Life Among The Dead (57 page)

“
Sorry old timer.” Bruce says as he builds speed. The exhausted fields start to fly by again. He disregards the signs on the side of the road. Bruce pays no mind to the intersecting roads. His course is set, due east. The driver reaches behind his seat for a soda. While searching for refreshment his hand feels a familiar shape, a rectangular object similar to a deck of cards.

“
It’s my lucky day.” He says as he brings a soda to the front along with a stale pack of cigarettes. He had quit them many years ago. It wasn’t only due to his doctor’s urging, or all the antismoking campaigns. It wasn’t because of the rising cost. The main reason he had quit was that he hated thinking some corporate peon was in control of his life.

Bruce lights one of the stiff cigarettes and draws from the butt. The caustic smoke burns his lungs that have long been rid of the carcinogens. The cilia had repaired themselves and are now protesting as if there has been a breach in an unwritten ceasefire between them and their host.

Bruce’s body wants to expel the invader by coughing. The truck swerves slightly while his body convulses involuntarily. He has to slow down until the fit subsides. He takes a smaller puff that makes his lungs tingle and his head swoon. He feels as if something other than tobacco is in the white tube.

He doesn’t even know why he had lit the thing in the first place. He used to chain smoke while on the road, but that was so long ago. He chalks it up to boredom
. That killed about a minute,
he thinks as he pitches the cigarette out the window. It still has a lot of life left to go, but he is done with it. His ribs hurt from coughing.

Bruce sips on his soda to get the taste out of his mouth. He deliberates the pack of cigarettes on his dashboard and sends the rest of them out the window to join their friend.

“
I’m so fucking bored.” Bruce says aloud just to hear himself. The monotony is killing him. Looking out the window depresses him. Every stitch of open and empty land reminds him that life, as he knows it, is over. There is a new way of life outside the walls of New Castle, and it’s horrible.

Bruce wants to get his mind off of the veritable wastelands around him and keep himself somewhat occupied. He takes his eyes off of the road to view a selection of CDs the previous owner of the Road Master stored in a big black book. There is a little of everything, he just isn’t sure what he’s in the mood for.

The old man slips a disk into the slot, deciding some classic metal should do the trick. He hopes it will amp him up enough to carry him the last stretch of the day.

The CD player whirs and the cab is filled with the thunder of an electric guitar. Bruce returns his full attention to the road. He glances in the rearview, and sees them.

“
What’s this, now?” Bruce asks the mirror. Their speed surpasses his, though their vehicles are much smaller. Two dirt bikes riding side by side are closing in fast.

“
Bogies on my 6, huh?” Bruce says. The accelerator is floored already. His massive engine has to work much harder than the small motors propelling the bikes.

“
Better be friendlies.” Bruce warns the mirror image of the twin green bikes; his .44 is on his lap just in case they are not.

The bikes flank Bruce on either side, and match his speed. The old man checks his mirrors. The bike on the right has two riders on it; the passenger is attempting to reach the truck’s bed.

“
Are you high?” Bruce gives the wheel a slight back and forth motion and the heavy vehicle starts to weave. The nimble bikes match his pattern as if prepared for it. The king of the road skips a beat and changes his tempo.

The big tires of the Road master have large treads that project forward and curve like a swimmer’s hand. One of these off-roading treads catches the left cyclist’s handlebar and causes the worst end over end somersault Bruce has ever seen in his life. The lightweight contender rolls alongside the black heavy weight before bouncing violently into the air and crashing to the pavement.

“
That’s why you don’t fuck with the king of the road.” Bruce says laughing. He can’t see the driver of the bike in his mirror, but recalls a slight bump as the accident occurred. He decides not to feel too bad for the guy if he did run him over.
They started it
.

The bike on Bruce’s right continues the side-by-side chase. The passenger has managed to latch onto the rim of the bed. The combatants are passing a stretch of woods that separates two neighboring farms. Bruce guides the black truck to the right and glides onto the shoulder of the road. He takes his truck down the sloping embankment and runs along the edge of the woods.

The rogue motorcycle that had delivered the hitchhiker has dropped back and is following from the highway. Tree limbs are slapping the helmeted person who clings to the truck. Each time he tries to climb up, branches pelt him, making it difficult to proceed. Finally, a large branch scrapes the raider off completely.

The woods come to an end at another deserted farm. Bruce looks out at the field and for a few seconds he forgets all about the pursuer. He would love to settle this land, throw a wall around it, and put it to good use. The planning of Brucetopia will have to wait. The king wants to get rid of this last thorn in his side.

The Road Master takes a right and speeds along the dried old farmland. With no one to take care of it or irrigate the soil, it has become brittle and cracked. Sun exposure has left the land so dry that dust rises up and fills the air in Bruce’s wake.

The cloud means he can no longer see his two-wheeled assailant, but he can hear it. He has to open the window to listen over the sound of his own engine, but there is a distinct whine. Small particles are flying in through the opening. Bruce has to squint to protect his eyes from the dust.

The Road Master’s tires are cutting deep furrows into the unused earth. Bruce turns left and his wheels lose traction, exactly what he wants. He rotates 180 degrees and is aimed the way he had come. His skid has spread an expanding smoke screen that he hopes obscures his maneuver.

“
Now, we’ll see how dumb you are.” Bruce says driving back towards the road. He is blind from the cloud. Within seconds he hits something. Green pieces of the bike fly past his windshield, and a helmet bounces off of it. The shards and debris get lost in the dissipating cloud.

Pretty fucking dumb.
He never should have followed me that close,
Bruce thinks as he guides his truck out of the fading fog.

“
That was bracing.” Bruce says. “Just the kind of action I was hoping for.”

