Forget The Zombies (Book 3): Forget America (3 page)

I stepped off the bus and met Robbie at the back door. “What is all this?” I asked.

“It’s things we might need,” he said.

“Laptops? We’re back in the stone age here with no internet. Why do we need computers?”

“No, that’s not entirely true,” he said. “No terrestrial internet, but the satellites are still floating up there,” he stopped and pointed into the sky.

“So, you can get on the internet with this setup?”

“Well, not yet,” he said and looked down at his feet.

I almost told him to leave it all behind, but gave in. “Just get it on board.”

That only held us up another ten minutes. I took the seat behind Joni and asked how the gas situation was.

“Three quarters of a tank,” she said. “That should get us out of the state.”

“That’s good,” I said and leaned forward and whispered, “I’m almost as sick of Oklahoma as I was of Texas.”

She looked back at me and smiled, but it faded quickly. I turned my head to see Dave giving us both the an eyeful of pissed off attitude.

I decided to change the subject, “I guess the question of the day is where should we go?”

I looked to the back of the bus and saw nothing but blank expressions. We had survived day-by-day since the outbreak and that hadn’t allowed any long term planning. The government wasn’t offering many solutions other than either telling people to stay put or to evacuate, usually at the last minute when the situation was about to rise up and bite them on the ass. Literally, not figuratively.

Being the leader, I think the weight of the decision rested with me. Oh boy.

“Okay,” I said and cleared my throat. “From our experiences in San Antonio and then driving by Dallas, I think we should avoid any big cities. Since it seems like the epicenter of the Outbreak was in the west and southwest, I think we should avoid going that way.”

Robbie interrupted, “But there have been reports of outbreaks in the east in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.”

“All near big population centers like Boston, New York, and Phillie,” I said. “I have this idea.” At that moment, it seemed as if they all leaned a little closer to me. “Since we don’t know how this thing is going to go, we should find a safe place to ride it out. My family has a very large house on an island just off North Carolina on the Outer Banks. I think it could house us and maybe there will be open houses around that place we could settle in.”

“I think we need to get to a place like Washington D.C.” Dave piped in. “Since all the politicians and military muckety-mucks are there, there’s no way they’d let that place fall.”

“D.C. is a large population center and Baltimore is right there,” I said. “I’m not too certain about the safety of being around that many people.”

“But what do you know?” Dave said in a challenging tone. “We don’t know diddly about what is really going on. We only get occasional media reports and most of those are days old. We need to get around people with big guns.” He rose from his seat and stood as if he were trying to generate enthusiasm for his idea.

“Dave, I hear your point,” I said trying to be diplomatic. “I lived and worked in D.C. You could barely get around the place with only the living there. If the undead showed up, you could get caught in there and never find your way out.”

“What about our extended families?” Robbie asked. “I’ve got family up east, but the reports up there haven’t been good. Plus, we’d have to travel that far. Anyone else have family somewhere else?”

I looked around the bus and it was a sad story. With the exception of some distant relatives in Idaho who would probably outlast this whole zombie shit storm, I was alone on this planet. Most of the people coming out of Texas lost entire families and anyone left behind there was probably dead or worse. I was assuming Jay and Jane were in the same boat.

“Anyone have family they need to get to?” I asked.

“All my family is back in Czechoslovakia,” Mo said.

No one else spoke.

“I guess that leaves us at a decision point; go with me to the island I talked about in North Carolina or go with Dave’s proposal and head to D.C. We can do this by a simple show of hands. All those in favor of North Carolina?”

Nearly everybody’s hands went up including Martin with Jessica and Joni having their hands poised to go up, but a hard stare from Dave held them in place. The only other noticeable hand that stayed down was Chuck’s.

“Okay,” I started to say, but Dave cut me off.

“What about you Chuck?” Dave asked.

“I’m just along for the ride,” he said.

“North Carolina it is,” I said and slid back into my seat.

Dave sat down hard and made no attempt to hide his displeasure, crossing his arms and glaring at me. That was just another notch on the board against me, I guess.

