Sometimes We Ran (Book 1) Page 2

  The back of her head was mostly gone as well. How the hell was she still walking around? Some of these things can be tough customers. I’ve seen a few with missing limbs crawling on the ground to find their next meal. Others had the skin mostly peeled from their bodies, their skeletons exposed like a realistic Halloween costume. Sometimes, they’re burned or crushed beyond recognition, but still walking around and feeding. Then there were the dogs.

  Nobody figured that dogs could turn. They ate infected meat from the ones walking around, and then they turned into undead dogs. The turned dogs were always bad news. They’re a hell of a lot faster, and they work in groups. It’s good old-fashioned nightmare fuel. You must always avoid the dogs.

  I followed the little girl zombie for a few seconds, getting ready to blow her rotting brains out. I also looked around to see if she was alone. I didn’t want any of her undead buddies sneaking up on me. It was just her and me in this former gas station. A long time ago, people would stop here on the way to work to gas up their cars and continue on with their ordinary lives. Mom and Dad would fill up their coffee cups with inexpensive brew and the kids would buy their sugary snacks. Now the only remaining cars are the stripped hulks abandoned here when the fuel ran out. The coffee and sugary snacks are long gone. Mom and Dad and the kids are dead, or walking around feeding on the living as one big happy zombie family.

  It really hurts to think about the old world, before it all went bad.

  The little girl zombie stumbled, and fell at my feet. She reached for me in hunger. It might have been my imagination, but I almost saw her begging me to kill her and put her out of her misery. I put the gun up to her head. I wanted to tell her it would be okay, and that her perpetual nightmare was finally over. They are never grateful. They’re just animals, living only to feed. I pulled the trigger, and her head exploded like an overripe melon.

  Scratch another Yellow-Eye.

  I turned my attention to the gas station. I took a quick look around to see if there are any more nasty surprises inside. You can never be too careful. Not in this new world.

  The building was clear. The place, a virtual time capsule, was frozen at the exact time the stuff hit the fan. All the gas was, of course, gone. Also gone was most of the food and water. What was left was either spoiled and useless or spread on the ground. The floor was a macabre mixture of smashed food, garbage, and dried blood. A few spent shotgun shells were scattered on the black-and-white tiled floor. This place must have been a war zone when everybody tried to find safety. I could almost see the throng of people trying to buy or steal anything that wasn’t tied down. The first few days of the outbreak were pure hell. I didn’t find much: a few unopened bottles of water and a few batteries. Everything else was useless. The register was crammed full of old twenty dollar bills. Maybe someone could use them as toilet paper.

  I found a few unopened packages of beef jerky near the cash register. Beef jerky is not my favorite, but you can’t pass up a meal when it presents itself. I bit off a sizable portion, and started to chew. The dried meat was salty and felt a little like shoe leather in my mouth. I ignored the horrible taste, and swallowed. It went down hard, but the nourishment was welcome. I threw a few packages in my backpack. It might come in handy someday. I finished my little snack, and then started poking around the counter looking for more goodies.

  I heard a noise behind me. Without thinking, I turned around with my handgun already drawn. All these weeks on the road running from the undead have honed my skills to a fine point. The slightest noise gets me ready for battle.

  It’s only a cat. I’ve drawn my weapon on a skinny, little gray cat with a big round face trying to eat a bloated sugar doughnut on the floor. One of its paws was mangled beyond repair. Like me, this little guy has had to struggle a bit to survive.

  So far, all the cats that I have encountered have been normal. I bent down, and extended my hand palm up to show that I was friendly. The cat would have nothing of it, and arched its back. It showed its teeth and howled a little bit. I guess it had gone a little feral.

  Okay, little fella. I’ll leave you alone. Just to show him I wasn’t a bad guy, I ripped a few pieces of beef jerky into bite-sized chunks, and dropped them in front of the cat’s nose. Hunger overcame fear, and it pounced on the small meal like a playful kitten. Enjoy, little buddy. Maybe one day you can help me out of a jam. I waved goodbye to my little feline companion, and walked outside into the fading sunlight.

