The Long, Lonely, Yellow Road

A Long, Lonely, Yellow Road

         I sighed.  Another lonely night on the road it looked like.  The next town wasn’t for another thirty miles, and I already knew that it wasn’t worth stopping at.  I’ve been to enough blink-and-you’ll-miss-it towns out this way to know that no matter how bad you got to pee, you don’t stop at the local diner-fire station-bank.

         I decided that I would just have to continue on, no matter how bad I might have to go, further down the road.  Thinking this made me chuckle to myself.  Besides, it might not be the best time for me to stop anywhere these days.  That thought stopped my chuckling.  Damn, killed my good mood too.

          Taking a swig of coffee, I decided that it was time to either pour it out or use it as napalm.  Slowly I rolled the window down, maintaining my speed.  I gradually tipped the cup, watching it ooze out slower than snot in my side-mirror.  It was then, as I was forcing the coffee monster from its lair that I saw something.

         I barely hit the brake in time.  Something jumped out of nowhere into the middle of the god-forsaken road.  I almost flipped the truck, stopping so fast.  Usually I would’ve just gone over what was in the road, but old instincts kicked in. Typically, I wouldn’t see anything out this far out in the boondocks, not even animals nowadays.

         Like a ninja, I silently rolled my window up.  My truck had slid a couple of feet, I could tell because the top spot-light illuminated four parallel black streaks on the road.  Whether it was an animal or something else that I had narrowly avoided hitting I didn’t see it.  I hoped it was just a dog, but I grabbed my shotgun which had been riding shotgun.  Just in case it was a big dog.

         My door slid open, but I was very un-ninja-like when I fell out of the cab.  I was up on my feet in a hurry, that’s for sure.  I had a big road-burn on my arm, but I was more worried about what I may or may not have hit.  I was trying to remember any “thumps” when I felt like I was being watched.  I swung around only to find myself staring at something I never expected to see, especially with as far out as I was.

         “Howdy” was all I could muster.  The girl, no older than twenty rushed up and hugged me tight, no doubt scared to death and glad to see someone like her.  I thanked God I hadn’t actually hit her.  I held her for a second, and then whispered that we had to go. She wouldn’t let go, but I pushed myself away. I got a good look at her as she rushed to the truck.  Looked like she had been out here a while, her shirt was dirty and her jeans were torn at the bottom.  She was covered with dust, and she had twigs and leaves in her hair.  I didn’t know how she had survived so long on her own, but she must’ve done something right.  I ran around and opened the passenger door and helped her up.  She passed out as soon as she was buckled into the seat.

         I sighed, putting the truck into a lower gear.  I wasn’t alone on this road anymore, but the town was coming up in a couple of miles.  I locked my door.  I knew it was silly, but I knew the ugly truth.  I looked over to make sure that her door was locked.  It was then that I noticed something was wrong.  Horribly, terribly wrong, and I had thrown my shotgun behind my seat.  There was a small wound on her side.  One I hadn’t noticed back in the light.  But I noticed now, in the dim cabin light.  It was a bite.  She was infected, and she looked paler now.  I put my foot on the brake and slowed to a stop.  She woke up then, and looked around, confused.  She was one of them, a zombie, maybe not quite yet but in a minute or two. 

         “I have to pee” she said. 





