The morning dew had left the fire escape slippery. Concentrating on moving one foot after the other down, as fast as I humanly could without falling, gave me no time to worry about the zombies that were surely just around the corner.
Eerily still, the usually busy section of the city was a ghost town. The sound of our sneakers squeaking on the metal rungs, and the not so distant noises from the zombies, the only things breaking the silence.
The light thud from Shawn's landing on the pavement sounded too loud to my hyper sensitive hearing. Sure that it would have been heard, I finished my descent frantically. Muscles locked up from nerves, I neglected to bend at the knees, and nearly toppled over on landing. Strong hands pulled me upright by a shoulder and propelled me in the direction of the jeep.
Down on the street level, the smell was intense. A faint odor of garbage and decay had plagued us all night up on the roof, but down between the buildings, where air flow was restricted, the smell became overwhelming. I tried not to gag as I ran. There was no time to be sick.
The street was stained with dried pools of blood here and there. Trash had been strewn everywhere. A swarm of flies buzzed heavily around an overflowing dumpster.
I missed stepping on a severed hand by inches, the skin mottled and grotesque.
We had made it most of the way to the jeep when the hair raising scream that I had been dreading sounded behind us.
"Don't look back!" Still gripping my shirt, he pushed me forward when I started to look over my shoulder.
The sound of a third set of feet pounding their way up the street struck me with terror. Never the most athletic person, my near miss escapes from before had taught me that the zombies were really fast. Running from them was not easy.
Beside me, Shawn held his hand out in front of him and pressed the button on his keys. The taillight that was in view flashed. Just a few more steps and I pulled the passenger side door opened desperately, flinging myself inside. A long second later, the driver's door flung open and the heavy bag he had been carrying sailed across the center console and crashed into my lap, the end of the bat poking me in the side.
Zombies that had been drawn by the commotion banged into the side of the jeep moments after Shawn pulled his door closed. Decay had truly set in for most of them, and their bloated faces left greasy smears on the glass as they tried to get inside. The zombie that had chased us up the street snarled at me without her lips as the engine started and the jeep bumped through the growing press of bodies.
Transfixed, I watched the one missing part of her face until she became just one of the crowd that was chasing us as we retreated from the city.
I stayed quiet, gripping the bag of our supplies with white knuckles, as I recognized that we were working our way toward the highway. At some point, I became aware that I was sitting on a mangled pile of some sort of paperwork, and the floor around my feet was littered with half empty water bottles. I didn't even care. I was just glad to be in a vehicle and leaving the city.
The streets were empty of other traffic, but they were not deserted. Quiet cursing from my left sounded every time we made a turn onto a street with too many zombies. It was fortunate that we were not in a car, as we climbed over curbs and plowed through junk to escape being trapped. Winding a circuitous route through the madness, it took twice as long as usual before I spotted the sign for the highway.
We dodged a short zombie and picked up speed on the on ramp. The highway was just as deserted as the city streets, except with less of the undead wandering around. Occasional cars had been abandoned on the shoulder, but we encountered nothing to significantly slow us down as the miles flew by.
Twenty minutes after getting onto the highway, I finally spoke up. "Where are we going?"
Concentrating on the road, he spared me a glance. "There was this summer camp that my parents used to make me go to each year. It's in the mountains, the nearest town is really small. There shouldn't have been many people in that area when this all started." He glanced at me again. "Do you have a better idea?"
"No. The summer camp is fine." I had spent most of my life in one city or another. I had no idea which way to go to find a less populated area.
I fiddled with the radio for a while, but found only silence. Even the recorded emergency broadcast from a few days ago was gone. I shifted the bag on my lap to give my side relief from the end of the bat, and absentmindedly rolled an empty water bottle from side to side with the toe of my shoe. Sliding in my seat, I tried to get more comfortable atop the pile of papers.
The drive was starting to wear on my already frayed nerves when I felt the jeep begin to slow down. Lifting my eyes from where I had been watching that water bottle roll under my sneaker, I looked up hopeful that we were near our destination.
The mountains that had been in the distance were closer now, but that was not the reason we were slowing down. Up ahead, a solid wall of stopped vehicles blocked both lanes of the highway for as far as the eye could see. "What is that?"
"I think it must be a road block. I heard on the TV that they were setting them up at all of the state lines to try to contain the sickness."
We rolled to a stop yards from the last vehicle and sat in the jeep, staring at what was undoubtedly hundreds of abandoned cars. Nothing moved ahead of us except for a single zombie who wobbled on a badly broken leg.
After several minutes, it became apparent that any people who were there before, were long gone now. Looking around, I noticed that the other side of the highway, a short distance away across an overgrown grassy center, was completely empty. I gestured to it, "Is there any reason we can't drive on that side?"
Shawn looked where I pointed. "I doubt whoever was guarding the road block is still there. That should work."
Easing his foot off of the brake, he turned the wheel to the left. I noticed, as we bumped off of the pavement, that grass had been crushed by a few other vehicles who had pulled the same maneuver before us.
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This story is set to publish on 9-28-19! Look for it on Amazon.
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