In the Lone and Level Sands (78 page)

When they separated, he looked into her
eyes. Cynthia blinked, and her arms dropped to her sides. Her eyes
were confused then, wider. Her lips curled, and she leaned forward
an inch, lifting a hand. It grabbed Evan’s wrist. More tears came
down his face.

“I love you so much,” he said as he pressed
the gun to his wife’s head. He pulled the trigger, and she was
gone. Her body crumpled to the ground. Evan dropped to his knees.
The gun clattered on the pavement, and he covered his face.

He wept.

****

The survivors had been driving for a little
under an hour. Evan was in a sad trance as he drove, watching the
little yellow lines in the headlights. Mal sat next to him in the
front, asleep, exhausted from all the tears.

The silence was interrupted when a voice
came over the Humvee’s transceiver. It was broken up, only a word
or two. Then, the silence shattered. “Is anyone there? Hello?”

Evan perked up, and turned back to Daisy as
he drove. “D-did you hear what I heard?”

“Someone on the radio?” Daisy sat forward.
“Is it really back?”

“Hello? Anyone out there? If so, there’s a
safe—” Evan grabbed the microphone and held the button to
speak.

“Hello? Is this really working?” Evan pulled
the Humvee over while he waited for a response.

“Hey! We’ve got someone!”

“Yes! Where are you located? We’re—”

“Wait,” another voice said. “That voice… It
sounds pretty damn familiar! Evan? Please tell me I’m not imagining
this shit!”

“Larry?” Evan said. “Yeah, Larry! It’s me!
Oh my God!” Mal looked at her father, rubbing her eyes.

“Well fuck me sideways! I can’t believe
you’re still okay!” Larry said. “Damn, that’s great! How’s the
family?”

“It’s just me and Mal, and some friends,”
Evan said. “How are you?
Where
are you?”

“Oh… Damn, I can’t tell you how sorry that
makes me. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

“Well, I’ll let my buddy Stewart fill you in
on our location. Where are you?”

“We left Fort Knox almost two hours ago.
We’re headed north, so I’m betting we’re somewhere in Indiana.”

“You were at Fort Knox?”

“Yeah. It got overrun. Where are you? A safe
zone?”

“Yeah. Safer than being out and about,
that’s for sure.”

“I could go for safer,” Evan said.

“Well, good,” Larry replied. “Anyway, here’s
Stewart. He’ll tell you how to get here.” Evan nodded. There was
silence, and then Stewart spoke.

“Okay, we’re in a city called Greensburg, in
Indiana. Do you have GPS?”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

“Good.” Stewart gave him a street address.
“We’re in King Public Library. It’s on the edge of town, and it’s
huge! You can’t miss it. The flag in front flies. You should see
that, first thing.”

“Thank you, sir,” Evan said.

“No problem, just get here safely,” Stewart
replied.

“See you when you get here, buddy!” Larry
said.

“You too!”

Evan turned to Mal. She was dozing in and
out, but she managed a smile.

“So, we’ll be okay?” she said.

“Yes, Mal,” Evan replied. “You know Larry.
He’s got a safe place for us. We’ll be there soon, sweetie. For
now, why don’t you try to get back to sleep.” Silently, she rested
against the door, curled up, and closed her eyes. “I love you,
Mal.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

Daisy sat forward. “Looks like we’ve got a
little good luck.”

“Looks like it.” Evan smiled slightly, and
turned to Jason and Stephanie, who looked as exhausted as Mal. “Are
you guys ready?”

“I just want to apologize for earlier,”
Jason said. “It wasn’t right of me—”

“Don’t. Please, not now. Right now, you just
get some rest, and we’ll be in Greensburg soon.”

“Okay.” Jason turned to Stephanie. She tried
to crack a smile, found it wasn’t working, and turned away.

Evan drove the Humvee down the road,
avoiding the somewhat common stopped car or zombie. His thoughts
wandered to his deceased wife, but he swore to himself not to let
that overcome him. He had too much to live for, to fight for.

He wasn’t sure if King Public Library would
end up safer than Fort Knox, but he shifted his thoughts back to
the people he loved. He was with them for now, and while part of
him had died on United States Route 31W, the rest had to carry the
others to safety. The rest had to go on.

