I turn on
my phone to check the time again. One hour to go, approximately. Still no
reception. The headlights of the rusty jeep eat through the impenetrable night,
illuminating a small stretch of the empty road ahead of me. I have been driving
on this route for hours now, the same unchanging dark forest to the left and
right. Since I have left the last gas station, closed and without gas as the
other ones before, I have turned off the heating and the music player to safe
fuel. I do not remember when the radio has worked last, it has probably been
broken since I bought the jeep. Silence fills the car now, only the rumbling of
the old engine audible.
Lucy on the
seats behind me sighs deeply.
“Hey, girl,
don’t worry. We will be there soon.”
My eyes
wander to the gas display again. We can make it but it will be close. I go a
little easier on the gas. If we do not make it this will mean another night in
the tent in the hope to be able to catch a ride to the next not abandoned gas
station in the morning. Hopefully the street will be busier during daylight
because I do not remember when I have last seen a car. I really long for a hot
shower, a warm meal and a feather bed. I have slept in a tent for the entire
last week, freezing even in my winter sleeping bag. It should not be so cold
anymore during this time of year. I blow in my frozen hands and draw the zipper
of my jacket higher before placing them on the steering wheel again.
An hour
later I imagine a small bright band on the horizon in front of me. The sun will
rise soon. I start to feel tired, my inner clock has readjusted to being awake
during night and going to sleep after sunrise. I check the small piece of paper
sticking to the dashboard with a name, a telephone number and an address on it.
Hopefully said Jim will already be awake. If not I am going to ring him out of
bed, I do not intend to wait in my cold car for another one or two hours. But
probably people in this lonely area in the middle of nowhere get up with the
sun anyway.
My mind is
occupied with wondering what kind of man Jim is and if he can indeed show me
the best places for a shot on gray wolves as he has told my agency, and I
nearly miss the even smaller, darker street forking from the main road. The jeep protests creaking when I break sharply and turn into it, past the small
sign indicating I have finally reached my destination. The gas needle shows
that I have practically run out of gas but I do not care at this point. All I
can see in front of my eyes is a nice shower and a steaming cup of tea.
A car
suddenly appears out of the dark in front of me and I yelp and ram my foot onto
the break. Tires screech and the jeep swerves to the side as I turn the
steering wheel to get control again. Somehow, miraculously, we do not hit the
other vehicle. The jeep has stopped shortly in front of it, the headlights
illuminating a battered Japanese brand parking in the middle of the narrow
road, lights turned off.
Parking?
I slowly
detach my hands that have gripped the steering wheel tight. My heart is racing.
When I take a closer look through the dirty windshield it dawns on me that the
other car is definitely not parking. Its side and front are bashed in, some of
the windows are broken and glass shards litter the street, glittering in the
low light. I think I can see the black rubber trace further away where the car
had braked and tires had scraped over the asphalt before it had hid one of the
trees hidden in the dark to the side, bumping off of it and coming to a final
halt in the middle of the road.
I reach for
my gloves and open the door, my gaze never leaving the other car. It is even
colder outside than inside the unheated jeep. I open the back door and the dog
jumps out, bumping her brown nose into my knee.
“Come on
Lucy,” I whisper. My breath is forming clouds in the air in front of my face.
“Let’s see what is going on here.”
I get
around and open the rear where the strong flashlight lies in a box together
with the gas cooker, a few cans of food I have left and a lighter. I take the
flashlight, check if it works. The damp tent is thrown across the gas
containers that I always carry with me as a reserve. They are empty now. I make
sure that the camera and all the other technical equipment is stored securely.
My fingers brush a black box and on an impulse I open it to take out my hunting
knife, the familiar handle soothing against my palm.
I order
Lucy to stay outside the range of glass shards so she will not hurt herself. On
first glance the other car is empty. The bright spot of the flashlight creeps
over the badly damaged front as I step around it. This must have been quite a
crash. I can imagine the car hurling over the street, hitting the tree up front
and being flung back to the street. What has caused the accident?
“Fuck...”
