. I slowed down so they wouldn’t get discouraged, wondering dimly whether they could even have such thoughts.

Kevin asked, “Emily, are you ok?”

Emily’s shoulders were shaking and he put a hand on her, thinking she was crying when she turned around laughing hysterically.

She yelled, “That was awesome! That thing moved so fast!”

Kevin looked confused for a second, but then broke out laughing as well and said, “Dammit Emily you had me scared! How do you like that sort of thing?”

She rolled down the window and screamed, “WHOOOOOOO!” She then replied, “I don’t know,” and laughed, “I guess I like the excitement.”

After a few miles we turned around, and passed what must have been seriously confused Infected going the other way. I watched in the rear view mirror as they stopped, and turned to look at us hesitantly as if not knowing what had just happened. They began to follow us yet again, but this time we were going much faster than even the fastest Infected could run. We caught up with the Bus a few minutes later, in the same spot we had left it, except now it had turned on and Ben was standing outside with binoculars waiting for us.

I pulled up by the bus and Emily rolled down the window to say, “No need to thank me for saving your sorry butt, I did it out of the goodness of my heart.”

He smiled grimly, and then said, “I think we should try and reach Washington today. Lucy says she recognized a few of the Infected from the mall. She thinks they never gave up, and followed us all the way here, and caught up with us during the night.”

This news chilled me to the bone. The Infected would follow us for that long? Apparently we now had murderous stalkers, whose mission was to eat us alive.

I leaned over and asked, “So we are just continuing along our original path to Washington?”

He replied, “Yep. And we had better hurry before those cannibals get back here.”

I agreed, and said, “Well I guess I’ll see you there huh? With me driving we should be going much, MUCH faster than yesterday with Kevin.”

He laughed and said, “Well we’ll see.”

He climbed back aboard the bus, and the doors shut. I drove off ahead and asked Emily to get the map out from the dashboard. I quickly memorized the next few roads I’d have to take, thanked her, and I drove silently, efficiently, and fast. I was determined to make some good time today, and thankfully there weren’t many obstacles along the roads we chose. Shawn and Kevin played occasional games with each other; in particular one of their favorites was guessing what the lives of the Infected we passed used to be like. They would pick one that stood out from the crowd, and then talk about his or her profession, family, friends, and how it became Infected. They never seemed to tire of this game, but eventually they moved on to a new game: most attractive “zombies” they could find.

I found this game particularly revolting, but when I asked, Kevin yelled in mock outrage, “You’re such a racist Jack! Zombie’s can be beautiful too!”

I had to endure this game for the next couple hours. Shawn and Kevin disagreed vehemently over which made a zombie female more attractive. Kevin was under the impression that the more blood and guts on her, the more “feisty” she was and thus more attractive. Shawn held the opinion that the cleaner they looked, the more attractive they were.

Emily butted in at one point and said, “Hey! I find all this zombie-rating rather degrading. You shouldn’t judge them based on their looks!”

Kevin and Shawn sat still for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

Emily grinned and relented on her joke, saying, “You should judge them based on their personalities!”

And from that point on the game got increasingly complicated, to the point where an Infected could get bonus or negative points based on how it was walking, or how violent it looked. Adding to the challenge, was the fact that at seventy mph everybody in the car only got a fleeting glimpse of the Infected and often not everybody agreed on how even the same Infected looked.

They had no end of fun yelling out things like, “Oh look at that zombie-chick! If I had to be eaten alive, I’d want her to do it!”

Kevin really pioneered the “Road-travel Zombie Games” industry in our little truck, and soon came up with an even more interesting game, which dealt with insulting the Infected. The game was who could use the Infected around us to come up with “zombie jokes” insulting or criticizing them, and although most of them were horrendously bad there were some good ones.

Kevin came up with a classic, “Why did the zombie cross the road? He wanted to eat the chicken.”

Shawn and Emily disagreed over how funny that joke was, but Shawn just kept coming up with a rapid series of terrible zombie jokes back to back.

His two favorites were, “What do you call something that hesitates for a fraction of a second before jumping in front of a moving car? A smart zombie...”

“Why did a zombie spit out the hand he was chewing on? He realized it was his.”

Kevin’s all time favorite however, was his own joke aimed at me. “What’s the difference between a zombie, and Jack? Jack has a gun.”

I replied to that joke with one of my own. I was quite proud of it, and I almost couldn’t say it with a straight face. “What’s the difference between Kevin and an Infected? Kevin’s more likely to kill one of us.”

The games made time fly by, and soon we neared Washington.

Emily said, “Let’s stop the games guys... Washington is up ahead.”

We were all eager, but also frightened to see what lay in store for us at the Capital. Was it under control? Did they have a quarantine designed to keep people OUT? Were there no Infected at all? I couldn’t wait to see the city.

Soon we approached the outskirts, and Kevin said, “Now guys, whatever happens, I will always love you.”

Emily turned around and smacked Kevin, and he pretended to be hurt and dramatically said, “Ooh my love, your hand burns into my soul, and leaves me devoid of all meaning and purpose in life. Ahhhhh....”

Then he collapsed into his seat and Emily rolled her eyes and said, “Good riddance!”