Martin sang lightly as we pulled out onto the street, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, go round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round…”

I liked the kid, but I hoped he didn’t keep that up. He didn’t as everyone on the bus got quiet for our new adventure. It felt good to be getting some distance between us and the undead, and everybody, but Randell felt a little more relaxed. He mourned the loss of his Texas in respectful, but somber silence.

Joni drove us out of Idabel and then out of Oklahoma and into Arkansas. Traveling was a hot and sticky affair as we decided to forego air conditioning to save on fuel. Before we were thirty miles down the road, I felt my shirt sticking to my back. By my quick calculations, we had well over a thousand miles in front of us. Joni thought we had few hundred miles of fuel, at most, so that finding a new source would become imperative in a our near future.

Little Rock was to the north, but we skirted around it for fear of any encounters with the zombies. We saw a few other vehicles on the road riding along with us away from Texas. Most of the little towns we passed through were either dark or boarded up with very few lights on. Damn few people were going back towards the west and most of those were military vehicles. We saw a few military aircraft in the sky as we made our way east. It was mostly high flying planes and a few attack helicopters who paid us no heed.

We did spot several bodies beside the roads. They looked like they had once been alive, then undead and alive again only to be taken down. We didn’t stop for any in-depth inspections, but these little pop-up Outbreaks were quite unsettling. The virus was finding a way behind enemy lines and we were the enemy. None of this bode well for us or the rest of the humanity.

We attempted to stop at a small gas station in a small burg south of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, but the pumps were locked up tight and I strongly suspected that they were most likely empty. We tried again at another small town east of there, but found a small well armed militia surrounding the place and just breezed by, thankful that no one shot at us. We had a very bad experience with local yokels playing “end of the world/anything goes” rules once before with a group like that. It didn’t go well for them, but I didn’t want to push our luck.

Robbie used his tech skills to monitor whatever media was still on the air in the area with some of the gizmos he brought along, but most of the local operators had disappeared during the spread of the infection. Besides the national media, the only independent reports came from fringe sources. For some reason, Robbie seemed to key on them.

“This guy says all of California has been taken over by the undead,” Robbie said.

“Ay, dios mios,” Rosalita exclaimed as she crossed herself.

“What does the national media say?” I asked.

“They say there are outbreaks in Southern California around San Diego and it may have reached L.A., but I think the military is sanitizing all that.”

“Can you get a corroborating source for your guy?” I asked, putting air quotes up when I said ‘your guy.’

“No, but he’s reliable,” Robbie said.

“Is this the same guy who said this infection came from the Bat Boy from the National Enquirer fame?”

“Yeah, but…” he started, but trailed off.

“Can you keep the frightening, yet unsubstantiated claims from borderline wackos to a minimum?” Joni asked. “I’ve got freaked out kids on this bus.”

Robbie started to speak again, but Dave shot him a withering look and he shut his mouth.

We traveled on with Joni giving me periodic updates on our fuel status as we went. The reports weren’t encouraging as I watched the little needle get closer and closer to the E on the fuel gauge.

To keep spirits up, Jay, Jane, and Mo handed out some of the food and drinks we had taken from the school. People chatted quietly and it was like we were on a school trip almost, only the zombies roamed the earth and any detour could be our last.

We crossed from Arkansas to Mississippi when the wheels came off our little excursion. Not literally, though. It was living and not the dead that caused our problems this time.

“Grant, we have a roadblock coming up,” Joni said and the rest of the bus went quiet. “What should I do?”

“Slow down,” I said.

Joni brought bus down to less than five miles per hour as we creeped down the road. Down the way, two pickup trucks were parked across the road at oblique angles, effectively blocking the road. There was room on the shoulder to get around them, but something wasn’t right. No people were visible.

“Bring us to a stop,” I said.

She eased us to a dead stop and I continued looking down the road at the two cars, watching for any movement, but saw nothing.

“What do you think is going on?” Dave asked.