It is like
a bucket of icy water is dumped over my head when the jittering light falls on
a figure hunched in the passenger’s seat, only held up by the seat belt. The
balding man is half leaning against the side of the car, dried blood coating
most of his face. His eyes are closed and no heaving of his chest indicates
that he is breathing. I carefully step closer, glass shards splintering under
my boots. My hand extends, moves through the shattered passenger window in the
interior of the car, and trembling fingers feel for the pulse at the side of
the man’s throat. I shrink back at first because his skin is cold and damp but
then I force myself to check if he is still alive.
Nothing.
“Fuck,
fuck, fuck.”
He seems to
be dead for quite a while, face gray and waxen. The windshield is black with
dried blood, I realize. I swallow against sudden nausea and turn away. I have
to get to the village at once. Why has no one realized that an accident
happened on this road, practically on the doorstep to the village? That a man
died, several hours ago as it seems.
I am
already back at the jeep, hand on the door handle when it hits me. Where is the
driver of the accident car? The car had been empty except for the dead man on
the passenger’s seat. Cold dread runs down my back, making me shiver and I
hurry to let Lucy inside and get inside the jeep myself, firmly closing the
door behind me.
Upon
entering the city the jeep sputters one last time and goes out, headlights with
it, leaving me in complete darkness for a few horrifying seconds before I locate
the flashlight. Somehow I have managed to steer the car to the side of the
street before it had rolled to a total halt. I exit the car and call Lucy to
me. The presence of her body pressed to my leg calms me. The village is dark,
there seems to be no power. But even for that it is too dark, so dark it seems
deserted. This cannot be right. When has the agency last spoken to Jim? It can
barely be more than one week ago.
As we walk
through the streets, Lucy close to my side, one of my hands swinging the flashlight,
the other gripping the knife in its sheath on my belt, it turns out that indeed
most of the houses seem deserted. Some are boarded up, thick wooden planks
nailed over front doors and windows. Not a single car is parked in the street.
Some huts seem to have been deserted for a long time already, glass windows
splintered and doors hanging open to reveal only gaping darkness behind them.
Others seem relatively well-kept, with green or red curtains behind clean
windows reflecting the light from my flashlight and recently painted
letterboxes.
The house
at the address on the piece of paper from the jeep is small and shabby but
looks recently inhabited. I walk up to the front door where paint is peeling
from the wood and knock. Nothing stirs. I knock several times, the noise
sounding unnaturally loud in the silence. I even get out my phone and turn it
on despite the already low battery to see if I can get reception here but
nothing. I try to get a look inside the house, walking around it and try to
open some of the windows but no luck. All windows are closed and dirty yellow
curtains drawn shut.
I follow
the only street through the village. The bright band at the horizon has
broadened and the world beyond the light spot of my flashlight gradually
changes from black solid to gray shadows. My heart jumps at the sight of a gas
station at the end of the village, the street ending abruptly with only dark
forest beyond.
“Please let
this be working,” I murmur, taking the handle off of one of the service points.
Nothing, of course. The gas station is boarded up as some of the other houses
are, all openings nailed shut.
Then I hear
it.
The low,
guttural growl makes me freeze on the spot.
Lucy is a
quiet dog, one of the reasons I have her because she rarely draws attention to
us in the wilderness. I can count the times I have heard her bark on one hand
and I do not know if I have ever heard that sound coming from her. She is
watching a point behind me, all four paws pressed into the earth as if getting
ready to charge, the hair on her neck standing on end.
I slowly
turn, dreading what I might see.
There is a
figure approaching us from the street, a man in filthy clothes, clumps of hair
falling into his face. He is walking slowly and strangely mechanical, his arms
swinging at his side. Although I know I should be glad that I finally found
another human being I feel the hairs on my neck standing on end.
“Sir? Can you help me? I ran out of gas. Do you
have a car?”
The man
does not answer but he breaks into a lurching run, getting closer fast. I frown
and squint to see behind his curtain of dirty hair in the twilight. Lucy steps
in front of me, the raw growl still rumbling in her throat.
