Bricks of Ash and Blood

Chapter 12: Flynn Gutterson

FLYNN

The four of us set off, walking along the street in alongside each other. On both sides, were charred houses, and the smell of burned plastic still wafted through the air. If I didn't turn around and look at the school, it would be easy to believe that everything had gone down in flames. We walked quietly, no one felt the need to make idle chat so early in the morning. The sun was still poking past the horizon, and it would be a long day of walking. Scratch that, it would be a long week. We expected to reach the Highway around lunch, and walk along it until nightfall.

As we walked further from the school, and further from the Reserve, the source of the fire, our surroundings started to become less burned. Apparently, the fire hadn't torched the entire city. That's something.

Sometimes, when you become so focused on your task, you zone out completely. Maybe it's when you're reading, or driving, or my case, walking. When you zone out, you lose all sense of time, and an hour can pass, without you realizing a minute has gone by.

I was experiencing this in full swing, because I got into a walking rhythm, I lost all sense of time, until Liz nudged me in the side. She'd been navigating, and when I blinked and looked around, I saw it. The highway.

The other hunters were as taken aback as I was.

"Holy shit." Exclaimed Sam.

The roads until now had been mostly empty, with an occasional empty car crashed into a light post. The highway was absolutely packed however, bumper to bumper cars, for as far as I could see.

Zach shrugged. "Just traffic. It existed before the zombies, and it still exists now." Zach was the youngest of us, he'd recently turned 16.

"It's not that." Liz replied. "Each car is someone trying to escape the city, and chances are, most failed. Every car represents someone, a family, who weren't as lucky as us. But more importantly, there's a solid chance of zombies still being strapped into those car seats."

We all thought about that for a moment. Potentially hundreds, or thousands of zombies, waiting for almost a year, for foolish humans to be their meal. Now that I was thinking about it, I could smell hints of rotting flesh in the air.

"Well." Zach stated. "I say we keep a couple of metres distance from the cars."

I nodded in agreement. "I'm pretty sure the scavengers haven't been up the highway before either, so they must be aware of the danger too."

We all moved towards the edge of the road, then stepped off, onto the dirt beside it. It was time for lunch, but no one wanted to stop. The smell of death grew stronger as we walked, so we quickened our pace, pushing our tired legs further.

I clutched my spear tightly. It was usually my walking stick, but today I was glad it had a pointy end. Liz and Zach kept their bows at hand, ready just in case. No one was eager to see a zombie, it'd been months since we last did, and I had no fond memories.

There was no zoning out for me now, instead, I was hyper aware of everything as we walked. An hour of this past, until the sun had reached the peak, and was starting to dip into the afternoon.

A loud yelp made me jump. We all flicked our heads towards the source, Zach. He was frantically shaking his leg. I gagged. He had stepped into the stomach of a corpse.

"My boot went right through." He apologised. "I looked down and freaked out. I thought it was alive."

We sighed in relief, and I threw a quick thanks to Simon back home for allocating the hunters proper boots, rather than the normal sneakers. Zach covered his nose as he scraped the dry bits of flesh from his boot onto the road.