Page 11 of Dating After the End of the World
I quickly scan my surroundings, making sure its brief scream didn’t attract more of them. All clear, or so it seems. I reach my truck,manually unlock it, and pull open the door. Tossing my backpack into the passenger’s seat, I crawl inside, gently closing the driver-side door behind me. I haven’t driven this old heap in months, and I worry it won’t start.
“Come on, girl,” I whisper as I stick the key in the ignition and turn it.
Rgghh. Rggghh. Rgghhh.
The sound of grinding metal screeches from beneath the hood, but the engine doesn’t turn over.
“Come on!”
Again.Rgghh. Rgghh. Rgghh.
“Shit!” I twist the key again and again, but it’s nothing but noise.
Screams roar in the distance. Through the grimy windshield, a blur of motion about fifty yards north draws my attention. I can’t quite make it out, but I know it’s nothing good.
I pump the gas pedal several times and punch the dashboard with a closed fist. “Come on, you piece of shit!”
I turn the key once again, and the engine sputters and then finally comes to life.
“Yes!”
I flick on the windshield wipers and let loose what remaining wiper fluid I have, washing away leaves and grime. The world before me becomes clear, and I wish it hadn’t. A dozen biters zigzag down the street, all in different stages of decay. They scream as they move toward me at varying speeds, from nearly running to a slow, stumbling stagger.
I put the truck in drive and pull out onto the street, lining up the front hood ornament with the center of the hungry horde. I smash my foot down on the gas pedal, and the speedometer climbs to forty before I collide with the first biter. My truck bounces as it drives over the corpse-shaped speed bump. The bowling ball that is my vehicle continues to knock down the fleshy pins as it speeds ahead. Bodies get caught up underneath the tires and axles, reducing my momentum far more than I want them to.
“Come on. Don’t give up on me now,” I say as I tightly grip the steering wheel and press down even harder on the gas pedal.
One biter, instead of being run over, is kicked up onto the hood. Half of its jaw is torn off, so its tongue flaps wildly in the wind. The creature punches the windshield, but it does far more damage to its own hand than the truck. Blood and decayed flesh smear across the glass as its rotting skin gives out instantly, a bloody sack bursting over the windshield. I break free of the final group of biters and begin to accelerate again while the biter continues its attack. I need to get the damn thing off, and I need to do it now.
I slam on my brake pedal. The tires screech, and the truck comes to an abrupt halt, sending the biter flying through the air. It smashes against the pavement twenty yards ahead, a mangled splat of bone, flesh, and black sludge.
With the chaos briefly subsided, I get my bearings and plan my exit route out of the city. Major highways like 94 and 41 are going to be parking lots full of abandoned vehicles by the thousands, making passage nearly impossible. From what I can see thus far, the city streets are manageable; if I take it slow and use the sidewalks when needed, I can get out of here. Outside Chicago, I’ll have to stick to back roads and small county highways to stay undetected and ensure I don’t get stuck in a gridlock of abandoned vehicles. It’ll add hours to the trip, but it will be much safer. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll make it.
I start driving, passing through a city I don’t recognize anymore. It’s sad what it’s become, what the world’s become, and I don’t know how we got here. I don’t think anyone does. Whatever this is, it’s clearly some sort of a virus, but unlike anything we’ve seen before. It sickens the brain, more so than the body. But the real question is, Where did it come from? Was it made in a lab, or has God had enough of us? Was it an accident, or was it released on purpose? And if it was the latter, by who? I’m not sure we’ll ever have those answers. And even if we did, it wouldn’t change anything. This is our world now.
Turning right onto a cross street, I spot a group of burners up ahead standing outside a ransacked convenience store. They yell and animatedly flail their arms in an attempt to flag me down. But I’m not stopping for anyone. One of them points his gun at me, and several others take off, trying to run in front of my truck, but I push down on the gas pedal and blow past them, flipping them off. I knew there was no way they were going to shoot at me. Bullets are too valuable, and the noise is too dangerous. They become just a blip in my rearview mirror.
As I exit the city limits, the streets become clearer, and biter and burner sightings less frequent. But if I thought the city looked bizarre, I wasn’t ready for what the suburbs had in store. With more open space, more large homes to loot and explore, more wood to set on fire, the chaos is no better than in the city. Massive four-thousand-plus-square-foot homes ablaze like signal torches dotted across subdivisions. Blackened trees look like onyx scarecrows. Bodies lie in the streets, women and children fleeing as a last resort. Traffic lights are strewn across intersections, their signals all now the same black.
