The Zombie Virus (Book 1) (28 page)

We walked further from the center of the
shopping district, and signs of civilization began to thin out.
Soon it was only thick pine and hardwood forest with an occasional
home embedded in their midst. We found only the infrequent
abandoned car along the road, and the one that did have its keys in
the dash had a dead battery.

“Steve,” Kera called out from behind me. “I
need a break, my head is spinning.”

We had been on the road for about an hour
since leaving the woods. Our packs must have weighed about
twenty-five pounds and that along with a shotgun would quickly
drain a person’s energy in this heat. Add in the blow Kera had
taken to the head yesterday and I was surprised she was holding up
as well as she was.

We sat down in the shade of the woods at the
edge of the road trying to stay cool in the stifling heat. I pulled
out a bottle of water and shared it with Kera.

“What’s this farm like that we’re going to?”
Kera asked between sips of water.

“There is not much to it, a small three
bedroom farmhouse with a barn and some outbuildings. It’s pretty
much self-sufficient though, as long as we can get the propane tank
filled yearly. I guess I’ll have to figure out how to operate one
of those delivery trucks.”

She handed me back the bottle and I took
another long swig of the warm liquid.

“It’s relatively sparsely populated, which
should mean very few encounters with Loonies,” I continued. “There
are plenty of game animals and next spring we can put in a garden,
which should keep us fed without having to make repeated excursions
into town to raid the grocery stores.”

“Is there a creek?” she asked, sweat running
down her cheeks.

“There’s a big one not far from the
house.”

She smiled. “I bet it’s nice and cold.”

A dip in cold water sounded absolutely
wonderful about now.

We sat in the shade by the side of the road
for a few minutes more and finished off the bottle before hefting
our packs onto our backs and setting off along the road.

“How far do you think we’ve come?” Kera asked
after we had walked for another handful of minutes. She was doing
her best to keep pace beside me.

“I’m guessing about a mile and a half, maybe
two.” I pulled out the Virginia map from my pack’s back pocket and
opened it up as I walked, tracing with my eyes the route we were
on. “The four mile mark should be where this road dead ends into
Route 208.” The map showed Route 208 winding south for about five
miles past the intersection before resuming its western trek toward
Mineral and from there to the interstate east of Charlottesville. I
pointed at the map so Kera could see where we were expecting to
meet Jeremy and Frank. I was reaching behind me to shove the map
into the pack when Kera grabbed my arm stopping me in mid-step.

“We have a visitor,” she whispered, bringing
her shotgun up and pointing the barrel down the road.

A man wearing only dirty white boxers was
walking toward us in the distance. He seemed to be unaware of his
surroundings as he strode along the grassy berm with his head
down.

“Get down!” I whispered to Kera, dropping to
a crouch myself. I went to single point on my rifle and switched on
the sight, thumbing off the safety and bringing it up to my
shoulder.

The Loony was about seventy-five yards away
and still hadn’t seen us yet when I put the holographic reticle
over the center mass of his chest. My finger slowly took up the
slack on the trigger.

“Others will hear the shot,” Kera warned.

“We’ll have to take our chances. If we try to
run and hide it’ll see us.” I waited for the shambling creature to
get closer. I took half a breath and held it, then pulled the
trigger the rest of the way. The gun bucked loudly and the Loony
took another step before stumbling to the ground. I stayed crouched
counting to five, intently watching the collapsed body for any
movement. When there was none, I stood up and started walking
toward the fallen creature. Kera was beside me, scanning along the
tree line with her shotgun.

I kicked over the Loony with the toe of my
boot. The bullet had torn through his sternum without exiting the
body. He must have been dead before he hit the ground. His eyes
peered up at me lifelessly, however, something was different. My
heart squeezed in my chest when I realized what it was. The sclera
of his eyes was stark white.

“Good shot,” Kera praised me, barely pausing
at the body before she continued walking down the road. I just
nodded in return, feeling the bile rise up in my throat.

My God! I just killed a man – not a Loony,
but a man!

