Posted on June 22, 2007

Part 12

There weren’t many cars on the freeway. Most people, when faced with the prospect of widespread death, shied away from road trips, heading home instead to care for immediate family—or just to hole up in the house and hope the disaster somehow missed them. It’s exactly what Elliot had done. This meant that the long stretches of America between the centers of population were empty, vast stretches of grass and trees and farms, viewed from curves of road unclogged by the normal rush of transit. The scene was peace and so Elliot drove, letting his thoughts stumble around memories of his wife and child, the events of the last several months, and the sudden attack earlier in the day. He didn’t bother Evajean, figuring she was doing much the same as he, and they were comfortable.

The still air inside the truck was eventually broken by a quick conversation about how long they’d drive today and where they’d stop for the night. Elliot wanted to go late and keep going until the threat of sleep was too great. If that meant a night in the truck, they’d manage. Evajean couldn’t take over for him. She’d never learned to drive a stick and Elliot had insisted on getting one when he and Clarine had been out shopping for this truck. “I’m gonna drive something like that,” he’d said, “the least I can do is try to make it fun.”

* * *

Miles later, Elliot squinted his eyes and leaned forward over the steering wheel. “The fuck?” he said.

“Huh?” Evajean said. She’d fallen asleep, the dog on her lap, and so had missed the thinning of signs of civilization as they got closer to the increased upward slope of the Appalachians. She’s also missed what Elliot was looking at now: a group of five people, moving along the side of the road up ahead in an odd, shuffling jog, arms around each other’s shoulders like carolers lost from a Christmas party.

“Look,” Elliot said, pointing across the dash. “I think that’s more of them.”

Evajean sat up and peered through truck’s windshield, hand held over her eyes to blog the sun. The puppy stood up awkwardly and sneezed. “More zombies,” Evajean said.

Elliot blinked. He hadn’t thought of them as that before, but she was right. That’s exactly what these things on the road were, exactly what the crazy woman in Wal-Mart had been. Zombies. Maybe not walking dead but certainly mindless crazies.

“I think so,” he said. “I’m just going to drive past.”

“You mean instead of stop?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t think we should stop.”

So they didn’t and the tiny swarm turned their heads simultaneously to watch them as they drove by, all five chattering in their characteristic fashion.

“This is just strange,” Evajean said as the zombies disappeared from the rearview. “Why didn’t we see any of them before?”

“Don’t know,” he said.

A quarter of an hour later they saw more of them. Twenty or so, wandering in that weird gait, were in the left lane, heading in the same direction as Elliot and Evajean. These they passed as well, and the next batch, too, this time maybe fifty shambling and talking at nothing as they walked.

Soon, Elliot had to slow to avoid them. The road was thick with people, all of them clearly as mad as the Wal-Mart lady, sweeping out across the plane toward them in a great wave. It looked like the population of an entire town migrating through the Virginia countryside. The infected moved erratically, often walking into each other or tripping, but they all were alert and focused. Elliot and Evajean stared and Elliot slowed the truck like they were passing an accident.

“Don’t,” Evajean said, but Elliot wasn’t listing. He couldn’t count their number, had no real idea how many were coming toward the vehicle, but the column was wide and long. There were men and women of every age and children, too. Some looked clean and well dressed, like they’d just headed out for a peaceful stroll, while others were injured, limping, clothes torn and dirtied. Yet all of them were careful to avoid the truck, to stop walking long enough to let is pass. They didn’t make eye contact with the two passengers, didn’t seem to acknowledge them at all, in fact, at least nothing beyond recognizing the danger of the truck.

After half a minute the crowd thinned and soon Elliot and Evajean were driving through empty scenery again, too stunned to talk about what they’d just seen.

* * *

The day’s light had dimmed and the highway was snaking through the gentle curves of the Appalachians when they ran into the boy.

Elliot had been fighting the weight of his eyelids and the need of his head to drop onto the comfortable support of the seat belt strap by his ear when Evajean screamed.

“Look out!”

He hit the breaks and swerved, not paying much attention to what he was doing, and startled out of drowsiness. At first he didn’t see anything, just the arc of the road and the trees bordering it on either side. But then, as Evajean frantically repeated her command, he saw the boy.

He was walking out from between the trees and toward the road, head shaking violently, his path confused. The truck was skidding very nearly sideways now, and as Elliot joined Evajean in what had become little more than wordless shouting, the rear end of the vehicle, still moving at considerable speed, slammed into the boy.

They could both hear the impact, even over their own voices and the barking of the puppy, and the sound was terrible. There was a loud bang and a drawn out crunch, and then the truck was off the road and whipping around directly at the trees. This second collision, far from being merely audible, entirely drowned out everything else.