“It seems like if someone wanted us to stop, they’d be around the cars to give us some direction,” I said.

“Where do you think they are?” Dave asked leaning forward in his seat.

“I think there are two choices,” I said. “They are either long gone or they’re somewhere off to our right or left ready to pick us off or take us.”

A voice sounded from the back of the bus, “Get ready for anything, people.” It was Chuck, and he was standing poised in a relaxed, but ‘ready for anything’ pose.

“Whaaaat?” Dave said.

That’s when the first shot was fired. One of the side windows on the south side of the bus exploded inward, sending glass fragments spraying across the seats. Someone screamed and couple others joined in and everyone started scrambling around inside like chickens with their heads cut off. I ducked down, turned to the back of the bus, and shouted for people to get down. Rosalita sat in rigidly in her seat crossing herself like there was no tomorrow and, frankly, if they kept shooting up, there might not be.

I also saw a silhouette standing in the now open back emergency door. The figure looked like it had a rifle in one hand and a small bag in the other. Before I could say anything, the silhouette jumped out the door and was gone.

Another bullet struck the side of the bus and another window shattered.

“What should I do?” Joni shouted, ducked down at the steering wheel.

“Get us the hell out of here!” I yelled back.

Just as she slammed the transmission in reverse, another set of shots were fired. I heard the bullet slam into the side of the bus and then I heard a loud hissing noise. The bus began to shimmy and sway as we sped backwards and our progress reduced greatly.

“I think they shot out the tires,” I yelled over the chaos. I half stood and yelled to the back of the bus, “Everybody get your guns.” Almost before I finished, Carla rose up from her seat with a rifle and shot out the window next to her seat, then stuck the gun out the window, and started firing. She poured through an entire clip, firing wildly into the woods on the south side of the bus. She ejected the clip and loaded up the next one and started firing again with the skill and courage of any soldier I had ever seen.

“Carla,” I shouted, “take it easy on the ammo. We don’t have that much.”

“But they’re shooting at us,” she yelled back.

“Do you see anything out there?” I asked, yelling down the aisle.

“No.”

“Well then wait until you have some sort of a target.”

Her firing had done something as no new shots came in.

“There’s a couple trucks coming down the road at us,” Joni shouted, getting my attention. “They look like they have a lot of guns.”

“Oh shit,” I said. When I poked my head up, I saw a Humvee and what looked like a Jeep barreling down the road at us. The Humvee had a nasty looking .30 caliber gun mounted and manned. I also several guys standing up in the Jeep and they all had big rifles. They approached the two blocked cars and stopped on a dime. With military precision, several of their number jumped off the Jeep and out of the Humvee and took up positions by the cars, their weapons at the ready. Strangely, none of them aimed in our direction, but seemed to be focusing on the treeline to the south.

“What do we do?” Dave said with a slight quaver to his voice.

“Sit tight,” I said. “If these new guys fire at us or try to take us, shoot them.” I paused and took a quick inventory of our situation. The bus had been shot up with several windows now gone. I’m assuming that at least a couple of our tires were now flat which left us dead in the water. If those new arrivals fanned out around us, we’d be sitting ducks.

“Dave, grab your kids and go to the back of the bus,” I said. “Joni, you go with them. Robbie, you and Mo get ready to see if you can get Rosalita off the bus. Randell and I will hold them off if they approach.”

Robbie and Mo both looked doubtful, but moved up beside Rosalita, but I think some of Robbie’s hesitancy revolved around leaving some of his gadgets behind.

“What about me?” Carla said in an almost pouty voice.

“You get off with Dave, Joni, and the kids.”

“I’m not a kid,” she said.

She wasn’t a kid. At least not any more. Chronologically, she was thirteen, but after losing her entire family on our escape out of Texas, she had aged a great deal, mostly the hard way. Most days she barely spoke and majority of those words were sullen mumbles, unless it was an angry outburst. She was cracked and broken down the middle and there were times that she actually scared me with her intensity.