They Walk

Chapter Twenty Eight

As he leaves, I take the chance to survey the room. Now that it’s starting to get brighter in here, I can see them all more clearly. In the middle of the room near the entertainment center is Daniel and Maria sleep huddled together. Next to them is Michael, and now that Gabe and I aren’t talking, I can hear his whining in his sleep. Sam is on the loveseat, and he’s clutching the fire poker to his chest. Claire is beneath the loveseat, and has the blankets snuggled up close, so that I can only see the top of her head.

I don’t see Emily, so I’m assuming she’s in her room.

Before Gabe can come back into the room, I sneak off to the bathroom. I quickly wash my face and rinse out my mouth, and desperately with I could take a shower. I stare into the mirror and almost don’t recognize myself. My hair looks very black next to my pale face. There are dark circles under my eyes, and already my cheeks look shrunken. Pulling my hair up into a knot, I go back to the living room.

By the time I get there though, I can hear that the others have woken up.

No one is really in the mood for chit chat today, so we pretty much pack and organize most of the things we’re taking with us. I do notice though, that Claire, Maria, Michael, and Sam are all wearing new clothes. They don’t fit that well, and when I asked Claire, she just said they were some of Emily’s brother and sister’s stuff.

Gabe never changed his, and I can’t help but wonder why.

I could ask him, but since our talk this morning, he’s been avoiding me. Not that I’ve made that much of an effort to track him down or anything. So, by at least noon we were all loading back into the truck. Thankfully it’s still quiet on this street, and I can only imagine how it’s going to be from here on out.

Dan has decided to drive and Maria is sitting beside him. In the middle are me, Sam, and Claire between us. In the back are Gabe, Emily and Michael. Dan doesn’t go back to drive down our Main Street, instead he takes the side street that cuts to the highway. After that we have to go through the town of Auburn before we reach the city of Lewiston. We don’t have any problems getting to the highway, in fact the road is empty and we breeze through it.

Occasionally we’d find an abandoned car or three, but never any dead or alive people.

As we get off the highway and come to the turnoff for Auburn, the road conditions change. The exit ramp has as least five cars piled up, and as we barley squeeze by, I can see movement from inside. At the last car we pass, I see inside the window and there is a little girl of five or eight with blonde pig tales. I can see her bloody mouth open and close and smash into the window. I thank the heavens as we pass, but I know I’ll never get that image from my mind. After the exit, we come to a three way stop light.

To the left are all the store fronts and most seem to be charred from a possible fire that has been long out. There are bodies lying in the street, but they aren’t moving. There are a couple cars and trucks up and down the road that are blocking the street off. To the left, leads to the occasional home or two and at the end we can see the high school. There are at least thirty or more dead shuffling about the street. They look to be in a worse state than the kids we had to fight off at Austin’s.

Some of them are missing limbs, chunks are gone, and about all of them are burned.

Straight ahead of us, the road doesn’t appear as bad. There are a few abandoned cars and some unmoving bodies littering the ground, but it seems the better route. Dan goes straight, and we all but hold our breath as we pass the dead on our right. About a mile down the road, the left side turns into a park with tree’s everywhere that you can’t see beyond it. The right side is blocked by a metal guardrail, and the ground slants downward twenty feet. Beyond that is a housing community, and up ahead further is an apartment building. From the road, I can’t really tell how it is down there. But at least nothing is burning.

I’m about to try to investigate the park surroundings, when Claire interrupts.

“What is that up there?” She’s pointing out my window towards the park up ahead.

I turn to the window and squint to see what she’s talking about. I don’t see anything at first, but then a shadow is moving about thirty feet ahead of us. It’s large so I don’t think it’s human, but it’s moving very fast too. Slowly, it breaks free of the woods and comes onto the road.

“What the hell is that?” Dan cries.

“Is that a moose?” Sam says, as he leans over the seat to get a better look.

Thinking it would just go across and down the hill, Dan doesn’t slow us down. But it’s not alone. Behind the moose, are three burned dead guys. They are tearing after it, and as we get closer, I can see bites already lining its side.

Abruptly, the moose turns and starts to charge at us.

“Dan, look out!” Maria cries.

“Everybody hang on!” Dan yells.

The dead are right behind flanking the moose, so he can’t go around it. Instead he turns the truck sharply to the left intending to go into the woods. We are all yelling for him to stop the truck, but there isn’t enough time. At the same moment that the truck turns, one of the dead guys gets to the moose and claws at it. It bucks and dives at us, and Dan tries to turn us back to the other direction. I get tossed into the door, and my shoulder goes numb. The moose hits the truck, in between mine and Dan’s door at the next moment, and pushes us into an abandoned car. The truck is going too fast, and as we hit the car we get flipped onto our side. I fall towards Claire, and can hardly hear everyone screaming at the same time.

We land on the rail on the side of the road, and it bends under the weight of us. I scramble off of Claire and I try to pulls her back towards my door. Underneath her, Sam is struggling to move. I hear the metal of the rail snap, and don’t even have time to yell in alarm before the truck falls over the side of the hill. We flip back onto the hood, and with a feeling of vertigo we abruptly flip back onto my side of the truck. I get slammed back into my door with a bang, and I’m up too high to hurt my shoulder. Instead my head smacks the window, it happens so fast I don’t feel anything, all I hear is the glass breaking. We flip two more times, and each time my body goes limper each time I hit something.

Before I know it we land upside down on the hood at the bottom of the hill.