The Event: The Beginning (18 page)

              "So what exactly are you wanting to do?" Vince asked. He always was one to get right to the point.

              "If we leave the gas cans we are going to be limited in our driving range, right?" Kevin asked.

              "Food is tight too. I don’t know if we can afford to spend too much more time on the road." Dave chimed in.

              "I know, guys, I know. I want to check everyone's fuel levels. As long as everyone has at least half a tank left, we should have enough to make it straight through to the base. We do have some full cans, so I propose we split the extra between the vehicles, fill everyone up as much as possible, leave the trailer and get to the base. It's pushing eleven now, and I don’t like being out here like this at night. Who is with me on pushing forward to the base without the truck?" I asked. It meant I would have to reach Dawn and Tony while driving, or bring a vehicle back myself to Petersburg in the morning.

              "Why don’t we leave Jeff and Jerry with a couple of volunteers to go search for a new truck, then they can follow later in the truck if they find one, or just catch up to us in whatever they take.” Brian said. It was a viable idea, but I would have to run it by Jeff and Jerry to find out if they were willing to do that. I would also have to find volunteers, because I would not order someone to risk themselves like that.

              "Brian, you see if you can find volunteers for that, I’ll go talk to Jeff and Jerry and see if they want to. Otherwise, I say we plan on heading straight through to Norfolk.” I said, making the decision almost final.

              "What about your friends in, where was it, Petersburg? The ones we were supposed to be meeting on the way?" Val asked.

              "I will try to find them on radio as we go through. If I can, great, I will make adjustments then, but if not, I will get us secure on the ship, then bring a car back myself and look for them. It's only an hour to Petersburg from the base, so I could do that easily. Knowing Tony, and how he plans, they are probably set up on the army base and would have no problem holding out for one more day. He knows my basic plan, so if we don’t find him before much longer he will go in search of the ship himself.” I replied. I was worried about not finding them, or him already taking off to find the ship himself and not making it. I trusted him to keep Dawn and whoever else they gathered safe though, he was good at planning and things like that.

              "Most everyone is exhausted, but a lot have been napping whenever possible, so we should have enough rested drivers to go straight through. Especially if they know this is the last leg of the road trip. That should be enough to give them a shot of energy.” Val said. I knew she kept an eye on the group to make sure there was little to no dissention, and to try to help keep stress at a manageable level for now.

              "Good. Let's let everyone stretch for a few more minutes, we have watchers on the roofs. At eleven fifteen we will load up and head out. I'll go talk to Jeff now, see if he wants to stick together or try to find a new truck. Have any volunteers ready by quarter after just in case. We're almost done guys, let's just push through a little longer, then our only concern will be food. Safety will be guaranteed.” I told them, hoping a little encouragement would be enough to push through the night. We were so close, I hated that we had this massive of a problem this close to safety.

              I walked around, feeling out the mentality of the group. Most were just tired, grumpy from being woken up, some scared at being out and exposed like this at night. I certainly didn’t like it either, but after all we'd been through already, and with the precautions we were taking, I hoped we would be alright. That hope was shattered when I heard the call from a watcher, quickly followed by somebody's screams.

              Running as fast as I could towards the screams, I drew my sword as I came around the corner of the RV and saw a fairly good sized group of infected shambling this way. They appeared uncoordinated, which meant they were probably fairly recently infected. They were still dangerous though, so we would couldn’t let our guard down. There was several of my men there already trying to herd women and children past and into the vehicles, while several others had drawn weapons and prepared to fight. Before I could say anything though, the first shots rang out.

              Men started firing, and infected started dropping. Some still hadn't got the idea that we had to shoot them in the head and were still aiming for the body. While the infected usually did drop, it shortly got back up and kept coming. A close range shot to the heart would do it, or a head shot, but small arms fire to the body wasn’t enough to do anything but slow them down. I waded into the ones that were getting close to us and started swinging. Aiming for the neck, I tried to duck around and swing from the back so I could hit the brain stem, which stopped them without having to completely decapitate them. I side stepped one and hit him square in the back of the neck, right on target. There was a woman right on top of me then, so I ducked and took her leg out. With her not being able to stand anymore, I backed away to stay out of her reach. I swung and gutted another one, not thinking about it not being a killing shot to these things, but it was effective as it tripped over its own intestines. More shots rang out as my other men kept firing.

              I stepped back as the ones with guns were starting to make enough of a dent in the herd that they could keep them at bay. Quickly wiping my blades, I put them away and then headed back to Jeff. I wanted to talk to him about the option of looking for another truck or staying together. If there was infected in the area I wanted him to make the call. As I made it back to the truck, I saw that four men were standing guard around the cab, while Jeff and two others were working on the engine.

              "How's the engine? Fixable, or is it for sure shot?" I asked, stepping up to the side.

              "Shot to hell. Not only did the transmission go out, it looks like the alternator belt snapped as well. The belt we could fix, but the transmission needs a full service shop to repair." Jeff looked up and told me.

              "Alright. Well, I have a couple of options to run by you. Let's take a walk.” I said. Jeff climbed down and we stepped towards the back of the trailer.

              "I was looking at the map earlier, and it appears that there is a rest area up ahead about ten miles or so. Its large enough there might be a couple of trucks there that maybe we can hotwire, or hopefully find keys for. With it being dark, I wanted to run it by you as to what you want to do. Go try to find another truck, come back for the trailer; or load what supplies we can in the rest and abandon the whole damn thing. We are about four hours or so from the base I figure. What do you want to do?” I asked him as we walked around the back of the trailer. I didn’t really want to split up the group at night, especially this close to safety, but we needed some of the stuff we would be forced to leave behind.

