Hell Bound (Book 1): A Vacation From Hell (12 page)
Chapter 22
Death is when the monster gets you
-Stephen king-
I jumped back up to the front seat and put my seat belt back on. I grab Mathews hand and set it in mine.
“If that heard is following us then we will lead them straight to my parent’s house. What do we do?”
“I don’t know… I thought about that too.”
I want to ask him more questions about what we are going to do and how are we going to get home to my parents safely. But I know it’s a waste of my breath. He doesn’t have the answers anymore than I do.
Some time later we reach the freeway. We drive slowly up to the on ramp looking at what we are up against. But unfortunately it doesn’t look very good. The on ramp is completely full of abandon cars. I turn around and shake Kat awake. She gets up and scans our surroundings.
“We made it to the freeway huh,” she says, sounding depressed.
“Yea, but it doesn’t look too good,” I mention.
Kat looks at the on ramp and shakes her head. “Well now we know why the voice on the radio said to stay away from all main roads,” Mathew says, staring at the cars ahead.
“Yes, but now what route do we take?”
“I don’t know... Let’s look at the map again.”
Pulling out the map and putting it in between all of us. For what I can see there are no other ways around the freeway. We need to stay on the freeway for at least twenty miles and take the back roads again.
“I’m afraid that we have no other choice but to get on the freeway,” Mathew tells us.
“Mathew what happens if we can’t drive around all of these cars?” I question, scared of what may lay ahead for us.
“Then we go by foot and highjack another car later on.”
“What about all the food? We can’t take it all if we have to leave the car,” I start whining.
“I know Sam but we have no choice. I can’t take the lancer on the dirt road. We will get stuck,” Mathew says snapping at me.
“Sam I’m sorry to say he’s right. This car is not made for off roading and we don’t need to be getting lost in the middle of nowhere. At least we can stay close to the freeway and we would know what streets we need to take.”
I nod my head.
“Okay let’s get a move on, we will go as far as we can in the car and then go by foot if we have too. Keep your eyes open for any movement,” Mathew says putting the car in drive.
We’re able to squeeze by several cars on the on ramp. But it is extremely tight; I can hear the lancer scraping up against the other cars as we drive by.
We get to the top of the on ramp and see the free way is even worse. I doubt we will get any further driving.
“Can we maybe push some of the cars out of the way? And drive on the shoulder?” Kat asks, she is holding the hunting knife in her hands, so tight her fingers are turning white.
“We can try to, but I’m not sure the three of us are strong enough to push any of these cars out of the way.”
As we are driving past all of the empty cars I notice there is a lot of dead people still stuck in their vehicles. I even saw one with a baby carrier in the back seat. I had to turn my head away because I didn’t want to know if there was a dead baby inside of the carrier half eaten. Something’s are supposed to be left unsaid.
Mathew is able to maneuver around the vehicles for three miles until we came to an over turned diesel truck in the middle of the road.
“Let’s make this fast and push those two little cars out of the way, that should give us enough room to squeeze by and drive on the shoulder.”
The three of us, nervous, and scared jump out of the car and go straight to the car closest to us. I jump in the front seat and put it in neutral.
“Okay let’s start pushing,” I call out the window to Mathew and Kat. They start to push the car and to my surprise it starts moving. We move it as far to the side as we possibly can. We right away get started on the next little car.
“Alright everyone back into the car.” Mathew looks nervously around our car. I don’t question him as I jump back into the car. The zombie heard could be on their way and we’re stuck on the freeway.
Having to stop several times to move cars out of the way, we’re finally able to make it to the exit we need to get off at.
Each of us tired and sweating, the heat feels like its hotter today than it was yesterday. I pull out the map and put it in between us.
Kat draws a red line down the map all the way to where my parent’s town is. We’re more than halfway there, but it still seems like it will take us forever to get there.
The exit is pretty clear other than a couple vehicles. If all goes well we can make it home by the end of the day. God I can just imagine grabbing my boys and giving them the biggest hug and kiss. I will never leave their sight again.
“If all goes well hopefully we can be back home by tonight.”
“I hope so. I really hope so,” I say getting excited.
“Mathew what do we do if the zombies are following us? We might lead them to my parent’s house.” Knowing I already asked this question, but I feel we should come up with a plan just in case this actually happens.
Mathew takes a glance at me and stays quiet for a couple seconds. I wait a couple minutes, very impatiently for him to answer me.
“I’m thinking if we have to we could try to lead them in the wrong direction. Or we might end of losing them. We don’t know if they are even following us,” Mathew whispers to me, not looking at me.
Something about his tone of voice seems off, he’s lying to me. I drop the conversation.
“Can we take a bathroom break please and a lunch break as well?” Kat says cutting our conversation sort.
Mathew pulls the car over to the side of the road, which is surprisingly empty. There is trash blowing around in the wind, shoes lay in the middle of the road, empty cars are scattered along the road, empty, abandon.
There is no sign of the living or the dead, no sounds, no dogs barking in the distance, nothing, completely and utterly quiet. It scares me.
