WorldLost- Week 1: An Infected Novel (17 page)

“What?” I said.

“What?” He replied.

“You’re killing me, dude.”

“This is a good place to ditch the truck. I was just messing
with you. Amy and I can try to hide the truck prints. Get going.” He laughed as
he got out of the truck.

Idiot, I thought as I drove the truck deeper into the woods trying
to not make much of a trail. In my rearview mirror, I saw Butch get Amy out of
the truck and handed her a branch with leaves on it to use to cover up the
truck tracks.

After about five minutes, I couldn’t see our truck anymore
and figured this was a good place to dump the two guys in the back and their truck.
I stopped a little roughly to give them a bounce in the bed of the truck and
then turned off the truck. I took the keys just in case they got free quickly.
We needed to have as much time as we could make for ourselves in order to get
as far away as possible. Looking around the cab I noticed a two-way radio and
some ammo on the dashboard. I grabbed both and turned the radio on.

“Ain't got no clue where they went.” Came a voice. “We’ve
been up SH 8 to CR 10 and haven’t seen them. Over.”

“Backtrack and check the houses you passed on the way. Over.”
Came another voice and then, “Telly, come in. Over”

“Yea boss.” A new voice answered the call.

“Where are you at? Over”

“Just turning up SH 8 south off of RR 4, as instructed dude.”

“Are you done talking, cause I can’t fucking tell when you
don’t say over. Over.

“You seriously want me to say over, over?”

“I’m going to kick your ass when you get back you cock
sucker. Over” The guys with the most to say replied. “Jerry, Al, come in. Over”

“I got a nice ass; you don’t want to kick it. Over” Telly
said.

“Get off the radio, Telly…...Jerry, Al, come in. Over”

I climbed out of the truck cab and moved to the back of the
truck by the tailgate. Jerry, the tall guy, was looking at me. The short guy
was still out, but his eyes were rolling around under his eyelids so I figured
he was still alive.

That was a good thing since all along we hadn’t killed a live
person yet and we honestly were trying our best to not kill any living people.

“Anyone knows where Jerry and Al are. Over.” The guy on the
radio asked. There wasn’t any answer. “Telly. Didn’t you follow them down that
back road off the highway? Over” The two-way was silent with as Telly didn’t answer.
“Telly, answer me or so help me….”

“You need to say over.” Telly laughed into the radio. “Last I
saw them, they went north. I can head up SH 8 and then follow the road they
took.”

I turned the volume down and said to Jerry. “Here’s the deal,
we’ll call it a game if you will. You answer my questions and I’ll leave you
here alive, both of you, alive. You don’t answer my questions and I leave you
here wounded or worse.” I pulled my knife out and climbed onto the bed of the
truck so I was right next to them.

Removing the rag from Jerry’s mouth, I asked, “Who’s the leader
of your group?”

“We all call him Ripper,” Jerry said. “It doesn’t matter what
his name is anyway, because when he is done with you, you’ll be lucky if you
can speak his name after he cuts out your tongue and feeds it to you.”

I took my knife to cut his pants up the side past his knee
and pulled the fabric away exposing his ankle, his calf, and his knee. I took
the knife and placed it on his ankle. “Have you ever been cut against the bone,
against your ankle? It hurts because the bone is so close to the skin.” I moved
my knife across his ankle, cutting a small slit on his ankle bone.

Jerry let out a scream at first but then gritted his teeth
before saying anything else. I think he understood that I was serious about the
rules of the game.

“You can answer my questions and I’ll leave you here alive. If
you don’t answer my question, I’ll leave you here wounded or worse. You decided
to answer more than the question I asked, so you got cut. If you continue to fail
to answer my questions, as asked, then I will have to continue to cut you. All
I wanted was his name. Pay attention to what I am asking you.”

I moved the knife up his ankle to his calf, the blade
pressing into his flesh but not making a cut, just yet. “Next question, what
were you going to do to us once you caught us? What was the plan?”

“We weren’t going to do anything at first, till you ran.” I
moved the knife back down his calf, this time cutting the flesh just a little.
He let out another scream but again bit his tongue, stopping short of saying
more.

“Again, you answer my questions and I leave you here alive.
You don’t answer my question and I leave you hear wounded or worse. Again, you failed
to answer my question. Want to try it again?”

“Don’t cut me again, please.” Jerry pleaded.