I stepped over the body, willing my knees not
to collapse, and followed after her.

Oh shit! Oh shit! What have I done? I killed
a survivor. What was he doing walking out here in only his
boxers?

I would never be able to bring myself to tell
Kera what I had just done. I had just killed a man again, although
this time it wasn’t self-defense, it was murder.

It was early in the afternoon when we
approached the Route 208 intersection. Our stops had become more
frequent as Kera succumbed to fatigue from the heat and her wounds.
What should have taken a few hours to walk was taking considerably
longer.

I put the dead man out of my thoughts,
probably locked away in the same compartment that my grief over
Holly was stashed in. It was something that I could just not deal
with now. I centered my thoughts on finding my son.

The signs of civilization had become more
prevalent again as we got closer to the end of the road, and with
those signs came Loony activity. We were already hugging the tree
line when I stopped Kera.

“Let’s move into the woods,” I said to her. A
large condo community was visible over the tree line not far ahead
of us. I wanted to be as invisible as possible when we skirted it.
I led her into the thick shade and underbrush. Our progress slowed
to a crawl as we pressed forward, silently stopping whenever we
spotted groups of Loonies moving about.

The forest ended at the start of a large
field of tall corn that sat at the top of a gentle rise. We sat in
the cool shade of the trees and stared out across the field to the
intersection. A school, a few stores, banks, and gas stations
littered the area. Loonies were everywhere around the buildings,
staying mostly to the shaded areas.

“Do you see anything?” I asked, straining my
eyes to pick out the truck among the multitude of cars abandoned
and parked around the area.

After a moment she shook her head. “Nothing
that looks like the truck.”

“That doesn’t look like a place I would want
to wait, too many of the infected.”

“Maybe they stopped further down the
road.”

“They had to have. Frank would have found
someplace safer.”

We rested for a few more minutes while I
double checked the two roads for the Ford. When I was absolutely
convinced they weren’t down there I pulled Kera up and we walked
out into the field of tall corn, our ears on alert for any Loonies
in the thick green rows. Dust kicked up in thick puffs from the dry
soil of the corn row as we worked our way to Route 208, which ran
nearly unerringly south past the intersection. We crossed back onto
the road well distant of the crossroad and walked along the
manicured grassy shoulder, always watchful for any movement ahead
of us, or behind us.

The afternoon dragged on and we alternated
walking and resting. I was hopeful that across every dip or turn we
rounded that the Ford would be sitting on the shoulder with my boy
sitting on the tailgate waiting patiently for me. Every time the
road lay empty disappointment set in deeper.

Finally the road dipped into a small valley
and rose up into another crossroads, this one with a dead traffic
signal. Buildings and a housing community surrounded the
intersection, and there amongst a small jumble of stalled cars was
our truck. We were still too far to make out any detail. I
quickened my pace to a slow jog down the sloping road. It was just
after two in the afternoon by my watch, the sun high in the sky and
beating down fiercely. We still had time.

Kera fell behind as I raced up the slope
toward the crossroads. I was desperate to get to my son. The pickup
came into view. It sat with both doors open wide. The tarp had been
removed from over the bed and lay discarded in a jumble on the side
of the road. I didn’t see my son anywhere around the vehicle.

I slowed my pace as I neared the vehicle. It
was parked on the gravel berm. A handful of other vehicles in
various positions around the intersection sat empty and baking in
the heat. When I topped the rise I could see that a battle had
taken place here. Bodies were strewn about the pavement centered
around the pickup. Several were child-sized. I approached
apprehensively, fear rising in my stomach. Shell casings littered
the area around the bodies, they clinked loudly as I shuffled
through them.

I knelt down next to a boy’s body whose head
was a mess of dried blood and gore. The smell of death hung heavy
in the air as I nudged him over with the barrel of the rifle and a
cloud of flies lifted off the corpse. It wasn’t Jeremy. I went to
each in turn. None of the dead were Jeremy or Frank. I said a
silent prayer of thanks.

