Shelter in Place
The fall of Charlotte happened in much the same way as most other cities when the Phage reached them. No one could pinpoint exactly when or where the outbreak started, but it spread quickly, and soon engulfed the entire city. Local news networks provided coverage for the first few hours, but when it became clear that police and military forces could not halt the destruction, they cut their broadcasts and abandoned their headquarters. Roads and highways clogged with tens of thousands of cars as people tried to flee the city. Fires broke out all over town, followed by riots and looting.
News networks based in other cities continued to broadcast coverage of the carnage in Charlotte even after the undead completely overran the city. One broadcast showed three of the tallest buildings in downtown burning like gigantic torches over a ruined landscape. Hordes of infected wandered the streets looking for prey. Those who could not get out of the city either found a place to hide, or joined the ranks of the undead.
Not long after Charlotte went to hell in a hand-basket, Congress approved a motion by the President to declare martial law in all U.S. territory east of the Mississippi River. Canada and Mexico closed their borders. The President ordered the shutdown of all nuclear power plants in the area under martial law as a precautionary measure. It was probably the best decision he ever made. Unfortunately for nuclear plants in regions already overrun, shutdown was not an option.
The President also ordered all military forces deployed overseas to return to the US immediately, effectively abandoning the war in the Middle East. The various jihadist groups, and about a million of their friends, were dancing in the streets proclaiming victory over the “Great Satan” as U.S. troops scrambled to get back to American soil. The International news media went into a frenzy over the events in America, speculating wildly as to the implications of the disaster for the rest of the world. The stock market crashed to unrecoverable levels, and people all over the country began to panic. Mobs of frightened people converged on grocery stores, gun shops, and gas stations. Even in areas not yet hit by the Phage, chaos began to take hold.
Army troops were able to keep the nuclear plants near Charlotte and Raleigh safe long enough to shut them down, but the plant near the southern coast of North Carolina fell before government forces could reach it. I was relieved that I was not facing an imminent nuclear disaster, but after the nuclear and coal plants were abandoned, the entire city lost power.
As the outbreak consumed Charlotte, I tried at least a hundred times to call Gabe and Vanessa. The cell phone network in our area was completely non-functional, but the internet still worked. Gabe’s computer connected to the web via a 3G card, and when the cell phone networks went down, so did his internet access. Vanessa should have been able to answer my emails, but for some reason she didn’t. I began to fear the worst.
During the fall of my hometown, I spent my nights in the underground shelter, and my days in the house, in spite of Gabe’s warning to stay underground. I monitored the spread of the Phage on television until the President declared martial law. After the power went off, so did my contact with the outside world. I was limited to keeping up with events by listening to the wind-up emergency radio I had bought almost a year ago. Thankfully, I had my solar panels and wind turbines, but I used electricity as sparingly as possible. The bank of batteries in my basement could store enough power to keep my appliances running for a day or so, but I turned off everything except my security system. I thought about using my gas-powered generator to keep the refrigerator in the bunker running, but decided against it. I took all of the perishables out of the bunker and had myself a hell of a cookout, then buried the rest.
I felt sure I was a good safe distance from the hordes of infected. My house was over ten miles northwest of Interstate 85, which cut straight across the northern boundary of the city. I lived in a sparsely populated area with over a mile of dense woodland separating me from my nearest neighbor. The road leading to my house was one of the multitudes of winding two lane routes that snaked across the Carolina piedmont. If you didn’t know what to look for, you would never find where I lived without a GPS. My driveway was half a mile long and mostly hidden by surrounding foliage. I figured that the infected probably wouldn’t find me in the middle of all that undeveloped forest.
I figured wrong.
One morning, eight days after the power went out, I was in my front yard using some water from a rain barrel to shave with, when I heard a loud metallic crunch. I had been in a couple of minor automobile accidents before, and I recognized the crunch as the sound of a car running into something. I rinsed the foam off my half-shaven face, grabbed my pistol, and got on my bicycle. I pedaled down my driveway out to the road. About two-hundred yards away, a blue Camry had run off the side of the road and hit a tree. The front end of the car was crushed in and partially wrapped around the tree’s thick trunk. Steam hissed from the broken radiator, and green fluid poured out onto the ground beneath. I rode over to the car and looked into the driver’s side window. I nearly fell off my bike when I saw who was inside.
It was Vanessa.