“Answer the question and you don’t get cut. What were you
going to do to us?” The blood from the cut on his calf was starting to pool on
the bed of the truck. I pressed the knife edge against his Achilles' tendon.
“The next one cripples you. You know I’m capable of doing it.”

His eye got wide as I pressed the knife against the tendon a
little harder. “Ripper would have made the guys fight the zombies he keeps
penned up in the tennis court area. He would have used the women for his own
needs and pleasure….you would have had to fight to till you died and then
Ripper would have used you as a zombie to fight the next set of guys we caught.….when
he was done with the women, he would have given them to us....” Jerry said
quickly with a scared look in his eyes. I could tell he was telling me the
truth.

These guys were trouble. They were going to be trouble for
this area for some time and there was a great chance we would run into them
again.

I shoved the rag back into his mouth and grabbed the radio. I
turned it back up and pressed the speak button. “Hey, asshole. I have Jerry and
Al. Good luck finding them. They told me what you guys are doing, they really
didn’t have a choice. When we meet again, I’ll kill you for what you are doing.”
I let go of the button without saying over, just because I know it would piss
him off.

“Who the fuck is that?” Ripper said into the radio. “Who the
fuck are you?”

“When you least expect it. I’ll be there to take you down.”

“Yeah, you son of a bitch, come one get some. I ready
whenever you are, punk.” He replied.

“You forgot to say over, dumbass.” I turned the radio off and
put it in my pocket. I reached over and felt for a pulse on the short guy, Al. He
had a faint pulse, but at least he wasn’t dead. “Your buddy is still alive but
barely. Better pray that God will forgive you for what you’ve done and that he
will let Al live because if not he’ll die and turn and we all know what happens
then.” I hopped off the truck bed.

Jerry was trying to say something, but his plea for mercy was
stifled with the rag in his mouth.

“I know….Don’t leave me...please...please...please...blah,
blah, blah.” I said over my shoulder as I walked away from the truck.

It might seem like a very cold thing to do, but I figured
they had done the same thing to their victims and turnabout is fair play in my
book.

I walked back through the woods to the truck taking another
path so my new tracks weren’t next to the truck tracks. I found Butch and Amy
sitting on the tailgate while Cindy and Jamie were sitting in the cab. You
couldn’t really tell that I had pulled the other truck off the dirt road,
they’d done an excellent job of cleaning up after me.

I announced myself as I got close so they wouldn’t accidently
shoot me or be too alarmed as I appeared from the woods and met them at the end
of the truck. I showed them the radio and let them know about the conversation
I had with Jerry and Ripper. After discussing the potential problems we might
run into we all agreed that we needed to get out of the area and find a safe
place to spend the night. And we needed to do it quickly.

This little excursion had taken a large chunk of the day and
we were now far behind where we wanted to be, way behind our original plan.

We grabbed some branches and tied them to the back of the
truck to help hide our tracks as we made our way out of the woods and back to
the main highway.

We finally hit the crossroads of CR10 and SH 8 after an hour of
driving and heading southwest would get us to Johnson’s Corner which was a small
town with a truck stop, a small motel, a western wear shop and a bar called the
Buckhorn Saloon. There were a few houses spread around town and a small trailer
park just south of town.

Although the town was small tucked into a valley, it wasn’t
that isolated, it normally had a lot of traffic in the spring and summer. There
were tons of semi-trucks that took this route to get to Parkersburg from
Porters City which was the home to a large hunting and fishing manufacturing company.
There were a few coal mines and logging sites spread throughout the hills which
added to the truck traffic.

The town was a popular stop for tourists that were visiting
Porters Lake as well as boating enthusiasts and the rich elite that owned most
of the lake front property around the lake. With summer at its peak, it was
likely that lots of people were in town when this virus started four days ago.
They would have been stocking up on food to cook at a barbecue, booze to party
with and gas for their boats. There was a good chance there would still be a
lot of infected in the area of the town when we got there.

As we got closer to town, we found the typical allotment of abandoned
cars that we had grown accustomed to seeing on the side of the road. It was
amazing how quickly we were beginning to accept the new normal. Not seeing the
cars would have been alarming to us.

There were quite a few semis pulled to the side of the road
in this area due to the normal truck traffic through town. Of course, we also
saw our fair share of the dead infected bodies decomposing in the sun. We were
happy that we only saw a few infected wondering around.