2: Rain
         I looked up at the sky. Overcast. There was lighting over to the left, quite a ways.  Rain would be coming soon; we would have to be quick about this.  I looked over at Cass, she knew it too.  The pickup started to gain more and more speed as she pushed harder on the gas pedal.  That little bit of speed didn’t feel very reassuring at the time.  We had forgotten the rain gear, and this old rust bucket wasn’t proofed.
         The truck was silent for a while, we were waiting for the rain to start.  Cass’s hands were white on the steering wheel, and her face was just as white.  I started to say something a couple of times to break the tension, to calm her down.  I never got anything out though, the thought of getting caught in the rain had kept me silent.  I’m sure she knew as well as I did that our only hope would to reach the big rig Larry had been driving.  But that was only if something bad hadn’t happened to it. Or Larry. 
         I finally broke the silence when I started loading Ol’ Trusty.  The first click of me putting a round in the gun must have startled Cass, she almost swerved off the road.
“It’s okay,” I tried it calmly, but it came out as shaky as the truck was going down the highway. 
         “I know,” was all she responded with, getting back into the lane and back up to speed.
         I put Trusty down, I didn’t want to take the chance of it going off in case she swerved again. Instead of loading, I unfolded the small map.  A little red ink dot was where Larry was, where his emergency signal had blipped the first time.  He was just outside of a little town, the name had since been smeared off of the map.  And we were close, just a few miles out.
         “We’re almost there,” I said, taking the chance of another swerve.
         “I know,” it was weak, but it was a response.  One of her special responses. 
         A couple of times, there were a few sprinkles on the windshield.  We both instinctively put bandanas over our faces, worried that the sky would let loose.  But nothing more than a sprinkle ever fell.  We were lucky for that.  We were also lucky when his truck came into view.
         We saw the back of it at first, the taillights were bright red, and black smoke was slowly wafting out of the top exhaust.  The oddest thing was that it was just sitting in the middle of the road, like he had just stopped, put it in park and left. 
         Cass went around it, and stopped directly in front of it.  I got out, but Cass stayed in her seat.  Her arms were still on the wheel, the engine still running.  She must have one of her “feelings” about this.  I grabbed Ol’ Trusty and pulled my bandana a little tighter around my face.  I could smell the rain it was so close.  I had to hurry.
         

3. Running
         Run. It was all I could think to do, it was all I wanted to do. I had to get away, I had to run. It was all I had been doing.  It was all I could do.  Run.
         All that I had been doing for days was running.  I was starving, so weak.  Those, those things had come.  They were something straight from a horror movie, so horrible.  Mindless, freaky, chasing me, chasing my friends, they just kept coming.
         I was still running, looking for some place where I could stop. I needed more batteries for my little radio. It had gone dead two days ago.  I needed food, water.  I needed to stop.  But no matter where I did stop, they would be there.
         I lost track of how many days I’d been running.  Weeks, months maybe.  All I was doing was running.  Alan had been the only one that had kept up.  They got him a week ago, two weeks ago?  I couldn’t think straight, I was so hungry, so tired. 
         I finally thought that I found a safe place.  It was a little farmhouse, down a dirt road.  If nothing else there would be food, a well maybe.  I might even be able to wash up.  I was soaked with dirt, and mud, I don’t know how many rainstorms I got stuck in where I couldn’t find shelter. 
         I knocked once on the front door, and then hid, just in case.  No answer.  I needed someplace so bad that I didn’t think about what I was doing.  I ran around the small house tried the back door to see if it was unlocked.  No luck.  I decided to break in.
         I threw a rock through a back cellar window.  The hole was small, and the glass didn’t break all the way.  I wiggled my way in and fell onto an earth floor.  I don’t know how long I was out, I landed head first. 
         When I woke up, it was dusk, the sun hadn’t quite set.  I felt like I had to move, to find someplace.  Instinct from the past couple of weeks, I guess.
         I heard a noise, and I froze.  I couldn’t climb back up through the window, it was too high. I waited for a second.  A minute.  No other noises.  I felt something in my pocket. I fished out my little radio, the fall had broken it.  I wouldn’t need batteries now.
         I got the nerve to start going up the stairs.  They creaked, each and every one of them.  I stopped at each sound, ready to run.  When I reached the top of the stairs, I held my ear against the door.  No sounds.
         I slowly turned the knob.  It creaked, but the door opened.  I froze when I saw the room, stifling a scream.
         It must have been the kitchen; there was a sink, a refrigerator, and a table.  But the floor was covered in blood.  There were broken glasses all over the floor, broken china, a chair that wasn’t a chair anymore.  And there were parts.  I started to puke, but there wasn’t anything in my stomach. 
         Before I could calm myself down, something lunged out of the corner.  I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t smelled it at first, but I guessed it had just been room.  I screamed.
         Run. It was all I could do, it was what my mind went to first. I ran past the table, past the refrigerator.  I had been running for a while, so I was fast.
         But it was faster.  This one was a lot faster than all the others.  It grabbed my arm and bit down on my stomach. I screamed in pain, and I kicked it in its head.
         It fell backward. I didn’t stop, I just ran harder.  I ran into the door, it flew open.  I didn’t take the road, I ran into the trees.  I ran. I ran. I ran.