The Great Wreck (32 page)

At
channel twenty I heard someone say, “Is that kid ever going to shut up? Good
god, man.”

I
smiled a bit at that. I must be bugging the hell out of anyone listening to
their radios. On channel twenty six, I heard Sandia’s broadcast. It was so
strong and clear. It must have been the effect of the metal tower I was in.

I
listed to a women telling people the location of safe houses throughout the Rio
Grande valley, places they could move to as they made their way to Sandia. My
map only covered Arizona and parts of western New Mexico just to Las Cruces.
When I made it there, I’d have to get a new one and mark the places the woman
was talking about. I listened to her voice for nearly thirty minutes before
moving on to another channel. I finally reached the end of the channels and
climbed down to my perch and watched the dead drifting by.

I
spent nearly five days in that tower waiting for the migration to end. I had no
idea where so many walkers could come from or why they were heading north but
each day I’d wake up and see that they were still there stretching from north
to south in an unbreakable line. I’d sleep, eat, drink water, and sweat out
another day. I’d watch the highway for other living people during the day,
always expecting to see James strutting down the road towards me. Even with my
netting, even nearly a hundred feet in the air and far off the highway, I’m
sure I would be easily spotted.

At
night, I’d watch the desert using the infrared and watch the animal move across
the landscape or watching the dead trudging along their way.

After
the third day, I began to think of returning to Benson. I’d used up much of my
water and I was slowly going out of my head with boredom. I guess I could always
try to run the gamut of dead. I’d either make it through or I wouldn’t and it
would all be over either way.

There
was a certain allure to that thought, just to end it. All the fear, all the
terror, all the death. Maybe that’s why James ran into the hordes of dead, to
stop the boredom or just get killed. I didn’t think so. I think James loved the
burning world filled with the dead and he wanted to play in it as much as he
could. Getting caught, the risk of an agonizing death that was all just part of
the fun for James. I don’t think he was bored. Not at all.

I’d
think about ending it all and the relief it would bring. Then I’d think of the
pain. How long would it take before the dead hit something vital, an artery or
vein, and I bled out? How many dead could get their teeth into me at one? Six?
Eight maybe? Each one taking a big giant, bite out of my nerve filled tissues.
Eating my toes. Eating my fingers. My balls. Oh, god what would that feel like
to have someone bite down on my testicles? Unbearable. Eat my face? Bite my
lips off, my eyeballs? Eating into my stomach, tearing out my tongue? Eating my
legs, my butt? Biting into my anus? Tearing off my penis? Finally cracking open
my bones and sucking out the marrow. Oh god, no. It might only last a few minutes
but I’m sure it would feel like an eternity.

And
then what? Would there be enough of me to come back? Would I still feel the
pain after I reanimated? Would my soul be trapped inside a rotting carcass
decaying for the next several decades? Or would I go straight to hell for
committing suicide? A hell that would, theoretically be worse than this? I
didn’t know and wasn’t going to find out. At least not that way. If the dead
ever caught me, I’d go down fighting.

So
after the fourth day of searing heat and insane boredom, I decided I would head
back to Benson to the airport. I’d set up camp there and replenish my supplies.
That would at least break up the monotony of sitting in this tower and I would
be better hidden on the hanger roof.

So
I packed up my gear getting ready for my trip back, happy to be doing
something, anything, different than just sitting and settled in for the night.

But
the next morning, they were gone.

I
woke up, ate, and looked to where the lines of dead had straddled the road
and…nothing. Not a single walker moved across the landscape. I pulled out my
map and looked up the next city on my route: Deming. I could make it in about
three or four hours. It’d be hot. It’d be a fucking nuclear furnace and I’d use
up the last of my water but I had to chance it. I had to get through in case
more dead were heading north.

I
finished packing up my stuff and climbed down the tower. I strapped my gear to
my bike and was back on the highway before thirty minutes had passed. I pulled
out my binoculars again checking to see if the dead were nearby and could see
small group to the south standing completely still. Far behind them I spotted a
group of twenty or more all just standing still, looking off to the northeast.
They reminded me of the dead in Tucson and freaked me out. I started peddling.