“Where are they?” Kera asked, striding up
behind me, breathing hard from her exertion.

I shrugged my shoulders and walked toward the
truck, my jaw clenched in anticipation of the worst. There was no
one inside. Shattered glass from the windows still covered the rear
seats from our fight several nights ago, along with dried patches
of blood. Of my son there was no sign. My heart dropped.

At least he wasn’t among the dead, I consoled
myself.

I removed Holly’s rifle and the stuffed pack
and sat them on the front passenger seat. It felt good to be
relieved of their weight. The truck keys stuck solemnly out of the
ignition slot.

Kera walked to the other side of the truck
and laid her shotgun on the driver’s seat, then turned and sat on
the trucks running board and began to cry.

“Where are they?” she muttered through her
tears.

I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t know
where to look next. They had obviously run into a horde of infected
while they were waiting here for us. At least a dozen bodies lay
scattered about the truck. They had fought them off and must have
been forced to abandon the vehicle, but where would they have
gone?

I scanned the area. Several multi-story
office buildings graced the properties to the east and a housing
development lay close to the road behind me to the west. One
three-story brick office building was severely burned and partially
collapsed. Wisps of smoke still wafted into the air from its
smoldering center.

I didn’t see anyone moving. I thought briefly
about calling out loudly for Jeremy, then thought better of it as
that might attract the kind of attention we didn’t want.

By the looks of the bodies, the firefight had
taken place sometime yesterday or last night. Swarms of flies and
the heat were already quickening their decomposition.

I climbed into the cab of the truck and found
the briefcase containing my lab work on the floor and pulled out
the contents, stuffing them absently into my pack.

I walked around to the open truck bed and
looked at all the supplies that Holly, Jeremy and I had packed just
a few short days ago. Several ammo cans lay open with the ammo
scattered about like someone had been in a rush to grab what they
could. I spotted the bag that held our spare magazines, unlatched
its straps, and reached in and grabbed a half dozen full 30 round
mags for the Colt and shoved them in my pants pockets. I also took
two full five round magazines for Kera’s shotgun.

“Are you thirsty?” I called to her. She wiped
her tears away and nodded her head, her sweat matted hair hanging
down over her face like a black veil. I pulled a bottle of water
from the supplies in the truck for each of us and handed her one
when she walked up beside me. She tilted her head back and took
long swigs of the warm, clear liquid. She gave me a forced smile. I
drained my bottle in one long drink then threw the bottle off to
the side of the road.

Holly would have been pissed at my littering,
I thought to myself grimly.

Kera swiped her hair back behind her ears and
looked at me with her bruised face. “Where to now?”

“I don’t know, Kera. Let’s hang out here a
bit and formulate a plan.”

I climbed up and into the truck bed looking
for a travel bag that held some miscellaneous clothing items. After
tossing some supplies aside I found it near the bottom of the pile.
A bullet had pierced the nylon material of the bag, leaving a neat
hole through its top and had passed out the bottom after traversing
the contents. The .308 bullet had mushroomed out against the steel
of the truck bed. I opened the bag and found what I was looking
for. The round had thankfully missed it.

I sat on the edge of the bed and motioned
Kera over as I opened up the large tackle box that held Holly’s
first aid supplies. Kera ambled up beside the truck and looked at
me questioningly.

“Let me get your dressings changed, they’re
starting to look a bit gnarly.”

I unwound the gauze from her head and tossed
it aside. The bandage underneath was stained from bloody lymph
seepage. I gently pulled it off, exposing the crusty looking wound
with the butterfly bandages still holding it tightly together. It
looked like it was healing well with no signs of infection. The cut
on her nose was healing nicely also.

“How does it look?” she asked while I cleaned
her wounds with rubbing alcohol and put topical antibiotic cream
and fresh band aids across them.

“You’re healing nicely,” I replied, smiling
at her. “You’ll probably have a bit of a scar on your forehead and
nose, but they won’t be that noticeable. How does your lip feel?”
Her lip had also scabbed nicely and was healing faster than the
other wounds.