“I’ll be damned,” Robby said. He clapped the corpse on the shoulder and turned the car off.
He grabbed the shoes and jack handle from the roof and turned to hobble back to the Chevy. It took him less than two steps to reconsider. The Chevy was smelly, small, and unreliable-looking. Aside from some eye-splatter, the Volvo looked clean and efficient.
“Thank you sir, I believe I will,” Robby said. He wrestled the corpse out of the Volvo and dragged it a couple of feet away from the door. The man’s glasses flopped back up onto his forehead, and Robby stepped briefly on an uncomfortable piece of glass, but otherwise the procedure was quick and easy. Robby slid behind the seat and found he didn’t even need to adjust the seat. He backed away from the embankment—the sure-footed Volvo didn’t slip at all on the grass—and made a big u-turn across the southbound lanes. He stopped one more time to shut off the Chevy, but he kept the jack handle from the trunk. Before retreating north, Robby took a minute to put on the new shoes and socks. They fit even better than he’d hoped. He used his old sock to mop up some of the eye-juice splattered on the inside of the windshield and then tossed it through the shattered window.
Robby drove north in the southbound lanes until he got to the first police turnaround where he could switch to the northbound lanes. Even though the cars were off the road, it bothered Robby to head towards the fronts of other cars and see the backs of all the signs.
He took the first exit and probed some of the local roads looking for another way south. Robby didn’t get far. Before long he found a wet streak of liquid across each road. The highway seemed like the only road safe enough to travel on, and he would have to go back to the north.
He kept a close watch for any more damp pavement. It got harder to be sure as the sun went down. The headlights tried to turn on automatically, but Robby found the override and turned them off. He didn’t know what kind of attention they might draw, and he didn’t want to find out.
Soon he came to, and traveled over, the bridge back to Maine. He passed the bucking bronco U-Haul, and then the wrecked car with the little boy in the backseat, but they were both in the southbound lanes. Robby observed them like animals at the zoo—sure, they might be dangerous, but they were way over there. He convinced himself they presented no immediate threat to his side of the bridge.
“We’ve gotta stop soon, Volvo. It’s getting dark, and I need some shut-eye,” Robby said. He shifted his eyes quickly from mirror to mirror as soon as he finished the sentence. Somehow it felt natural to talk to corpses, but completely creepy to talk to an empty car. Robby decided to keep his mouth shut and hoped the crawling-skin feeling would subside soon.
He drove north until he found a rest stop. The parking lot had a decent number of cars, and scattered corpses here and there. Most of the bodies were in a loose grouping near the visitors center door. Robby pulled right up to the curb near the door and shut off the Volvo as he peered around in the fading light. He saw no sign of carrion-feeding puddles ready to wreck his car and eat his shoes. He listened to the still evening, but didn’t hear any city-wrecking tornadoes within earshot. The corpses would have unsettled him even a few hours before, but now they seemed almost comforting. With corpses still around, the puddles must not have arrived, or so went Robby’s deduction.
Robby flipped down the visor and slid aside the door to expose a vanity mirror. A light flicked on, but Robby turned it off with the switch. He’d intended to use the mirror to get another view of the highway behind him—he wanted to be able to see every direction at once—but once he caught a glimpse of his eyes, he couldn’t look away. His eyes, framed by the little mirror in the visor, looked just like his Dad’s eyes.
He heard his dad’s voice in his head again—“Go on inside. You can get something to eat and use the bathroom.”
Robby tested his punctured tongue against his teeth and glanced over at the small pile of bodies near the door.
“They won’t hurt you. You’ve seen plenty of bodies today. Nothing to be afraid of.”
Robby grabbed the keys from the ignition and took one last look at his eyes in the mirror before opening the door. They still looked like his father’s eyes, and they still glowed with a confidence Robby didn’t feel.
“Robby?”
“Yeah?” he asked aloud—responding to a question only in his head.
“Look in the trunk. This car is tricked out and well cared for. You’ll find an emergency kit with a flashlight in the trunk.”
His father’s voice was right. Robby found a kit of useful tools and a flashlight in the trunk. He moved the kit to the back seat of the Volvo and took the flashlight to the door of the visitors center. The new shoes felt weird to walk in. They were comfortable, but weird. His left foot still felt a little sore, but Robby was able to walk without much of a limp. He rounded the corpses and pulled open the door to the visitors center.
He didn’t need the flashlight until he got to the bathroom door. The big glass wall on the front of the building let in enough of the fading light for Robby to get around.
In the bathroom, Robby tried to not swing his flashlight around too much. The dancing shadows created by the moving beam made the dead people seem to shift. A guy near the urinals had shot an impressive double-shot of blood from his eyes against the tile wall before he slumped to the floor. Another man had fallen forward into a urinal. His chin was propped up on the porcelain scoop.
Robby stepped over the arm of a man who had flopped backwards while washing his hands. He approached the nearest stall. After using the bathroom, he made his way quickly out the door.
At the far end of the lobby, a small convenience store sold snacks, newspapers, and souvenirs. Behind the counter he found shopping bags. He filled a couple with shirts, sweatshirts, food, and water. They didn’t sell socks. Shoes were one thing, but the thought he was wearing a dead man’s socks still bothered him.
He stood examining the coffee mugs, thinking about nothing at all, when he heard a noise outside. Robby shut off the flashlight and listened. His eyes adjusted rapidly to the low light, but all he could really see was the outline of the glass doors at the other end of the building. The noise had been a muffled thump, like a bag of sand landing on a wooden floor.
Robby shuffled slowly towards the doors in the dark. He slid his feet along the floor, conscious he would hit a corpse or two on his way out. The only sound he made was the crinkling of the swinging plastic bags which held his supplies. Robby inched his way over to the doors in the dark. He stepped over several corpses on the way, but he did it without having to turn on his flashlight. He stood by the door for several minutes looking out into the evening. The clouds diffused enough of the moonlight so he could make out shapes in the lot. The Volvo sat near the curb, waiting for Robby. He took a deep breath and pushed through the doors. The three corpses near the outer door let him by with no mischief.
Robby got back in the Volvo and shut and locked the doors. His eyes, blinded by the dome light from the vehicle, took several seconds to readjust to the dark.
“You should move away from here, Robby,” his father’s voice counseled.
“In case that liquid shows up and tracks my footprints?” he asked, looking up to the visor mirror.
“Exactly,” he heard inside his head.
With the headlights off, Robby drove very slowly to the far end of the lot. He backed the Volvo into a spot bordered by a patch of grass meant for walking dogs. He shut the car off and checked again to make sure the doors were locked.