She was slumped over the steering wheel, and appeared unconscious. I pounded on the windshield, shouting for her to wake up as I pulled at the door handle. It was either locked or jammed shut from the impact, and I couldn’t get it to open. I pulled my pistol from its holster, squatted down to make sure the shot would not hit Vanessa, and pulled the trigger. The window shattered inward as the bullet went through it.
I took my shirt off and used it to clear away broken glass from the driver’s side window, then I reached in and unbuckled Vanessa’s seat belt. She was completely limp as I pulled her out of the car and laid her down on the pavement. Her eyes were closed, and her clothes were soaked with blood.
“Holy shit, Vanessa, wake up.”
I gently slapped her cheek trying to rouse her. No response. I leaned down and put my ear over her mouth and nose, listened for breathing. Nothing. My heart hammered in my chest as I checked her pulse. No pulse. Her heart was still. I was about to start CPR when I noticed the wound on her right shoulder. There was a patch of flesh torn away, revealing muscle and the white gleam of bone beneath. It was oval shaped.
Like a bite wound.
I stopped and stared for a moment, debating what to do. I remembered that the Phage spread by fluid transfer. Would I get infected if I gave her mouth to mouth?
“What if it wasn’t an infected that bit her?” I said aloud to no one.
That didn’t make any sense, who else would bite a chunk of flesh off someone? After another moment’s hesitation, I remembered something from Gabriel’s manual.
Reanimation occurs one hundred percent of the time, unless the victim’s brain is destroyed.
I eased back until I was sitting down on the pavement. For a moment, my senses sharpened, and I was acutely aware of my surroundings. The wrecked radiator continued to hiss. Birds sang, small animals skittered through the undergrowth, and the wind gently rustled the limbs of the surrounding trees. A single strand of blood-soaked hair lay limp and tangled against Vanessa’s pale cheek. I felt an urge to reach out and brush it aside. Everything that had occurred up to that point, I watched from afar. Detached, and disconnected. It all seemed unreal, like a bad dream.
Vanessa’s corpse was not a dream. Vanessa’s corpse was real, and it was lying on the ground in front of me. The Phage killed her.
I stood up and got back on my bike. I rode back up to my house, grabbed a sheet from the linen closet, and started up my pickup truck. After driving to the spot where I left Vanessa’s body, I covered her with the sheet and gently placed her in the back of the truck. I drove the truck to my garage, got a shovel from the shed, and lifted Vanessa from the truck and set her on the ground. I pulled the sheet below her shoulders so that I could see her face clearly, then walked a few feet away and began to dig. After about two hours of work, I had dug a hole long enough to suffice and about three feet deep. I stuck the end of the shovel in the pile of dirt beside the hole, grabbed a folding chair from the shed, and sat down by Vanessa’s body to wait. Just as the sun was beginning to descend behind the trees on the western side of my yard, Vanessa opened her eyes. Slowly, she began to sit up. The sheet slipped off her as she got to her feet.
I thought I was prepared. I thought that after everything I had seen on television, and everything I read in Gabriel’s manual, that I would be able to deal with it.
I was wrong. Nothing prepares you for your first encounter with the undead.
I stared in horrid fascination as she got to her feet, and began to stagger toward me. Without realizing I was doing it, I stood up and leveled my pistol at her. Her face twisted into a mask of hunger and rage, and a gurgling, keening, predatory moan burst from her throat. Her fingers curved into claws as she reached toward me.
I backed away from her for a few steps, and then stopped. I felt something inside of my chest begin to burn. The thing that was once Vanessa continued to stalk me. I dropped into a shooting stance and took aim.
“I’m so sorry Vanessa.”
I pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit her between the eyes, just above the bridge of her nose, and a red spray erupted from the back of her head. She shuddered for a moment, then collapsed, limp and lifeless. I lowered the gun, and placed it back in its holster. After wrapping Vanessa’s body in the sheet, I put her in the grave and spent the next half hour shoveling dirt over top of her. After burying Vanessa, I got two buckets of water from the upstairs bathtub, as well as a bar of soap and my shaving kit, and went out into my back yard. I shaved off the rest of my beard, then I stripped naked and used the water to wash the sweat and dirt from my tired body. I needed the cleansing ritual to keep my mind off what I had just done.
I put my filthy clothes in the laundry bin and put on clean ones, then went down to my shelter to sleep. I was hungry, but I was too exhausted to eat. I sank down onto the bed and didn’t get out of it for nearly twelve hours. The next morning, my shock wore off enough for me to begin thinking clearly about the previous day’s events. The fact that Vanessa had wrecked near my driveway meant that she was deliberately coming to my house. After I thought about it, I remembered that the blue Camry was her father’s car. She must have been with them when she was attacked. Or maybe she was attacked by them. I rode my bike out to the Camry to see if I could find anything to explain what happened to Vanessa.
