Aftermath (Book 1): Only The Head Will Take Them Down (8 page)

The two dropped into a world of silence, as John went from looking ahead, to inspecting the map resting on the steering wheel, and occasionally to a brief fit of pain, during which Andrew would tense up, ready to take control of the wheel if needed. Eventually, the silence was broken.
“There’s a patch of w…woodland up ahead. Don’t look too thick but should be enough to cover us up f-for a f-f-few minutes. Have a look r…round for some kind’a first aid kit or something”, John instructed, with an astounding level of calm in his voice that if anything, put Andrew
more
on edge.
Andrew complied, immediately undoing his seatbelt in order to start scouring the truck for anything that might be of use, and beginning the process of checking every inch from the glove compartment to the roof lining, before eventually ducking into the rear seats to continue his search.

After some time he emerged once more, still carefully keeping his distance from John, as if expecting him to exact revenge at any moment.
“Got a first aid kit!”, he said, unable to hide the excitement – or the fear – in his voice. “Only got plasters and bandages, but should be enough right?”, he asked.
“Almost, just need something to ste…sterilise it with”, John replied, “Any liquor back there?”, he added, as he briefly removed his hand from the wound, inspecting the damage in the rear view mirror.
“I saw a bottle of vodka I think, that be okay?”, Andrew timidly inquired, like a school child unsure if the answer they were giving was even close to correct.
“That’ll do, get that, treeline is just up ahead”, John instructed, noticing the sight of tree-tops a little further along the road.

Cutting the engine well in advance – so as to reduce the noise made on arrival – John let the truck roll up to an area of freeway alongside the trees, the pair both attempting to spot the slightest sign of movement, but quickly concluding there to be none. With no wrecks in sight, it was unlikely many people had ‘turned’ in the area, and so the conclusion wasn’t actually all that far-fetched. Applying the parking brake and removing the keys, John stepped out of the truck and headed for the trees, Ruger drawn in one hand, the other still applying pressure to his wound. Following closely behind, Andrew was armed somewhat differently, a typically green coloured first-aid bag held in one hand and a half drank bottle of supermarket-brand vodka in the other.

Arriving at the treeline first, John cautiously descended into the embrace of its cover, stopping a few metres in to survey the area. On completion, he dropped to one knee, ready and waiting to bark instructions at his companion, who arrived seconds later.

“I’m gonna’ lie down, I want you to pour the vodka over the w…wound, now I’m gonna’ scream like hell when you do it, but you need to keep g-going, get as much in as possible. Then let it run off, and put a couple of those big p…plasters on, rip a few up and put ‘em all around the cut so it’s covered. You follow so far?”, John paused to await a response, as well as to regain some breath.
“I guess so, I…”, Andrew hesitated, “I’m really not cut out for this sort of thing!”, he replied feverishly.
“Well right now you need to be”, John responded, dismissing his doubts. “Once the plasters are on, w…wrap those bandages over to keep everything on tight. Wrap ‘em anyway you can think of that puts pressure right on the wound, I’ll help you out with that bit but you need to take the lead on this. Now I’ma’ take the pressure off right now and if it’s stopped bleeding, we’re good to go, got it?”, John said finally.
“What if it hasn’t stopped bleeding?”, Andrew asked.
“Then I’ll have to give you a crash course in stitching a wound”, John answered sternly.

Andrew’s face went white, the thought of having to stich a wound was almost more than he could bear, after all, he was far from comfortable in this sort of situation at the best of times. In addition, their location – something they knew little about aside from the fact it was a grouping of trees most likely not far from the undead – wasn’t making anything any easier.

John slowly began to remove his hand from the blood drenched wound – an action that seemed to occur in slow motion to both pairs of watching eyes – Andrew letting out a sigh of relief at the sight of an admittedly still bleeding, but not gushing wound. It didn’t appear to need stiches, which meant things could quickly progress. John dropped carefully to the floor. Andrew began preparing himself for the procedure, unscrewing the Vodka cap and taking a swig himself – an action that his clenched face showed he immediately regretted – and getting the plasters and bandages out of the first aid kit. In the meantime, John removed a sock and stuffed it into his mouth with his free hand, a disgusting act that was sadly required, if the two had any hope of staying quiet. Finally, John gave Andrew a nod, and the pouring began.

