Dar felt helpless. The only object she could see out the windshield was the eighteen-wheeler in front of her. Every now and then a corpse would fly up out from under the wheel well and crash into the front end of their rig. Gritz sat in the middle, stoic as usual, while Jamaal gripped the steering wheel, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. Styx sat on her lap playing with his plastic ax and banging it against the dashboard.
She thought of all that had happened in the last few months and how her camp had met its demise. Although she'd known from the start that the Common would be short-lived, it surprised her when it actually happened. Now on the run and with only her wits and fighting skills to keep her and her son alive, she felt as if she were again stranded back in that old Maine farmhouse along with her father, her Uncle Rick, Thorn and Kate.
She stared out the window at the passing scenery, hoping that Virgil knew where he was going. The idea of reaching Washington State seemed more like some mythical promised land than reality. It had been discussed and bandied about so often in camp that many of the survivors had come to view it as some kind of heaven on earth. She wondered what would happen when they got there and discovered that their expectations had been set too high, and that it was no better than what they had in Boston. Then what would they do?
The truck in front of them began to veer to the right. Where was Virgil taking them? They got off the exit and drove a short way, turning right onto a main thoroughfare until they arrived into the parking lot of a dilapidated shopping mart. All the store's windows had been broken and most of the shelves lay bare. Some dead fuckers staggered between the stores' shelves and in the rows of parked cars. Annabelle parked on the opposite side of the lot and Jamaal followed behind her. Dar glanced in her side view mirror and saw some the fuckers begin to move in their direction. Grabbing her ax, she jumped out of the truck and stood to greet them.
She swung her ax and in one motion sliced through the temple of the first one that approached. The skull soared through the air and landed on one of the faded white parking lines. She approached the back of the first rig's trailer and saw Annabelle and Virgil opening the double-doors to the container. To her left a small group of zombies began to make their way over.
“We need to let these people out, Dar, even if only for a few minutes,” Virgil said.
“Make it quick. I'll try to keep all these fuckers at bay!”
Dar placed the handle of the ax across her neck and shoulders, adjusted her stance and loosened her back muscles. After a few deep knee bends she lifted the ax off her neck and took a few swings, remembering the techniques her uncle had taught her back in Maine. She recalled her first pathetic attempts with the ax, how she kept practicing on those mutants night after until she finally got it down pat. The dead up in Maine had been of a wholly different variety than the kind that had eventually mutated and populated the earth. It indicated to her that these things were not static but ever changing. The first breed had been comprised of humans and animals, and seemed much slower and lethargic than this new species, which appeared to be composed entirely from the human gene pool. Those Maine days seemed like a hundred years ago and in a different era. But in reality it had only been less than twenty-four months since it all started.
The next zombie approached, a snarling young woman with a nose and eyebrow ring, her blemished skin covered in tattoos. Dar waited until she got close and then swung, cutting the woman off at the knees. The dead girl fell to the ground and began to crawl forward on her hands and leg stumps. Dar split her head and then turned to see more of them approaching. She swung her ax through the parking lot and toward the opposite end, feeling free and alive, and saw the vanquished corpses in her wake, scattered along the weed-filled lot. The name of the ruined store was called Save-A-Lot. It occurred to her that it was the kind of low rent supermarket her parents would have never set foot in.
One by one the passengers in the back of the eighteen-wheelers began to stumble out the back and onto the parking lot. Dar sprinted back to Annabelle and helped people off the end of the platform. The intense, pungent smell of body odor, shit and urine overwhelmed her, and she wanted nothing more than to return to the battlefield and kill more fuckers. Virgil had been right about the conditions in the back of the trailer. But what other option was there? As each person emerged from the containers and collapsed onto the pavement, Virgil walked down the line making sure everyone held hands in the event they had to form a human chain.
Gritz snuck up behind the dead now walking through the parking lot. As soon as he got close enough he raised his flanged mace and began to swing. His power and agility amazed her. And to think that Mike Brabas, that deranged terrorist, had intervened to save Gritz's life. The irony didn't escape her; because she had planned on letting him die in that Pit.
Virgil opened the double doors of the second trailer and the passengers spilled out, exhausted and weary. The incredible heat trapped inside had been too much to bear. A parallel human chain formed between the two lines, organized by Virgil and linked in the middle like a big capital ‘H’. Virgil walked up and down between the lines, tending to the sickest of the survivors. Dar knew she could be of no value to these people. Her greatest contribution would be in keeping the horde at bay.
