Tanner drove east on Highway 20, the red Honda Odyssey minivan slowly navigating the congested road, like a mouse working its way through an experimenter’s cruel maze. For the past ten miles, the number of abandoned cars had been steadily increasing, and while the interstate was still passable, it never allowed him to exceed ten miles an hour.
The two rows of rear seats had been folded down, and Samantha lay resting in the back with a couple of blankets draped over her.
“It’s not very comfortable back here.”
“And yet you slept,” he said, catching her eye in the rearview mirror.
“Evidently, being in a helicopter crash makes you tired. How far have we gone?”
“About eighty miles. We’ll be coming up on the outskirts of Atlanta soon.”
Samantha climbed up into the front passenger seat, pulling one of the blankets with her.
“Are we going to drive straight through?”
“No. We’ll get on the 285 loop and go around the city.”
“Why not go through the middle? Wouldn’t it be quicker?”
“Atlanta had roughly five million people living there when this thing hit. You can imagine how bad it must be.”
“Oh, right. Okay, let’s go around.”
“At this rate, though, it will take several hours.”
She looked out the window.
“We won’t make it before dark.”
“Another reason to stay out of the city.”
After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry, but I really need a bathroom break.”
“Okay.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes. When Tanner spotted an exit that was still passable, he pulled off the interstate. A McDonald’s restaurant and two gas stations came into view. He pulled into the parking lot of the larger of the two gas stations.
“Let’s hit the restroom and maybe grab a few snacks,” he said.
They got out of the van and approached the store. Surprisingly, it was still in remarkably good shape. There were a couple of deserted cars out front, but the glass door to the store was unbroken, as were its large windows.
Tanner gave the door a push. It didn’t budge.
“Try somewhere else?” she asked.
“Give me a sec.” He went back to the van and returned with a small crowbar.
“You don’t mind breaking into places, do you?”
He cut his eyes toward her.
“If you’d rather pee in the bushes, that’s okay with me.”
“I was just making an observation.”
“Uh-huh.” Tanner slipped the blade of the pry bar between the door and the jam, and leaned into it. The doorframe bent and the bolt pulled free of the striker plate. He gave the door a gentle push, and it swung inward. “We’re in.”
“Two thieves in the night,” she muttered under her breath.
Even with the limited light remaining, it was clear that the store had been cleaned out. Shelves were mostly empty, and the glass coolers had only a few bottles lying in the bottom.
“Not much here,” he said. “Let’s hit the restroom before it gets too dark.”
He led Samantha through the store until they found the door of the women’s bathroom. “Let me check it.”
“Okay, but please hurry. I’ve really got to go.”
He swung open the door, but immediately closed it when the stink of human decomposition poured out.
“Let’s check the other one.”
She followed him to the men’s bathroom door. He opened it, and this time, there were no unusually foul odors. He stepped inside and looked around, handing the door to Samantha to hold open. The bathroom was a simple single-room unit. No one, living or dead, was inside.
“I doubt that the water will run,” he said, stepping back out.
“I’ll manage.”
Tanner grabbed an empty milk crate from the hall and wedged the door open.
“I’ll get what I can from the store.”
Less than a minute later, Samantha came out of the restroom.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes. What did you find?”
“Let’s see, I’ve got a few Slim Jim beef sticks, some licorice, and about half a dozen purple sports drinks. We can check the other store, too.”
“Let’s just keep moving.”
“Fine. Wait for me while I hit the can.”
She opened one of the drinks and began sipping it.
Tanner went into the bathroom and relieved himself. When he came back out, Samantha was gone.
He scanned the dark room to make sure that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. She was nowhere in the small store. He raced out of the building, looking left and right. A man shuffled across the dark street, carrying Samantha under his arm like a prize he’d won at the county fair. Tanner sprinted after him.
He caught up to the stranger before he had even finished crossing the four-lane road.
“Put her down!” he bellowed.
