Generation Dead - 07 (10 page)

“Want to go look?” I figured Jake was bluffing so I decided to call him on it.

“No, thanks.
  I promised Dad I would look out for you.
Can’t do that when I put you in the vicinity of thousands of ghouls.

I looked over at Jake.  “When did you promise him anything?  All you ever did was argue with him, fight over any training he wanted you to have, and bitch about him leaving.”

Jake looked at me for a long moment, and I held his gaze.  I was starting to realize why our father left, and in part, understand it.

“You wouldn’t understand.  You never
understand,
” Jake said, turning back to the road.
  I knew by that tone
the conversation had ended.

We rode in silence until we reached the junction of I-80 and I-57.  The 80 side was fine, but the 57 side was a mess.  There were literally thousands of rusting cars jammed all over the road, and a single lane had
been cleared for people to drive
on.  And by cleared I mean a large fork truck had come through, lifted the cars out of the way, and dumped them in the next lane.  It was a weird sight, seeing cars just stacked on top of each other, flattened in some places, rusted together in others.  Many of the cars had skeletons still in them, and there were even a few that sported still moving zombies.  They were in awful shape, but the closed environments kept them protected from the sun and cold.  If they ever managed to get out, they would be as dangerous as ever.

The bad part of this trip was the piled cars were on my side, so I had nothing to look at except mile after mile of rusted cars and dead flesh.  I only got a glimpse of the countryside when there was a brief space here and there where the cars were not piled on each other. 

The exits were blocked by gate secured by concrete pylons, but you could get out and open the gate, as long as you closed it behind yourself.  The idea was to keep as many of the zombies that were still on the roads contained as much as possible.  Occasionally one would slip throu
gh, but they were dealt with quickly
.

“Zombie, dead
ahead,
”  Jake
said, chuckling at his own joke. 

I groaned.  We’d used that one to death, but it still drew a chuckle from time to time. 
“All right.
  I’ll deal with
it,
” I said.  Jake pulled up about twenty yards from the zombie and stopped the truck.  I climbed out, grateful for the chance to stretch my legs.  The zombie was slowly walking towards us, and it was just about the most awful zombie I had seen.  The flesh had been ripped from its torso and legs, hanging down in massive strips. 
Its
clothes were mostly gone, being torn down one side, and missing from the other. 
Its
head was fairly
inta
ct,
in fact the flesh was only slightly ripped
.  This one used to be a female, and her one good eye stared at me intently as she stumbled forward.  It was particularly gross to see her step on her own strips of skin, tearing even more of it off.

“
Ugh,
”
was
all I had to say.  I went over to a rusty car and nodded at the zombie still trapped inside.  It raised a hand to gently touch the window,
then
watched me as I kicked and twisted
its
front bumper off.  If it hadn’t been so rusted, I could never
had
done that.

Turning back to the skinless zombie, I took the bumper and shoved the jagged end straight into her forehead.  The sharp metal broke through her skull and killed her instantly.  I pulled out the bumper and reversed it, using the slightly hooked end to grab her under her chin and drag her out of the way.  I left the bumper with her and climbed back into the truck.

“Nice
one,
” Jake said.

“Thanks.”

“I think that one wins the prize for most disgusting.” 

“For sure.
  You know how it go
t
that way?” The solution seemed obvious once I thought of it.

“Do tell.”

“Twisting and pulling out of a seat belt.”  I was fairly impressed with myself.

Jake thought for a minute as we pulled past the ex-zombie.  “That makes sense.
Nasty way to end up.
  Wonder what prompted her to free herself?”

“Probably someone like us taking a trip, only maybe they were walking instead of riding.”

“Could be.
 
Could be.”
Jake steered through the cars, following the path put before him by someone who wished for a southern route away from everything.  Truth be told, it was probably faster to take the back roads, but this was
a mostly direct route, and it w
ould also provide us with a path back, provided the other side was clear as well.

After an hour of this kind of travel, Jake decided he’d had enough, and we’d head towards Peotone via a more indirect route.

We pulled up to the gate at the exit for Route 30, and I jumped out again, untying the rope that held the gate shut, and pulling the gate aside.  Jake slipped the truck past, and I closed and retied the gate, keeping zombies like our friend the stripper from getting out and causing outbreaks.

This part of Route 30 took us through Matteson, and it wasn’t very pretty.  A big hotel stood off to the side, and the tall atrium windows would have looked nice if they hadn’t been blown out from the inside by a fire that had claimed the building years before.  Several other buildings were in similar states, and those that survived the first wave of zombies fell to the second wave of looters.  Mother Nature took it from there, tearing up the parking lots and dumping rain and mold all over the place.  A couple of places had fallen so far into nature that they looked like misshapen hills.

Chapter 17

As we drove through the businesses, it was hard to imagine this place had once been a thriving community. 
However,
neglect, years of hammering
by nature
, and looting had taken its final toll.  In another twenty years, places that hadn’t been reclaimed were going to disappear.

“
Company,
” Jake said suddenly, looking ahead at the road.  We had turned down Route 50 and were headed south.

“Friendly?”  I asked, looking to see
for myself.  I wouldn’t be put out
if I couldn’t see them yet.  Jake had eyes like a hawk’s, and could easily make out details of something most people could barely see.