I’m grateful when I pass through the suburbs and the city is just a speck in the rearview mirror. I used to hate driving long distances, with only cornfields and flatlands serving as my surroundings. It was boring, but now boring is a luxury, and I love every minute of it. A field of gold is a beautiful sight compared to the mayhem I’ve left behind. Occasionally, I pass a few cars on the side of the road, people having crashed, run out of gas, or broken down. And there’re still bodies, but they’re few and far between out in the country, with land so flat, I can see all the way to the horizon. It’s calming, and it’s the first time I’ve felt calm in a very long time, even before the world ended.
After another hour on the road, my high beams light up theWelcome to Wisconsinroad sign, signaling that there’s only another hour or so before I reach my childhood home, a place I vowed never to return to. The compound my father created was mired in the past, a place to trap things in, only allowing them to grow within the confines of the world he created. His isolationism kept him safe and alive, but it also kept himfrom living. I knew if I ever allowed myself to get dragged back into his world, I would only become a product of what he wanted. Rather than a life of love, helping others, excitement, and new experiences, it would be one of fear, distrust, discipline. But with the world over and no new experiences to be had—not good ones, anyway—and no one to love or help who I can’t assume will try to kill me or eat me, home is exactly where I’m headed. Turns out it only took an apocalypse to bring me back.
Chapter 6
I switch my headlights off and pull the truck to the side of the road, rolling to a slow stop before I kill the engine. The sky is black, and the moon is a mere sliver, but the stars are plentiful and bright. Having lived in the city the last ten years, I actually forgot they existed.
My dad’s property is off to the right, completely fenced off with a thick barbed wire coiling itself around the top of every square inch of the perimeter. I still remember installing that damn thing, and the palms of my hands hurt just thinking about it. At the far end of the property, a couple of dead biters are tangled in the barbed wire. Must have gotten snared in it and then starved to death, or someone here put them out of their misery.
I softly close the truck door behind me and sling my backpack over my shoulders. My ring slightly glimmers, catching my eye, and I stare at it for a moment before deciding to take it off and pocket it. It’ll be easier to pretend Nate didn’t exist, rather than having to explain to my dad that my fiancé, the one he never knew about, ditched me in the middle of an attack. If I told him, I think my dad would go out and kill him himself, if he’s not dead already.
The night air is cold, so I pull up my hood and shove my hands into my pockets. My shoes crunch over loose gravel as I walk to the long steel gate at the end of the driveway. The old man’s added barbed wire to the top of that too, so there’s no climbing over it. I remember where he hid the spare key, and hopefully, it’s still there.
Standing in front of the mailbox, I do an about-face, walking six paces forward, fifteen to the left, one back, nine to the right, seven forward, and two to the left. The numbers mean something to only my father and me. The ground is covered in rocks, all made by nature except one that sits right between my feet. It’s smooth as an egg in my hands with a small crack right in the middle. I slide the two halves apart, revealing a small silver key.Bingo.
I lock the gate behind me and glance up at the long driveway that cuts through the flat grass and the woods beyond it. From the road, you can see a yellow-and-white, two-story farmhouse, but no one lives in there anymore. It’s a dummy home, an idea of my dad’s, and only used for storage. There’s a three-story house nestled back in the woods, undetectable to those passing by. But I know it’s back there, because I helped build it. My father’s property also features a cabin, a crop field, multiple gardens, a sniper tower, and several other outdoor buildings for storage and defense purposes. I haven’t been here in a decade, so who knows what else the old man has added. A plethora of backup generators and solar panels allow the whole compound to run off the grid. It’s quite impressive what he and I accomplished, now that I think about all of it, and up until six weeks ago, I thought it was a waste of time. Turns out, I was very wrong.
I start up the gravel driveway, nervous to see my father again. I wonder what his reception will be. Happy and relieved to see I’m alive or upset for all the time I stayed away? For all the years we didn’t have. For all the memories during my early adult years that I kept him from experiencing. I’m his only child, so every experience I withhold from him is something he’ll never get back. Despite all that, I know his reception will be the former because he’s my dad and time apart hasn’t changed that. But still, I feel nervous as the moment approaches, or maybe it’s not nerves. Maybe it’s guilt or even a little bit of anger that he was right.
