Dead Highways (Book 2): Passage (10 page)

I slowed to a stop. Both of us looked on in silence.

Amazed.

Hundreds of people surrounded the Walgreens, packed shoulder to shoulder covering every corner of the parking lot, and blocking every entrance and exit. They faced the building like a crowd of restless concertgoers waiting for the show to begin.

And in short time, it would.

“Well, I think we made it in time,” I said. “That’s the good news.”

The hundreds of infected people keeping watch on the Walgreens, waiting patiently for our friends to greet them outside, was the bad news.

“We have to get their attention somehow,” Peaches said. “Lure them away.”

“Should I drive by with the music up really loud?”

“That’s one way of going about it. But then again, do we really want all those people chasing after us?”

“It’s not like they’ll be able to catch us. If we can lead them far enough away, it might give the others the chance they need to escape. Then we circle back around and follow them.”

I took my foot off the break and coasted by the building. Not one of the infected turned to acknowledge us. I turned around at an intersection of Lee Vista Blvd and drove back by again, slower this time, revving the engine. I put down the window, yelled at them. Still, they paid us no attention.

“They’re awfully committed,” I said. “We may have to start shooting.”

Between the Walgreens and Lee Vista was a retention pond. I pulled the white SUV up and over the curb and parked in the grass. Then I got out and walked around to the other side. I shielded my eyes from the harsh setting sun to the west as I peered across the pond at the infected. There was no time to waste. In another hour or so, it would be dark.

Peaches opened up the passenger door and leaned out. “Do you need me to do anything?”

“You can help be my eyes,” I said. I opened up the back door and began readying one of the rifles.

“You got binoculars in one of those boxes?”

“No.”

“That’s too bad.”

I popped the magazine into the rifle and charged the bolt. “You saw all the stuff Ted had in his garage. I couldn’t grab everything.”

“You gonna be able to hit anything from this far away?”

“Well, if things go like I want, I won’t need to be accurate.” I shut the door and focused back on the infected maybe seventy-five yards away. “I’m not looking for head shots. I don’t even really care if I hit anything, long as I get their attention. So … stay ready. We might have to leave in a hurry.”

Peaches slid out of the car, Olivia wrapped up in her arms. “What
exactly
do you want me to do again?”

“Just keep your eyes out. There could be more in the area. Don’t want to get ambushed from behind.”

I walked out to the edge of the pond and shouldered the rifle. I’d never shot a target at this distance before, nor was I that proficient with the rifle yet, but with thirty rounds at my disposal I hopefully wouldn’t need to be.

I took aim at the biggest target I could see, and then pulled the trigger.

Round one was a hit.
Success!
The fat infected man crumbled to the ground. Unfortunately, no one else moved, not even the two on either side of him. They stood, staring at the back of the persons head in front of them.

Round two would achieve better results.
Slightly
better. After seeing the second of their fellow psychos hit the deck, three of the infected peeled off from the crowd and began running our way. As I expected, the pond acted as a nice barrier, forcing them to go all the way around to reach our position. I fired off five or six rounds at the three defectors before I realized hitting fast moving targets at long distance was near impossible. To make matters worse, they didn’t all head the same way around the pond—two went left and one went right—which had me whirling around, trying to aim and shoot two different directions.

“Peaches!” I yelled. “Get ready to go!”

I took my sights off the three running our way, now almost clear of the pond, and aimed back at the crowd in the distance. I sprayed a dozen more bullets, half finding a mark, before lowering the rifle and running back to the SUV. I’d managed to get five or six more concertgoers to leave the main stage. The first three converged upon us just as I made it back in the driver’s seat and shut the door. One of them disappeared under the front bumper as I jumped the curb and slid out on to the road. Moments later, we were flying east down Lee Vista Blvd. The infected didn’t bother chasing us.

We stopped at a church a half mile down the road.

“That didn’t work at all,” Peaches said.

I sighed. “They were supposed to scatter. A few at a time is useless. It would take a much better shooter, and probably more ammo then we got in that box, to clear enough of them out.”

“I think I saw another SUV on the side of the building when we were driving off.”

“White?”

“Yeah, it looked just like this one.”

“Hmm. These might be some type of unmarked government vehicles. I don’t have any doubt they’re trapped in there, but I wonder how long they’ve been surrounded like that.”

“They’re probably wishing they left earlier.”

“Then we need to make them glad they stayed. We have to break them out somehow.”

For a few minutes, we sat in silence. I tried to think of ideas—something infinitely more brilliant than shredding through them
Robbie Robinson style
with the car—but was coming up empty. Since we were in a church parking lot, I prayed to God to give me answers, and if not, please bestow upon Peaches the wisdom to guide us toward a better idea.

Finally, she turned to me and said, “If we had a plane, we could drop bombs on them.”

Oh geez. So much for Peaches saving the day.

“Too bad Ted didn’t have any grenades,” she continued, smiling wildly.

She wasn’t serious, but she seriously got me thinking.

Thank you, God!

We didn’t have a plane. Or bombs. Or grenades. But if we could find the right ingredients, we might be able to assemble the poor man’s equivalent.

“I have an idea,” I said, and pulled out of the church parking lot.

Across the street was a residential neighborhood. I idled along, looking for any open garage doors.

“What’s the plan?” Peaches asked. “Where are we going?”

I turned left at a stop sign and continued down a long stretch of road, passing a dozen or more houses before finding one with the garage open. I pulled into the driveway and put the car in park.

“We need gasoline,” I said, and hopped out.

Peaches followed me into the garage. “There are gas stations all around.”

“Yeah, and they’ve all got no power. Pumps are probably shut off.”