The bodies on the ground were definitely infected and had
been killed with a bullet to their head Whoever had done this was a great shot
and had done a fantastic job of only taking out the infected since we didn’t
see any sign of living people.

“Stop the truck.” I told Butch through the back window, “Let’s
talk about our next move before we are too far into town.” This display of
infected dead lying around was making the hair on my arms stand on end.
Something seemed wrong with this place.

‘It’s just a bunch of dead infected rotting in the sun, nothing
wrong with that.” Amy said as she stood up in the bed of the truck and looked
around.

“And there’s some infected heading our way, we need to move
or deal with them,” Butch replied from inside the cab. Cindy and Jamie just sat
there not providing any feedback on our current predicament.

I got out one of my spears ready so I could use it if I needed
to and see me grab a spear; Amy pulled one out of her stash and watched from
the other side of the truck for anything that got too close.

“The only thing moving around here are the dead, the infected
dead. Why is that, where are the people that got stuck in the buildings or
killed?” I said as I pushed my spear into the eye socket of a dead trucker who
had gotten too close to the side of the truck. His moans were loud which
attracted more of his kind from further away. “Let’s move forward slowly, but
stay alerted. Not too fast Butch.”

Butch moved forward slowly using the truck to knock over the
infected in front of us. Some of them were run over, but others just fell to
the ground and would soon be back up and in pursuit. Those that managed to get
to the truck were killed with our spears.

We finally reached the middle of town, having killed fifteen
infected and then we heard a woman’s voice talking to us. It was coming from
further south, down the road. “Stop the truck or die.”

It sounded like she was using a bull horn or talking over a loudspeaker.
Butch put on the brakes and pulled behind a large semi sitting on the side of
the road to provide us with some cover.

“You have two choices.” She continued. “One. You move through
town without stopping and don’t cause any problems. If you do that, you will
have no problems from us……. Two. You get a bullet in the head for not moving
along. We’ll give you ten seconds to decide.”

We all looked at each other as the woman’s voice counted down
from ten over the loud speaker. “We aren’t here to hurt anyone. We’re only
looking for a place to stay for the night.” I yelled.

“That’s not one of the options I gave. We’re peaceful people
but have seen enough bad things that we don’t want strangers camping out in our
town.” The woman’s voice replied.

“We have supplies we could trade with you or use it for
payment for a place to stay the night,” I said.

“We don’t mean you any harm,” Amy yelled hoping a female’s
voice might ease the tension.

After a few seconds, she said, “One of you can come forward, to
the truck stop and we can talk about the supplies as payment. If we see any
others come forward, they will die.” The woman replied back.

“I’ll go,” I said to the team standing up and looking towards
the corner shop. “I’m coming over. My name is Matt and I’m leaving all of my
weapons with my friends except for a knife.”

An infected was making its way to us from behind the truck when
it just fell to the ground. A massive exit wound exploded from the back of its
head and a fine black mist exited the back of its skull a millisecond later. The
sound of the rifle shot came a second later, but we couldn’t tell where it had
come from.

I moved from behind the semi and made my way to the parking
lot of Johnson’s Corner truck stop and pulled to a stop at the main entrance.
Standing inside the doorway was a woman with a pump action shotgun which she
used to indicate that I should move inside.

“I can’t leave my friends out here by themselves,” I said
through the doorway. “You have in your sights, let them bring the truck around
and get inside where it’s safe. You can have our guns and other weapons if that
makes you feel safer.”

Another infected was heading my way as I stood out in the
open with only my knife. Before it got too close to the truck stop, its head
exploded just like the other and it fell to the ground. I could tell that the
shot had come from the top of the building.

“And why should we do that?” The woman asked. She was very
confident and stood her ground.

“Because you’re human and with this problem happening all
over the world, all over the US, we humans need to stick together. In numbers
we can survive, alone we will perish.”

I saw another woman come out of the shadows and speak to the
one in charge, whispering in her ear. She shook her head then said something
back before pointing to the left, telling the other woman to leave.

“Ok, but you will need to leave your weapons at the door and
will not be left alone by yourselves till we have done our business and you
move on.” She said. “Go get your friends.”