Chapter 23
Apocalypse is on its way, we're all trained to be afraid Just animals that can't be tamed we’re all just savages
-Theory of a dead man-
“Our timing is surprising going as planned. If all goes well we can still make it home by tonight.”
I pull Mathew into my arms and squeeze him tight. I’m beaming with joy; we’ll be home soon with our boys.
Hello, fellow survivors I have some good news for you for once, about an hour ago I was able to tap into the military frequency and I overheard them talking about an evacuation plan.
The whole western hemisphere is being evacuated, they must pack two bags each and go straight to their local high schools and wait for the national guard to give them further instructions.
All survivors will be checked for any bite marks or scratches and will be quarantined if they are infected. For all other survivors, the National Guard will give further information upon arrival.
Well survivors, that’s all the information I have for you. I’m not sure if I’m going to go to my local high school. I don’t know how much of this information I believe. Well stay safe and if I do decide to leave I will let my survivors know.
“I guess that the emergency broadcast was true. Let’s grab our kids and then go straight to our local high school,” Mathew says determined.
“What happens if no one is at the high school?” I question.
“We will decide that if and when that time comes. For now let’s just get to your parents house. Now come on let’s eat something.” Mathew says as he pulls me to the back of the car.
Kat was able to make us some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Thankfully she was smart enough to grab a couple packages of travel silver wear so she smeared everything on the bread with the knife.
It feels good to be this close to home. I just can’t believe how crappy our luck was. The first vacation we get alone turns into the vacation from Hell. Talk about bad luck!
Every minute that goes by is making me more and more impatient. We have not heard from Jennifer or my parents in twenty four hours and it’s scaring me. Mathew said we should be home by tonight and it is already three in the afternoon.
“About another hour we will be home!” I scream with happiness. I recognize where we’re at, We use to take the kids to the theater at the outlet mall.
The kids love it there because we always ate at a fast food joint called In N out Hamburgers. It’s our favorite fast food place to eat at, the delicious Double Double hamburgers, the very messy animal style fries. My mouth is watering just thinking about the delicious smell and taste.
It was always our favorite place to go right after a movie. And if we had time we would walk around the outlet mall before heading home. We haven’t done that in a couple months because of all the overtime I’ve been doing at the hospital.
After what seems like forever, we are finally pulling into my parent’s long dirt driveway. I open my window and stick my head out, just like a dog would. My smile slowly fades away when I see smoke coming from the direction of my parent’s house.
My heart starts to beat really fast, my hands start to shake, my eyes start to water as we get close enough to see the house.
My stomach jumps in my throat when I get a closer look.
The big beautiful yellow house that I grew up in is now destroyed. Every window in the house is broken and the front door is smashed.
I jump out of the car not caring I left Mathew and Kat behind, not caring I left my knife in the car and I have no weapon to defend myself with.
“Alexander, James! Mom, Dad! Jennifer!”I scream as I run straight to the front door and walk inside.
I stop at the entrance and take a look around.
The living room is completely trashed. The coach is on it’s over on its side. The kitchen cabinets are all wide open, completely ransacked of all the food. I don’t see any blood or dead bodies, but I haven’t checked the other rooms yet.
I can hear Mathew and Kat screaming behind me
“Sam! Be careful!”
I ignore their concern and keep looking through the house, I open up the door to the master bedroom and the room is completely torn apart. My parent’s television is upside down on the floor, picture frames are scattered and broken on the floor, their clothes covers the carpet.
I leave the room and rush to the computer room. I open the door to find this room is completely torn apart too. My parent’s computer is on the other side of the room, near the closet.
The picture frames that my mom had specially made, that usual sits on top of a shelf above the computer desk is now in the hallway. I can hear my shoes crush the glass frame beneath my feet.
Where are they? Where could they have gone? I can feel tears running down my face, I’m scared, afraid I may never see my children and parents again.
“Alexander! James!”I scream again.
I run to the last room of the house, the spare room, the room where the kids usually sleep when they spend the night at my parent’s house.
Afraid to open the bedroom door, afraid I may see my worst nightmare come true, hoping to god that I see my kids, alive! I open the door completely…. It’s empty.
Completely and utterly empty.
Their clothes are scattered all over the room. Their toys that I helped pack three days ago lay spread around the room..
On the bed is a stuffed shark that we had bought Alexander two years ago. Alexander can’t sleep without him, he named him Sharke, and Alexander always said he protects him from nightmares.
I grab sharke and hold the dirty old shark close to my heart; it still smells like Alexander, like old Chettos and chocolate.
Mathew comes running into the room.
“Sam, are you okay?” He says as he sits next to me on the bed.
“Where are they Mathew, where are our boys?” I ask as I crawl into a ball and cry.
“I don’t know baby, I don’t know. But we will find them. I promise you, we will find them,” Mathew says sitting next to me on the bed, pulling me into a hug.
“But where baby? Where do we begin to look?”
“We will start looking at home; maybe they were attacked and went back to our house.”
“Okay.” What am I going to do, what happens if they are not at home, then where would they have gone? Where do we look?
The end