“Not sure.  They just appeared over that small road that crosses the railroad tracks.”

“Time to arm?”
  I started to reach back for my M1A when Jake stopped me.

“Hang on.  Let’s get a little closer and see what they do.  Let’s make ourselves a little bit more
tempting,
” Jake said.

“How?”
I asked. Do you want me to dress like a female and blow them kisses as we go past?”

“Not quite. Get down, below the dash, so they can’t see you.  If they’re friendly, they’ll wish me the best and let me go.  If they think we’re easy pickings, they’ll follow and look for a way to get me out of my vehicle or they’ll come up alongside and shoot me with something loud.”

I had to admit it made sense in a weird kind of way.  I guess that comes from always looking at the pessimistic side of things.

I ducked down and kept a low profile, easing my M1A out from behind the seat.  That was tricky but doable.  I put the muzzle just out of sight under the window and waited.  Jake opened the back window and drove on, seemingly blissful in his ignorance of human intentions.

I had no way of knowing what was happening outside, but Jake kept me up to date.

“Okay, we’re passing them now.  Hey guys!” Jake threw a wave at them, partly to check their intentions and partly to keep their attention focused on him and not on what might be in the cab of the truck, namely me.

“Nothing so far, looks to be two of them in a decent-sized truck. 
Staying on the side road.
  Whoops, here they come.”  Jake kept an eye on the road and an eye on his mirrors.

“Coming up behind right now, staying close.   Think they’re checking things out, seeing if it’s worth the trouble.  Their rig is as nice as ours, can’t see why they’d want to hijack this one.”  Jake looked into the rear-view and raised his head, acknowledging the truck behind him.

“Staying back there.
  Passenger is doing something, wait a second.  He’s waving me to pull over.  Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”  Jake smiled big and waved back, acting
as if
he was just too dumb to understand sign language.

“Okay, they’re talking to each other.  Passenger is reaching for something.  Oh, boy.  He just waved a big gun at me and wants me to pull over.”  Jake looked down at me.  “They’re directly behind me.  Go for it.”

I popped up suddenly, sticking the barrel of the rifle out the back window, aiming directly at the windshield of the truck behind us.  I could see the passenger holding up what looked like a revolver, but my aim was more to the center.  I fired once, and the heavy bullet punched through the windshield, leaving a large hole and several cracks behind.  The rear window didn’t
fare
so well, completely shattering and falling into the bed of the truck.

The two men, boys really, now that I got a look at them, got huge in the eyes and their mouths dropped open.  I could see both of them shouting “
Jesus
!” and the truck suddenly slewed to the left, slamming the passenger into the side window as the pickup careened away.  The driver must have stomped on the gas, because the truck raced up the railroad incline, launched itself several feet in the air, and came down in a cloud of dust on the other side of the tracks.  Even at our
distance,
I could hear crashes and clangs as the truck tried to extract itself from the railroad.

I settled back into the seat, the M1A resting between my legs.  Jake looked at me and I looked back at him.  We both burst out laughing, and it got so bad that Jake had to pull over and we just held our sides and laughed ourselves silly.

“
Oh,
my God!
  Did you see that guy’s face plastered to the side window?”  Jake laughed.

I redoubled my laughter. “Not as good as the two faces when I aimed at them.  Never saw eyes so big!” 

We laughed for another five minutes,
and then
began to settle down.  Jake looked back and wondered out loud. “Wonder if they managed to get those tracks out of their butts.”

“Let them be.  They deserve a little discomfort, and maybe next time they’ll think twice before trying to rob someone
else,
” I said, putting my rifle back.

“If they
don’t ,
they’re the slowest learners
around,
” Jake said, checking the rear view again.

“Let’s get going.  I’d like to be in Peotone before evening
comes,
”  I
said. 

“Me, too.”

We drove south on Illinois 50, and slowly made our way through the small town of Monee.  Monee looked like it had been a one light town even back in the day, and it hadn’t improved much in the last twenty five years.  The main road had a couple of busines
s
es on it, and the railroad tracks cut through the center of town, albeit in a trench thirty feet deep.

On the
west
side of
town,
the interstate connected to it, and we could see two hotels, a huge truck stop, and a few restaurants.  Everything was collapsing and rusting, with dozens of abandoned cars and trucks. 

Jake turned towards the truck stop, and I held up a hand.

“Whoa!  What are you doing?  This isn’t the way to
Peotone,
”  I
protested.

“Just want to have a look
around,
” Jake said. “Relax. Peotone’s just five miles south. Besides, maybe there’s something we can use at the truck stop.”

“I’m thinking it’s a bad
idea,
”  I
said, believing it completely.  “We’ve had pretty good luck so far, why push it?”

Jake just smiled, and I knew I was not going to win this fight.  I’d have had a better chance if I was driving, but since I
wasn’t,
I’d just have to go along until Jake got his fill of whatever he was looking for, or I managed to get the keys off of him.

Chapter 18

We drove past a trucking company, and there were dozens of empty trailers all over the place.  A semi had run into the side of a dozen or so parked ones, and had literally cut several in half before coming to a stop in the middle of three of them. A skeletal head hung out of the driver’s window,
its
empty sockets staring at the cloudless sky.