Pools of radiator fluid and oil stained the ground beneath the engine. I brought my crowbar with me, and used it to pry the passenger’s side door open. The interior of the car was clean, except for the blood, and I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. The glove box had an owner’s manual and a street map, but nothing else. I reached over to the driver’s side and popped the trunk. Inside the trunk was the backpack that I had bought Vanessa four months prior, and a twelve-gauge shotgun. I got the pack for her so that we could go hiking together. Vanessa was never one for the outdoors, and had never actually used it. Now, she never would.
The bag contained a change of clothes, toiletries, some canned food, and two boxes of deer slugs for the shotgun. I found her cell phone in one of the side pockets. I checked her call history, and my number was the last one she had dialed. My guess was that she had gone to her parent’s house, something attacked her, and she fled in her father’s car. Who attacked her, and what happened to her parents, would have to remain a mystery. I took the backpack and the shotgun back the house with me, figuring I could never have too many guns.
The next few weeks passed slowly. I never realized how much I relied on TV and computers for entertainment. I had enough electricity from my solar panels to run the laptop, and watched every DVD I owned twice. I practiced with some of the different swords in my collection, trying to decide which one would be best for dealing with any revenants that wandered onto my property. The broadswords and katanas were elegant, but were built to inflict trauma, not split skulls. I had a functional replica of a medieval war hammer that looked promising. It was big and heavy, and had good range, but was tiring to wield. I would be fine if I only had to deal with three or four undead, but any more than that, and I would need a lighter option.
Although Gabriel taught me a great deal about knife fighting, I knew little about using a sword in combat. I competed in fencing for a couple of years in junior high, but that was using foils. A full sized battle sword is a completely different weapon. I was sitting on my bed in the bunker one night, reading Gabriel’s manual for the fiftieth time, when I got an idea. The next day I climbed into the attic and opened up a dusty chest with my old fencing gear in it. I pushed aside the gear and took out the small-sword that my father gave me when I was thirteen. It was his idea of a reward for winning a small fencing tournament. I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d ever pulled it from its sheath.
I drew the sword out and took it outside for a few practice lunges. It was light and well balanced. I remembered that my father said it was made of 9260 high carbon spring steel, meaning that it was an alloy of silicon, carbon, iron, and a few other metals. The silicon makes the steel extremely tough and flexible, and is normally used to make heavy-duty springs.
I took a piece of cardboard out of the garage, drew a hundred or so quarter sized circles on it with a marker, and propped it up against the hedgerow in my front yard. I tried stabbing the little targets with lunges from a few feet away, but missed them by a mile. I thought about different ways to try to hit them, and realized that lunging was the problem. After all, the undead are not going to be using fancy footwork to dodge my sword. Why rush it? I stood sideways in a slight crouch, held the tip of the sword a few inches from the target, and quickly thrust it though the cardboard. After about fifteen minutes of practice, I was consistently hitting the small targets in rapid succession. I put the sword back in its sheath, and resolved to keep it with me, just in case. I used some old nylon water line to rig a sling so that I could carry the sword on my back.
Life went on for another few weeks, and I saw no sign of the walking dead. The broadcasts on my little radio ceased, but they lasted long enough for me to learn that the Phage had overrun the entire country. The President and a few other members of the Federal Government evacuated to a safe location. The military struggled valiantly, but there were just too many of the infected. Reports of military units retreating from overrun cities became more and more common. Just before the broadcasts ceased, the guys at NORAD were saying that the military had established a few safe zones in the rocky mountains, and that any survivors should try to make their way out to them. The rest of the country was left to fend for themselves. I didn’t know for sure if the Phage had spread beyond North America, but I suspected that it had.
When I reached the point that I had about two weeks of food left, I decided that I needed to do some exploring. To do that, I would need to bring some gear with me. For weapons, I decided on the Kel-Tec .22 magnum, and one of the H&K assault rifles. I loaded some spare magazines onto a load-bearing harness, then put the guns and a couple of days’ worth of food and water in my truck. I cranked the engine and sat in the driveway staring into the distance, trying to decide where to go. After a few minutes, I decided to drive to a housing development about ten miles south of my house. It was a straight shot, and I would easily be able to find my way home if anything happened to the truck. I loaded my bicycle into the bed of the truck as a precaution.