Nearly
two hours later I was heading east at a good clip with sweat streaming down my
back, my face, may arms, my legs. I was soaked through. The highway signs said
Deming was only fifteen miles away. I would stop there for the night then hit
Las Cruces tomorrow. If all went well, I could be at Sandia in under two weeks.

All
would not go well. The sun was moving up and the heat was kicking in but that,
I would soon find out, was the least of my worries.

I
crested a small hill and spotted something moving out in the dessert to the
southeast. A lot of somethings. So many somethings that it looked like one
really large something. I jammed on my breaks as I pulled up alongside of a
burned out truck and whipped out my binoculars: the dead. Of course it was the
dead. Was I expecting anything else? A herd of elephants maybe? Flock of
seagulls? Nope. Just the dead. More dead than I had seen the previous few days
from the tower. Tens of thousands of dead all heading north out of the dessert
just a few miles south of the highway. They hadn’t blocked the road yet but
even peddling as fast as I could, it would be close. I’d pass right in front of
them just before they reached I-10. They might not see me but they might and if
they did, not only would I be too fucking tired to out race them, I might be
too tired to care.

I
thought about turning back to my tower or even going all the way back to Benson
but I found as I turned and looked back the way I had come, that was not going to
be an option. The few dead I had spotted walking around to the south had
started moving north again and the line of dead now crossed the road behind me
and worse, the crowds were swelling. I could see them spreading out across the
highway and before long they would be here. So Benson was out. Even the tower
was out. If I was going to get past the walkers ahead of me I had to get
moving.

I
looked at my bike loaded down with all of my gear. I figured I had a hundred
pounds or more with all the food, water, guns, and ammunition. I could handle
it at the pace I had been traveling but now I needed to pour it on or soon I’d
be cut off and surrounded by the dead with almost nothing to hide in but a few
stray cars scattered around. I had to lighten my load.

I
peddled up to the nearest car, checked the inside, and opened the driver’s side
door. I quickly started dumping everything I thought was non-essential:
 
most of my ammunition, all the jugs of water
keeping only the small plastic bottles and my water pack, most of my food, my
night vision goggles (oh it hurt to leave those behind but maybe I could
replace them later), my extra-large pack, and the bike trailer itself. I kept
only my small pack and as much ammunition, food and water as I could cram into
it. I strapped on my pistols while my shotgun and rifle I tied vertically on
each side of the back rack of the mountain bike.

I
put all of the extra gear neatly on the front seat thinking maybe someone might
be able to use it in the future. I took the bike trailer and leaned it on the
trunk of the car. Someone walking the highway would surely notice it and find
the small trove of supplies I was leaving behind. That helped me get over the
agony of leaving all this stuff here. I straddled the bike feeling how light it
was. After all the time I had ridden with a full load, it now felt as though it
weighed nothing.

The
dead were closing in so rapidly it was like high tide coming in over the space
of minutes instead of hours. Where the fuck were they all coming from? Why were
they heading north? It didn’t really matter right then. What mattered was that
I needed to get moving. In fact, I might have taken too much time unloading my
bike. The dead were starting to cross the road far ahead of me. Just a few to
be sure, but it would only take one to sound the alarm letting the great rotten
masses heading north know where I was. I froze for a full sixty seconds. I
couldn’t seem to take my foot off the ground and push the peddle of my bike
forward. My muscles were locked solid as I stared ahead at the wave of dead. My
heart pounded and the sweet poured down into my eyes. I was going to die here
and I knew it so why try to race ahead to beat the odds that were so stacked
against me it wasn’t even worth trying?

It
was time to go, I thought. Get fucking moving! Now! my mind screamed. Right
fucking now! It’s time to go now! If fact, it was past time to go and I needed
to get moving but I was still rooted to the ground. Behind me I could hear the
steps of the dead approaching. Only my absolute stillness had kept them from
seeing me. It wouldn’t last much longer though and still I couldn’t seem to
move. My brain was screaming, adrenaline was pouring into my body, but a pure,
terrifying panic had frozen me to the spot. Now I know what it feels like to be
a dear about to be hit by a truck, I thought when I caught the smell of a dead
walker very close to me.

