Escape

After burying my mum and our dogs, James and I barricaded ourselves in my bat cave. Since I usually slept during the day I had a piece of wood specially cut and upholstered to match my room cut for my bedroom window. Since the bat cave was the only room without window access, we decided it was the safest. Also with that piece of wood in place the outside world could not see if I had lights on or not, so we didn't have to worry about attracting any undead visitors. We decided to refresh our knowledge of zombies by watching a few of Romero's masterpieces. In Romero's works, his zombies ran, and we had seen today that our zombies don't. At least not that we have seen this far. In some of his earlier works the dead did move like mechanical beings, James came up with a theory that the recently dead must be stiffer than those that have been dead for a little while, i.e. rigor mortis. We both agreed that this must be what the problem was, and decided to stay on guard for the faster moving zombies. We decided it would be a good idea to at least make a plan for if we have to stop in Cedar City. Hopefully the freeway was going to still be open, but with the chaos we had decided to take the back road to Cedar. We needed to stop and get gas, and grab a case of water and some other supplies. I had worked at the Ernie's Truck Stop, so I knew how to authorize the pumps outside. Being around a gas station I didn't want to use any guns, so we had to get some good melee weapons for just in case. After outlining our brilliant master plan for escaping our hometown, we headed to bed.
The next morning we awoke to breaking glass as one of the undead attempted to get in through my boarded off window. We began getting up, and looking for useful things around my room to take with us. We grabbed my laptop, so that we could keep up with what was going on in the world, flashlights, my mountain climbing gear, for just in case and all. And a few of my favorite knives out of my knife collection, oh and the machetti. James took a particular liking to my military issue Vietnam war veteran machetti. I had found it in a box with some dead relatives uniforms and medals. We grabbed all of our supplies and headed out into the dying little town we used to call home.
I pulled up to the first pump at the abandoned truck stop. cautiously I grabbed my shotgun and belt and equipped myself to go in and turn the pump on. Some of the glass on the south set of doors was broken. The morning sun glared into the remaining windows around the building making it impossible to know just who or what was inside. I took a deep breath and headed inside. The cash registers were open and empty, the cigarette rack was in shambles. Most of the racks around the store had been pillaged or knocked over. I stepped behind the desk and peeked behind in the kitchen area for any signs of life...or death. There was bloody handprints on the freezer as if something had tried getting in. It crossed my mind that somebody might still be in there. I closed the closest register and hit the buttons to authorize the pump outside so James could start pumping our gas. At this particular moment I wished I had a walkie talkie. I cautiously headed back towards the freezer, I knocked quietly "hello?" I tried opening the door, but it had been locked, or blocked off from the inside. I turned around and grabbed a case of bottled water, and a case of Pepsi, because life is better with Pepsi. Heading back out towards the car, I noticed a set of legs behind one of the end caps. They hadn't moved yet, but where there is one dead body, there are usually more, so I headed out to drop the cases off in the trunk. James looked at me questioningly. "Thought I found some survivors." I said as I unlocked the trunk. The one bad thing about my car, is that you have to take the keys out of the ignition, in normal circumstances that would not be an issue, but say we had to get away and fast, then I would have to fumble with they keys and pray I don't drop them. So far though non of the roaming dead had noticed us there, we were being quiet so as not to disturb them. A few of the closer ones had started staggering towards us. "Hey I want to go in and find something to eat." James said as he hung the gas hose back up, and grabbed his guns. I nodded put the keys back in the ignition and headed back inside with him. Tapping him on the shoulder as we entered I pointed to the unmoved legs. He nodded and headed towards them lifting his gun up and taking the safety off. I turned around and scanned the store for any signs of movement behind us. James exhaled a sigh of relief as he edged around the end cap to reveal a headless corpse. "Looks like we weren't the only ones who wanted to get the hell out of dodge." He said as he grabbed a case of Snickers candy bars, and headed towards the freezer. "Hey, there might be someone or something in there, be careful, and grab me a cold Pepsi please." I headed towards the back laundry room. I grabbed a couple first aid kits, for just in case, but if these zombies are like those in cinema, a first aid kit won't help anyone who gets bitten. I also grabbed some toilet paper, because you never hear about survivors needing it, but you just know eventually you will have to go to the bathroom, it would be much safer to just do it out in the boonies. I walked back out towards the exit, only to have my way blocked by a huge mass of what used to be a man, named Brett. when Brett died he weighed in at about 500 pounds. "Holy Shit..." I started looking at what he had become. He had large puss filled sores around his face and arms. His shirt must have gotten torn during his battle for his life, I could see more of the sores where the shirt had torn away. He made a belching noise as if he really did not feel all that good. I didn't blame him he smelt like something that came out of a sewer. He had seen me I could see he had started to get excited, he began belching and dry heaving. "Oh Fuck...James!" I called out hoping this monster hadn't already found him. "James! I could use a little help here..." I started, the zombie in front of me began retching as if it were having some sort of seizure, its fat rolls mashing against each other. A few of the sores began popping releasing a fowl green liquid. The zombie looked up at the ceiling and all the retching stopped it became still for a moment I raised my gun fumbling with the safety. The Brett zombie threw its head forward in one giant movement so quick I thought he would fall on his face, and threw up all over the floor in front of me. I heard a scream of the zombies outside as they all started moving towards the truck stop doors. I pulled the trigger and an earth shattering explosion was all that was left of the Brett zombie. He had exploded as if his entire body had been under an emense amount of pressure and I had taken a pin to his balloon of a body. There were Brett pieces on the walls and ceiling. I slipped and almost fell on some of the Brett on the floor. James came running in through the south doors, "We need to go...NOW!" he said as he rushed through the door with his guns drawn. "They can run now" His last words made my blood run cold. I had hoped it would have taken longer than that, but since we are probably some of the last people alive in our little town, they had to adapt to feed. This thought was even more frightening. And what of the Brett zombie, the minute he threw up, it alerted the other zombies. I pumped my shotgun and grabbed the supplies I had gone back there for and ran towards the front door. There were zombies pressing themselves against the unbroken glass around the store, trying to claw their way in. Thank god for James, he had our doors open and ready for us and we dove in. I had the car started and in drive before either of us could even close our doors all the way. "Roll down my window." James had an excited boyish look in his eyes as he brandished his shotgun. Now in a normal car, he should have been able to do it himself, but my car lacks window buttons on all the doors but the drivers side. When my sister and I were kids we pushed them in, just to be destructive. Now that the car is mine, I kinda wished we hadn't felt a need to be so destructive.
"You're speeding." James broke the silence as we drove through our home town. Most of the buildings were on fire, and there were zombies along all the sidewalks. We pulled up to the only stop light in town, I had to slow down enough to get past a rolled ambulance, and to make the turn. Around the corner there was a zombie strapped to an upturned gurney dragging itself along towards a group of zombies that were feasting on a mangled body in the middle of the intersection. They were eating the bodies of the zombies we had killed the day before! I had never heard of such a thing, but I guess waste not want not.