The road was clear during the drive. I saw no other cars, or any other type of movement, living or dead. I slowed as I neared the entrance to the neighborhood, not wanting to attract any attention. I pulled off to the side of the road to consult my street map. I didn’t want to just drive straight in, as I had no idea what I would be walking into and I didn’t want noise from the truck attracting the undead. After studying the layout of the streets surrounding the development, I decided to circle through the woods to the south on foot, and approach through the back yards at a cul-de-sac.
I strapped on the load-bearing harness with my pistol and spare ammo, and looped the carbine’s tactical sling across my chest for quick access. Both the pistol and the rifle had silencers fitted to them, but I hoped I would not need to use them. My goal was to get in and get out, quick and quiet. I strapped a hiking pack that was empty except for a few items I thought I might need, and set out through the forest.
I had a small compass that I used to stay oriented southward. Every twenty yards or so I would stop and check my surroundings, ears straining, looking for any sign of movement. I hiked about half a mile toward my destination when I saw the first of the undead. It was staggering in my direction, occasionally cocking its head to the side as though trying to listen, and sniffing the air. It reminded me of my Uncle Roger’s terrier when he was out hunting rodents.
I was fortunate to spot it before it homed in on me. It must have heard me walking through the thick carpet of dead leaves and pine needles on the ground. As quietly as I could, I crouched beside a tree in a shooting position. I peered through the rifle’s reflex sights and waited for a clean shot. It took about two minutes before the ghoul rounded a thick stand of pines, presenting an unobstructed shot. The undead was a petite blond woman wearing a large t-shirt that hung halfway down her bare, filthy legs. Dried blood had turned the entire front of the shirt a dull rust color, and she was missing large chunks of flesh from her shoulders, face, and arms. Her left eye dangled from its optic nerve, swaying like a grotesque pendulum down her face. It took everything I had to resist the urge to cut and run. My heart pounded in my chest, and I struggled to fight off the panic that the sight of the undead roused in me.
Get it together, I thought. The world is crawling with these things. I have to learn to face them. I have to stay calm. I have to think.
After a few deep breaths, I took careful aim and fired. The round struck her in the forehead and she collapsed, shuddering as she fell. I knew that if one revenant was tracking me, then there could be more on the way. Even with the silencer, the assault rifle’s report was audible from several yards away. I didn’t want more undead to show up, and set off at a faster pace.
It took another ten minutes of trekking through the woods to reach the development. Just before emerging into the back yard of a large two-story house, I paused behind a bush at the edge of the tree line, and pulled a small pair of binoculars from my cargo pocket. I scanned the yards of the houses in front of me for movement.
The back yards were empty, but I could see at least a dozen infected, all wandering aimlessly around the front yards. Some of them simply stood still, a dull, vacant expression on their pale gray faces. I would need to be fast and quiet, or this could go very bad, very quickly. I slid the rifle backward and used a Velcro strap on the web gear to secure the barrel in place, and then drew the Kel-Tec from its holster. I had loaded the pistol’s magazines with sub-sonic rounds to reduce noise if I had to shoot it. I attached a suppressor to the barrel and made ready to exit cover. I emerged from the woods in a crouch, pistol at the ready. I moved quickly toward the house closest to me, rolling my steps from the sides of my boots to reduce noise. Loud buzzing from thousands of cicadas in the surrounding pines drowned out the sound of my feet crossing the thick, overgrown lawn.
The house I approached had a tall wood-slat fence that surrounded the back yard. The gate stood open, and I paused for a moment as I stepped through it and crouched just inside the fence line. I listened for a minute or two, and didn’t hear anything approaching. I got up and slowly crept toward the back door. It had a large multi-paned window on its upper half, and I peered through it looking for movement inside the house. Seeing none, I tried the doorknob. Locked. Awesome.
I took off my backpack and retrieved a roll of duct tape. I covered the glass in the windowpane closest to the door handle with tape and struck it sharply with the butt of the pistol. The glass broke with a dull crunch, and I cringed at the noise. I pulled aside the glass as quietly as I could and then reached through to unlock the door. I avoided the broken glass on the floor as I stepped through. The house was dark, with heavy shades drawn over the windows. The room I walked into was furnished with plush, comfortable-looking sofas and chairs and a massive coffee table. I guessed it was some kind of sitting room, probably used for entertaining neighbors and friends.