Then
I heard a voice from behind me say, “Hey?” The voice was dry and scratchy like
that from a man about to die of thirst or from the throat of a mummy, or the
voice of…

I
finally got my head to move and looked back over my shoulder. A clearly dead
man stood near the trunk of the car that had kept me mostly hidden from the
migrating dead. He wore a pair of tattered blue jeans, a pair of cowboy boots
that were falling apart, and a button up shirt that was tore open showing that
when he had died, the dead had taken most of his abdomen. On his head was
perched a Diamondbacks baseball cap. I could see his spine and the remnants of
his back muscles but his abdominal cavity was mostly empty and he was clearly
talking to me.

Talking
dead? I had clearly lost my mind.

How
did he support his upper torso? I thought while the panic and madness
threatened to engulf me, “Hey, bu…bu…buddy?” he said again. His pale eyes
looked at me as though he was concerned. Maybe wondering what a young kid was
doing out on my own in the middle of the desert.

“Yes?”
I whispered.

“Better…get…a..,”
he started, then paused and looked around and moved his hand in the general
direction of the dead crowds, “Get a move on,” he said. Then he dropped his
hand and started walking north again.

What.
The. Fuck?

I
didn’t care.

With
that thought, the paralysis broke and I got moving. I pushed off and began
peddling, gaining speed quickly on my significantly lighter bike. I whizzed by
a few dead. They looked up at me but I was already flying down the road so they
returned to their walk and let me be. This became harder and harder as the
number of dead increased and I spent more time weaving in and out of the
bodies. It was only a matter of time before one of the less decayed walkers…

“Hopug!”
I head one of they cry out off to my right, “Unnnn buuunn!”

At
least that’s what it sounded like. That got everyone’s attention and hundreds
of dead looked up from the ground and spotted me zipping along in their midst.
The nearby dead picked up the first one’s yell and the sound spread thought the
crowds until the air was filled with the dead crying out and changing their
direction to zero in on me.

They
started off as a slow shuffle but increased to a trot, then a jog, and after a
few seconds, a good run. I was still moving along far faster than they were so
if I kept my head on and focused I wouldn’t run into one. If I crashed into one
at the speed I was moving, it would be all over. I’d fly off the bike and land
right smack dab in the middle of the masses and they’d finish me off in no
time. So I had to stay focused.

I
was able to stay focused for almost thirty seconds when I heard the scream of a
sprinter somewhere in the crowds around me. That was followed by two or three
more screams of other sprinters. Those screams, so loud and close by jolted me
and I jerked the handle bars to the left almost colliding with a dead woman
holding a purse. I wobbled dangerously close to her nearly dumping the bike in
an effort not to collide with the woman. I managed to regain my balance and
started pouring on the speed.

I
couldn’t see the sprinters amongst the dead but I knew they’d find me soon
enough. “Soon enough” was
 
exactly ten
seconds after that thought. I caught a glimpse of the first one in the left
handlebar mirror. The sprinter looked as fresh as they day she had died and was
knocking over the less vigorous dead trying to reach me. There we so many of
them racing along behind me that it was having a difficult time breaking a path
towards me. I laughed like a maniac thinking that for the second time today,
the dead were actually saving my life.

I
peddled faster and broke free of the first wave of dead. I could see that I was
leaving the sprinter behind when the second one broke loose from the crowds to
my right. This one wasn’t in as good a shape as the first and couldn’t work up
a good sprint due to most of its left leg having been devoured sometime in the
past. Don’t let that fool you, though. The thing was still burning up the road
trying to get me. I pushed harder and soon left it behind. I glanced back in my
mirror and could see the dead had now clogged the highway and more were heading
my way. The sound of them yelling and moaning at me caught the attention of the
dead up ahead and I could see them putting on the speed to try to cut me off.