100-Days-in-Deadland(7)

After today, I’d probably never get the chance to log another hour in the Cub. The entire world had fallen apart before my eyes. After running a finger wistfully over the teddy bear, I looked out the window.

Startled, I pointed to the sign. “My exit is the next one coming up.”

A small nod was the only acknowledgement I got before the trucker picked up a soda can from a cup holder and spit in it.

Another grunt from the back seat reminded me that I wasn’t the only passenger. I turned around. Alan was lying on the floor, his face covered by his arm. “How are you holding up back there?”

No response. I frowned. He hadn’t hit the back of my seat that hard. “Alan?”

Still nothing.

“Alan,” I said louder.

Alan looked at me then. His tongue was hanging out as though he was panting. His eyes had yellowed, and his features morphed from confused to dull. Then he moaned.

“Oh, shit.” I unlatched my seatbelt. The trucker was watching me, and he caught on fast.

“You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me,” he said, taking his foot off the gas and reaching for his shotgun.

My intent was to grab Alan and toss him out of the truck before he went crazy. It seemed like there was a short window when Melanie had been out of it before going into raging attack mode. But I didn’t get the chance.

I was halfway to Alan when the shotgun went off.

The next split-second was a blur. The shot blasted my eardrums. Alan’s face literally split in half. Brownish blood and brain matter sprayed the cabin and me, and Alan’s body slammed against the back wall. I may have yelled, but I couldn’t hear it if I had. The only sound in my world at that moment was a loud, throbbing, constant ringing.

Even though I thought I’d just recovered from shock, it was amazing how quickly I was thrown right back into it. I stared at Alan’s crumpled body in a daze. Dark liquid spread out from his head. I felt the truck come to a stop.

The trucker leveled the gun on me and said something.

“What?” I asked, his words nowhere near as loud as the ringing in my ears.

“I said…one good reason…blow your brains out.”

It took a moment for his words to make sense in my head. Then I watched him, numbly, for a moment. “I can’t.”

A flash of genuine surprise crossed his face, but the expression was lost all too quickly to anger. “I asked if you were bit, goddammit.”

“I’m not bit,” I said, before shaking my head.

He motioned to Alan. “And him?”

“I thought Alan was just freaked out from everything.”

The driver sat there and scrutinized me for what seemed like an eternity. “Are you cut? Did you get any blood in your mouth or eyes?”

I looked down at my clothes damp with Alan’s blood. With my black clothes, the dark blood blended in but the flecks of skin and brain dotted my shirt. “I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“You better be more than ‘pretty sure,’ Cash. Because this thing spreads through contact. Blood-to-blood, saliva-to-blood. If you got it, you’re going to be like your boyfriend before long.”

I didn’t answer.

He motioned over my shoulder. “Get out.”

I looked out the window. I was still at least three miles from home. I thought of my tiny bungalow in a neighborhood full of tiny houses. How many neighbors were already sick? With my car still back at the office, where could I go?

Outside was already turning into a war zone…

A man boarding up windows on his house just off the interstate.

Two people running down a street.

The occasional pops of gunfire becoming constant echoes of rat-tat-tat.

A shape stumbling around a tree.

How many zeds stood between me and home?

The only thing I knew was that I would never even make it to my front door, let alone to my parents’ house on the other side of town. It was both a miracle and luck that I’d already made it this far. Out there, on foot, I didn’t stand a chance.

Operating on autopilot, I opened the door but couldn’t make my legs obey. I lowered my head, and the tears came. It wasn’t an act. I didn’t want to cry, I never cried, but the tears just kept coming. My shoulders shook from exhaustion as much as from adrenaline and hopelessness.

Silence filled the cab for what seemed like an eternity, before I heard a heavy sigh. “I know I’m going to regret this. If you start looking sick, I swear to God I won’t hesitate to fill your brain with buckshot. If you’re not sick, I’ll give you one day.” He held up a finger. “One day. Then you’re on your own. Got it?”