FLATLINE (Countryhumans)

One

My story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty six years. With an idiot (in this case, myself) deciding that it would be a good idea to go out and drive, by myself, through a nearly unmonitored zombie-infested county, on a motorcycle that I honestly can't remember when I last ran maintenance on.

This, down to every last detail of the situation, is a textbook example of exactly what NOT to do when going into the field. You never travel alone if you can help it, and when it is truly the only option you let someone know exactly where you are, where you're going, and when you plan on arriving. It may sound paranoid, yes. Though it is the type of paranoia that has saved many from being torn to shreds by a mob of infected.

After the dead started to reanimate, and the world was very nearly lost to the Rising, the general opinion of what qualified as paranoid became much more skewed. Things like going out for dinner or groceries, going out to see friends in person, hell even just going out for the sake of going out, they all would come to be viewed as "dangerous." All unsafe behavior, that was just opening yourself up to risk of "contamination," as though we weren't all already contaminated. While things like taking a blood test for everything, even to leave and enter your own damn house, and having to take showers in bleach any time you so much as took a step outside, those all became considered normal. Things that were necessary to keep ourselves safe. As if true safety is even really an option at this point.

As my father would say. It wasn't the zombies that wound up doing the most damage. In the end, It was the fear.

Still though, even I admit that some things make more sense than others. Blood tests and bleach showers when you've actually been in the field? Common sense. Making it illigal to own a pet that weighs enough to turn? It made my dog-loving dad and sister quite sad, but I can't argue with it. Driving blindly into a level 5 quarantine zone all alone on a motorcycle that was dangerously close to running out of gas? Stupidity at it's finest, I am fully aware of that.

Though I don't really have any other choices at the moment. I should have stopped when I could, back when I first reached Colorado. Should have stopped at that Julesburg town to run maintenance and get more gas.

But I couldn't.

I saw them there. A convoy of three jeeps, probably about three soldiers to each, lingering around the entrance to the town. Was it an ambush? Were they waiting for me? Was it just a coincidence? I don't know, and probably never will know, because I was not about to take that risk.

The bike jerked violently when I failed to dodge one of the many potholes that littered the road, wincing sympathetically for my poor милость. When it comes to quarantine areas, people tend to be more concerned with keeping the infected contained, than with repairing any weather damage the roads receive. And while this can't be at all good for my poor bikes suspension, it also goes to show just how few people come this way, and how much the government cares to keep an eye on the area.

I've been traveling back roads like this through quarantine areas for days now, just another hour or so's drive and I'd finally be able to stop for a bit. Just another hour or so's drive and I would be able to restock on supplies, run repairs, refuel, rest, and be on my way to Texas. Just another hour or so's drive.

So of course, as it seemed to be doing a lot lately, the universe went and flipped me the middle finger.

Just as I drove into a town by the name of Burlington (not that names really matter much anymore within a quarantine area, towns gaining new titles such as "the town with a few zombies" or "the town with a lot of zombies" or "go to that one and you're fucked") my bike abruptly stopped accelerating. My heart sinking in horror as I twist the throttle a few times, earning only a few weak sputters from the engine.