The screams were loud, even with the sock in place. Andrew had no doubt that had he been allowed to scream freely, John’s mouth alone would have brought a whole horde of those things out of every corner of that treeline. But as the vodka ran dry, and Andrew watched John go through the various stages of extreme pain, he thanked his lucky stars that none had come, as he was certain that he couldn’t have handled
them
too.

Dropping the bottle to the floor, Andrew withdrew a series of large plasters, and began chopping the ends off of them using his recently acquired kitchen knife. Before long, he was able to cover every part of the facial laceration, and judging by a lack of added pain on John’s barely conscious face, he was confident that he had done so correctly. Finally, Andrew took out the bandages, and began wrapping them around John’s head, each in a variety of directions. Strip by strip, he slowly increased the pressure on the wound, keen to ensure that the end product would be effective for as long as possible, and not require Andrew to go through the experience again.

Leaning back from John to admire his work, Andrew felt his job as medic was just about complete. But as he saw his patients eyes softly close, he began to fear that his job as chauffer was just beginning. John appeared to have passed out from the pain, somewhat understandably so, which meant that it was now time for Andrew to take over.

Chapter 8: Where are we?

As he opened his eyes – his eyelids feeling heavier than ever – John felt almost shocked at the realisation he was alive, albeit in a considerable amount of pain. Despite the many doubts he had about his companion, Andrew had evidently managed not only to keep him alive, but to move him clear of their previously dangerous surroundings.

Looking around – his eyes still adjusting to the light – he couldn’t help but be confused by his new surroundings, sitting there in the trucks passenger seat. They appeared to have stopped in some sort of sleazy looking gas station, the kind that charged twice the going rate because it was on the side of a freeway. Once his eyes had completely adjusted and he’d gotten his bearings though, John couldn’t help but notice an important factor, the fact that he appeared to be alone. That was of course, save for his belongings, and an old, battered looking M1911, which lay on the floor of the passenger foot-well.

Had Andrew left him? Or had he parked here and then ran into trouble, choosing to lead said trouble away from John who had been sitting here unconscious in the truck? No matter the reason, why had he left his gun? Was it left intentionally or was it forgotten? Questions raced through John’s mind as he attempted to comprehend the situation, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the familiar, reflecting spectacles he had last seen when passing out from pain just a few hours earlier. Ambling over from the gas stations store, bag in one hand, and to John’s surprise, what appeared to be a shotgun in the other, Andrew slowly got wind of his leaders awakening. Before he had a chance to instruct him otherwise, John cringed as Andrew’s excitement at seeing his friend alive once again got the best of him.

“JOHN!”, he yelled, his voice echoing across the desolate forecourt.
“Shhhhh!”, John mouthed, perching his lips and making the closest thing to a “Be quiet” gesture he could muster.
Understanding straight away, Andrew began spinning full circle, looking for signs of any biters his outburst might have stirred, but luckily for both of them, finding none.
“You’re alive!”, Andrew whispered through the missing driver side window, as he arrived alongside the truck and quickly climbed in, closing the door – much more softly this time – behind him.
“Apparently”, John responded, clearly still dazed, “Where are we?”, he asked.
“About six miles down highway 36, hope you don’t mind but I carried on along the route you’d marked on the map”, Andrew said, both proudly and timidly.
“Six miles?”, John questioned, grabbing the map from the dashboard and staring hard at it for some time. “How long was I out?”, he eventually asked, looking back up as he did.
“About an hour. I figured you’d wake up feeling pretty rough so stopped to pick up some pain meds”, Andrew stated, shaking the shopping bag he was holding. “Found this shotgun behind the counter too!”, he continued, brandishing the shotgun in his other hand, again apparently very proud of himself.
“Jesus, you’ve been busy”, John started, grabbing a box of Tylenol from the bag and popping several pills out, “Get any water?”, he asked, to which Andrew smiled and dove back into his bag, before producing several differently branded bottles.