The man spun around, panting from the exertion of trying to run while carrying an eighty-pound girl. He was disfigured in a way that no man should have been able to survive, let alone endure. Deep pockmarks permanently disfigured his face like craters on the surface of the moon. His eyes were swollen and oozing a black, inky fluid from their corners.
Samantha was kicking and screaming, fighting to get free.
“Put her down,” Tanner repeated.
“You stole my daughter,” the man said, still trying to catch his breath. “Took her from me while I slept.”
Samantha finally broke free and fell to the ground. The man reached for her, but she quickly scooted away. When she was far enough away, she scrambled to her feet and ran around behind Tanner.
The man looked utterly distraught and reached out his arms to her.
“Jenny. Jenny, come here.” He took a step toward them.
Tanner struck him with a short heel palm to his chest. The man stumbled back and fell on his backside. He sat there, holding his disfigured face, crying, “Jenny, Jenny, my dearest Jenny. Where are you, Jenny?”
Tanner and Samantha slowly backed away, watching him until they made it back to their van. Without saying a word, they loaded up and drove back onto Highway 20.
When Samantha’s heart finally stopped pounding like a Japanese Taiko drum, she said, “What do you think was wrong with him?”
“The virus, I guess.”
“He scared me.”
“He was ugly enough to scare Frankenstein.”
She choked out a little laugh.
“Thank you for not killing him.”
“Huh?”
“He seemed to be a very sad man. I don’t think he needed killing.”
“Despite what you might think, I don’t go around killing people.”
“Sometimes you do.”
He sat quietly, letting her words sink in.
“Yeah,” he said, “sometimes I do.”
“Do you think …” Her voice trailed off.
“What?”
“Well, he carried me with his hands.”
“Ah, and you’re wondering if you might be infected. Is that it?”
“I don’t want to end up like him.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“His face was scarred, not blistered like others we’ve seen.”
“So he wasn’t contagious anymore?”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“Do I look like an expert on viruses?”
“No, you look like a football player.”
“Thank you. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“So, you’re pretty sure?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure. And if I’m wrong, you’ll turn into a cheese face.” She laughed. “If I do, you will, too.”
“Maybe, but I’ll look good as a cheese face. Probably marry a cheese-face lady and have a house full of cheese-face kids.”
> She smiled and looked out the window
They drove for another thirty minutes, silently witnessing the growing pandemonium of the interstate. Cars were smashed into one another, flipped upside down, and sitting at every possible angle. Tanner steered the van onto the shoulder and navigated the wreckage as best as he could, but it was becoming more and more difficult. He wasn’t entirely sure that the road would even be passable closer to the city.
Still looking out her window, Samantha said, “There are dead people inside a lot of these cars.”
“Yes.”
“And flies eating on them.”
“Don’t look if it upsets you.”
“I didn’t say it upset me.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I suppose you don’t get upset by seeing dead bodies.”
“It depends on who’s dead.”
Before she could reply, they slammed to a stop. She smacked the dash with her hand, which was the only thing that saved her head from hitting the windshield. Tanner had bumped one of the cars he had been trying to pass, and it spun around to wedge itself against the side of their van. He gave the van some gas, but the tires spun as the other car held them in place. He popped it in reverse, but again, the tires couldn’t find the necessary traction.
He opened the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To see if I can get us free.”
“But—”
“But what?”
“Nothing,” she said, leaning back against her seat.
He stepped out and walked around to the other side of the van. The car had wedged its bumper under the wheel well of the van. He squatted down and examined the damage. It looked pretty bad. Even if he could get it free, the van’s front passenger-side tire had been damaged. He couldn’t chance driving on it. He went to the Samantha’s window and motioned for her to roll it down.
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “We’re stuck.”
“We’ll need to swap to another vehicle.”
“But they all have dead people inside.”
“Then we’ll walk until we find an empty one that I can drive out of this mess.”
“But it’s almost dark.”
“I don’t really want to spend the night—,” Tanner suddenly whipped around, his hands at the ready. He peered into the darkness but saw nothing more than the death and destruction he had witnessed for the past fifty miles. The only difference was that now he was standing exposed, right in the middle of it.
