900 Miles: A Zombie Novel (16 page)

The three of us discussed ditching the Hummer for a car that was more economic.  Pros being that we could get further on less gas, meaning that we’d spend less time sitting out in the open siphoning fuel.  Cons being that a smaller car would mean less protection from the
Zs, and less ability to go off road in a pinch.

We even talked about finding motorcycles.  They would clearly be the easiest way to maneuver through all the debris and abandoned cars on the roads.  They also used the least amount of gas.  In addition, we could hide them much easier than
we could hide the giant yellow Hummer we were cruising around in.  However, they provided no protection at all.

In the end, we decided that the siphoning stops were worth the extra security and protection. The Hummer had gotten us this far.  Besides, at this point
, we knew it was reliable.  We could easily pick another vehicle, and it could break down on us a few miles down the road.

While we were scavenging, we came across a brown Range Rover.  It had already been looted thoroughly.

“Looks like we were not the only ones to come up with this trick,” Kyle said, as we picked through what was left of the SUV.

It had been T-boned by
a small Kia, and nearly torn in half.  The owner had obviously turned into a Z at some point, but with a bloody gaping hole in his head, we could see that whoever took his shit had made sure he wouldn’t be putting up a fight.

The good news was that I was able to dig through his clothing to find a suitable pair of blue jeans, a new black shirt and a green coat that was clearly made to look like a military jacket. Kyle was quick to point out it was a fake. I didn’t care. At least it provided protection from the elements.

I was also able to pull a new pair of boots from the wreckage. They were still in the box, and close enough to my size.  What was ironic, was that there were bunches of boxes strewn around the Range Rover.

Michael looked down at the wreckage and
said, “Look at this stuff, a package for a thousand dollar GPS unit, a tag for a fifteen hundred dollar rifle...”

“Sad really.  He was prepared with all this stuff.  The best in gear, an eighty thousand dollar SUV, but he never got to use it, and it certainly didn’t save him
,” I commented.

“Maybe he looted a Wal-Mart or a sporting goods store.”

“Or maybe he was just some rich guy who had the money to buy survival shit, but never learned to use it,” Kyle interjected as he sneered over at Michael.

Eyes connected, they both paused for a few seconds, and then Michael looked away.  He clearly didn’t want to get into an argument with Kyl
e.

“Either way, he’s dead now.  You gotta be smart to survive out here.  Not
rich,” Kyle added.

The conversation ended.  One thing was for sure, Kyle clearly didn’t mind letting Michael know that his wealth didn’t mean jack-shit out here.

As I surveyed the area, I made a mental note that the ravaged Rover was actually the first sign of survival on the roads that I’d seen. Sure, there had been those holed up in houses like at Sofia’s. This was the first real proof that other living people had the same idea we did. As we moved further along, we began seeing dead Zs, really dead, on the side of the road.  Each of them had punctures or bullet holes in their heads.

Whoever these survivors were, they were heading
in the same direction as us. We were just fine leaving them to clear the path.

In the afternoon, we made great progress towards
West Virginia.  Although we had to backtrack a few times to dodge large swarms of zombies or roads that were completely blocked, we had actually made it out of New Jersey. We passed through a small sliver of Maryland before we came to the Virginia state line.

We slowed down to a crawl
, rolling closer to a blue sign with a red bird on it that said “Welcome to Virginia.”  As we got closer, we could see that someone had used red spray paint to add a single word: “AVALON.”

Kyle looked back at Michael, the scowl deepening.

“How did you learn about Avalon?” he asked in an odd tone of voice.

“What do you mean?” Michael responded being put on the defense.

“Well, it seems strange that we heard about this magical haven called Avalon from you, a self-proclaimed rich guy who crash lands his helicopter in our lap. Then the following day, we hear the same thing from a psychotic marauder who’s got a thing for cutting off people’s fingers.  Now we’re seeing it spray painted here across this sign.”

Michael lifted his head, and moved uneasily, shifting his eyes from one side to the other.

“I mean, seriously,” Kyle went on, “as I sit here, I’m wondering how the hell a place like this just popped up out of nowhere. How is it that everybody we have come across knows about it
except for us
?” He wiggled his thumb between him and me.

The thought had crossed my mind as well. Kyle was just acting on the question. I found myself twisting my wedding ring.

Michael hesitated.  There was an uneasy tension in the car.

“This isn’t the kind of place you get a brochure from,” Michael started slowly.

Kyle didn’t flinch, remaining silent. His expression remained guarded though his eyes shot daggers at the man.

“You know, it’s the kind of place you have to be referred to, and hear about through a friend of a friend...through the grapevine, if you
will,” Michael explained patiently.

“But how does everybody know about it?
”

“How does news travel in the apocalypse?  I’m assuming word of mouth.  A few people with tickets are trying to get there.  They tell a few people, and then they tell a few people and so on.  It’s got to be the only thing people are talking about when they run into trouble.  Where can I go where it’s safe?”

Now I joined in on the conversation.

“So how do you know it really exists?  How do you know we can get in?”

“You’re going to have to trust me,” Michael said firmly.  “I have connections, and these are connections I trust. Avalon is real.  I also have enough money to get you and your friends and family in.  This may be the end of the world, but green is still green. I have a lot of green.  Right now, I have four tickets. I had to buy those right off the bat for my two pilots and assistant.”

Michael padded his left hand on his metal case as he said this, giving us some clue as to what he carried in the confines of his guarded treasure.

