Battered, but not broken, Vernon sped off into the cold, November night. It was full dark now, with only the car’s headlights and the lights of the street to guide the four friends through the fog. Lurking all around them, unseen but for their imaginations, were dead men that hungered for their flesh.
The silence was almost tangibly heavy, but Grace was quick to break it. “I can’t believe you wrecked my car,” she chastised Cliff and Steve.
“We didn’t wreck your car,” Steve was quick to jump to his own defense, “We just sort of damaged it.”
“Uh huh,” Grace wrinkled her nose in disgust, “I should have just left you to the zombies.”
“Woah,” Aaron interrupted, appalled by his friend’s callow attitude, “You can’t just leave your buddies behind like that. That goes against everything.”
Cliff jumped in too, “Yeah, in times of crisis, your friends are like your family. Didn’t you see how Steve ran off to save Scruffy?”
“Scruffy!” Steve called out, suddenly ashamed that he had forgotten him, “Where is that furry bastard?”
Aaron looked intently around the car. “I don’t see him anywhere,” he stated matter of factly.
Steve couldn’t sit still, “Did we leave him behind? Where’d he go? Did they get him?”
“No, I don’t think they got your dog,” Aaron reassured his friend, “I didn’t see any blood or fur or anything when I got in.”
“So he’s out there all alone?” Steve practically shouted, “Pull over, Gray, we’ve got to look for Scruffy!”
“I am doing no such thing,” Grace disagreed, “You totalled my car. I owe you no favours.”
“What? Come on, please, he could be getting eaten alive by zombies right now!”
Grace regarded Steve through her rearview mirror, giving him an intense glare of reproach that was only partially obstructed by the battered roof of her car. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen to you if you go out there half-cocked to save your dog. They’ll be having Steve à la carte with a side of dog tartare.”
“She’s right, bro,” Cliff tried to soothe Steve with a much gentler touch than Grace, “It’s way too dangerous out there, and we don’t even know where he went.”
“I don’t think zombies eat dogs,” Aaron offered his help, “Besides, he can run like, way faster than them.”
Steve sank back into his seat, momentarily placated. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he sullenly agreed with his friends.
“So what’s the plan, friends?” Cliff tried to change the subject, “Where are we going?”
“I don’t really know,” Grace admitted, “I’m just kind of driving around.”
“Okay, let’s pull over while we think of something,” Cliff suggested.
In silent agreement, Grace pulled over to the shoulder. Suddenly conscious of how much gas she had in the tank, and not sure if she’d have a chance to fill up any time soon, she switched off the engine.
“Okay,” she instructed, “Plan.”
“Oh man, I’ve got this,” Aaron started the brainstorming session with genuine excitement, “I always had a plan in case something like this happened, ever since I saw the Night of the Living Dead.”
“Didn’t everybody die in that movie?” Steve raised an eyebrow as he questioned his friend.
“Yes,” he admitted, not in the slightest bit discouraged by his friend’s criticism, “Which is why we’re going to do something that they never did in that movie.”
“Did they not sit around talking about movies while a bunch of angry dead dudes wanted to eat them?” Grace asked sardonically, “Because if that’s the case, we’re doing a great job already.”
Aaron ignored the criticism and kept making headway outlining his plan, “In the movie, they never listened to the black guy. Then everyone else got eaten by zombies, or exploded, or both.”
All eyes turned to Cliff expectantly as he realised Aaron didn’t have anything meaningful to contribute. “We need weapons,” he stated bluntly.
“What are you talking about?” Steve asked Cliff, “They’ve got their knives and you’ve got our frying pans.”
Cliff shook his head, “I thought you had our frying pans.”
Taking a step back in his memory, Steve distinctly remembered Cliff and himself throwing their weapons into the back of the pickup truck. They never picked them back up. “Shit,” he declared.
“No kidding,” Cliff couldn’t help agreeing.
“Okay, so we need weapons,” Grace announced as she started forming a mental list, “Then what’s next? A place to hide out?”
