Zombies! Rising from the Dead (23 page)

“
Thank you, thank you so much . . . I didn't know what we were going to do!
”,
she
whispered softly in my ear.

“I wouldn't let anything happen to either of you”,
I
said, returning the embrace.

I looked over at my buddy standing there, grinning ear to ear.
I walked over to Rick and gave him a hearty hug, patting him firmly on the back.

“Well, you actually pulled it off! I can't believe it, but whew, I am sure glad you did!”
He
said, still smiling.

“Yeah, I almost didn't make it, it was really close”
I didn't tell him anything specific, that
would come out eventually.

“Man we really have a lot to talk about, so much has
happened.
”,
he commented.

“I know
,
what’s it been, a month, two months?
”
I asked.

“Almost buddy, almost!”

I handed Amanda a towel from the truck so she could dry her eyes,
“it's okay, we made
I
this far . . . we are going to get through
this.”
She looked at me and smiled.

I took a deep breath.
“Rick, we can't stay here. I know we're all tired but we have to
keep moving.”

“I know....”
Rick paused.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here. Come on, let’s go.”

Chapter 8

The Bicyclist

We piled into the cab, I on the driver side and Rick on the passenger; with Amanda
wedged in the middle. Together we rode out of the dusty field and headed into Barkley, then
eventually on to towards Panatauk.

Barkley, none of us had been in town in almost two months. We hadn't heard from a soul,
not from Barkley, Panatauk, or anywhere else for that matter. The only thing we
did
know is
that things in Barkley must be in bad shape. Rick, Amanda and I had seen the plumes of
smoke rising from the city; who knew what we were getting ourselves into.

We drove the remaining two miles out of Cedar Road. It would be nice to say that we didn't
encounter anymore abominations along the way but unfortunately that would be a lie. It wasn't
a hard guess which residences had people barricaded inside and which did not. Some homes had dozens of monsters surrounding them, while at the same time the home across the street
might be completely void of activity. These creatures, these
monsters,
there was
something
about them. They knew when living people were present, a sixth sense of some sort, but as to
exactly what mechanism was at work we were at a loss to understand.

Amanda just put her head down and
told us to let her know when it was over.

“We don't need to go through town. We need to try and go around it...”
Rick said as we
approached the city limits.

I had already anticipated doing this, going through the town center would have presented
too much of a hazard, not knowing what condition the streets were in. I couldn't risk getting us
stuck. All it would have taken was a wrong turn, a piece of broken glass, or a rusty nail to
puncture a tire and leave us stranded.

We came to the intersection that joined Cedar Road and Barkley. Turning right onto the
main highway, the number of homes began to increase. We drove on up the road a bit until we
could divert off the main highway and onto the less-used side roads. Rick and I had
g
rown up
here and knew all the roads in the county by heart. Only now did we realize just how useful
that knowledge like this was going to be.

The scene was the same everywhere we
went,
homes were burned or ransacked, undead aimlessly walking about. There was smoke and fire everywhere, but for all this we never
saw another living soul. For once it seemed our rural, mundane existence had come in handy
and we were sparred the horrific chaos that must have ensued before it all came crashing
down.
We drove through
Barkley as best we could, there were large numbers of undead, but for
the most part they didn't represent a real threat so long as we stayed in the confines of the
pickup. We had avoided the congested town
center,
the roaming hordes we did see moved
too
slowly to present any real threat. It was sad to see Barkley in such condition; but at least
we
were alive.
The back roads ended shortly and we would be forced to take the main highway in order to
get out of Barkley and on our way to Panatauk. It was the same road that we had come in on
and the same one that lead us past Mark's Grocery.

We were over the railroad tracks when Rick said in a very distressed voice,
“Oh my god,
Bruce look...”

Off to the right there was a small group of infected wandering not far from a car that had
collided with a telephone pole. Among the group of corpses stumbling about was a girl that we
both recognized. Wearing old tattered jeans, her shirt had been ripped to shreds and she was
covered in fresh blood. Her midsection had been dissected and her intestines (what was left of
them) were hanging out of her gut like gruesome tassels on a Mexican Sombrero. A portion of
her skull had been torn away and a large chunk of her head was absent, no doubt devoured by
those monsters. Besides the obvious damage we were still able to identify who it was and our
hearts sank.

“Poor Lisa...”
I said, shaking my head.

“She never had a chance, those fucking bastards.”
Rick seethed under his breath.

“No...”
I told him, I couldn't find the words to say anything more.

Amanda said nothing, her head resting just below the dashboard as so to avoid the sight,
her hands covering the back of her head to shield her peripheral vision.

Lisa probably
hadn't
stood a chance, a young girl,
alone,
working at one of the first places
those things would have been drawn to. By the time she got the word and tried to get home, it
was probably already too late. She was a single mother as
well;
the best we could hope for was
that her children were safe.

Warnings were issued again and again, but it had occurred so quickly it caught many off
guard. I remember the day Rick and I heard the first emergency broadcast, we were on our
way to Panatauk that very morning. The news had alerted us as it headed west to east, on the
winds of the jet stream. Within hours we went from a perfect summer day to being overrun by
those horrible abominations. Perhaps it was a common paranoia that Rick I shared that saved
our lives; but lately it was proving quite useful.
We continued on, there was no attempt to help Lisa she was lost. All that she had been was
gone now. It was a horrible shame but nothing could change that. There wasn't anything that
could be done for her
condition;
after all there was no cure for death.

There were fires all throughout town, not caused directly by the undead but more of an
after-effect of unchecked utilities, electrical fires, broken gas lines, etc. Several buildings had
burned down completely, leaving nothing but smoldering piles of ash and charred wood to
remember them by.
There were signs of rampant looting, broken glass, busted doors, and all sorts of debris
scattered about local
businesses
. There were almost certainly other survivors but there would be
no time to look for them and the risk was simply too high, as it seemed around every corner
there was yet another undead thing waiting for us. There were always those creatures that
walked openly on roads, in yards, but looking closer you could also see them curdled behind
machinery and
lying
dormant in bushes, as if waiting to be activated by something.

We decided our best course of action was to get back on the road towards Panatauk with as
little diversion as possible.
We made our way through town with no surprises. Amanda sat snugly between me and
Rick. Those monsters being drawn to towns and populated areas did us a favor in the long
run for as we left town the undead hordes grew fewer and fewer and we soon found ourselves
on the open road with very little standing between us and Panatauk. Occasionally we passed a
boarded home. It was always easy to tell which ones had survivors inside because the creatures
were only drawn to homes with people in them. The empty, abandoned homes were strangely
left alone, but
how exactly did they know?
We also passed dozens of abandoned vehicles and
we could only wonder why
the occupants would leave the safety of perfectly good cars and
trucks. Hopefully they made it to safety, but who knew?

We came to a long expanse of highway nearing the halfway point between Barkley and
Libbetsville;
it was an area that was largely unpopulated. The only structure standing for a
couple miles in either direction was an old, abandoned lamp factory that had closed years

earlier
. The only sound to be heard was the wind and the gentle sway of trees. For the first time
in a long time we actually felt relaxed, so relaxed in fact that we dared to lower our windows
and let some fresh air in. The sensation of the cool air and warm sun against our faces was a
feeling that I cannot begin to describe here.

We paced
ourselves;
while we needed to get to Panatauk quickly we didn't want to rush
ourselves into making foolish mistakes. Amanda had enough medicine to last a few more days
so taking a few extra moments to enjoy our freedom wasn't going to hurt a thing. There were no
appointments to keep, no schedules to maintain. The only thing we had to concern ourselves
with was survival, and that depended solely on us.