He continued, “Listen, I get it, I know. You each have your places to get to.  I respect that, and I want to see you get there.  I’m asking you, help me get to Avalon. In turn, I’ll help you get to where you need to go.  We’ve been through some radical stuff together.  You’ve saved my life countless times.  You have my word.”

It was quiet for a brief time. Kyle and I didn’t discuss it
, but I could tell that he was pondering it just as much as I was.

“So how do we get there now?” Kyle broke the silence as I kept the Hummer creeping along.

Michael pulled up the metal briefcase from the floorboard with a grunt, and set it on his lap.  Making sure that neither of us could see inside, he flipped the numeric combination locks in place. He opened it just enough so that he could fit his hand inside.  He pulled a small piece of paper out and looked down at it.

Looking up, he said, “We need to get our hands on a GPS device that still has charge.  I was passed this set of coordinates when I closed on the deal.”

The paper had these coordinates typed on it:

37°47′38″N 80°18′13″W

“No problem.” Kyle shrugged, as he pointed at the NAV unit built into the Hummer.  The in-dash system had a coordinate input, and was much more accurate than some piece of hand held crap that we might find while scavenging.

He reached out, and with some reluctance, Michael handed him the paper. Turning back around, Kyle looked down at the NAV, inputting the coordinates.  I glanced at it as a small circle spun in the middle of the screen, while the directions were calculated.

I could hear Michael closing the metal case shut, and rearranging the number dials to lock it up tight. “Route: 87 miles” popped up on the screen, along with a digital arrow pointing us forward on the road we were traveling on.

“Eighty seven miles,” Kyle said.  “We’ll know soon enough if this place is real or not.”

“It’s real. We just need to get there,” Michael replied sternly.

That man is dead to me…

The further in to
Virginia we went, the more we saw abandoned military vehicles. Some had crashed and others were merely left in the middle of the road, not unlike the many civilian vehicles we had come across.

All simple reminders
that we had lost this war against the undead before it even started.  Mankind had no chance. Whoever or whatever cooked up this thing, was either an evil genius or a fucking moron.  Either way, it was looking as if it was going to be the end of us.

Just as we passed a large, green army supply truck, Kyle asked me to stop.  He told me that he had an idea.  Making sure that there were not any zombies too close by, I hit the brakes.  He had the door open, and was climbing out before we came to a complete stop.

Michael and I watched as he darted to the truck, flipped open a green tarp door at the rear of the vehicle and jumped in.  We lost our visual on him for a moment, but the shocks of the truck rocked back and forth, as he moved around.

A minute later, he hopped out with a belt around his shoulder and two large boxes under his arms.  He returned to the Hummer with his loot, and climbed back in, the belt still over his shoulder.

He looked at me with a big smile.

“Ammo,” he exclaimed, as he held up the belt. It contained multiple red shotgun shells.  He had grabbed bullets for the two handguns
as well. We now had more than we knew what to do with.

As we made our way further down the road, we noticed that more and more of the zombies were wearing various kinds of military camouflage.   It became clear that there was a battle somewhere nearby that we probably didn’t win.

One of the military Zs was stumbling alongside the road as we drove by.  We watched as he walked up to an American flag, which was plastered on some redneck’s pickup truck, raised his half gnawed off hand up to his forehead and gave it a formal salute.

A
somber feeling entered the back of my mind.  The salute was a simple reminder that these
things
were human once.  I glanced over at Kyle expecting him to show some sort of emotion by the gesture.  I was surprised to see him role his eyes, shifting his gaze out to the other window.  In the end, I guess as far as he was concerned, they were the enemy.  No more, no less.

Hell, how could we go on unless we believed that?  Far be it from us
even to consider the possibility that there was some sort of cure.  That there was some sort of way that they could come back.  We had to push that thought out of our heads.   I don’t think we would have made it this far if we let that sneak into out subconscious.  We needed to believe that they were no longer human.  No longer one of us.

From time to time, one of
the Zs would be fast enough to run up to the Hummer, but luckily; we were too high for them to do any damage.  Most of the time, we just felt a
thump thump
as we ran over it with one of the oversized tires.  It was a time like this that reassured us that we’d made the right choice in keeping the Hummer, despite its lack of camouflage.

As long as we kept moving, we seemed to be okay.

There were sandbags laid out, and the road was black with various bloody and rotting body parts.  Arms, legs, torsos… none of it reanimated because the pieces were not attached to a head.  Even through the rancid smell of decaying flesh, there was a hint of the metallic weaponry and acrid remnants of gunpowder left lingering in the air.

The insects had found the body parts, and maggots covered the larger chunks of meat lying lifeless on the ground.  I glanced up to the sky
, expecting to see buzzards or some other sort of winged predator picking away at the remains, but was surprised to see none.  Even the birds seemed smart enough to stay away from this shit.

The
Zs were thicker here, and beginning to convene around the Hummer in greater numbers.  If we got stuck on anything, we’d have been in a world of trouble. I glanced at a military grade Hummer off to my right, feeling my stomach churn rather abruptly, my blood went cold. I could see that it had flipped on its side. The glass was torn through, and blood covered the seats on the inside of it.

That could have been us, I thought.  If the zombies could demolish a military grade vehicle, think of what it could do to our civilian grade.
My hands began to shake involuntarily, causing me to squeeze the steering wheel with an iron grip. I decided that we needed to get the hell out of there, and accelerated a bit, knocking through the swarm of Zs in our way.  It was a bumpy drive, despite good shocks, as the tires moved up and down popping open skulls and squishing through the dead in our path. We finally pushed through the other side of the swarm.