“Gritz, get over here!” she shouted.
Gritz sprinted over.
“You ready to waste some fuckers?”
“I've been a soldier my whole life, Dar. Can't change stripes now.”
“Dude, I was totally wrong about you. You're a total machine.”
“Got paid to be one. It was the only thing I knew how to do.”
“Still pissed about what happened back in the Pit?”
“Only that I have Mike Brabas to thank for my being here.”
“Even the biggest douche bags on earth sometimes serve a purpose. Maybe that was Brabas': to keep you alive.”
“Doubt it, but I'm damn glad he did all the same.”
“Let's do battle.”
Dar stood shoulder to bicep with Gritz as the horde approached. She felt invigorated by the upcoming fight. This was what she was born to do. She recalled the homemade tattoo Thorn had etched onto her back. BORN TO KILL FUCKERS. Just thinking of that swaggering bullshitter filled her with rage and she began to take it out on the zombies staggering toward her. She wiped the sweat off her brow, feeling nothing but pure exhilaration in the kill. Gray matter dripped from the ax's blade. Tapping it against the pavement, and careful not to dull the edge, she cleaned the gunk off on the shirt of a corpse before resuming her stance. The dead kept coming one right after another like sheep led to their slaughter.
And then she heard the sound of the rotor and saw the chopper approaching in the sky. Again? She thought it had crashed back in that mountain valley.
“We need to gather those people back in the trailer, Gritz, before it's too late,” she said.
Dar gazed up and saw the chopper closing in. It meant that Army troops were not far behind. She returned her gaze to the sea of wary and tired people spread out along the parking lot, still recovering from their difficult journey. It would be dangerous to load them back into the container so soon but they had no other options. Heat waves pulsed off the stippled surface of the cracked parking lot.
“Virgil, get those people back inside before the Army troops get here.”
“So soon?” Virgil asked, staring up at her. “These people are still trying to catch their breath.”
“Shut up, Virgil, and do as you're told.”
Virgil struggled to stand. He walked over to her, his pudgy face beet red and his blonde hair damp with sweat. The guy looked like he should have been flipping burgers at a fast food joint rather than teaching biology at MIT. Dar heard a loud series of thumps coming from one of the trucks and when she turned around she saw Styx banging his toy ax against the windshield and crying out for her, his cheeks dripping with tears.
“These people have been suffering,” Virgil implored. “I'm begging you for just a little more time.”
“No!”
Dar looked up and saw the helicopter overhead. She didn't feel the need to explain herself, but the fact that Virgil was well liked and respected by the group made it difficult to chew his ass out. The older she got the more she realized that she couldn't simply bark out orders and expect everyone to blindly follow. Running that camp had taught her a lot about what motivated people, and in hindsight she realized that her reign would have never lasted if she had failed to change her ways.
“Do as I say, Virgil. If those Army dudes catch up to us we're dead meat. We have no other choice but to move out.”
The helicopter began to circle above.
“Do you understand what I'm saying to you?”
“I'm a biologist by profession, Dar, so I know when people are in peril and these people certainly are. But I'll respectfully defer to you.”
“Good, because they'll die for sure if we stay here any longer, just as if we'd stayed on that mountaintop any longer.”
“There'll be death either way.”
“Pick your poison.”
“Maybe the Army is coming to rescue us. Have you ever considered that?”
“The military is not here to rescue us,” she said, laughing. “I wouldn't trust those assholes one iota.”
“But why?”
“When the plague broke in Maine we tried to escape to Boston but got stopped by some Army troops along the way. They were going to kill us, Snow, because they thought we'd been infected. If I hadn't wasted the two soldiers at that roadblock none of us would even be here right now.”
“Damn!”
“I need your cooperation, Snow. People here respect and listen to you. Where do we go from here?”
“There's an Amish community in Pennsylvania where I once did research. If there's any group who could have survived this plague it's certainly the Amish.”
“Okay, now start herding those people back inside the trucks. Look, there are more fuckers headed this way.”