Thanks in no small part to a dramatic lack of traffic, Andrew had managed to cover a staggering distance during John’s brief absence. In fact, despite knowing little about their route beforehand, he’d propelled them almost to the half-way point of their destination, and right to the end of their time on highway 36.  Sadly for both men though, the journey to come was more than likely to slow their pace down quite dramatically, with the highway soon to end and be replaced by an inevitably congested town. But even that wasn’t enough to dampen the spirits of Andrew, who wasn’t sure he’d ever been quite so proud of himself, unable to sit still as he admired the biggest spoil of his efforts, which he held tightly in both arms.

The gleaming shotgun – a reasonably late model Remington 870 – was in extremely good shape, its tactical stock and attached flashlight making for an impressive sight. Andrew had even managed to find three boxes of 12-gauge shells for it, mostly slugs with a few pellet rounds thrown in, all of which would no doubt prove useful at some point. John did however have his doubts about Andrew’s ability to use it.
“You ever fired something with that kind of kickback?”, asked John as Andrew started the truck up.
“Once, but I think I’ll stick with the pist-“, Andrew stopped short, coming to the embarrassing realisation that John was now holding the pistol he had left in the passenger foot-well.
“Yeah… I realised once I was in the shop”, Andrew continued. “At that point I figured I should just keep going, get out as quickly as possible. Anyway, you can have the shotgun if you want, you seem like you’re better with a gun than me. You had some kind of training or something?”, he asked.

John had managed to avoid talking much about himself up till now, for fear of giving something important away, but weapon training didn’t seem like it would be too risky to talk about.
“Served a few years in the marines, 10
^th
regiment”, he divulged.
“Guess that makes sense, I’ve seen how you hold that little Ruger of yours. But I figure someone like you should have something a bit more useful”, Andrew said, passing the shotgun to John. “As long as you promise to use it to keep me safe, not shoot me?”, he asked, only half joking.
“You got it”, replied John, happily taking the shotgun, and smiling back as he did.

*
      
*
      
*

After manoeuvring around another series of car-crash roadblocks towards the end of the highway, the pair eventually neared their turn off point into the local town of Stillwater. But as Andrew began to slowly switch lanes towards the exit– signs for the town scattered along both sides of the road – John couldn’t help but fall back into his leading role.
“Don’t turn off here”, he said, pouring over the map once again, “If we keep to the highway till the end, we can skirt up the riverside to the bridge, instead of going right through the middle of this place”.
He was right of course, the town would be prime undead territory, its reasonably dense population of around 18,000 – or 18,542 according to a “Welcome to Stillwater” road sign – would no doubt make for a large amount of biters, something neither of them wanted to deal with at present times. In full agreement, Andrew pulled the truck back into the centre of the highway, and continued on towards the coast.

As they drove, they saw a number of old-world buildings, now little more than biter infested relics of times gone by. From the churches and farms to the left, to the maximum security prison on the right, masses of concrete and brick laying derelict all around it. Finally the eye caught sight of the ever-nearing river up ahead, that marked the end of the highway, and the start of the next navigational issue, crossing the bridge to the other side. Normally this would be a simple task, but the influx of car crashes and general congestion meant that the bridge would almost certainly be at least partially blocked, with the nearest alternative crossing a good ten-miles south, and that itself just as likely to be impassable. The pair had no choice but to move forwards, hoping for as clear a crossing as possible.

Exiting the freeway and rounding the corner to run alongside the river, the first glimpse of the steel girder entwined multi-thousand tonne monster came into view. Driving along the road, sneaking a peak at the bridges key sections whenever a gap in the trees allowed them to do so, they both quickly realised that much to their surprise, the bridge appeared to be completely deserted, devoid of so much as a single vehicle. It was a perfect but worrying sight to John, who struggled to hide the discomfort in his face.

“Something wrong?”, Andrew asked.
“There’s nothing on that bridge, nothing at all, like it’s been cleared out since the outbreak”, John replied.
“That old thing?”, Andrew questioned. “That was declared unfit for cars years back, nobodies crossed it in a vehicle in a long while”, he explained.
Confused at his companions sudden knowledge on local transport, John had to ask the obvious.
“How do you know that?”, he said, still staring at the bridge.
“Used to have friends around here, crossed it on foot myself a couple of times. It’ll be fine for a quick crossing, it was only when they had thousands going over every day that it caused any real problems”, he explained.
“Got it”, John responded, satisfied he was now well informed enough to continue, but still concerned by the lack of anything at all on the bridge.