The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (133 page)

They both knew it was possible that
they might never return. That they could die in the north when they
reached whatever destiny awaited them there, but they chose not to
dwell on it, as they found it only saddened them.

As they traveled, they encountered less
and less stalled traffic, until the road before them opened up,
totally deserted for miles at a stretch. Mid-morning brought them
to the Oklahoma border, and if they had not had to slow down and
find an alternate route around the City of Clayton, they probably
would have entered Oklahoma by nightfall.

The stalled traffic had returned
several miles outside the city, but once they were within two miles
of the city limits, it had become impassable. Even the breakdown
lanes were packed full, and the traffic had forced them into the
fields that flanked the highway to find a way around. Once past
Clayton however, the stalled traffic had once again given way and
they spent the night camped beside the highway less than twenty
miles from the Oklahoma border.

Noon of the following day brought them
to the outskirts of Woodward and more stalled traffic. After taking
several shortcuts across open fields, they eventually came upon
route 412, which, Billy found by checking the map; they could
follow most of the way across the country.

They spent that night by a quiet lake
that reminded them of the one back in Arizona. They were just
outside the small town of Cleo Springs Oklahoma. They were both
becoming used to the traveling, and had each developed a routine
they followed every night when they stopped. They had twice seen
smoke off in the distance that day, as if to the east of them some
great fire were burning. They had correctly guessed the reason long
before they reached the fire. Someone, or something, had set the
entire city to flame.

~

For several miles before they reached
and successfully passed around and beyond the city of Enid
Oklahoma, black oily smoke had hung over them in the sky. They had
been forced to detour more than twenty miles to the south, running
through the fields to get around the still burning city. Even from
that distance they could feel the heat, and occasionally see the
flames leaping into the sky.

When they stopped that evening at a
small lake just off 412, the glow of the fire was still visible in
the distance behind them. They were both tired and dropped off to
sleep before the last vibrant colors of dusk had fully faded from
the sky.

The next day they traveled steadily
onward toward the distant mountains. The going was slower and they
had to stop several times to move stalled vehicles out of the
roadway, or take other routes that were less traveled. They kept on
a roughly north east direction, rising only slightly up through the
states.

They had finally been stopped by the
wreckage of three cars that had collided on the Quachita river
bridge on 270. The collision had taken out the concrete and the
guard rail on one side of the bridge. There had been a fire after
the wreck. And the heat must have been tremendous. Two of the cars
were wrapped around the steel guard rail that had either broken on
impact or in the fire after that had shattered the remaining
concrete that was still connected to it. Billy managed to winch one
of the cars out of the way, and together they had pushed the other
two off the bridge and into the river.

They had both watched as the cars
flipped end for end, and finally landed half in the river and half
on a small island that split the river. At the expense of a small
amount of paint, which was scraped from the truck as they passed
the one remaining vehicle, they managed to get into the Quachita
National Forest preserve before nightfall.

Two additional days of travel brought
them just into the Alabama border and the small community of
Ardmore. They found a logging road just off 31. After Billy had set
up the tent in a clearing back into the woods, he walked back over
to take a closer look at the truck while Beth started
dinner.

Beth had surprised him earlier in the
day when they had stopped by the side of the road to rest. A large
buck had wandered out of the trees to their left and stood staring
at them in the roadway. She had used the Remington, and carefully
sighting, had brought the large animal down. Between them they had
managed to dress it out, and had filled a large plastic cooler in
the back of the truck with the venison. The smell of fresh steaks
sizzling on the fire made the delay worthwhile.

The trip across the country had been
tough on them, but it had been much harder on the truck, Billy saw
now, as he looked it over.

Most of the damage was superficial,
long scrapes down both sides of the truck, a small dent here and
there. The big problem however was mechanical.

The brakes were borderline, soft and
spongy, probably due to the rough terrain they had traversed. Billy
had had to constantly ride the brakes as they went down steep
inclines to get around the road when it was hopelessly blocked. The
other problem was the motor. It had developed a constant rattle
deep within the block, every time it climbed even a small grade. He
supposed most of it was due to the fact that they had been forced
to use whatever gas they could find, and several times that had
been low grade unleaded. That and the fact that the fuel injection
system had not been set up for high altitude, it had been a desert
truck up until it's liberation from the garage in Arizona. The
truck was running better than twelve hours at a stretch, most days,
and almost all of that was labored driving. As a result the truck
had also developed several small oil leaks.

He walked around the truck and looked
it over carefully. The tires were chewed badly from the rocks they
had crawled over. It looked ten years old, Billy realized. He
pulled the map out of the glove compartment, and after studying it,
decided the truck would probably make it to Athens Alabama, and
they should be able to pick up something to replace it there. He
really hated to though, as he had grown to like the truck a great
deal, even become attached to it. But he realized, the truck would
never make it the rest of the way.

He tossed the map back into the glove
compartment, shut the door and walked back over to the fire. The
smell of the cooking venison was maddening.

While he had meant it when he told Beth
she had done wonders with the canned stuff, there was nothing like
the real thing. He resolved to also hunt around for a case or two
of Quick Cold to keep what was left of the meat fresh when they
reached Athens.

