When did I move the selector switch to auto? I think, moving it back to semi. Oh yeah, that’s right.
The moaning figures are still making their way closer.
Focus, Jack. Focus.
With careful deliberateness, I center the scope on the nearest one. This time a hit registers and the figure drops to the pavement. It’s hard to stay focused, but I manage to drop the remaining ones before they get much closer. The stench, combined with the piercing headache, is too much at this point. Standing on the hood of the car, I lean over my knees and expel the remains of my snacks and water onto the pavement below.
My head feels a little better afterward. I search for any others in the vicinity, but for the moment, the area seems empty. The sky overhead has taken on the darker gray of the impending sunset. There still isn’t anything that looks remotely secure, and time isn’t standing still.
Think, Jack. You have to push through this and think.
I have two hours at best until the time of the night runners is at hand. Far into the distance, I see the top of a water tower poking above the near tree line. That would be better than anywhere else, but there is no way I will make that before nightfall. Under normal conditions I could, but wading through this tangle makes that nearly impossible. I most likely won’t find any place if I trudge onward. I eye the overturned motor home.
Yeah, that will have to do. It’s not much and won’t withstand a determined night runner assault, but my choices are very limited at this point.
I’m just going to have to make it so I’m not detected — sight, smell, and hearing. Sight and hearing are relatively easy. Smell, yeah, different story. Especially after that adrenaline rush. That is fading and my heartbeat is about back to normal, which is alleviating the pounding in my head. The putrid odor of the dead is still making my stomach turn over, but it’s manageable. I walk past the rotting corpses to the overturned motor home, and, using a car next to it, haul myself up to its side. Thankfully, the entrance is on this side. I pull the door open.
The interior is in shambles. Everything spilled out of cupboards and drawers when it turned over. Seat cushions lie amongst shining silverware, pans, and paper, along with broken plates and cups. It’s a long drop inside and, once there, it will be tough to get back out without shattering the windows in the front or back. Walking on top to the rear, I notice a ladder bolted to the side where the previous owners could climb up to the roof.
That will do nicely, I think, placing a shot into each of the places where it’s bolted in. I manage to wrest the ladder free and place it by the door.
The inside should be fairly easy to seal up against the night with regards to being seen. With the vehicle turned over, that eliminates one side that needs to be taken care of from a defensive point of view. If I can find some duct tape or something similar, I will be able to block the windows with blankets and anything else I find. The night runners will only be able to get in through the front windshield, the back window, and the side facing up. Those are the weak points. It’s awful hard to pound through the windshield of a motor home as they’re made a little thicker than that of a normal car. However, I wouldn’t put it past a night runner to be able to do so.
Time is moving on and I need to be hasty. I drag the fallen zombies and place them around the motor home. It takes some work, but I also manage to hoist a few onto the upward-facing side. Searching through several autos, I find a roll of duct tape in the glove compartment of one and stow it away for later. Now to the messy part, and one I’m not all that looking forward to undertaking. The smell of the dead bodies is horrid already, but I want to create a wall of stench that the sensitive noses of the night runners can’t penetrate.
The odor is horrific as I lean over the first body. The smell has an almost physical presence to it which causes my eyes to water and initiates my gag reflex. Taking my knife from its sheath, I cut the shirt away, exposing the rotting flesh of the torso. If anything, the smell becomes so strong that I can’t sink my knife into the corpse. I’m thinking the reek is good enough as it is.
There’s no way anything will be able to smell me through this shit.
However, I can’t assume anything. If there is something I can do to better my already crappy situation, then it needs to be done.
With that in mind, I place my knife just below the sternum and, turning my head, slice downward. The stench from the decaying insides roils upward. Cursing my enhanced sense of smell, I gag and then retch on the ground. There isn’t much left, but there’s no way I can stop the reflex. I don’t look at the body but rise after a moment, more from needing to get away than to carry on. I move to the next body and go through the same motions. Yeah, I’m not going to be able to eat anything tonight. I’ll be lucky if I can keep a sip of water down.
Finishing the last of the ones around the motor home, and with the sky growing darker by the moment, I walk away to get a breath of fresher air. That isn’t entirely possible, but I am able to clear my head some. The small amount of drumming still going on in my head, coupled with the stink pervading the area, is not making me a very happy camper — pun not intended.
I crawl back on top of the motor home and look at the two bodies I hauled up. Enough is enough, and I just can’t bring myself to cut into these two. I know what I said earlier about doing anything to make my situation better, but I just can’t. If there is something that can smell me through the reek of decaying bodies that have been nearly disemboweled, then I need a new deodorant.
Standing on the top with the last of the daylight covering my little island paradise, I cast outward with my mind to see if I can feel the presence of any night runners about. I immediately sense a couple of middle-sized packs in the nearby, dark forest. Yeah, the woods are out of the equation and I’m glad I didn’t venture into them. They are apparently dense and dark enough to allow night runners to lair there.
Roger that, remove the woods from the equation.
Still feeling ill from the stink, I open the door, drop the ladder inside, and descend. I test the ladder to see that it will reach and am happy to find that I’ll have a way out. Plus, it will help with sealing the windows that are now high above me. Heading to the back, which is no easy process with my having to climb and step on cabinetry and walls, I find the back bedroom in the same shambles as the rest of the motor home. A mattress and blankets are lying in a heap on the wall/floor. I prop a box spring against the window and tape it in place to prevent it from falling. Hauling the actual mattress across the maze to the front, I wedge it up against the windshield and tape it there.
It takes the rest of my time available, but I manage to tape blankets and towels against the windows on top. The interior darkens into shades of gray and I find that I have retained the night vision from my other world. I still feel this is some sort of dream but the pounding in my head and bruises are real. Regardless, here I am and I intend to survive. I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep tonight with the stench, much less if there are night runners prowling, but I’m hoping to get some rest. When I wake, I want it to be in the nightmare of the world where my kids are.