  I thought about staying the night here. My legs and back were aching, and I could use a nice long rest. However, the little girl zombie may not have been alone. I decided to walk on down the road. When it gets dark, I’ll find a place to bed down and rest. You do not want to travel at night. Things get much worse at night.

  As a walked away from the gas station, I noticed the sign It said $3.58/gallon for regular unleaded. Not a bad price for gas during an apocalypse.

  Chapter 2

  Another Day On the Road

  Another bad thing about the end of the world: the dreams.

  Cities burning. Long lines of the undead walking out of them. I am alone with a bow and arrow, trying to put them down. It’s not working.

  Slowly they approach. As they get closer, I recognize my Mom and sister. My Dad shows up as well, although he died long before the outbreak. I fire arrow after arrow, but they keep coming. I am running out of arrows and the situation is grim. Then I catch a glimpse of her.

  It’s Gia, the woman I married. Her face is nothing more than a skull, but it’s her. I know the dress she’s wearing and I smell her body spray. She always hated snooty perfume. She gets closer and closer. Her jaws open to take a bite as the other undead raise their voices in a shrill shriek of victory.

  And then …

  I jump awake from the nightmare. I was back in the real world, covered in a thin film of sweat with my heart pounding in my chest. It’s okay. It was only a dream. I got up and took a look around. The sun was just coming up. It was that between-time in the early morning; not quite light, but with the night and all its horrors fading away. Now I remember. After my little sightseeing tour of the gas station, I found this little sanctuary. I walked a few more miles down the road till the sun started going down, and then stopped here for a little rest. Like I said, you don’t want to travel at night.

  It was an automobile body shop. The doors to the service bays were sturdy and somewhat zombie-proof. It was a good place to stay the night. In one of the bays was a really slick American muscle car that was just about complete. It was a really nice car that even looked drivable. I thought about taking it, but what do I do about gas and oil? Not to mention it wasn’t exactly subtle, painted bright orange and all. I bet the exhaust could wake the dead.

  Wake the dead. That’s a good one.

  I opened the sturdy American-built steel door and sat inside. It even smelled new. This would have been a great car for a cruise-in or car show. Speeding down the road with your best girl at your side. Really sad. It’s going to sit here, maybe forever, till it rusts back into the earth. I debated about taking this glorious machine out for a ride. (Hey, if you have to fight the undead, might as well do it in style.) The fact is, though, the car was a liability. The loud exhaust would attract too much attention from bad people, both living and dead. As a former car guy, I decided to try to slow down the ravages of Mother Nature. I rooted around the shop, found a tarp, and covered up the sleeping beast. Maybe someone in the future can put this dinosaur from a simpler time to good use.

  My thoughts turned to breakfast. I grabbed my backpack and took an inventory. A couple cans of vegetables and assorted soups, the bags of beef jerky from the gas station last night, a couple of candy bars, oatmeal cream pies, crackers, and a half jar of peanut butter were stuffed in my backpack. A few rolls of mints and a few bottles of water, too. It didn’t seem like enough. I was going to have to find more. Easy-to-find foodstuffs were getting a little rare. Most of the ready made and canned foods was already us
ed up. You could usually find more on the interstate, what with all the abandoned trucks and cars, but that’s dangerous. The undead really liked the interstate, so food runs could be suicide.

  I settled for crackers and peanut butter. A small meal, but it felt like Thanksgiving.

  Actually, I was lucky. I had at least a little food to keep me going. There were reports of people resorting to dogs and cats after the food ran out. After that, people turned to rats and mice. After the rats and mice ran out, there were reports of cannibalism. That was mostly in the big cities. Kind of glad I didn’t see any of that. I think I’d rather put a bullet in my brain than eat my neighbor.