Virgil jogged over and began to gather up the people and help them back inside the boxcars. The helicopter hovered above, the chopper's rotors causing people's hair and clothes to flap in the wind. Dust and dirt flew in the air and she covered her eyes and stared up at the chopper's undercarriage.
“You must surrender to the U.S. Army,” the pilot announced over the speakers. “General Townsend is now the de facto leader of this country and he's giving you one last opportunity to give yourselves up or else there'll be consequences. He'll show no mercy after this final warning.”
“Go fuck yourself!” she shouted, waving her ax in the air.
“Chinese troops are patrolling the area and they'll be much less forgiving than General Townsend. Give yourselves up now and we will protect you.”
A large contingent of the dead began to stumble into the parking lot from the road.
“Time to put on our dancing shoes, Gritz!” she shouted.
“Some of the survivors are refusing to return to the containers. We can't just leave them here, Dar.”
Dar walked over to where the five elderly people lay sprawled over the parking lot, their heads propped up with extra clothes and towels.
“Get your sorry assess back into those trucks,” Dar ordered them.
“We've decided that we aren't going with you, Dar,” a man she knew as Robert said, his voice weak. “We wouldn't survive another minute in our condition. So go save yourselves and the others if you must, but please let us be.”
“You don't have a choice, jackass. Now hurry up and get back inside before I start getting pissed. You're putting the rest of us in jeopardy.”
“All of us here have serious ailments, and we've lived long and fruitful lives. Besides, there'll be more resources for the rest of you and you'll need not waste any more time caring for us once you're gone. Our minds are made up.”
“Are you sure about this, Robert?”
“We're positive. The five of us have made our peace with God and are ready to die.”
“Everyone else is inside, Dar, except for these five,” Annabelle said.
“Lock it up and get in the truck,” Dar instructed, squatting next to Robert.
“I'll ask you again, Robert. Are you sure about this?”
“Hurry up, Dar, the horde is approaching,” said Gritz, holding up his flanged mace.
“Yes, and I speak for all of us when I say that.”
The chopper flew erratically in a circle.
“Then I wish all of you the best.”
“Just do us one favor, Dar. Make sure we don't turn into the dead.”
Dar stared over at Gritz. Not much shocked her but this request felt like a punch in the gut. Maybe she was becoming too soft to survive this apocalypse anymore.
Gritz cracked the head of the first zombie that approached. The swoosh of his mace hung in the air followed by the sound of the skull getting smashed into pieces.
“Are you asking me to...?”
The man nodded. Tears streamed down his hot cheeks. Dar steeled herself to the task at hand, burying her emotions for the good of the others. She positioned herself behind Robert and wondered if she could do it. She could kill zombies and those who pissed her off, but to kill a good man like this was something completely different. She lifted the ax and stared down at him, realizing that there was not much time to waste. This was one of the most difficult things she ever had to do. In one burst she brought the ax down over his head and felt the steel blade slice through his skull. Fresh, healthy pink matter oozed out the middle of his cranium and onto the cracked pavement, splattering along her boots. It enraged her that it had come to this and in a fit of rage she quickly killed the others, screaming at the top of her lungs as she brandished the ax over their faces. When her unsavory task was completed, she sprinted over to Gritz and resumed killing the dead. Hundreds of them now began to pour into the parking lot from the street. She had no doubt that behind them were many more.
“Let's head back to the truck,” she said to Gritz after warding off the first wave.
They sprinted back to the rig. Annabelle, Virgil and Felicia waved their arms and urged them to move faster. Gritz swung the mace, smashing the head of a zombie staggering from the opposite direction. The chopper swerved and fell just above them, barely able to maintain its lift. Gritz dropped another zombie before jumping up into the idling cab.
Dar swung the ax and sliced off the head of a dead Asian girl, noticing that the horde had converged on her faster than expected. She swung wildly to keep them at bay, waiting for an opportunity to turn and climb back inside the cab. But the dead kept on coming. The gears of the first truck shifted and began to move. Dar backed up against the second truck, completely surrounded by the dead.
The angry faces of the savages came closer and she realized that there was nowhere to escape. She wasn't ready to die just yet. Watching as their bloody, gaping mouths began to converge on her, she closed her eyes and swung the ax in short, violent strokes. But it had little effect on them. Hands began to grab her arms, legs and body. Tears streamed down her cheek as she contemplated the terrible prospect of her son growing up without her.