The brief bit of excitement doesn’t feel as satisfying as he thought it would.
Those people must have been very desperate to pull such a stunt,
he considers. He wonders if there are more like them out there. He decides he will have to push into the night as well. He wants to get the New Hampshire as soon as possible.

Bruce accelerates on the dusty plain. He is about to drive up the embankment, but it proves to be too steep. He hits the incline with his front bumper. The truck bounces up and comes to a rest on it’s under carriage. His front wheels are suspended over the shoulder of the road.

“
Fuck me!” He curses and turns off the engine. He will have to use his winch. He figures he can attach the end to a tree on the other side of the road. Bruce grabs his .44 and his double barrel as he exits through the hole in the roof.

He walks down the windshield and lowers himself from the truck.
God, what a mess,
he thinks as he looks at his poor incapacitated truck. It looks like a kids unused teeter totter. He jumps up to grab the winch’s hook.

He and Dan had installed the winch before he had left his kingdom for just such emergencies, or if he had to move something out of his way.
It should do the trick,
he thinks
. If the cable is long enough.

“
I’ll make it enough.” He says adamantly as he pulls the slack out of the steel line. He is in the middle of the road when his actions come to a halt, and his ears perk up. In the distance he can hear engines whining.
More of them,
Bruce thinks
. A lot more.

His binoculars are still around his neck. He brings them up and spies down the road toward the source of the noise that grows louder with each passing second.

He counts at least six of them. They are like a swarm of bees. At the center of the swarm is the queen, a wrecker. He doesn’t have time to set the hook and get back into his truck. He doubts he’d be able enter it in a hurry anyway, considering how it’s now positioned. He has no choice but to run.

Bruce sprints to the woods that border this farm and the next. Two quads emerge from a trail in the forest. He skirts around them and barrels down the embankment. He enters the dense growth of trees and heads off in a way they can’t follow on their ATVs. The raiders are forced to give chase on foot.

5

The soldiers travel in silence. They have traded seats and Rash is now behind the wheel. It isn’t too far to their next location, Lynton prays they find an active base. He hopes when they arrive at Fort Breyers they find it teeming with regimental life.

Rash feels guilty. She almost hopes to find it another lost cause. If it turns out to be a dead zone, she and Zee can find a place of their own. Some secluded location and a means of survival. She wonders whether there is a difference between wishing all those soldiers harm, and just hoping for it.
It probably doesn’t matter,
she figures. If she was given the option she isn’t quite sure what she would actually choose.

“
What is that?” Lynton sits up straighter when he sees a lump on the road. Someone is lying on the asphalt trying to get up. The person’s bones are obviously broken by the awkward angles at which the bend, like he or she has too many elbows and knees. It wears a safety helmet that is fractured all the way down the middle; only a few stickers hold the faceplate together. The truck halts a few yards from the mangled cyclist.

The soldiers approach on foot and the figure begins reaching out to them. Green plastic shards are all over the road. The remains of a dirt bike are off to the side. Its front tire spins uselessly in the air.

“
This happened recently.” Rash points to the rotating tire. The cyclist is crawling towards them. Its legs are twisted and painful to look at.

“
He’s dead.” Lynton says simply. Rash is about to aim her M-16 at the zombie biker’s head until Lynton holds up a hand. “He isn’t worth the bullet.”

“
What if he bites a survivor?” Rash debates with her friend in the middle of the road.

“
What if there aren’t any survivors? Besides, with the helmet on he can’t bite anybody.”

She lowers the weapon and they return to the truck. They see large troughs dug into an open field that look like tire tracks. They follow them with their eyes as the furrows veer across the un-toiled land.

Another zombie biker is on the road, walking towards the approaching truck. It seems to think it can intercept and stop the massive olive machine. The soldier just runs it down as it tries to grab on to the front fender.

These zombies are pretty fresh and must have come from somewhere,
Rash thinks. Clearly there are survivors out there, despite what the barren landscape leads them to believe.

“
It’s like a joy ride gone bad.” Rash says. Lynton is still following the tracks that double back and return to the road. A deep gouge has been taken out of the embankment. Bare topsoil is exposed surrounded by grass. The soldiers come to a stop again and get out.

“
It looks like whoever made those tracks,” Lynton traces the path with his finger and stops at the gouge. “Was trying to make it up and got stuck. He must have used a winch, or was towed out.”

The ground surrounding the scar in the Earth is compacted with footprints and littered with trash; among the discarded rubbish are feathers and a hard cover composition book. Rash picks up the notebook and starts to read.

“
What’s that?” Lynton asks.

“
A journal.” She responds after reading a few passages. “Written by the King of New Castle.”

“
Who?”

“
No idea.”

“
If this is any indication of survivors,” Lynton says. “We should locate them before heading to Breyers.” He consults a map for the nearest towns.

6

Bruce Williamson was on the run. He was forced to run faster and longer than he has in the past 20 years. He had to hurdle fallen logs while dodging trees. The two men who followed him knew the woods; Bruce was on their turf.

Old Bruce is no stranger to the woods himself; he grew up surrounded by similar terrain, and knows a few tricks. At one point, he was skipping down a deep ravine with the grace of a gazelle. The trick is to let gravity take you and use the thin trees for balance and to change direction. He had grabbed them like Tarzan grabs vines. His feet left the ground at the same time in a gallop; luckily for him his pursuers didn’t know that technique. Out of fear and self-preservation they took what Bruce calls the ‘sissy way’. They had crab crawled down and lost precious time, losing sight of the old man in the process.

Bruce needed this advantage. He had watched them from behind a tree as they came down the hill, they hit the ground running. He remained crouched among tall ferns as they meandered around, aimlessly looking through the woods. Bruce threw a rock to get them running where he wanted them, just a little deeper into the forest.