~ ~ ~ ~

66

On the Road to California

Zoe and Derrick shared the same bed, down
the hall in one of the bedrooms, out of the way. They had no
blanket, as the summer heat was permeating the house. Derrick lay
on one side of the bed, his arm around Zoe, resting on the shotgun
beyond her on the other side of the bed.

Zoe woke up first. Her eyes were blurred,
but she didn’t move her hands to clear them. In the morning haze
she could see shapes. One was near the door of the room. It seemed
foreign, like it didn’t belong there. When it moved, Zoe knew for
sure.

She blinked many times, trying to clear her
eyes, afraid to move. The thing near the door didn’t seem to have
noticed her and Derrick. She wondered how it had gotten into the
house, thinking for a moment she might even be dreaming, but passed
this off quickly. She wished Derrick would wake up.

Finally, her eyes cleared up, and she got a
good look. There was a zombie standing near the door. He was facing
into the hall, his back turned to the bed.

Then, almost as though Zoe had willed it
into being, Derrick opened his eyes.

“Shh,” Zoe said. She motioned with her eyes
the best she could, then whispered, “There’s a zombie over
there.”

Derrick’s grip tightened on the shotgun, and
he rolled over, took a moment to spot the thing (which turned and
spotted him, too), and then pulled the trigger.

****

They found a car they could plug Derrick’s
MP3 player into, and after a few hours of The Pillows and Thursday
and Flobots, and after I-80 turned into I-76, they reached Denver.
Even the side roads were crowded with cars, and occasionally, they
had to slow to speeds that the zombies could match (during which
Derrick would drive and Zoe would shoot). It took much of the day
to cross Colorado, and the sun was setting when they reached the
small town of Clifton.

The town was trapped by mountains. The cars
on the roads leading in and out suggested that much of it had been
vacated, or at least some attempt had been made by many of its
citizens.

Derrick pulled into the driveway of a house
that was close to the edge of town, with a big, wooded area
sprawling behind it.

“This one should be safe enough,” he said.
They grabbed their things and headed for the door.

It wasn’t locked, and a quick glance showed
no signs of zombies. Zoe locked the front door behind her, and she
and Derrick began a more thorough check. The main rooms were clear,
so they moved to the basement.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs,
Zoe tried the lights. To her surprise, the place still had power.
The light came on, and to Zoe’s right was a zombie. It stood there,
eyes vacant, mouth agape, arms at its sides. Derrick raised his
shotgun and fired.

Most of the zombie’s head came off, but
rather than a splatter of blood and brains, there were just a few
holes torn into it, and brown flecks shot backward before falling
to the ground. The zombie tipped over and fell, resting perfectly
flat on the ground. It was a cardboard cut-out.

“Jesus,” Derrick said. “That scared the shit
out of me.”

“Look at this place,” Zoe said. There were
zombie posters lining the walls, plush zombies on shelves, a stack
of zombie movies on a table before a TV.

“Good
night
,” Derrick said.

“Check this out.” Zoe walked to a nearby
wall. A cabinet hung from it, and behind its glass face was a
shotgun. The paint on the glass read “In case of Zombies, break the
glass.”

“Haha. How ironic.”

Zoe looked at the case, and suddenly felt
very sad. She took her gun in her hand and slammed it against the
glass, breaking it. Derrick looked at her. “I don’t know. It felt
like the right thing to do.”

They headed upstairs to check the bedrooms.
The first two were clear; one had a mostly unpacked suitcase on the
bed, but otherwise looked unused. They entered the master bedroom,
and Zoe let out a shout.

A large splatter of blood stained the wall.
It had dried long before, and there was no body, no sign of what
had caused it. Unlike the wall, the floor appeared to have been
scrubbed clean, and the only thing upon it was a stack of notebook
paper. Zoe bent and picked it up, read the words scrawled across
the cover:

The River: The Story of My Brother

“It’s a book,” Zoe said.

“We should take it,” Derrick replied. “Read
it along the way.”

Zoe thought for a moment, then shook her
head. “No. We should read it, and leave it here.”

“Okay. In any case, it looks like this place
is clear. I’ll make dinner.”

