Dead by Dawn (15 page)

Chapter 25

              The engine of the motorcycle tore through the silence of the abandoned streets. Adam could feel Sarah’s hands around his waist as he navigated around abandoned cars.

The first half of their ride went smooth and they had covered a lot of distance. The closer they got to the evacuation border, however, the slower they were forced to go.

Every mile they traveled seemed to reveal more and more abandoned traffic in the streets. It was apparent that a lot of people didn’t make it out of the evacuation zone before dark the night before.

Adam and Sarah traveled the expressway for most of the journey until a massive traffic jam brought them to a halt.

It was the eeriest thing either of them had ever seen. There were thousands of cars of every make and model packed side by side. Every single one either had a door hanging wide open or a window smashed out. Birds hopped across their hood and searched the interiors for food.

Adam thought they should look rusted, at least that’s what he would expect from a similar scene in a movie. These cars did not match that scene however, they hadn’t been there for more than a night. In the coming years they would surely rust, but that was still a long time away. Now they were simply a mob of random colors baking in the sun. The sight gave him chills.

Some of the cars were flanking the rest. Their owners must have been trying to beat the traffic, most likely in a fit of terror during the night. It was these cars, protruding past the shoulders of the road that made it impossible for them to continue on.

Adam was forced to double back and find an exit.

The exit ramp was packed with cars as well. Thankfully the shoulder was open, allowing them passage. It felt wrong going backwards down the ramp, especially with all the cars facing towards him. It felt even more wrong seeing the sun taking its first steps towards setting and knowing they had yet to reach the edge of the evacuation zone.

Adam gave up his helmet so Sarah could have it. She hadn’t said one word since he picked her up and he was beginning to forget what she looked like. The girl was simply the helmeted figure that clung to his back.

He was pretty sure that if he got up and walked away she would stay sitting on the bike until night came. Something was seriously wrong with her.

He couldn’t blame her though.  Who didn’t have something seriously wrong with them? It wasn’t an easy task, keeping a level head when vampires were killing everyone you ever knew or loved.

The road they were on led them directly away from the expressway. It was covered in tar marks where the state had attempted to fight the blacktop’s decay. The tar crisscrossed all over the road, cutting through the yellow and white lines in multiple places.

They passed two to five abandoned vehicles for every hundred yards they went. Traffic had been busy whenever all these cars were abandoned. Perhaps these people had been like Sarah and Adam, trying to find a way around the traffic jam on the expressway.

Adam slowed way down as they passed a truck that had gone off the road. He could feel Sarah crane her neck to see.

The truck was folded around a tree. A large piece of the tree’s trunk was sheared off and laying on the ground. The truck had no windows left and the airbags were deployed. The driver’s side door was on the side facing away from the tree and had been ripped completely off. It lay on the ground under a blanket of broken glass. The missing door opened a view of the entire inside of the cab. The passenger side had collapsed inward from the impact. Twisted mettle reached out for the seats. The airbags, once white, were now red. Were the interior not so dark, Adam knew everything else would be painted red as well.

Adam turned his head away and hit the throttle. He wished to leave the truck far behind, but knew it would be waiting to haunt him in his dreams.

A mile up the road Adam came to an intersection and was able to turn back in the direction he needed. He might not be able to go directly down the expressway, but as long as he could run along side it they would be fine.

The setting sun, on the other hand, was not fine. To be out on the road when night came was simply not an option. He need only look at the thousands of abandoned cars to know what would happen.

Adam drove for a good ten minutes, cursing at how slow they were going. There were too many cars in the road. He had to keep driving on the shoulder or navigating tight gaps between the two lanes. It was rare if he ever got up to the speed limit.

They came into a town and were passing a grocery store when Adam gave into the idea that they wouldn’t make it to the safe zone before dark. They were going to need to find food and shelter. He decided to pull into the parking lot and park the bike near the front door.

With the bike shut off, Sarah made no attempt to move. Adam offered her his hand, enticing her to stand up before taking off the helmet.

Sarah’s dark brown hair was knotted up and her eyes were bloodshot. The area around her eyes was ringed in red.

“It’s been a pretty long ride, how are you holding up?” he asked.

Sarah stared past him into the grocery store. She made no attempt to respond.

Somebody had already broken inside. The glass was smashed out of the sliding glass doors.

The large grocery store loomed over them. The outer wall of bricks was tinted gold under the orange sky. It was the type of store that never closed. It felt wrong being there and not having other people around.

Adam took a step inside. “Um, I want you to wait out here okay? I’m just going in to grab some food and stuff and then we can be on our way.”

When Sarah failed to respond he turned back towards the grocery store and headed in.

It was shadowy in the store, but there were skylights so it wasn’t all that dark. Adam could see enough to navigate the aisles as he normally would.

Whoever broke in before him had not been kind. A lot of clothing racks were laying on the ground, their clothes scattered. The grocery section looked as though it had just gone through a food fight. Adam was forced to walk through milk, eggs, and every kind of fruit to get to where he needed to be. It was both sticky and squishy to walk on.

One of the only undamaged food items Adam could find was a stack of tuna fish that had survived the raiding of its shelf. He was able to stuff four cans into his pockets. It wasn’t very comfortable, but he figured he could manage.

With his pockets full he set out on a search for garlic. He figured it was priority number three after food and water.

