“Her blood is red.” I really said that bit mostly to myself. It was not the congealed, clotted mess that the zombies generally leaked out. It was the red of humanity, but of that trait, she had none. “What the fuck is going on? John, we’ve got to get going.”
Whatever the howlers were, sunlight had devastating effects on them, and we had to use that to our advantage. Another night in the truck was not an option. They’d figured the doors out easily enough and, even if they hadn’t, I could tell by the way the walls were caving in that they would have been through them in another ten minutes at the most. We had once again barely dodged death. I wondered how long our luck could hold. If I was in Vegas, I wouldn’t bet on our odds. I was thrust out of my reverie by the crashing of a wooden pallet on the pavement.
“Shit, John, what are you doing?”
“Grabbing some Phrito’s, man.”
“What?” And then it dawned on me, he was going to pile this pallet high with cartons and then find some way to push or pull it.
That would be great; we’d probably make a good mile or two away from the truck before nightfall. I was positive that would not be nearly far enough away from the howlers.
“Not a chance,” I told him. His face mirrored the howlers as it went from intense determination to rage. Apparently I had that effect on everyone I encountered. “John, we need to find some shelter from these things and try to figure out what they are…and more importantly, where we are.”
“What do you mean ‘where we are’, we’re right here.”
“I love New Age shit.”
John wasn’t quite ready to give up his idea of taking some snacks with him, and I wasn’t completely done reconning our immediate area. I rounded the truck to discover the couple who had fought valiantly but hopelessly. They were eaten and torn to shreds almost as if the howlers, in addition to being vociferously hungry, hated people with every fiber of their being and wanted to take it out on whomever they encountered. I turned away, glad that I hadn’t eaten more of the Phrito’s than the two John had given me, or I would have had the misfortune of getting to taste it twice.
“John, we gotta go, man,” I spoke, hoping the air flow to push the words out would hold down the gorge that threatened to rise.
I also had a fear beginning to bloom in the base of my spine that I hadn’t felt since that first day of the zombie apocalypse. We were in unfamiliar territory with a new, more deadly enemy. I had very limited ammunition, and I had no idea where my family was or how I was going to get back to them.
“John?” I asked as I rounded back around the corner. “Really, man?” He had cut out a piece of seatbelt from a nearby car and had tied it to the bottom of the pallet, his goal, I guess, being to pull it along like a sled. “John, you can only take what you can carry. We’ve got to go.”
On retrospect, I probably should have been clearer. John hopped back up onto the truck and fumbled around a bit until he had a carton resting on each shoulder. He came to the edge of the truck and was looking for help from me to help him down.
“Why can’t I get stuck in an alternate universe with Rambo? Would that be asking too much?” I asked the heavens as I grabbed each box in turn.
“Rambo, isn’t that the deer who gets stepped on by Godzilla?” He hopped down, propping himself on my shoulder as he did so.
“That’s Bambi, John, and the Godzilla thing was a joke, not the actual movie.”
The explanation was unnecessary as I’d already lost him.
“Shit, Mike, there’s Phrito’s, did you put them here?”
“Yes.” In truth I guess I had.
“Can I have some?” he asked like a little kid.
“Be my guest. And then, can we go?”
“I should probably take these with us.” He placed them on the pallet.
“Oh, I give up.”
“Were we playing Monopoly?”
I didn’t respond, by the time he figured out I hadn’t conceded a board game victory, he would be on to the next shiny distraction.
“No pallet, John, we have to move fast. Just take what you can carry,” I told him referring to the cartons. I guess I’ll never learn, he wrestled with them for a minute or two until he had them once again resting on his shoulders.
He moved surprisingly well for a Phrito-laden pack mule. I stopped at any car that looked promising in regards to supplies: namely food, water, and ammo. Not in any particular order, their importance changed with the circumstances. If howlers came, ammo rose to the top. At the moment, I would just about kill for a cheeseburger. Sadly, I was fairly certain that I wasn’t going to come across one, at least not in edible form.
It was a form of food I found first; that is, if you can call the hard granola bars food. I tore the wrapper off the bar, not even caring that it was cranberry flavored. Peanut butter would have been better. John had taken the down time to rip open another bag of his snacks, something he did at every car I went through. We were a good dozen cars checked down the road; how he didn’t have a belly ache was beyond me.
There was a trail of wrappers leading away from the truck. I felt like Hansel and Gretel, he was Gretel. Although, if I remember the tale correctly, Hansel left the trail, I guess that makes me Gretel, I did a small curtsy.
“What the hell are you doing?” John asked around a mouthful of salty corn.
“You saw that? You’re not even looking this way. Forget it.”
“Forget what?”
“Want a granola bar.”
“Never touch the stuff,” he said as if I were offering him a swig of whiskey.
“Not missing much,” I told him as I nearly chipped a tooth severing a piece off the end.
I had the wrapper in my left hand and was about to add it to our trail when I thought that maybe the wrapper itself may hold a key to our location. ‘Made proudly in New House, JL, United States of Columbia.’
I dropped the wrapper faster than if it had been on fire. It was safe to say we weren’t in Kansas anymore. And then it finally dawned on me, something that had been nagging me in the back of the neck like an overly persistent sand flea. (If you need further explanation, join the Marine Corps and make sure you go to boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina. Then that sentence will make complete sense.)
Why I hadn’t thought to do it earlier I don’t know. Maybe whatever John the Tripper had was catching. I looked to the cars and where their license plates should have been. Now, either there was an extreme plate hoarder on the loose, or this new place we found ourselves in just didn’t mark cars like that. I checked at least four cars; none of them even had so much as a placement holder for a plate.
“What the hell?” I stood up, scratching my head.
And there it was, a cellophane-looking placard with nearly translucent numbers adhered right to the rear windshield. My guess was that it became back lit when the car was running. Some god had a hilarious sense of humor. I moved in close so I could see what the plate said. It was a vanity plate ‘SCREWD’ stared back at me.
“Take you all day to think of that!” I yelled up.
“I didn’t say anything,” John replied. “Was I supposed to?”
“You’re good,” I yelled back. I could barely make out the ‘state’; it was so small, and I also had no reference. ‘Amissus’ is what I read. “Is that in between Georgia and Alabama?” I asked.
“Man, I’m getting full.” John rubbed his belly. However, that did not deter him from opening another bag.
“John, any chance you know where Amissus is?” I figured ‘what the hell.’ Geography had never been my strong suit in school. Although, if I were truly being honest here, there were no classes in school I had been particularly great in.