Steeling myself to continue, I took in a deep breath and immediately regretted it. The reek of death filled my sinuses, making my eyes water. I swallowed hard to avoid gagging, and raised my weapon. Gabe’s manual said that the undead reek to high-heaven, and one could often smell them before they could be seen or heard. Again, I had to fight the urge to turn and run.
If there are any undead in here, I have to deal with them, I thought. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. I’ve come too far to turn back empty handed.
I walked through the doorway and scanned the room beyond. The lower section of the house was open, a TV and couches on the right, and the kitchen on the left. A staircase near the front entrance led to the upper portion of the house. A long counter separated the kitchen from the living room. The house was spacious and richly decorated, with hardwood floors, granite counter-tops, and stainless steel appliances. The kitchen was my goal, but the smell of death grew stronger as I continued inside. I briefly considered going back out and trying another house, but decided against it. Everything had gone well so far, I might as well see it through.
I didn’t want to be blindsided while stuffing cans in my pack, and I knew I was going to have to make some noise to get supplies from the kitchen. I needed to clear the house. I checked my pistol to make sure the safety was off and a round was in the chamber, then took a small flashlight from my pack and shined it up the staircase. I didn’t see any movement, and slowly proceeded upward, leaving the pack behind at the foot of the stairs. I turned the corner on a landing, climbed a few more stairs, and reached the top facing a long hallway. There were several closed doors on either side of the hall, behind which anything could be waiting. Fucking fantastic. I slowly crept down the hall, finger on the trigger and ready to fire. I remembered something Gabe had taught me, and shifted my stance so that I could quickly launch a front kick if needed.
I came to the first door and twisted the handle, pushed the door open, and took a step back, waiting. I listened to my heart hammer in my ears ten times, then edged my way in front of the door. Beyond the doorway was a tastefully decorated bedroom, probably a guest room. I stepped inside and checked the closet and under the bed. Nothing. I proceeded down the hall, checking rooms as I went. I cleared an empty home office, a bathroom, a linen closet, and a bedroom converted into a home gym, complete with adjustable weight dumbbells, a treadmill, and a yoga mat. Evidently, the former residents were health conscious. The last doorway loomed before me, and the smell of death was strong enough to make me want to gag with every breath. I held my pistol at the ready, and threw the door open. The smell was nearly overwhelming. I had to take a few steps back and clench my jaw to keep from throwing up. I pulled the collar of my shirt over my nose and walked through the door, breathing as shallow as I could.
The smell emanated from two dead bodies lying on a king sized bed in the center of the room. They had obviously been dead for quite a while, and their bodies were crawling with maggots. Body fluids spread out in stinking pools that soaked the mattress beneath them. I reached out a hand and knocked twice on the door, figuring that if they were not completely dead then the noise would rouse them. When they didn’t respond, I stepped further inside. The two bodies on the bed had been holding each other when they died. A large empty pill container stood on one of the night stands, next to a half empty glass of water. I picked up the pill bottle and read the label. Sleeping pills, and strong ones at that. They must have seen what was happing during the outbreak, and decided to check out rather than stick around for the show. I didn’t blame them. Satisfied that the house was safe for the time being, I turned to go back downstairs. On my way out, I noticed a note on a small desk. I picked up the note and read it:
Brian and Cathy,
If you find this letter, please forgive us. We couldn’t stand to watch the world die anymore. We love you, and we will see you again in a better place.
Love always,
Mom and Dad.
Tears stung my eyes as I placed the letter back on the table. I thought about my own parents, and was glad that fate had spared them from the horror of watching the world fall apart. I closed the door behind me as I left the room.
I went back downstairs to search the kitchen, but didn’t bother with the refrigerator. Anything in there would be rotten, and the house smelled bad enough as it was. I searched the cupboard and a small pantry. They were both full of canned goods, dried pasta, and various other things. I picked out the food with the most nutritional value and stuffed as much of it as I could into my pack.
The pack was heavy, probably weighing over fifty pounds once it was full. I didn’t expect to have much trouble carrying it. I am a shade over six feet tall, and back then I was a solid two-hundred and ten pounds. I was used to carrying heavy packs from all the hiking trips that Gabriel and I had taken over the years.
I went out the back door and crossed the lawn as quietly as I could. As I stepped through the back gate, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to my left and saw an undead come around the corner of the fence line. I didn’t wait for him to react, I raised my pistol and fired two rounds at his head. The first round skipped off the side of his skull, but the second caught him just above the eye, and he dropped.