There was movement to his left, a human figure. Adam jumped, slipping and almost falling on the smeared food underneath his feet. He was able to catch himself before he fell though, something he was thankful for. It would be horrible to have that crap all over his clothes.

The figure was Sarah. She was standing just outside of the mess, in the main aisle next to a display of potato chips. She held a grocery basket in her hand.

“Here,” she said.

It was the first thing he ever heard her say. Her voice was soft and full of pain: hinting at some great tragedy she had endured.

“Thanks,” said Adam taking the basket and wondering why he hadn’t grabbed one in the first place.

The garlic cloves were nearby and they loaded all of them into the basket. They even managed to find a handful of garlic salt shakers. Adam placed his hand behind them on the shelf swiped them forward into the basket. Deep down it was something he had always wanted to do.

With their new payload, they headed back out to the motorcycle. Along the way Adam grabbed a couple of candy bars and a handful of grocery bags, which he used to empty his pockets and the basket. He figured it would make them a lot easier to carry on the bike.

When all of this was done and they were outside, Adam glanced up at the sun. The orange sky was turning pink and the malevolent red of sunset had already begun to blossom.

“The sun’s going down. I don’t think we have more than a half hour of light left. We should find a place to hide out for the night.”

“Okay,” said Sarah. She was already slipping on his helmet.

Adam spotted a subdivision on the other side of the street. The houses were mostly two stories, though skinny. They were packed in tight, all lined up one after another. If a vampire were to go door-to-door checking everyone for people, there were enough houses that it would take him all night. That was if he decided to check them at all. Adam decided to go for it.

Sarah clung on as he drove diagonally through the parking lot and flew across the road without checking for oncoming traffic. Of course there was none, but that didn’t stop their hearts from racing out of habit.

The neighborhood might have been nice before the evacuation, but now it was falling apart. Maybe it was just the garbage, spread through the streets and across the porches. It looked as though a pack of wild animals had come through unchecked, digging through the trash. It smelled horrible, as though all the food were rotten. Adam had to swerve to avoid a mound of maggots squirming over a bottle of broken mayonnaise. The sight made him gag.

When he thought they were deep enough into the sub Adam chose a house at random. He drove his bike through the yard, past small shrubs and young trees, parking it by the back patio.

The house was a carbon copy of all the others in the sub. It followed their pattern and was tall and skinny. The patio was made of pavers making it different than the neighbor’s to the direct left and right: their houses had porches made of wood.

Adam walked up to the back door and tried to slide it open. It was locked. He took a step back, debating how he was going to get in. A small window was cracked open a little to his left. It opened from the side, but looked big enough to fit through.

He grabbed a chair from the patio and pulled it over. He stood on it and looked in. The kitchen was on the other side and there was a screen in his way. The sink was directly below him. The window itself looked to be operated by a little crank handle.

Adam pushed on the screen until it buckled, creating a space at the bottom for him to fit his hand through. Adam reached inside and snaked his arm around to the crank. He turned it a few times, giving himself some more space.

It was easy to pop the screen out from there and he was soon crawling inside.

The first thing he noticed was the smell, or rather the lack of a smell. Compared to the rancid air outside the house smelled immaculate.

Adam took it in, realizing he’d been breathing only shallow breaths since entering the sub.

What light was left from the sun came through the windows and made the house bright. Standing in the kitchen he could see brown couches through an archway on his right. On his left he could see part of a railing as it guided the steps to the second floor.

Adam went to the back door where Sarah was waiting.

“Thank you,” she said, walking by him with a handful of groceries.

She set them on the counter before proceeding to take a lap around the house.

Adam tried the sink with no results, same with the light switches. The power was out.

He opened the fridge and was happy to find its contents had yet to go bad. Though he still wasn’t willing to eat any meat, he found a block of cheese and cut it in half. When Sarah came back around he offered her one of the haves.

She wrinkled her nose. “No thank you. I hate cheese.”

He was shocked to hear her say so much. For a moment it even made him forget about the coming darkness.

“You hate cheese? Who hates cheese?”

Sarah closed her eyes and a look of pain shot across her face. When she opened them her face had gone blank again.

“Me,” she whispered before walking away.

Adam sprang into action after that. He took the garlic salt and poured a line of it outside of every door. He then cut up the garlic cloves and placed a handful in front of every door. He also made Sarah and himself eat a few for good measure.

Sarah got in on the act, spreading garlic salt all over the house. Though she didn’t talk, she looked as though she might be enjoying herself.

When they were out of garlic Adam found a roll of duct tape in the garage. He used it to tape sheets over every window that had a view of the living room. After that he dragged a couple of mattresses from upstairs and set them under the big screen television that hung on the wall in the living room. Sarah came down behind him, carrying blankets and pillows.

When they were all done Adam went to the window to peek around one of the sheets.

The night had finally come. None of the street lamps were working, but the moon cast enough light to see. A bunch of paper drifted by on the street, carried by the steady wind.

Adam felt a creeping sensation, like he was being watched.

He threw back the sheet and stepped away. With the sheet back over the windows it was hard to see. He almost tripped over Sarah’s bed.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m a little jumpy. I think I’ve rediscovered my fear of the dark.”

It was hard for him to tell, but he thought he saw her nod in agreement.

Adam found his own mattress and lay down under the blanket. It was a little stuffy inside, but that didn’t stop him from fully covering himself under it.