              “Ten miles? Do we really want to split up the group at almost midnight? It would be easier if we had a new rig to take the trailer instead of trying to find places to put the supplies.” He said as we surveyed the group. I could tell he was thinking about it. “Ten miles you said? What would the rest of you do if I do this?”

              “If you decide to do this, I will lead the rest to Fort Lee and search for Dawn and Tony. I don’t want to split the group, but we need those supplies, and we need to get to safety. I don’t see how we have much choice here. If you can think of any other ideas, I’m listening.” I replied. Jeff just looked at me, then back at the people we were trying to save.

              “No, nothing really comes to mind. It does sound like a tough choice. You don’t want to make it, do you? You want me to decide if I’m going or not, am I right?” he asked me.

              “You’re right. I don’t want to make a possibly life or death decision for someone else. I know this group is starting to look to me as a leader, but I’m not ready to make a call that could possibly result in someone else dying, especially if that someone is someone close to me. This is a sucky, bullshit situation, and I just want to get to safety and try to start some semblance of normal again.” I replied, just staring out into the distance. I could hear the hushed voices of the group as they tried to figure out what was going on.

              “Fine. Find me four volunteers as guards, I’ll see if I can talk Jerry into going, and we will go for a new rig. We will need a van, or else two cars, of course weapons, and in case we stay separated for a bit we will need our own food.” he told me. I knew he didn’t like this idea any more than I did, but it was viable, and if it paid off then we wouldn’t lose the supplies in the trailer. I just looked at him, nodded, and then clapped him on the shoulder. I wasn’t too worried about him, as I knew he could take care of himself, but I was still uneasy about splitting the group up like this, even if it was just for a little while.

              I stepped away to find some volunteers for guards for him, and to inform the rest we were about to leave. I hoped to hit Petersburg and Fort Lee by morning. I wanted to find Dawn and Tony and be at the ship by noon. With how this trip has gone, I really didn’t hold out much hope for that plan to happen. I went and found Dave and asked him if anyone had volunteered yet. He gave me some names and I went in search of them. After informing them of the plan, they gathered their weapons and headed towards Jeff and Jerry to sort out a detailed game plan. I left them to it and went to do my own preparations.

              After the volunteers gathered their supplies and taken the cars off the tow bars, the rest of us left. I took the lead and continued east towards Petersburg. The miles passed by smoothly, which was a relief as my thoughts were with the others. We made it to Petersburg around three in the morning. It had been years since I had been there, so I wasn’t too familiar with the area anymore. I slowed us down as we entered the city limits and started looking for signs directing us to the fort.

              “We have a problem. I think I have a flat, I need to pull over.” came a voice over the radio. I wasn’t sure who it was, but it didn’t really matter. Mumbling under my breath, I applied the brakes and began stopping the RV. I managed to find a small strip mall and pulled into the parking lot. Once we had all came to a stop, we killed the engines and waited a few minutes. I stepped out after strapping on my swords and looked around. The night was still and quiet, with hardly any light from the stars. With the main city power grid down, there were no street lights, and none of the buildings nearby had an emergency generator apparently. Not very many people got out, of which I was glad. I could tell most of the RV with the flat had been emptied however, which made sense as we wouldn’t want to have anyone moving around or the extra weight when we jacked it up to change it. I just hoped we could do so quickly and quietly. I walked up to Dave to have him start gathering guards. I then found Vince and had him start changing the tire.

              “Leni, how are your people doing? I haven’t had much of a chance to get to know them yet.” I asked my cousin as she walked up to me.

              “They’re all scared, and tired, but they will make it. How are we doing? It really bothers a lot of us that we are stopped at night like this.” She replied.

              “I know, I don’t like it either, but not much of a choice. Can’t drive far with a flat tire. Just let anyone that’s awake know that we are almost there. That’s the only reason I haven’t stopped us for the night. We should be at the ship around daybreak.” I told her. I was pretty confident of that timeline, provided we didn’t get attacked while changing the tire. I watched the guys getting the jack and spare out so they could change it. Very few people were awake right now, which was fine, it was three in the morning after all. As the tire change got under way, I headed back to my RV to try the radio.

              “This is Sheldon Friend, from Oklahoma, searching for Dawn and Tony Nelson or anyone in their group. I am currently in Petersburg, Virginia. Is anyone there?” I repeated my message three times, waiting a few minutes between each repetition. I hoped for an answer, but I didn’t really expect one at this time of night. Suddenly, the night silence was broken by shouts, followed shortly by gunshots.

              Throwing my door open, I drew my sword as soon as I was out. I heard the growls before I saw the infected, but the shouts drew my attention the right way immediately. I saw several men had formed a protective arc around the repair crew. The infected were coming from several different directions, so I took the group closest to me since no one else had noticed them yet. Walking up to the first one, I had its attention as I placed my sword squarely in its forehead. I swung to the left, taking out the next one, followed by chopping the knees out of another and leaving it for later.

              I kept swinging as I made my way towards the repair team. I had to watch my step as infected were laid out all over the ground. I could hear people in the RV’s yelling and crying, and I hoped that everyone managed to make it back into safety. I planted my sword in the back of the neck of another infected just before it managed to bite Alan, who was one of the men protecting the guys fixing the flat. Sensing the movement, Alan turned and raised his gun. I swatted his arm away with the flat of my sword as I ducked away from his aim. He dropped his aim to the side and nodded at me. That was guy code for ‘thanks for saving my ass, sorry I almost shot you there’. I nodded back at him, and then turned to watch for any other infected coming.