Shelter, but Not Home

Chapter 7: On the Road

On the Road

The teams met at six in the morning. Jimmy and Janet were going East. Karen had initially assigned two other men to their team, but when she told them Janet was in charge, there had been words as the two men refused to follow orders from a "little girl". After that comment, Janet punched one of them in the face, so they were on their own and the two men would be sent with another search group.

The other groups would be headed North, South, and West. Any way they went was going to be dangerous and they were to be back within 48 hours. If they were not back by then, the assumption would be that they were dead. Each team member designated a coded location to leave a map if they arrived back after the rest had gone.

As they went to the truck, Jimmy said "I'm driving first!" Janet glared at him. "OK, second then. I'm good, Miss Cranky Pants."

As they left, Jimmy started turning the radio dial.

"Jimmy, what the heck are you doing?" Janet asked, irritation plain in her voice.

"Seeing if anyone is broadcasting, but you're right, we know there's nothing in this area, so I'll wait until we get closer to the city. Who knows, maybe there's someone out there."

Janet stayed silent, her eyes on the road. They weren't even to the highway yet, so Jimmy decided to take a nap after finding nothing but static on the radio.

He awakened to a hand on his shoulder. "Wake up." Janet said tersely as she whispered to him.

"What...how long?" he said, groggy.

"Shhh.... just open your eyes, don't move if you can help it."

He opened his eyes and wished he hadn't.

The truck was surrounded by the dead. They were on a road, not a highway, but a gravel road. There were a lot of them in the rear-view mirror, already passed, but they pressed close on the sides, their movement bumping and thumping as they passed. The truck rocked slightly as they flowed around them. The windshield offered a great view of these former humans and the wounds that had killed them.

They didn't seem to have noticed that Jimmy and Janet were alive, but there were bodies in nearly every car on the highway, so maybe it made sense.

Sitting was harder than acting, but both knew that moving would be a death sentence. There were too many moving around the vehicle for them to fight, so sit they did, for an agonizingly long time.

When the end of the parade of corpses was whatever Janet judged to be far enough away, she started the truck and got out of there. She drove for several miles before stopping and getting out, shaking all over. Jimmy got out, took care of his bladder, and stood next to Janet who had just put down a crawler with her poker.

"How did you get surrounded like that?" He asked, genuinely confused. "And where are we? How long did I sleep?"

"We're a little South of Ames. I managed to find roads that weren't blocked with stopped cars. Turned to avoid a herd and found this one coming up. At first it looked like just a few, but there were a lot more over the hill. There was nowhere to go, so I stopped, turned off the engine, and waited for them to get here. I can't believe you slept through most of it."

"Well, I guess it worked. Driving through them could have caused all kinds of problems." Jimmy looked at the ground, "Jan, are you scared? I'm terrified most of the time. What if we don't find a place? What if they come back while we're gone?"

Janet put her hand on his shoulder. "Same here. But, even if we're scared, we need to suck it up and keep going. If it helps, no one sees it, you hide it under that goofy smile and the terrible jokes."

"OK, time to find a new place to live. What should we call it, a base? Headquarters? Enclave?"

"How about we don't call it anything until we find it, OK?"

"What do you mean, terrible jokes? I. Am. Hilarious." Jimmy insisted "You are super cranky today, Jan. Here, I've been saving this, but I'll share with you." Jimmy produced his last Snickers bar and broke it in half. Janet took her half and they spent a moment enjoying the candy. Then, they got in the truck and set off again on their search.