Getting Home

24

“You sure this is the way?” said Rob as the car trundled down an unpaved road through a thickly wooded area.

“Nope,” said Dan. “I’m not.”

“But this is your best guess, right?”

“Exactly.”

They’d driven for a day straight, somehow avoiding any trouble on the road. The old car had threatened to give up the ghost more than once, but somehow it had kept going. Rob had had to drive slower after a while, because the engine had started making loud noises at any speed above sixty. Some kind of strange whirring noise, as if a belt was about to fly completely off.

They’d found a plastic gas can in the trunk, which they’d used to partially refill the tank.

They drove for another half hour without seeing anything.

“The sign said it was the hunting grounds, or whatever it’s called,” said Olivia. “This must be the place.”

“Let’s just hope there’s someone still here,” said Rob. “And that they’re friendly. You trust this guy? What was his name, again?”

“Max,” said Dan. “Yeah, I mean as much as you can trust someone you’ve met over the radio.”

“I don’t see what the point would be of luring someone so far down to a camp in the middle of the woods,” said Olivia. “I mean, what would be the point?”

“Stranger things have happened,” said Rob. “But we’re ready for whatever happens.” He patted his handgun’s holster. “I’d just rather that it didn’t go down like that.”

“I mean before the EMP, sure, I’d be suspicious of going to meet some guy in the woods that you met on the radio,” said Olivia. “But now…”

“Basically, if you were a serial killer or something now, there’d be plenty of targets all over,” said Rob. “No need to lure anyone. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I guess so. But that’s not very positive.”

“Who said anything about being positive?”

“Look!” said Dan, pointing out the window. He was sitting in the front seat now.

Up ahead, there were a couple people in the middle of the dirt road. Their clothes were tattered and one of them was so thin that Dan couldn’t believe she was still standing on her own two feet.

They staggered more than they walked, shuffling forward aimlessly.

“Now’s the time to make a joke about zombie movies,” said Rob.

Neither Olivia or Dan responded.

“Really? Nothing? That’s the best I’ve got tonight. Tough crowd.”

“Since when did you start treating this all like a standup comedy routine?”

“It happens sometimes when I get really tired. I didn’t see either of you offering to drive.”

“What are we going to do?” said Dan.

“You think there’s any chance that’s your friend Max? Because if it is, I don’t think he’s going to be much help to us.”

“No,” said Dan. “There’s no way.”

But inside, he wasn’t sure. Max had sounded so intelligent and competent over the radio. For the first time, a new possibility hit him. The possibility that Max and his friends were alive, that Dan had found them, but that they themselves were in terrible shape, just barely hanging on, and about to starve to death.

“Well,” said Rob. “I’ve got one idea. These people don’t look like much of a threat. But get ready for a fight, even so.”

Dan already had his handgun in hand.

Rob honked the horn. It was an ancient horn, but it still worked.

The people in the road turned back vaguely to look.

Rob kept driving. He was driving slowly at this point, mostly because of the bumps in the road.

The strangers in the road finally parted, standing to the side, and staring blankly at the car as it drove past.

“Let’s hope there aren’t a lot of people like that around,” said Rob. “They can be a big problem.”

“They don’t seem like much of a threat,” said Olivia.

“You wouldn’t think so, yeah. But I’ve seen them go nuts. It doesn’t take much. Sometimes a gunshot. Sometimes something else.”

“Like what?”

“A glimpse of food. A glimpse of a better life.”

“What do you mean by they go nuts?”

“There’s no better way to say it. They go insane. They’ve already lost everything that makes them human. Or maybe they’re just becoming more human than ever. Most animalistic. There’s no way to know. Anyway, this isn’t the time for a philosophical discussion like that…”

They continued driving slowly down the road.

“Do you hear that?” said Olivia.

“Yeah, sounds like gunshots,” said Dan.

“I don’t hear them,” said Rob. A moment later he said, “Oh, yeah.”

They were getting more frequent. And they were getting louder the farther along the road they went.

“What should we do?” said Olivia, sounding nervous. “Do you think we should turn around?”

“I think it’s too late for that,” said Rob, glancing into the rearview mirror. “Take a look behind us.”

There were dozens of people on the road behind them. Dan turned around fully to get a better look. He couldn’t see their eyes very clearly, but he could see the expressions on their faces. And they showed him nothing but rage and anger. Nothing but violence.

“Can’t you just drive through them?” said Olivia, sounding more frantic with each word she spoke.

“No,” said Rob, shaking his head. “We’ll never get through all of them.”

“What are we going to do, then?” Olivia’s voice had gotten high with worry.

Dan’s heart was pounding and his hands felt shaky as he watched the mob behind them. Slowly, they were advancing, closing the gap between themselves and the slow-moving car.

“We’ve got to keep going forward.”

“What if there are more of them?”

“Let’s hope there’s someone at this camp that can help us.”