“Did you see…?”
“The anomalies? Yeah,” Jack said tersely. “I’ve been thinking on that. That is, when Trip gives me more than a minute to reflect.”
“I guess anomaly is one word. Jack, there was a fucking leg sticking out of the ground, and I don’t mean like it was planted there, but like it was part of the roadway.”
“There’s another roadblock on a nearby highway where there was a boot sticking out of a tire,” he said.
I spent the next couple of minutes telling him my thoughts on the zombies and the night runners, and he in turn let me know what he thought about the burning city and the anomalies. I was having a difficult time at best calling that errant leg an irregularity.
“Do you want to hug me?” Trip asked.
It’s sort of funny, because I did…so I did. I maybe would have stayed that way a little longer, but Trip started discussing his latest bowel movement. Jack walked away. Now, normally, I would have found a way to get out of this discussion, but I was still basking in the glow of having them back and I’d soak it up a little longer even if it meant I had to listen to his very colorful description. The hug, however, was over.
Jack was about a few paces away, shaking his head. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen, Mike. There’s not enough bleach that can wipe that image from my mind. I think I might be having Post-Traumatic Shit Disorder. I can’t fathom why you even listen to him.”
“That’s actually pretty funny, man.”
When Trip was done recounting his story, I called over to Jack. “Hey, man, come over here. I’ve got to show you something.” We walked back to the bridge.
“I’ve heard that before, and didn’t much like the results,” Jack replied.
I saw the look of concern on Jack’s face, so I clarified. “I promise, it’s nothing like that.”
Jack bent over and picked up the RPG that I had taken off so I could get in a better position to take out Lucy.
“This looks a lot like an RPG-7,” he said, turning it over.
I nodded at all the appropriate times.
“It’s not quite the same, though. There are some differences, though. Still, it’s a one and done piece of equipment. Did you get this from one of the military trucks?”
“School bus,” I told him.
“It must have been a rough neighborhood,” he responded. “Do you know much about these?”
“I’ve seen them in action, but never shot one. I don’t think my commanding officer would trust me with one. I know they’re useless past three hundred yards or so. Maybe you don’t want to see the whites of their eyes but the closer, the better with this thing.”
“Could someone please make sure the door to the grow room is shut?” Trip said.
I looked over. He was about twenty feet away, out from under the shadow of the bridge and lying in the center of the roadway in the spread eagle position. Luckily, he was fully clothed. It was not too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe he would undress in this situation.
“Does he always talk like this?” Jack asked.
“He does, and sometimes you have to find the underlying message he’s trying to get out.”
“It’s called getting high too many times,” Jack stated.
“On most occasions I’d agree with you, Jack. Trip, why would I want to make sure the grow room door is shut?”
“Don’t indulge him or he’ll start talking about his pet pterodactyl.”
“Wait, he told you he had a pet pterodactyl?”
“Not you too, Mike. Please, man, I can only take one …and I’m not sure even take.”
“Company,” Trip said so casually that I wasn’t even sure as to what he was referring.
I think the light clicked on in mine and Jack’s head at the exact same moment. We both ran to Trip and grabbed an arm, pulling him up and heading back towards the bridge.
“WOW! I was thinking about levitating, and now I am!” Trip was praising Jesus like he was in a revival tent.
“Trip, you’re not flying. Jack and I carried you here.”
“I know that,” he said softly out of the corner of his mouth. “But they don’t.”
I didn’t want to know who ‘they’ were, or what realm ‘they’ were from as the approach of engines could now be heard. We needed to get hidden.
“What do you think?” I asked Jack as he was readying his weapon.
I knew he didn’t have an answer. I guess I just needed to know I could ask that question of somebody.
“I don’t know, but prior experience has been mixed at best,” he replied.
Apocalyptic times brought out the worst in people; even the good ones were usually stressed to the breaking point and couldn’t be completely trusted. Desperate people do desperate things.
“Motorcycles.” My head sagged down as I saw a couple of them crest a small hill behind us.
“Is that necessarily a bad thing?” Jack asked.
“Ever watch Mad Max?”
“Yeah, so?” Jack said.
“Only arrogant assholes who feel like they have nothing to fear ride in something that open during a crisis.”
“They’re wearing something over their faces,” Jack said, peering through his scope.
“Like clown masks?” Trip asked as he began to sit up and attempt to get a better look. “Once saw a clown named Timothy, came to my nephew’s birthday party, meanest jester I ever saw. I was afraid he was going to eat the kids.”
“Sit down, Trip.” I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.
“Hey, Ponch, when did you get here? Want a hit?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you. How does he do that?”
Jack had not pulled his gaze away from the gang of bikes, whose numbers were beginning to swell as more and more of them appeared.
“Hollow leg is all I can figure. Any idea what’s on their faces?”
“If I were a betting man, I would say gas masks,” Jack commented.
“I’ve got seven gas masks,” Trip blurted out.
“What?” Jack asked, incredulous and finally looking away from his lens.
“Really, Jack? You don’t know better yet? I’m sure they’re hooked up to a bong or something.” Trip was nodding as I spoke. “Gas masks, though? Why? Is there something in the air we shouldn’t be breathing?” I was now getting pretty self-conscious about every breath I took. “Is it something biological going on here?”
“That doesn’t explain legs growing out of the asphalt. Some of them are dragging…” Jack hesitated. “Things.”
“Things? What kind of things?” I asked, squinting in an attempt to get a better look.
He turned away from his scope. “It looks like torsos…human torsos.”
I was going to ask him if I could look through his scope but decided against it. I took a moment to think on it. “Any chance it’s zombies or night runners?”
“It’s possible, I suppose. They’re too mangled to really tell, though.”
“No help on that front.”
We hadn’t proved that the men coming were necessarily evil, but anyone who dragged their enemies behind them were not high up on the trust chart. I hated zombies, and now, night runners. A case could be made against cherry Pop-Tarts and ham, but I wouldn’t spend an extra second tying any of them up and pulling them behind me, letting them slowly disintegrate on the rough surface.
The group had stopped about midway from the top of the hill to our location under the bridge. They were gathered around Lucy. Her being a zombie would make figuring out just how long she’d been there difficult, even the blood that did leak out was a thick congealed mass that was more semi-solid than liquid. Unless they traveled these roadways every day, my guess is they wouldn’t be able to tell if she’d been there an hour or a week.
“They sure do look anemic.”
Trip had got with the program. He’d done his best to scrunch between Jack and me and was looking at the bikers, who numbered close to forty or fifty. I’d been so focused on the damned gas masks that I had not really looked at their black leather-swaddled bodies. To a person, they were all incredibly thin. Even with the bulky clothing, they looked little more than scarecrow skeletons.