As we drove into the city, we began to see discouraging signs. Apartment building windows were smashed, doors were hanging off their hinges. We could see a small number of Infected walking through the buildings still, so we assumed there were still people in there to draw such attention. As we continued down the street further, we found a Red Cross building completely devastated. Cars were lodged inside the building, fires were erupting from within, and there were no signs of life. We kept going, the bus now shortly behind us and no doubt witnessing the destruction just as well as we were. To our dismay, as we got closer and closer to the buildings up in front of us we began to see a massive horde of Infected. We came up to them to get a better look, and to our dismay the entire street in front of us was filled with them. Every building in sight was broken down, and crawling with Infected. It seemed like every square inch was an Infected, bumping into each other. And they all seemed to have a central goal in mind: The White House. The gates overlooking the yard had hundreds of Infected pressed up against them, and there were soldiers patrolling the lawn. The gates had fortifications in place, propping them up against the horde, but it looked like they wouldn’t last for long. In fact, it looked like the Infected had already broken through once, and this was an attempt at reclaiming the grounds.

Kevin summed up all our thoughts in one sentence, “Well that SUCKS.”

Suddenly some of the Infected began to notice us, perhaps realizing that we were food.

They began to surge around us, and Emily said, “Umm Jack let’s get out of here!”

I turned the car and hit the gas, smashing into a few Infected already circling us, and running over them to escape. Then I saw the bus behind us, and realized it did not have the mobility we did. It was going to take much longer for them to turn around. I could see Ben frantically turning the wheel and pounding the gas to try and get away before the growing numbers of Infected trapped him. I hoped he would make it in time, and I gunned the gas, shooting out in front of the bus.

Emily turned and said, “Ahh! They’re moving!”

I looked through the rear-view mirror to see several Infected clinging to the sides and back of the bus, as it raced after us.

Kevin said, “Jack, just keep your eyes on the road! Try and find a safe place or a route out of there! I’ll take care of them. Just roll down the back window!”

I rolled down the trunk window, and Kevin and Shawn both prepared their hunting rifles.

They propped them up against the seats for support, but soon exclaimed, “There’s no way we’re going to get a clear shot like this! They’re going to have to do it themselves!”

My eyes frantically searched the surroundings for anywhere, anywhere at all to go. A store in the distance caught my eye for some reason, and I pulled a sharp left turn heading towards it.

Kevin let out an, “Mmpth,” as he was rolled across the truck.

I yelled, “Sorry!”

I risked a quick glance behind me again to see the bus follow us on the sharp turn, looking dangerously close to flipping over. Some of the Infected were gone, and I could see people running around inside the bus. I assumed that somebody, maybe Steve had shot off some of the Infected and now they were trying to do the same to the others. We neared the store, and I shot over the entrance. I could see now what had attracted me to this huge, huge supermarket: there was a giant banner hanging from the roof that said, “Safe Haven for any Survivors.”

I pulled up directly in front of the main entrance, and said, “Emily go see if it’s open!”

She got out quickly, and I could hear the bus screeching over the entrance to the parking lot behind us. I looked back to see all the Infected were gone from the bus, but a huge group of Infected were catching up after chasing us all the way here.

Emily peered inside, and then started banging on the glass and yelling, “Hey! We’re survivors let us in!”

I could see that through the flimsy glass doors somebody had pushed up an insane amount of furniture blocking off the entrance.

Suddenly Emily sprinted towards the truck and jumped in saying, “Somebody saw me! They told me to go to the second entrance. Apparently that’s the way they let people in.”

I nodded, and seeing as there wasn’t time to inform the other group of our plans I just hoped they would follow us. I backed up, and quickly pulled over to the other entrance, the bus right behind me. At this entrance, the glass doors were completely gone, and ripped off. In their place was a large couch with the cushions taken off, and a few things that looked like gun mounts on the side. There were a few people pulling the couch away, and I gently nosed the truck through as the couch was moved. I had no intention of leaving our hard-earned truck out there with the Infected, and I could see that Ben was thinking the same thing. The bus honked a few times loudly, warning everybody to clear out of the way, and I saw incredulous expressions on the people’s faces inside as Ben drove the bus just barely under the frame of the doors and inside. He continued on for a bit to get out of the way, and I pulled the truck into a large square mat which looked like it used to hold clothes racks. The people pushed the couch back into place, and put rifles into place, laying down and taking aim at the approaching zombie horde. I realized that they intended to have a shoot out. I hopped out of the car and immediately noticed that the people in the store were split into two groups. One was off to the side watching impassively, and making no move to help. The other was the group that had let us in, and they were preparing for an epic battle.

I moved over to the group to be stopped by a woman who introduced herself as, “Joe.” I introduced myself in kind, with the word, “Jack.” She said, “I don’t know your story, but I’m glad to see some fresh faces. You guys have any weapons? There’s about to be a showdown with these mutants, and we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

Guessing she was using the word “mutant” to refer to the Infected, I replied quickly, “Yeah!”

I looked towards the bus to see Ben getting out and yelled, “Ben! Get everybody ready there’s going to be a whole lot of gunfire here in a bit. Get anybody who wants to fight and bring them down here!”

He quickly took in the situation and said, “Alright, I’m on it!”