The Event: The Beginning (8 page)

              Rifles fired, dropping several of them. I saw Mike come out with a shotgun, firing close to them, destroying the heads with each shot. He dropped five of them before he ran out of ammo, slammed the butt of the gun into the nose of another, then dropped it and pulled out a machete. He was fairly close to us, so we made our way to him to help him out. Others fired from inside the vehicles so we made sure we kept a clear line of fire for them.

              By the time we had cleared them out, I remembered something I had noticed that I wanted to clarify before we took off. Once we realized they were all dead, I waved for people to come out. I told several men to gather them up and burn them, just to be sure. I told some to finish the search for gas, and then I motioned for Roger and Dave to follow me so I could look at something.

              "I saw something during the fight I wanted to check on. Remember that one that bit me? While I was trying to shake it off, I noticed it looked like it had claws, and almost fangs for teeth." I told them as we walked back to where I had fought that one.

              "How could that be?" Dave asked me.

              "I don’t know, that’s why I want to look again. Maybe I just saw things in the heat of battle.” I answered. If these things had started to mutate, there was no telling where it would end.

              We came to the body first, so we rolled it over and I lifted up its hands. Sure enough, it looked like the finger bones were coming out of the fingertips to act as claws. We all just looked at each other, not sure what to make of that. I stood and stepped over the head. I crouched down, not sure if I really wanted to roll it over or not. The other two knelt down around it as well, so I looked at them then reached down and turned it over. The mouth was open, but I used my knife to pry it open further. Again, I was right, the teeth were pointer than normal human teeth. We couldn’t tell if it was a mutation, or if maybe the thing was trying to eat something hard and filed its teeth down that way. I stood and turned away.

              "So what does this mean? Do you think it could just be an aberration, or could they all mutate to some degree?" Dave asked me.

              "I don’t know. It doesn’t change my plan. We still get to the ship. If anything, it only makes me want to get there sooner. You’ve seen that some of them are running, some seem a little stronger, now some are mutating. Let’s finish getting the gas and get out of here.” I said, brooding on my own thoughts. They both looked at each other, then turned and walked back to get their teams in order and finish gathering what we stopped here for in the first place.

              "What's going on?" Jeff asked, walking up to me. I looked up and saw Michelle hugging the girls outside of the RV, and Jeff looking at me like he knew where my thoughts were.

              "Look at this. They are mutating. Some are now faster, stronger, and now they are getting claws and fangs." I told him, pointing back to the body and telling him what we found.

              "So what do we do about it?" he asked, sighing.

              "Gather the drivers. We're not stopping for the night, we are driving straight through. I want to be at the naval base by the end of the day tomorrow. I don’t care what objections there are, we are not stopping unless it's to scrounge fuel.” I said. I didn’t want to be in charge, but since most of them let me be, I decided to start acting like it. This was my plan after all, and they were all trusting me to get them to some form of safety. Jeff just looked at me for a minute, then nodded his head, smiled, and turned to gather those that could drive the RV's. Not everyone could drive something that big.

              I looked out away from the group down the road. I couldn’t believe that I was the one making decisions for a group like this. I knew I could do it with a small group, but now I had around a hundred people looking to me. I had a few I trusted here to help me make decisions and keep me in line. I turned and looked back at the group, watching the preparations for a little, seeing the ones gathering the gas, the watchers on top of the RV's, and the kids still being kids. This was such a weird situation to be in, no one really had any idea what to do, and I myself was just winging it. My only hope, and I wouldn’t admit it even to Jeff, was to get everyone to the ship safe. After that I had no idea really.

              I shook my head and headed towards the group to help load. I had to trust the watchers would see any infected or bands of raiders. I knew there would be other dangers than just infected. We had already seen what some people were capable of. No law enforcement anymore meant that those so inclined could just take whatever they wanted, from whoever or where ever they wanted. No emergency medical services, or firemen, all of the things put in place to make us feel, and be, safe, were now gone. It was up to us to make our own safety.

              It was now almost full dark, and I knew if there were more around they would be coming out soon. I had gathered the drivers inside the circle of vehicles along with my inner circle and we discussed our next plan.

              "Alright, it's already dark, so finding a place to camp would be difficult. I also don't want to start a panic, so do not repeat what I'm about to tell you. During the fight, I noticed something that I went back and verified later. One of the infected had claws. It appeared that its finger bones were growing out of its fingertips. Now I'm not sure if that meant the skin was simply shrinking and pulling back, or if the bones really were growing longer. Either way, they have claws of a sort. Also, its teeth were almost filed down they were so pointy, all of them. I propose we finish filling the tanks, get out of here, and just keep rolling. I want two drivers in each vehicle to rotate. That way we can keep moving and only have to stop for fuel or change drivers. We will stop and fill the water tanks next time we come to someplace to do that, as well as empty the waste. I want everyone to stay close, and we are not going to top 60 mph, got it? If we don't stop, we can be in Norfolk by dark tomorrow and hopefully already onboard ship. Does anyone have any objections?" I looked at each of them in turn as I spoke. I wanted to know if I was really leading this group, or if they were just waiting for an opportunity to take off. They all looked at each other, then back at me.

              "It sounds like a plan to us.” Bob said. The rest just shook their heads, some offered some kind of agreement, but everyone was on board for the plan.

              "Good. Let's get fueled so we can get out of here.” I said, effectively ending the meeting. We all walked back to our respective vehicles and climbed in. Michelle stepped out as Jeff and I came up close to mine.

              "What's going on?" she asked, looking from me to Jeff. She knew one of us was bound to tell her.