  After breakfast, I always tried to give my weapons a quick once-over. I looked over my handgun first. Clean and ready to go. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what kind of gun I have been using, but it has been flawless so far. I “liberated” it from a gun dealer along with a few boxes of hollow-point bullets. My rifle was next. Again, I do not know what type, but I believe it was some kind of semi-automatic. I took it off a dead policeman. Actually it was a mostly dead policeman. The ammunition is tougher to find, so I try to use the weapon sparingly. Clean and fully loaded, it’s ready to go as well. I didn’t know anything about guns before all this stuff happened, but I learned quick. If you don’t learn quickly, you die out here.

  Next are my edged weapons. I carry a large knife and a modern tomahawk. The tomahawk is all kinds of cool; hardened steel with a shiny chrome finish. It has a very sharp axe head, good for hacking and chopping. The other side comes to a sharp point, good for piercing soft, undead skulls. It’s a great weapon. It’s saved my life more times than I can count.

  I also had a secret knife enclosed in a flap in the bottom of my backpack. It was a small folding job with a sharp blade and a cool carbon-fiber handle. I reached into my backpack, and felt the small lump in the bottom that reassured me it was still there.

  It was my last chance, close-in weapon in case things got really bad. It could be shoved into a zombie’s eyesocket or cut the throat of a living adversary. So far, it has never seen the light of day.

  Time to go. It would be nice to stay in the body shop. It seems relatively safe and out of the way. The truth is, you have to keep moving or the undead will find you. I don’t know how, but they always seem to find my nighttime hiding places no matter how secure they seem. You have to keep moving to survive. Even as I stood outside ready to start walking again, I saw a few scattered zombies in the distance walking up the road towards the shop. Looks like they found me again. I take care to try and get rid of all the evidence that someone camped here, and then hit the road.

  It was really a nice morning. What month was it? October? I lost track of days long ago. The air was cool, with a faint wisp of dewy fog hanging over the grass. If it weren’t for the zombies, it would have been a great day for a drive in the country. How long has it been since normal? Eight months, maybe. Somehow it seems longer. I remember sitting at my desk at home, working, when strange reports of group violence started coming up on the news. I mostly ignored them and continued to work. I had a deadline, and my client was waiting. My wife Gia kept calling me, asking what we should do. I told her I didn’t know what to do. Besides, it would probably blow over. Then the reports got even more serious.

  The violence got worse, and then it spread. Suddenly the army got called out, and they began telling people to go to designated shelters like schools and hospitals. Then the world really turned upside down.

  The designated shelters became zombie breeding grounds. One infected human could start an outbreak in the shelter. Large groups would then break out and roam the countryside looking for food. Things rapidly got out of control. Governments fell, cities burned, and the trappings of society quickly fell apart. After the Internet and power grid fell, it was panic time. The highways quickly clogged, and then became zombie buffets. It was pure hell. During all the chaos, Gia made one last call. She was going to try and leave work and go to a shelter. It was the last time I talked to her or any living person on my cellphone. I never saw her again. By the time I got to the shelter, it was empty. I only had time to collect a few supplies and weapons and get the hell out of town before it was overrun.

  I hung around my hometown for a while looking for Gia, but I never found her. Then I walked around nearby towns for a few weeks looking for any normality. I found nothing but dead towns, hungry zombies, and desperate survivors.

  One day, I started walking west. It was the only logical direction left. The other directions were all dead and gone. I’ve been walking ever since looking for a safe place and surviving day-to-day for Gia. Maybe she’s alive somewhere, but I don’t hold out much hope. She is probably dead or one of those things. After seeing what these things are like, I really hope she’s dead.

  Chapter 3

  Claire

  I walked for a few hours till I found another gas station. That’s how I measured my walking. I go from gas station to gas station. Usually I find some useful stuff, but as I got further and further away from my hometown, the stations get emptier. I considered making a switch to supermarkets or mini malls for my distance markers.

  My legs and feet were burning with dull pain. I didn’t know if it was middle age, or the new boots I was wearing. It was my third, no, fourth pair since the outbreak. I carefully leaned my rifle against a nearby gas pump, and removed my right boot to relieve some of the pain. I had a really strange thought that my right foot was bigger than my left, or maybe the boot was a little smaller.

  As I leaned against one of the gas pumps rubbing my aching foot, I began to miss my car again.