I ran back to the truck and let Butch know to drive up really
slow to the truck stop and to park in front of the main doors. As Butch drove
to the main door, I filled in Amy on what I had seen and that the sniper was on
the roof of the truck stop.

We pulled up and I got out. “Stay put and don’t do anything
but sit here,” I said to Amy and Butch. “At least till we know its ok.”

“Are we safe?” Cindy asked looking at me and Amy. Jamie was
just looking out the front window, gently stroking Cindy’s hair. I knew that
Jamie had a serious case of shock from the events of the last 24 hours so we
needed to be strong for Cindy and we needed to get Jamie back to focusing on
what was happening right now.

“Sit tight and make sure Butch and Jamie are safe little one.
I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I replied to her as I reached through the
window and touched her shoulder, squeezing it just a little.

I climbed out of the truck and headed towards the door. As I
approached, the doors were opened by a couple of large cowboy types and they
quickly disarmed me before allowing me to move into the building. The inside of
the truck stop store was clean and quiet. “Move to the back and follow the
lights.” The woman said to me.

I looked down the walkway and couldn’t tell what was down
there. “No. I’d rather talk here where I can watch my team and they can watch
me.” I stood my ground and looked directly at the women. “As I said my name is
Matt and my friends and I are headed south to find a safe place to wait for
this infection out. We’re only passing through and aren’t looking for any
trouble, but we do need to find a safe place for the night.”

She regarded me with a small smile forming on her face.
“We’ve kept a safe place here by not letting our guard down, so forgive us for not
dropping everything and welcoming you in like a Trojan horse. We’ve heard your
story before; you’re not the first to come looking for shelter.”

“We’re not a threat to you or what you have going here. We’re
only moving through and need a place to spend the night. Just like I said. If
that’s a problem, just say so and we’ll move on, but it would better if we
could stay here tonight. Safety in numbers.” I stood there for a few seconds as
she regarded me and after what seemed like a very long time, I turned to leave since
I took the silence as a no. I held my hand out to the guy that was holding my
weapons. He looked at the woman in charge and waited for the OK to hand them back
and let me leave.

Maybe this was a bad idea after all.

“We’ll let you stay the night, but just one night and everyone
will need to give up their weapons.” She said. “We’ll need to keep watch over
you while you are here. Trust isn’t something we give freely anymore.”

I turned around and moved towards her. “How about you start
by being civil and tell me your name.” I held my hand out as a sign of
greeting.

“Shannon.” She shook my hand. “Let his friends in and take
them to the kitchen to get something to eat.” She turned and started walking to
the back of the building. “Follow me; you friends will join us soon.”

“Again, no. We’re a team and we stick together or we leave
together. Trust goes both ways.” I replied.

She stopped and turned back to me. “Fine."Brian, bring
them to the banquet room.” She turned again and spoke to the other woman I had
seen earlier for a brief moment and then headed down the walkway.

I turned to the glass doors and gave the thumbs up to
everyone waiting in the truck. I waited as they exited the truck and entered
into the main shop area. “We’re good. Follow me.”

The team handed over their weapons reluctantly, they trusted
me and did as they were told and followed me as I followed Brian.

The banquet room had several areas sectioned off by makeshift
walls of cloth and cubicle partitions. The area was clean from debris or trash and
seemed organized. I wasn’t sure how many people were here, but it looked like
they had quickly come up with a plan to keep this place safe from the infected
and other people that up to no good. These might people we should try to make
an alliance with since they weren’t that far from Butch’s parent's place. We
run into them again sometime down the road.

Shannon led us to an area that had a conference table and some
chairs. She pointed to the chairs that were facing into the makeshift room,
placing our backs to the open room as she moved to the other side of the table.
She opened a cooler and pulled out some water bottles placing them on the table
for us to have. She grabbed some wrapped granola bars she got from a basket
next to the cooler on the counter behind the table. She sat down and opened her
bottle of water, took a drink and waited for everyone to get comfortable, to
drink and eat a little.

I was surprised at how thirsty I was and downed most of the water
bottle. “In the heat of the battle, it’s easy to forget that you need to stay
hydrated and fed.” She said, watching us all. “Keep that in mind in the future,
it could mean the difference between living and dying.”

We all opened our granola bars with Jamie finally snapping
out of her trance and helping Cindy with her granola bar. While I was watching
Shannon, the others were looking around, making sure there were no dangers
close by. Shannon was only watching me.