No one looked comfortable with going to sleep. Thing was, we were in a disabled bus on the Interstate. If zombies attacked, we were trapped. I figured as long as we didn’t make noise, kept the lights inside the bus off, we should be alright. Might not be much consolation, but there wasn’t much more we could do, or that could be done. It was what it was.
And what it was, was bad.
# # #
Thursday, November 5th, 0700 hours
The three of us climbed out of the bus. “Keep everything locked up,” I said.
Andy looked like he might laugh. “Ya think?”
“We’ll be back as fast as we can,” I said.
“You are coming back, right?”
I couldn’t blame him. Humanity had suffered a serious blow. Trust was now an issue. With Michelle injured, he must think us taking off and continuing on to Mexico without them would be easier. And it would. “We’ll be back, Andy. You have my word.”
“Good luck,” he said.
“We’re going to need it.”
First choice, which direction to head. Back the way we came seemed like a good call. At least, I remembered seeing plenty of abandoned vehicles. Whether there were keys or full tanks of gas was another matter.
“Know what? When we find a truck,” Dave said, “I’m driving.”
“You’re driving?” I said.
“When we were in Rochester, you smashed up at least two cars while we were together. And if I remember what Alley said, there was one or two before we hooked up. That’s four accidents in a day, bro. Way I see it, you crashed more cars than you killed zombies,” he said.
“Asshole,” I said.
And we walked.
The first car we reached, a hundred yards from the bus, had keys. “Don’t matter,” Charlene said. “Seven of us are not fitting inside that thing.”
She was right. “Let’s remember it’s here. We have to split into two groups, two different cars, we will.”
“An SUV will be best. Something where Michelle can lie down in back,” Dave said.
“I agree. Beggars sometimes can’t be choosers.”
Plumes of smoke rose and billowed in the sky no matter which direction you looked. Texas was no different than anywhere else we’d been. Everything was on fire everywhere. You could smell the smoke. Part of it made me feel reminiscent of campfires, toasting marshmallows, drinking beer, telling scary tales to the kids. Mostly, I imagined death, and dying and zombies. Hopelessness. That’s what those fires really represented. A complete hopelessness.
“It’s going to be hard to get back to normal,” I said.
“What bothers me is the zombies,” Dave said. “They’ve changed the game.”
“You mean with them learning?”
“Fuck, yeah,” Dave said. “Sorry, Char.”
She smiled.
I’d protected my kids from vulgar language. It was a different time then. The “F” word was just a word now.
“Do you think anyone is working on a cure or a solution,” she said.
“I’d like to think so, honey,” I said.
“But do you think so?” she said.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”
The sun rose in the east. Only a few clouds slid across the sky. I shivered. It was much warmer this far south, the chill was not from the temperature. “I feel like we’re being watched.”
Dave tensed. “From which direction?”
“Not sure.”
“I can still see the bus,” Charlene said. “Think it’s Andy?”
“No.” I looked left, and right. Made it as casual as possible. I did not want anyone to think we were on to them. “Could just be me.”
Dave opened the door on a pickup truck. “Keys.”
“We could take that and the other car,” Charlene said.
“I don’t want Michelle in the bed of a pickup. She’ll be bounced around, and exposed to the elements,” I said.
“Could throw a mattress from the bus into the back,” Charlene said.
We could, actually. “Not a bad idea. Let’s check a few more vehicles. I’d still prefer something we could all ride in.”
“Seven people, with Michelle needing to lie down,” Charlene said.
“We’ve been walking for ten, fifteen minutes. Let’s give it a few more,” I said.
“Ten or fifteen minutes to us is going to feel like hours to them,” Andy said.
“Just another few minutes,” I said. “Besides, if we’re being followed, I don’t want to lead them back to the bus.”
“So you think someone is out there, for real?” Dave said.
“I didn’t see anything. I just, I…feel it.”
“Should we just be gallivanting down the middle of the road like this, then?” Dave said.
“I don’t want them to know that we know they’re out there,” I said.
“If they’re out there,” Charlene said.
“Trust me, something is out there, and they are watching us,” I said.
“There’s a van,” Dave said, pointing.
I looked for it. I have no idea why I envisioned a conversion van with a starburst painting on the side. What I saw was a white work van, a ladder on top. “It’s going to be filled with tools,” I said.
“Might not be a terrible thing, we could go through it to see what we want. Leave the rest on the road. Then we do like Charlene said. We pull a few mattresses from the bus. Throw in supplies. Might be a tight squeeze, but at least we shouldn’t have trouble fitting seven people inside.”
Supplies. Hadn’t even thought about that. No way, we could keep leaving valuables behind. “I like it,” I said. “Cross your fingers that the keys are still inside.”
“Check it,” Dave said. “I’m keeping watch.”
I approached the van with caution, each step carefully placed, as if I were on stairs in a house I was burglarizing. I peeked into the front windshield. No one or nothing was inside. The van was empty. “Lots of tools in there,” I said.
“Keys?” Charlene stood beside Dave, sword in her hand. She didn’t say to hurry. I heard it implied in her tone of voice.
Everything felt eerie. It was day time and there were no visible zombies or people. There were black pillars of smoke both near and in the distance spiraling up into a blue sky and we had the feeling we were being watched.
I opened the driver side door, leaned in. Keys.
“It’s got ‘em,” I said. I climbed into the van and turned the keys.
The engine sputtered. I expected the worst and held my breath. Instead of not turning over, it started.
I saw my daughter bob her head toward Dave and she was smiling.
“Climb in,” I said.
They went around to the passenger side. Dave knocked on the window. I reached over to unlock the door. Charlene pulled it open.
“It has a flat,” she said.
“Tire?”
Dave stared at me like I’d just replied in German. “What else might be flat?”
I shut the engine and punched the steering wheel. Once. Twice. I should have stopped there, but didn’t. Three times.
My fist hit the horn.
It beeped. I cringed and pulled my hand back, as if I’d been burned, as if I’d just touched a hot stove. The horn continued to blare. I only realized how silent we were, everything was, when the horn started to blare.
“Shut it off, Dad,” Charlene said.
I gripped the steering wheel in both hands. “It won’t.”
I hit the horn again. Nothing.
“Open the hood.” Dave stood in front of the van.
I looked under the steering wheel, found the release and pulled it. I heard the pop. Dave opened the hood. I couldn’t see what he was doing. The horn stopped. I climbed out of the van and walked around to the front. Dave stood there with a cable in his hand.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Dave said.