“Sir?”
The man has
stopped in front of us, switching from one leg to the other, swinging his upper
body as if unsure how to proceed. Then he raises his head and I cannot help but
suck in my breath.
Half of his
face is caved in, his right eye is missing and the bright white bone of his
nose bridge is shining through a gap in the skin. He bares blood stained teeth
and turns toward me, zooming in on the sound I let escape. I stumble back,
frozen by shock, my hand gripping the knife does not feel like it belongs to
me. The man reacts within split seconds, lurching forward, and I finally find
my ground and raise my hand with the knife, too late as I know, much too late.
Lucy’s
shadow flies past me, only the white of her bared fangs visible. I have opened
my mouth for a useless cry and I can already see her crash into the man in
front of my inner eyes when the sound of a gunshot tears through the village.
The man
staggers, only shortly before he would have collided with Lucy. He takes one
step away from us, sways and turns slightly on the spot before his legs give
out. Then he crumbles to a heap on the asphalt, body convulsing.
I have not
moved a muscle.
“If I were
you, I would get the fuck inside! The noise has probably gotten more of those
buggers out of hiding.”
I twirl
around, frantically searching for the source of the voice. My eyes find the dark
figure of a man in an open window on the second floor of the gas station. He
extends one arm.
“Catch
that!”
My legs
move on autopilot as I see the object fall and I jump forward and snatch the
rusty key from the air.
“Fire
staircase to the right! Hurry up!” The man has gotten his gun back out, aiming
at a point behind me.
I do not
look back, I only notice Lucy is at my side as I sprint toward the green metal
gate to the right of the building. I nearly let the key drop as I drive it into
the hole with shaking hands, turning it roughly. The rusty gate is stuck for a
heart lurching moment but then it springs open and we are through. It closes
behind us with a loud snap and I run up the metal staircase as fast as I can,
Lucy already several steps ahead. My heart is racing and the cold air burns in
my lungs. When I have reached the top a rattle runs through the metal
construction as something heavy collides with the gate. I flinch and turn,
knife raised, ready to face another one of these… creatures, but nothing. The
staircase behind me is empty and another bang rings through the construction,
making the floor vibrate under my boots. Luckily it seems as if the gate keeps
off whatever is desperately trying to follow me.
The door in
my back creeks and I whirl around, a panicked yelp catching in my throat.
First I see
no one, only a slow burning fire in the back of the room further behind and
then my eyes jump down a notch to the face of the man I saw at the window
before. Beard stubble of a few days’ worth, making it hard to guess his age.
Dark brown eyes, nearly black, piercing me with an unfriendly scowl.
“I wouldn’t
mind if you put your knife down.” His voice is gravely deep, raw.
I swallow
and hesitate, staring at the gun in the man’s hands, pointed somewhere at my
feet. Reluctantly I shove the knife back into its sheath.
The man
places the gun in his lap and puts his hands instead on the handrims of his
wheelchair. Slowly, he propels back to give me space to walk through the door.
“I would
say welcome… but…”
I hesitate
on the doorstep, debating if it is safe to enter the stranger’s house after I
got attacked by… what the fuck had that been? The destroyed face appears in
front of my inner eyes. There is no way anyone would survive an injury like
this, least walk around with it…
The
wheelchair guy’s frown deepens and his eyes flicker past me, scanning the
outside, while his hands return to the gun. “What are you waiting for?” he
growls. “Should we send invitations to the Crazies to join us up here?”
Decide!
Yay! This is exciting!
ReplyDelete=)
DeleteI like it!
ReplyDeleteYeah! I'm always happy when you are.
DeleteOh my gosh, I loved this so much! Please write more soon!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Annabelle!
DeleteFun! Can't wait to see this unfold.
ReplyDeleteHaha, me neither! :)
DeleteThis is a neat idea. I'm totally into TWD and iZombie so I'm excited.
ReplyDeleteTc
That's so great!
DeleteA great idea! Your engaging writing has left me in excited anticipation for the next episode!! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, ano!
Delete