“What is it?” Samantha’s voice was shaking.
“Nothing.”
“Then why did you turn around? You heard something.”
He scanned left to right and then back again. Nothing.
“Probably just a car settling.”
“Or a zombie.”
He looked at her.
“You’re afraid of zombies?”
“Everyone’s afraid of zombies.”
“I’m not,” he said, moving around to the back of the van.
“Yes you are,” she shouted out the window.
“Nope,” he said, popping open the hatch. “I eat zombies for lunch.”
“No one eats zombies,” she said, quickly stuffing her backpack with supplies. “They get eaten by zombies.”
“Not me.” He loaded his own pack and slipped it on his back.
She climbed out of the van and came to stand beside him.
“You’re telling me that if a horde of zombies started climbing out of these cars, you wouldn’t be afraid?”
“Nope. Not one bit.” He started walking down the interstate and she followed close behind him.
She seemed beside herself. “A horde? A whole horde?”
Tanner grinned.
They walked for more than twenty minutes without finding a car that was both easy to access and devoid of the dead. It seemed that everyone had been trying to escape Atlanta, for obvious reasons, and was inadvertently trapped in the mass exodus. Like a crowded theater in which someone shouts, “Fire,” panic had claimed its fair share of victims.
The whole time they walked, Tanner had the nagging feeling that they were being followed. He didn’t bother stopping to survey the cluster of overturned cars and debris. The road had become so utterly dark that it was like swimming through a barrel of oil. The only light was the soft glow of moonlight and the colorful glints as it bounced off car reflectors.
The most disturbing part, however, was not the darkness. It was the strangeness of the sounds around them. Their footsteps crunched across asphalt covered in broken glass. Cars creaked and moaned, protesting their unfortunate doom. And a steady wind whistled through the wreckage like the haunting cry of a sleepless witch.
Out of the blue, Samantha asked, “Do you think I’m annoying?”
“Yes.”
“No, really.”
“Yes, really.”
“Humph.”
They walked a little longer.
“You don’t like me then?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So, you do like me?”
“I didn’t say that either.”
“You can’t have it both ways. Either you do—”
A low growl sounded from up ahead. Tanner stepped directly in front of Samantha.
“Hush, now.”
The growl sounded again, this time closer. Another growl came from their left. And then another behind them. Tanner saw the unmistakable shine of eyes coming out of the dark.
Scanning the cars around him, he looked for a place to hide. The best he could find was a green Mustang with a badly smashed front end. Without saying a word, he scooped Samantha up in his arms and ran for the car. He could hear the unmistakable scratching of something coming up behind them. Tearing open the door, he tossed her in and fell in behind her. Powerful jaws grabbed the cuff of his jeans and tried to pull him out. He kicked backward, missing his target but tearing his clothing free of the creature’s mouth.
The head of an enormous pit bull terrier shoved its way into the car, biting viciously at his kicking leg. Tanner sat up, grabbed the door handle, and tried to slam it shut. It closed on the dog’s neck, and the animal yelped in pain. He opened it a few inches to see if the dog would retreat. It didn’t. He slammed the door again, this time so hard that it broke the animal’s neck. It dropped instantly onto the seat, as if a switch had been flipped off in its brain.
Tanner kicked the dog’s body out of the car and quickly shut the mangled door.
“Are you okay?” asked Samantha, her voice shaking with fear.
Tanner felt his leg. His pants were wet with saliva as well as torn in a couple of places, but he was uninjured.
“I’m good.”
Another dog suddenly sprang out of the dark, its front legs propping against Samantha’s window. It barked ferociously, large strands of slobber spraying onto the glass.
She recoiled, pressing back hard against Tanner.
“They can’t get in,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.
A large German shepherd jumped onto the hood of the car, barking and scratching at the windshield.
Samantha buried her face in Tanner’s chest.
“But what if they do?”
He pulled her close.
“Then I’ll kill them.”
Chapter 16