              "We are heading out. Sheldon has decided not to stop anymore, but head straight to Norfolk. One of those things that attacked us had started to mutate. We need somewhere safe, and fast.” Jeff told her.

              "Michelle, I want you to ride with the girls. There is only one other qualified driver that can drive that rig, and I want two drivers in each vehicle so we don't have to stop except to switch drivers or re-fuel. If you are watching the kids, that's one less thing I have to worry about, deal?" I asked her. I figured she would do it if I told her to, but I wanted her to kind of think it was her idea.

              "Alright, I can do that.” she said, hugging her arms around herself and then turning to go back into the RV.

              "What was the other CDL driver’s name, Jerry?" I asked him.

              "Something like that, I'll go find him. Let's just get this done, shall we?" he answered back. We shook hands, he turned to head towards his rig, and I climbed on the RV. I made sure everyone was safe, no injuries, and that we still had a decent inventory of food and ammo. Once that was done, I went to the driver's seat and fired it up. I radioed to all drivers and made sure everyone was ready. I waited until Jeff was set and passed, then hit the gas.

              We headed north on highway 641 back towards I-40. This was the first time we had been out at night since it all started and we gathered in the hospital. I radioed Jeff and told him to keep a sharp eye out, we probably wouldn't see any roadblocks until we were right up on them.

              Luckily we made it all the way back to I-40 without seeing any infected, raiders, or roadblocks. I wished it would be that easy all the way to Norfolk, but I knew it wouldn't be. We turned east once more on 40. I stayed close to Jeff, off to one side so he could see me. I looked in the mirror and it appeared the rest were also in a staggered pattern as well, but I radioed to all drivers just to make sure. It was the best way to stay close to each other without any one vehicle tailgating another.

              By now it was pushing nine o'clock, and I figured we wouldn't hit Nashville now until probably midnight. I knew I wouldn't be able to drive that much longer, so I told Jeff to stop in about another hour so we could switch drivers. I didn't want anyone getting too sleepy.

              I glanced back and saw Michelle and the girls sleeping already on the couch, leaning up against each other. We also had two of Jeff's kids, Dustin and Nathan, as well as three other adults. It was crowded, but so were all the other RV's. We rolled along, not seeing any infected moving on the highway, but every so often we would see eyeballs reflecting our lights just off into the trees. I saw Jeff's brake lights before I heard the radio crackle.

              "We got something in the road up ahead.” he said, slowing down. He moved off to the left, so I pulled up on his right so I could see what was going on. As he stopped, I pulled even with the cab and stopped the RV. It appeared to be a tree that fell over, and some cars hit it. I looked like a RV also hit it. There was quite a bit of debris on the road. I looked back and saw the rest of the group had tightened up like I asked them too, and everyone killed the lights, including Jeff and myself.

              I got out, slowly, listening carefully, with my swords and a flashlight. I told Michelle and the girls to stay in here and keep it locked. I asked for a few men to come with me, and everyone in the vehicles to keep them locked tight. With no engine noise, all we heard was the slight sound of wind, and insects. The small group of us that got out made our way to the debris field, only turning on our lights when we got close.

              "Well, shit, now what?" Jeff asked.

              "Think we can move all this crap?"  Aaron asked. He was one of the guys we picked up with Leni's group. He seemed pretty level headed, and easy to get along with.

              "Most of the cars and major debris seem to be on this right side. We should be able to clean the rest off of the left side and pass over there. With those scorch marks, I'm guessing none of them have any gas left in them to scrounge though.” Dave said.

              "Ok. Let's get a few more men out here to help. I don't want to be caught with our backs turned cleaning. I want guards.” I said. I sent Aaron and Kelly, another man from Leni's group, back to gather more hands to help. Jeff, Dave and I started for the debris field to start moving things. Most of the debris was small, so it was easy to pick up and throw off the road. I picked up a tire and rolled it towards the grass, then helped Dave pick up a hood and carry it over to the side. A few wires, a couple of shocks, it was likely that most of this stuff was only over here because one or two of the cars exploded while burning.

              Aaron and Kelly walked up to us with eight more men with weapons and started to help, while the new eight took positions looking out to make sure we didn’t have anyone sneak up on us. We finished cleaning out a wide enough area for the rig and RV's to fit through and I told everyone to head back and get back in the RV's. I waited until Jeff fired up the rig before turning mine over, and I verified via the radio that everyone else was ready. I informed the drivers they would need to go single file through the clear area, but I wanted the stagger pattern resumed once we were through.

              "Sheldon, your hour time limit is about to end. How much longer do you want to go?" Jeff asked me. I radioed to others to ask how sleepy they current drivers were. Once I got an answer from all of them, I answered Jeff back.

              "The other drivers all say their good for now, and so am I. How much longer can you go?" I asked him.

              "I'm good for another hour I guess. We should be an hour out of Nashville by then. It would be good to have fresh drivers going through there." He told me.

              "Ok. An hour it is." I replied.

              We rolled on for that last hour with no further incidents. According to the map, we should only be about thirty minutes outside Nashville. I saw a sign for a truck stop and radioed Jeff to stop. He started pulling over to the side to take the exit.

              Making the turn onto the service road to go to the truck stop, we couldn’t really see anything. Very little moon or starlight out made it difficult to see anything past our lights. Jeff pulled into the truck stop and parked between the pumps and the building. I told the other drivers I wanted a perimeter with the RV's so we made an arc around the rig as best we could with the doors pointing inside. Once a driver was in position, they killed the lights and engines. Once it was all dark and quiet, we waited our customary ten minutes.