Aaron shook his head, “I don’t think so. Not until we find some supplies first.”
“Why can’t we just get them at the hideout?” Grace asked.
“Scavenging is bound to attract them,” Aaron explained, “We’d be moving around a lot, probably making a whole lot of noise too. Plus, the more we look around, the more likely we are to just bump into them.”
“Don’t squat where we eat,” Cliff summarised.
“Yeah, exactly,” Aaron agreed with Cliff’s analogy.
“Food, water, medicine,” Steve chimed in, “Then shelter.”
“Then what?” Cliff asked, “Do we just try to wait it out?”
Steve shrugged, “I don’t know, this is my first time too.”
“Hey, maybe they have something on the radio,” Grace suggested as she turned on the car enough to get the lights working, “Maybe they’ve got instructions from the RCMP or something.”
She flicked on the radio, which was already tuned to Fog City Rock FM, and was greeted by the sounds of mayhem and screaming. She shut the radio back off.
“Well, shit,” she declared.
“No kidding,” Cliff agreed, “The station is across town from here. Whatever’s going on, it’s spreading pretty fast.”
“Maybe we should just get out of Dodge,” Steve suggested.
“I don’t know if we can,” admitted Grace, “I’ve only got somewheres around an eighth of a tank of gas.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Aaron interrupted, “In all the movies, the military quarantines the infected zone, then nobody gets out.”
“Oh yeah,” Grace countered with dripping sarcasm, “I forgot they made a movie about this exact thing happening to this exact city.”
Steve felt a warm tickle above his lip. He touched the warm spot and his finger came away bloody. He struggled to remember when he might have hurt himself. Maybe when that first zombie at the DepartMart knocked him over? Wiping the mess off his face with his sleeve, he wondered if he’d had a nosebleed the whole time and never noticed up until now.
“What about Breakwater Point?” Cliff suggested, “It’s still in town, but I think we’d be pretty safe there.”
Breakwater Point was a tiny island which was connected to the mainland of Fog City by a breakwater. Upon the island was only a lighthouse and the keeper’s home, both of which had long been abandoned. The breakwater itself was a messy pile of overturned stone blocks hewn from the mainland. Impassable by car, the path could be traversed by foot only if one was mindful of its treacherous crags. After passing across the breakwater, the traveller would be faced with a sheer cliff. Fortunately, teenagers who sometimes liked to party on the island had left behind a rope ladder to scale the island. Or, if one was afraid of heights and possessed a boat, they might circle the island to the ocean side, where the slope was considerably more gradual.
“Okay,” Steve nodded, “That sounds like a pretty good spot.”
Grace and Aaron both nodded their agreement. Grace reached up to turn her key in the ignition. Mercifully, Vernon started up on the first attempt.
“Breakwater Point, here we come,” Grace announced.
“Wait, I thought we were scavenging first,” Aaron interrupted.
Grace shrugged, “We can do that on the way. At the very least, we should get moving in that direction.”
“I don’t think we’re sticking to the plan here,” Aaron insisted.
“Step one,” Grace began, contrary to Aaron’s protestations, “Weapons. Step two: food, water, and medicine. Step three: shelter. We only know where one of those things is, and that’s Breakwater Point. So unless anybody has a better idea, we’re going to cruise in that general direction until we find something useful.”
Nobody argued with Grace. After all, it was her car and she could do as she pleased with it. However, as they pulled back into the road and were on their way, Steve was feeling morose. As much as it pained him, he hadn’t made any attempt to get Scruffy back. Even if his dog did survive this perilous situation, there was no way he could possibly hope to see him again if they hid out at Breakwater Point.
Shaking his head, Steve banished the thought. They found themselves faced with a survival situation, and sometimes that meant making painful decisions. He knew that he’d go back for Scruffy if he could, but he also understood that it could mean his own life to do so. As much as he loved the dog, he wasn’t sure that he’d do the same for his master.
No comments:
Post a Comment