“All right. I’m going to read it. It’s not
very long.”

“Cool.” Derrick went to the kitchen, and Zoe
sat down in the living room with the notebook paper in her
hands.

****

They left the next afternoon, so Zoe would
have time to finish reading and put the book back. The sun was
shining, and the roads cleared up. After about an hour, it was only
them, their music, and the seemingly infinite stretches of asphalt.
They listened to “Time to Waste” and “Shake it Out” and “Jesus
Christ”. Then Derrick turned the shuffle off and put on The
Republic of Wolves. When “Pitch and Resin” began to play, she
turned it up.

“I like this one too,” Derrick said. “It
should be our song.”

Zoe almost asked if two people who weren’t
dating could have “a song” but instead just listened.

After a few hours, Derrick said, “We should
reach California the day after tomorrow. I’m starting to feel like
that’s too long.”

“Hey,” Zoe said. Derrick looked at her,
peeling his eyes from the road for the first time in miles. “It’ll
be okay, all right?”

“…Yeah,” Derrick said. He returned his eyes
to the road. “Yeah.”

****

The next few hundred miles were as quiet as
they were uneventful. They took turns driving, slept in the car
somewhere on I-15, and then stopped for a map once they reached San
Bernardino. After that, they made for Sacramento, where Mara’s
apartment was waiting.

The streets of Sacramento were eerily
vacant. Zoe and Derrick stayed mostly on back roads, with Derrick
driving, as he’d been there before and knew the areas that would be
less busy. Finally, Derrick killed the engine across the street
from a tall, brown apartment building. There were a few zombies on
the street and sidewalks.

“You ready for this?” Zoe asked.

“Yeah,” Derrick said. “I think so.”

“We just have to go in, get Mara, and head
back out here.”

“Yeah. What if… What if she’s dead?”

Zoe loaded her gun. “She isn’t.”

Derrick grabbed her arm. “But what if she
is?”

Zoe sighed. “Then we’ll have no choice but
to get out of here.” Derrick looked at the floor. “But it won’t
come to that.” Zoe cocked her gun and opened her door, hoping that
the sudden rush would snap Derrick out of it. He grabbed his bag
and his gun and also got out of the car.

The nearby zombies took notice. There were
less than a dozen of them, and even though they were faster than
they had been before, they weren’t much of a threat compared to the
guns Zoe and Derrick carried. The two entered the building.

Besides half of a body lying in the middle
of the floor and the trail of blood that streaked from it and down
one of the halls, the lobby was empty. There was no power, but the
two could still see clearly from the sunlight shining in through
the windows.

“Mara lives on the 4
^th
floor,”
Derrick said. “We’ll have to take the stairs.”

There were bodies lying in various places,
but other than that, the building was empty. Nothing moved, human
or otherwise, as Derrick and Zoe made their way to the fourth
floor.

“Coming up on the left,” Derrick said. He
was walking so quickly, Zoe could hardly keep up without jogging.
He reached the door and began searching his bag.

“I have a key in here somewhere—”

Zoe pushed the door, and it swung inward.
The wood around the lock was hanging from the door, there was a
hole in the frame where it used to be. The color flushed from
Derrick’s face. Zoe went in first.

“Mara?” Derrick said. Zoe could see a crack
of light where the heavy curtains blocked the sun. She moved
carefully through the darkness and drew them. Light flooded into
the room. Derrick let out a sigh.

The place was empty. The bed was neatly
made, the counters and floors clean. There was no sign that
anything had happened, other than the broken lock.

“She isn’t here,” Zoe said.

“Maybe she left a note somewhere,” Derrick
replied. They searched the obvious places, but found nothing.
Derrick slammed a cabinet shut, trying to think of what to do.

“Let’s think, for a minute,” Zoe said. “This
place is pretty clean. The whole building, I mean. Except for the
bodies. Maybe they all evacuated together?”

“Outside isn’t safe,” Derrick said. “But
maybe… Maybe they all gathered somewhere in here?”

“Exactly! If there was an emergency, where
would the people go?”

“The roof, maybe. Except there’s no shelter,
there. The basement?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Zoe said. They headed
for the basement. “What all is down there?”