Although they had seen plenty of
wildlife, they had yet to see any people. They both felt, however,
that there were people. For whatever reason they just weren't
showing themselves. They both understood, to a point, what would
make other people distrustful of them. They had seen a lot of
evidence themselves, bodies horribly mangled, cities burned, and
they had no wish to meet up with the people who had left it. They
had found most of the bodies as they passed through the larger
cities and towns, and most looked to have met with violent deaths.
It was almost as if they were trying to finish the killing that the
earthquakes had not been able to finish. And more dead meant more
dead rising to whatever that new life was. It wasn't something
either of them liked to dwell on too long. It was sobering to both
of them, and Beth had taken to carrying the machine pistol with her
whenever they left the truck. Billy had already gotten into the
habit of keeping the Remington close at hand, but he too now made
sure it was with him, and the safety off, all the time.

Billy walked back from the truck and
sat down next to the fire.

“
The truck's in bad shape,
Beth. The one front tire's cut to the threads already.” He had also
checked the oil and other fluids. “She took two quarts of oil, last
two we had, and it's still not touching the stick. Not
good.”

She screwed up her face and looked at
him pensively. “Well, I suppose I could get a second job. Then I
guess we could afford a new one,” her humor caught him by surprise,
as it usually did, and he laughed out loud.

“
You are nuts, you know
that?” he said. They laughed together, and then he told her that
they should be able to get another truck in Athens the next day.
After that she fished the meat, which she had wrapped in foil and
placed over the coals at one edge of the fire, out, and they ate.
They ate it with relish, and laughed at each other about what pigs
they were, and then after a swim in a clear mountain stream that
flowed nearby they crawled into the tent.

They were only three miles outside of
Athens the next morning, when the truck finally gave up the
ghost.

It died with one dreadfully long rattle
deep within the block of the engine. Billy coasted over to the side
of the road and they simply left it. He had tried to start it, but
it would not turn over. Billy took the Remington, and Beth held the
machine pistol as they walked along the road. It took better than
an hour to walk into Athens, but when they arrived it was still
early morning.

They had both been bothered by a
feeling that they had been followed, or were being watched. It was
unsettling, and they were constantly glancing around themselves as
they walked, but they saw no one.

They were standing on the pavement of a
car lot looking over a long line of vehicles, trying to decide
which one to take, when the first shot came.

The windshield on the truck directly in
front of them imploded, covering the interior in small jewel like
chunks of glass. They both reacted almost instantly, dropping to
the ground and rolling towards the rear of the truck.

When they reached the rear of the truck
they both crouched low and sprinted deeper into the lot. Another
shot rang out as they ran, and Beth watched as a wide hole was
suddenly punched through the fender of a truck just a few inches
ahead of her. She dropped to the ground and rolled over on her
back, raising the machine pistol instinctively in front of her. It
was all that saved her life.

Billy was still running deeper into the
lot, not realizing Beth was no longer beside him. The sound of the
machine pistols chatter behind him stopped him cold, and he turned
and ran back towards the front of the lot.

When Beth had fallen, a tall dark
haired kid had appeared from in front of the truck, and directly
into the steel sight of the machine pistol. He raised what looked
to be an automatic rifle, but before he could fire Beth began
squeezing the trigger of the pistol, and it jumped and began to
bark in her hands. Billy had just come up beside her, and watched
as the man toppled over, nearly cut in two. The sound of screeching
tires out on the roadway dragged his mind away from the still
twitching body of the young man, and as Beth jumped up into a low
crouch they both began to run towards the road. Billy stopped only
long enough to pick up the automatic rifle from the ground where
the man had dropped it.

When they reached the road a small Jeep
was moving rapidly away from them, and a blond haired man, not much
more than a kid, Billy realized, was crouched in the back aiming a
rifle at them, while a dark haired young woman sat behind the
wheel. They both dropped once more to the ground, and opened up on
the Jeep as the young man began to fire. The slugs from the young
man’s rifle ripped into the pavement, tearing huge chunks out of it
close to Billy's face as he fired back at the Jeep.

The blond haired kid suddenly bolted
upright, and seemed to jump from the rear of the Jeep. He landed on
the roadway, rolled, and then was still. Both rear tires blew out
on the Jeep as Beth's gun continued to speak, and before it had
traveled far the young woman lost control, and it flipped several
times rolling down the middle of the road. The young woman fell
headfirst in a heap on the pavement where she had been thrown, and
had then been rolled over by the Jeep as it continued to flip down
the road.

Smoke curled up from the overturned
Jeep. Within seconds it attracted a small circle of flames from
under the hood that grew and began to curl up and lick at the
rubber of the still turning front tires.

“
You okay?” Billy asked, in
a panicked voice as he looked at Beth.

“
Good... A little shaken,”
she amended.

They both walked slowly down the road
to where the bodies of the young man and the young woman lay, they
were perhaps twenty feet apart. Beth had thought that possibly the
young woman might still be alive, but she was not. Her neck was
broken, and they had quietly carried both bodies off the road and
into a field before returning to the lot. They had debated briefly
whether they should bury them, but had decided not to. It was not a
decision made out of spite though, but out of necessity. They had
no idea whether the three were alone or not, and if they were not,
and there were others close by, it might be best to get back to the
lot, pick up a truck, and head back out to where the Chevy had
broken down as quickly as they could.

They walked calmly back to the
dealership, and went inside. They both felt safer inside despite
the wide glass windows that fronted the road.

A huge four wheel drive Suburban sat on
the showroom floor nestled in between other cars and trucks that
surrounded it. It was obviously a heavy duty truck. It sat much
higher than the pickup had, and the tires were much more
aggressive, and the open cargo space behind the driver's area would
be an asset to them, Billy realized, much better than the open
pick-up bed had been with its flimsy vinyl cover. He walked around
the truck, noticing that it was also equipped with a winch as the
pickup had been, but this one looked to be a lot sturdier to him,
strictly heavy duty.