I hurried to the tree line, and after a quick look at my compass, I headed back north toward my truck. I got about halfway there when I started seeing staggering figures roaming through the trees. They must have been in the forest when I came through before, and followed the sound of my boots crunching on the dry undergrowth. As I approached them, I saw several heads swivel in my direction. That damned horrible, hungry moan began to drift through the forest like an evil, intangible fog.
I knew that turning back was a bad idea, as the moaning would no doubt attract the ghouls wandering around in the housing development. I figured my only chance was to keep heading for the truck, maintain a fast pace, and drop any undead that got in my way. I had learned from Gabe’s manual that a person’s best ally against the undead, once detected by them, was speed. I broke into a slow trot, abandoning any pretense of stealth. I holstered my pistol and unfastened the barrel of my assault rifle. I flipped off the safety, and made sure the fire selector was set to semi-auto. No sense in wasting bullets on full auto when one shot will get the job done.
I kept up my pace until I got to within five yards of the nearest undead. I stopped long enough to level my rifle and fire. I missed it on the first shot, and dropped it on the second. I continued on this way, pausing only to reload or kill the undead that I couldn’t avoid until I made it back to the road. As I emerged into the ankle high grass bordering the highway, I looked toward my truck and stopped short. At least a dozen undead surrounded it. I swore vehemently, and debated what to do. The moaning of the undead slowly pursuing me through the woods was getting louder. The ghouls surrounding my truck noticed me, and began to stagger in my direction. I knew I didn’t have much time before being surrounded. I had no choice but to clear the undead away from my truck. I stepped onto the pavement, dropped my pack and kneeled down into a steady shooting position. I started with the nearest ones, and dropped the ghouls one by one. The last one was only about ten feet away when I put a bullet through his head. Just as I grabbed my pack to put it back on, several undead emerged from the tree line, and lurched toward me.
I dropped my rifle and let it hang from its tactical sling. I grabbed the pack with both hands and ran for the truck. I managed to put about thirty feet between me and the nearest corpse by the time I made it to the driver side door. I chucked the heavy pack into the bed of the truck and climbed into the cab. Thankfully, I left the keys in the ignition just in case I had to beat a hasty retreat. I cranked up the truck and did a wide U-turn, heading back the way I came from. My instincts screamed for me to floor it, but I knew that wasn’t necessary. Even at low speed, the truck would quickly outdistance the undead. I kept my speed below thirty miles an hour and easily dodged a few ghouls that wandered out in front of me. I looked behind me, and saw at least forty or fifty corpses shambling after me as I pulled away.
After I got a mile or so away from the development, I saw no more of the undead. The road was clear all the way back home. I parked my truck in the garage, and took the pack with the newly acquired supplies down to the bunker. After arming my security system, I sat down at the kitchen table to clean my guns. As I worked, I mulled over the day’s events, and realized that I had to think of new ways to gather supplies without drawing the undead to me. The truck was great, but it made too much noise. My theory that the undead would not find my house seemed to be correct. If they were close by, not only should I have seen some of them by now, but they would have been drawn to the sound of the truck. That meant I could use the truck to get close to a source of supplies, but would have to proceed on foot afterward.
I wrote down a few ideas, and then helped myself to some of the linguine and marinara sauce I had liberated that morning. Pasta is my favorite food in the world, and my supply had run out a week earlier. I was craving it something fierce. After eating, I thought about Gabe, and wondered how he was making out up in Morganton. I also thought about my own situation, and began to have serious doubts about my long-term survival chances. The food I took from my scouting run, in addition to what I already had before, was enough to live on for three weeks. But then what? Go on another dangerous supply run? I had gotten lucky this time. If there had been any more undead around the truck when I reached it, I would have been forced to abandon it and flee on foot. How long would it take me to hike back there to retrieve it, if I even could? I could not stay at my house indefinitely. Sooner or later, I would have to leave and make my way north to Morganton. My best chance for survival lay in reaching Gabriel. Working together, our chances for survival would be far greater than trying to go at it alone.
Several months before the outbreak, at Gabe’s insistence, I purchased a map of North Carolina and marked out several different routes leading to Morganton. On a good day, it was only an hour or so drive. If the roads were clear, I could be there tomorrow. If they weren’t, I could use the map to find alternate routes. I went into the storage unit to inventory my supplies. It didn’t take very long. As I stared at the pitifully empty shelves, I knew what I had to do. It was time to get on the road.