  It was quite an automobile, a bright red sporty job with a convertible top and black interior. I fitted a performance exhaust, so it roared like a lion when I stepped on the gas. I don’t know if it added a single horsepower, but that exhaust was pure sex. My poor car did not deserve its fate. I had to abandon it at the school/shelter when an army of the undead broke through the chain link fence to feed upon the survivors in the parking lot. I broke from the car and ran. I hope somebody somewhere is getting some use out of my abandoned car. Likely it’s still sitting there as masses of zombies orbit it for a meal. Yeah, it deserved better than that. Gia loved that car. She looked real good in it, too. She loved to put the top down and take long rides on mountain roads. Her long red hair flowed in the breeze as we sped along burning expensive premium unleaded. I used to sit in the driver’s seat and wonder how I got this beautiful creature to marry me. My goofy ass was able to snag this goddess. For God’s sake, we met on an Internet dating site.

  Tears welled up in my eyes, but I stopped them cold. You can’t get too sentimental about the old days when things were normal. You get sentimental, you go soft, and then you give up. Then little girl zombies come in the night and eat your guts out.

  I put my boot back on and turned my attention to the abandoned gas station. It was picked clean. The pumps were even stripped of all their parts. Why would anyone steal gas pump parts? I guess nothing made sense at the end. I stopped to ponder this thought, when something in the grass caught my eye. It turned out to be a silver plated revolver with rubber handles. It was pretty small, around a .38 caliber or so. Although not a great weapon against a crowd of undead, it might make a nice last resort weapon. When all hope is lost and the bad guys are closing in, it could serve as a good close-in gun. Or if things went real bad, a great way to end it all. I shivered at that thought.

  I picked it up and saw that it was fairly clean and fully loaded. The former owner never fired a shot. I stuck it in one of the pockets of my cargo pants and started to walk on down the road. There were no bad guys at the gas station, for which I was thankful. The station had been a nice, refreshing break. It might have been my imagination, but the numbers of the undead seemed to be dropping. The little girl zombie I offed last night was the first close encounter in a while. Most of the time, I saw small groups of two or three staggering on the road. The really large
groups had evaporated. Maybe they’re going away. Maybe things can start to get back to normal.

  I wasn’t finding too many survivors either. All the places I stopped at were empty. I sometimes found evidence of a survivor, but most of the time, the discarded belongings were covered in dust and mold from months of disuse. The last living person I encountered was another guy on the road who tried to take my stuff. It didn’t end well. I was starting to think I was the last living being on earth.

  Where was everybody? Maybe they were hiding, or trying to build a community somewhere. I wish I could find a friendly community or two. I was getting a little lonely.

  So lonely in fact that I would talk to myself or other inanimate objects to occupy my mind. I also made up games like counting my steps as I walked, or making lists of objects in my mind to check off like road bingo. Anything to keep myself sane and walking. I didn’t think I was crazy …yet.

  Sometimes though the post-zombie world can be too quiet. So quiet in fact, that you can actually hear your inner voice. At first, the voice encourages you to keep going. It says you’re doing well, and everything will be okay. After a while, the voice starts to turn. It tells you all hope is lost. It tells you to lie down.

  It tells you to give up. That little voice had been getting a little louder as of late.

  Just keep walking. There’s got to be people and safety somewhere. I kept telling myself that, over and over.

  I walked a few more miles into the outskirts of a small town. My grip tightened on my rifle, and my senses went into overdrive. Small towns could be bad news. Large groups of undead and turned dogs sometimes congregated in small towns. Before you knew it, you were running for your life from a large group. It happened to me before, and it’s not a pleasant experience.

  An intersection appeared ahead of me, two state roads crossing on the outskirts of town. Beyond the intersection were brick buildings on either side of the road. When the town was younger the buildings were banks, clothing shops, and delis. Now, they were probably upscale shops and restaurants after a small-town urban renewal. I could make out new parking spots and potted trees lining the street. To my right was a busted-up shopping mall. To my left was a garage and junk yard. Plenty of places for old Mr. Zombie to hide and pounce.