I searched the garage but found no portable cans of gasoline.

“Well … shit. I guess we keep looking. These people don’t even have a lawnmower. Or any lawn equipment.”

“This neighborhood is pretty nice. They probably pay someone to take care of their lawn. Or they did.”

“There’s gotta be someone around here who mows their own lawn.”

“Maybe, but what do you need gasoline for anyway … you gonna set something on fire?”

“Yep,” I said, climbing back into the car.

Peaches climbed in the other side. “What?”

“Them.”

The search went on. We had to turn around when the street led into a dead end.

“Have you ever siphoned gas from a car before?” I asked.

“No, never had a reason to do that.”

“Neither have I. But we do now. If we can’t find any gas cans, we might have to give it a shot. We passed a Home Depot on Narcoossee just before we reached the Walgreens. Bet we can find some plastic tubing there. I remember Ted had some in his garage, but I didn’t really consider what it was for at the time.”

“So … should we just try that then?”

I stopped the car back at the house with the open garage. “Tell you what, let’s go door to door. I bet some of these houses are unlocked.”

We both exited the car.

“Are we splitting up?” Peaches asked.

I smirked. “Absolutely not. But we need to hurry. Sun will be down soon.”

Three houses down from the SUV we found a house with the backdoor unlocked. Went inside. Looked around in the dark garage. No gasoline.

Errrrrr.

We checked a second house, but the third one was the charm.

“Bingo,” I said, lifting up the red gas canister. “Almost full too.”

“How many gallons are in there?”

I carried the heavy can into the house and set it on the kitchen counter where I could read the label. “Five gallons.”

“Is that enough?”

“That’s up to the infected. I sure hope it is.”

“Before we go, I gotta go.”

Peaches handed Olivia off to me and headed for the bathroom. Women and their small bladders.

By the time she was done, I had to go too.

I handed Olivia back and left to drain the main vein. When I returned, I grabbed the five-gallon can of gas and we left the house.

We headed back down Lee Vista toward the Walgreens. I slowed down as the building appeared up on the left. I saw the white SUV Peaches had mentioned. The infected who had rounded the pond in pursuit of us had all rejoined the large group in front of the store. Except for one. The fastest of the three, a skinny guy who had made the mistake of jumping in front of the car. He lay twisted on the curb, not moving. Dead. However, the virus inside of him, I knew, was very much still alive.

I stopped the car next to him, jumped out, drew Sally, and shot him in the head. None of the infected across the water seemed to respond to the loud noise.

I jumped back into the car, glanced over at Peaches. “Let’s see him come back from that.”

“Shouldn’t he have already come back? It’s been at least twenty minutes or so since he died. Nicole came back quicker than that, didn’t she?”

“But Nicole contracted the mutated version directly, which is clearly much stronger, and more deadly. Remember when we left Ted’s yesterday evening with the group. The bodies in the road were all still there, and it had been hours since they’d died. When we went back this morning many of them were gone, and the remaining ones had been eaten. So it’s hard to say exactly how long it takes for the virus to mutate once they die, but it must be at least six hours.”

Peaches sighed. “God … this is a nightmare.”

I had no argument or encouraging words to add.

We pulled in to a 7 Eleven across the street from the Walgreens.

“What are we getting here?” Peaches asked.

“Lotto, of course,” I said. “Look at that Powerball jackpot.”

“No, really.”

The three of us got out, two of us under our own power, and went into the store. Right near the entrance, stacked in cardboard boxes, was what we came for—cheap sparkling wine. I pulled a bottle out, examined it.

“That didn’t take long,” I said. “No cork, either.”

“What are we gonna do with wine bottles?”

I smiled. “Make cocktails, my dear.”

Peaches smiled back. “Oh, okay, I get it now.”

“I knew you would.”

I carried the box outside and started emptying the bottles, twelve in all. I figured we’d have to find a corkscrew, but the twist off caps made things super easy—a real time saver. Good thing too, cause we were about to lose light. The sky was turning a darker shade of blue by the minute. Peaches was still inside the store searching for some rags we could tie on to the bottles. I had half of the bottles emptied when she came outside.

“Will these work? I found them in the back.”

She handed me some old stained cleaning rags. I counted them. “They’ll probably work. There’s only five though. Was there any more back there?”

“I’ll check.”

She left. While she was gone, I finished pouring out the wine from the remaining bottles. Then I got the gas can out of the car, took off the cap, and screwed on the spout.

“Found three more,” Peaches said, exiting the store.

“Eight in all then. I guess that’ll have to do.” I set each of the wine bottles back in the box so they wouldn’t fall over while I poured the gas.

“Olivia needs to be fed.”

“Okay, go for it,” I said. Peaches fixed a bottle for Olivia and then sat down on the curb beside me. “How is she doing on formula?”

Peaches shrugged. “Okay for now. But it goes fast. Diapers are kinda low.”

“We’ll get some more soon.”

“She’ll be fine,” Peaches said, looking down at Olivia happily sucking from the plastic baby bottle. “Won’t you girl? You’re the toughest one of all.”

I smirked. “That’s probably true.”

“How many bottles can you fill?”

“We’ll see.” Turns out, I could have filled them all, but I stopped at eight. I screwed the caps back on the eight bottles to seal in the gasoline. “Got four practice bottles left.”

“What?”

“To practice throwing. We need to see how far away we can stand.”

“Shouldn’t you fill them then, so they’re the same weight?”

“Yeah, okay. No … hold on.” I went back inside the store and brought out another box of twelve bottles. “Let’s just use these. Weight should be close enough.”